Amsterdam rehashed: Of tulips and lips

Amsterdam!

That might mean either or all of the following to you - prostitutes, tulips, canals, legal drugs. In the four hours that I had their, I had occasion to see all of them, some unavoidably, but there is one image that sticks in my mind. Right in the middle of Amsterdam's most famous tourist spot - its G-spot you might even say - stand the big, old St. Iforgetitsnamechurch. A mere four feet on all sides stand ladies in various stages of undress inside glass windows. Yes, they stand like that in windows - think live mannequins. Anyway, what you had was The House of The Son surrounded by the several houses of The Sin. There was even a convenient back door, no doubt to enable the chaplain to keep his tryst in secret, after delivering a sermon on the sins of contraception and the dangers of fornication. Bloody hilarious!

Next to the church was the BludStrat - the Blood Street for the linguistically challenged. Story has it that this street was so named because at the head of the street stands the (erstwhile) execution house, so that when the irritating head was lopped off, the blood flowed gently down this street. I suppose the rent must have been low, and the houses in great demand amongst people of the clan Dracula.

Also on show were happy people, sitting and smoking in open air cafes. Smoking hashish that is. Hashish is legal in Netherlands, so much so that you can walk into a cafe and order it off the menu! Talk about the Dutch being a liberal people.

Anyway, the trip was rounded up with a nice hot chocolate on the banks of the Amster.