Sunday, March 25, 2007

Leaving Germany and Arriving in Amsterdam

Leaving Germany
...not much to see in Rostock. Dave said that the British used Rostock as a test city for carpet bombs. We did make it to Warnemunde on the Baltic Sea though. Dammit it was cold.

Brrrrr dude. Me at the Baltic Sea.


Lise, Dave and I at the beach. Not exactly tropical.


I saw the remaining wall around the city and a couple of churches & historic neighborhoods. Cafe Paula was the best!

And blah, blah, blah the German train system that I thought was so great really is not. It took me 12 hours to get from Rostock to Amsterdam yesterday. The trip should have taken 8 hours. Bremen- not Rostock- is the white trash capital of Germany.

Amsterdam
So I made it to Amsterdam. As soon as the train arrived at the station, I lost cell phone coverage. Not cool since I was supposed to call Jocham (pronounced YO-kum) when I arrived- he was meeting me there. Fabulous. I don't know how he found me, but he did. Then I rode, with my backpack, on the back rack of his bike to his house. We had a beer there and then we left to meet his friends Chrystal and Lisette at Cafe Tabac- a dainty little bar/restaurant. Again, I rode on the back of Jocham's bike. On cobblestone streets. And speed bumps. With no padding for my butt.



We went to a couple of other bars and then decided to brave the red light district. The district on a Saturday night felt a bit like Lundi Gras in New Orleans- lots of large groups of drunk men with women on the mind. We found a table at a bar across a canal from a set of three windows and we timed "visits": 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 8 minutes. Jocham says that the prostitutes don't take less than 50€. They start at 80€ and negotiate from there... Crazy.

I was a bit disappointed though- I expected the women to at least be dancing or moving or something, but they all just stood there. It was worse than a bad strip club. Some of them were just sitting there smoking. Most of them had bikini-type attire- Nothing was showing. I think if I was a man, this would not be very exciting to me.

This is Jocham and I in the red light district around 3 am:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home