London one-way!

Paris to Amsterdam via Brugges. We had to hike up to the Busabout pick up point which was so not cool at half seven in the morning.

Despite emptying our packs and sending home parcels it didn’t seem to make much difference at all. It was a full house packed bus and when 20 got off in Brugges, 22 got back on. We had an hour store in Belgium, enough time to walk into town, marvel at some old buildings, enjoy frites with mayonaise – the Belgians claim they began frites, bought some Belgiun chocolate and jumped back on the bus. Short, sweet and all unventful border crossings.

When we got to the StayOk hostel in Amsterdam it took forever to check in and then our room had no sheets, so we had to go back down again. The hostel’s onl been running for three months or so, but it is quite good although not that close to town. We went into the city with some people from our bus and wandered around for a bit. Natalie had already spent a few days here, so knew how to get us there, and we had dinner at this restaurant we found in the lonely planet guide.

It was Indonesian, and very nice too. We sat there fora ges talking, and then it was dark enough that we went to check out the red light district. The barriers to the district are pop up street blocks in the middle of the road that flash with red lights, and then there are several streets offering live sex shows, sex shops, coffee shops (those of the legal soft drug variety) and of course the windows, lit up in red (or ‘black’ lights which are actually purple but signify those that are transgenders).

The girls stand in their windows, most of them university student age, all in their g-strings and lacy underwear posing for the passing people, cajolling men to join them. Not that it takes much, at another place the door banged shut and the curtain was drawn very quickly. The bouncers for the shows were trying to make us go in saying ever-so-enticing (NOT!) things like ‘licky dicky fck fck’, ‘you five girls, we give you a discount for five’, and ‘C’mon girls, this is the Disneyland of Paris, come and meet your Mickey Mouse’. Classy to say the least.

We picked a sex shop which had everything you could think of and more. We also saw a crew of people filming a really bad porno. An interesting and educational night to say the least.

 

Tags: Travel

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