Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Welcome to the sex capital of the world. No, that's not what it read when we walked out of the train station but I could definitely feel it. Before I talk about Amsterdam, I have to say something about the travel from London. We decided to fly from London to Amsterdam instead of taking the Chunnel across the English Channel... We fly the cheapest airline we could find and that was Ryan Air. Now for those of you that don't know about Ryan Air, it is incredible. We paid a grand total of 0.01 pounds for our flight.. That's right, a penny.. We only pay the taxes which was about 25 pounds.. But to check in a luggage, it costs an extra 15 pounds.. The flight was YELLOW on the inside with no in-flight entertainment and advertisements on every seat.. No Jokes.. It was a tiny tiny flight flying from London's Stansted Airport into Eindhoven, Netherlands.. and yes, it is pronounced AIND-HO-VEN.. and we took a train from Eindhoven to Amsterdam.. I think i just like saying Eindhoven a lot.. LOL..

So our first experience in Amsterdam was getting gypped.. Yup, we got gypped by a cabbie who took 40 euros from us and drove us around for 20 minutes to drop us back off less than 5 minutes walk from where we started.. so we eventually ended up walking around and finding our hostel which incidentally was at the heart of the red light district with a view of a beautiful woman, sorry, a beautiful view OF a woman with red neon lights surrounding her. The walk to the hostel was through a few sex shows, and pretty much the entire road of red light windows..

We got a 3 hour walking tour of the red light district by new europe once again. (same as the one in london with Anna) and found out about cool things again.. did u know that the red light district began because of and later sponsored by the church?? (explains the church bells every hour in the district) Sailors would come to Amsterdam's port after months in the sea and would rape the women in the city so the church apparently started sponsoring and delegating women to be raped by these sailors. It later started charging the sailors who didn't wanna go back to sea with sin in their hearts. So the church would forgive their sins for a price. After a while, sailors started prepaying for their sins and would invariably go beyond what they paid for and would pay again on their way out from the prostitute's house.

While on the topic of the working women, it's important to know that taking pictures in the red light district is frowned upon and don't ever get caught doing it. No, the cops won't come after you but the girls will. if you think that's not bad, they come at you with a cup in their hands. The cup will have their urine.. and they will not hesitate throwing it at you. These women stand up for each other, and they dont tolerate jackasses. A lot of them do this to pay for their schools, to pay for their families and do it behind their parents backs. (they are all licensed and are of age..) If i remember correctly, they can rent a window for 8 hours for 200 euros i believe. The rates go at about 40 euros for a simple S&F.. (if u don't know what that is, then that's ur problem..) If you want anything extra, it will cost you.. typically 5 euros for her to act like she's enjoying it.. 5 euros to call u by ur name.. 5 euros for any prop use.. u get the picture.. bottom line.. don't mess with em..

Did you also know that marijuana is illegal in Amsterdam.. (it's only decrimanalized so it's ok to carry it and even sell it as long as it's under 5 grams) Did you know that the biggest gay bar in Amsterdam is called the cockring? (women are not allowed in and men who go in typically do not come back out with their clothes on) Magic Mushrooms are no longer tolerated in Amsterdam which wants to change the worldwide image of the city being too open.. How about the fact that the city has a history of looking the other way anytime a topic of morality comes up with the ideology that "if I don't know something's happening, then I don't have to fix it." This even had good effects when Catholics were protected during the protestant reformation, or protecting the jews from the nazis even when Amsterdam was under nazi control.

Since we only spent 2 days in A-Dam, we cudn't resist going to the infamous Heineken Brewery and man was that worth it. We went through the entire beer making process, tasted the hops, and the barley water, and the raw barley.. Bottled our own personalized bottle of Heineken.. yes.. AWESOME SOUVENIR... (along with some stropwaffles.. ask for details..) chugged 3 pints of beer in quick succession (including one ice chilled.. it was soo cool taht they actually had the whole tap covered in ICE..) and got back to the train station very very tipsy.. too much fun..

It's definitely one of those cities that leaves a lasting mark in your mind. The contradictions going hand in hand is something that I just never imagined.. How could the church and sex go together? how are drug related crimes lower than in countries with less tolerance? How does teaching kids about sex at the age of 4 result in lower teen pregnancies? It's all weird but somehow it all works...

London, England

As promised, I'm back on the blogosphere and i'm going to take you guys through a journey, rather my journey. I wanted to write about my experiences on this trip rather than just highlight the places I visited. I wanna take you guys through what I felt, the people I met, the little things that I found interesting, the big things that overwhelmed me rather than just give the typical tourist spot shpiel that we run into all too often on the interwebs.. So here goes..

The moment I stepped off the flight in Gatwick, I knew I was in the UK by the sheer number of turbans at the airport. If you think the Toronto airport was bad, wait till you see Gatwick. I slowly realized that the more I explored London, the less indians I saw, which quite honestly surprised me. The majority of people I ran into were in fact English.. who'd a thunk it right? Anywho, we went off to a hostel (for the first time) and realized that there was one bathroom for 10 of us, but we did share a room with some interesting people. The first person was Sabrina, who was an exchange student from Brazil working in Madrid, visiting london for the weekend. Later that night we actually went to a pubcrawl with Sabrina and her two portuguese friends who were a treat for the girls in our party. (Gustavo and ...sorry.. can't remember the other one.) The second bar we went to definitely took the cake with an AWESOME Live Band and beer for just 3 pounds.. yeah that's $6 but apparently that's cheap?? I took a break between the 3rd and 4th bars to go meet a friend's sister and realized I NEVER WANT TO LIVE IN THIS CITY... It was sooo crowded, i felt suffocated just walking around, not to mention constantly holding my own bum to make sure I wasn't being pickpocketed.. It was a miracle that I was able to locate the person in the middle of Piccadilly circus without ever having met them before, that too on a friday night..

Our hostel was conveniently located in South Kensington, about 15 minutes from Trafalgar square. We immediately jumped at the opportunity to get on those double decker bus (on the upper level of course).. We also stopped and grabbed pictures inside the infamous red telephone booths.. (couldn't resist) We spent the rest of the day just going to Trafalgar square, which we thought was Piccadilly circus until the next day when someone told us the place we went to was not really Piccadilly circus.. We also managed to get the most breathtaking view of London that first day on top of the London Eye.. In hindsight, it was expensive (17 pounds), but definitely worth the view..

If there's one thing that we did a lot of in London, it was museums.. and after 4 days, we realized that 4 days wasn't enough to see the museums in London. We realized that we could have spent 4 days in JUST the British Museum with the breathtaking Rosetta Stone... We managed to get a look at the Museum of Natural History (with the blue whale that could fit a few dozen elephants inside it), The Museum of Science and Technology, ( with gutenberg's printing press) The British Museum (with far too many things to count)...

I think that we were very lucky to find a free walking tour very early on this trip. Our guide, (hot with a british accent) was a history student born and brought up right in London gave us a 3 hour tour focused mostly on british royalty and their absurd torture tactics.. I found out where the term "a stiff drink" comes from and why I will never order one again. The stories of Guy Fawkes (V for Vendetta), Henry VIII, Why the celebrate all festivals but one in Trafalgar square, and many many more.. Some of these stories are common knowledge but others blew my mind away. Let's just say I gained new found respect for the Geneva Convention.. This respect only grew further after our trip to the Tower of London and actually seeing the place of torture and the crown jewels (the latter made up mostly of stolen jewels)..

On our final day in London, we met Merve from Istanbul, our roommate who replaced Sabrina. Merve and her colleague were on their way to northern england where she was taking up a residency to become a doctor. Merve was nice enough to give us a Turkish good luck charm that she promised would keep us safe for the duration of our trip and that we should have it on us the whole time. Sure enough, I kept it on me and still get questions to date on what it is and where I got it..

London taught me two things.. One, horses and humans cannot press the same button to cross a street and two, we should not try to see everything there is to see in a city because it's just not possible. Luckily we learnt early enough so we adapted.. Stay tuned for the wonders of the sex capital of the world..

I'm BACKKKK...

Hey guys,

i know it's been a while but i'm back.. and boy do i have stories to tell.. i thought i'd resume this blog but enlightening everyone about my stories from Europe.. It shouldn't be too long i guess.. One city per post, i'll be done in 9 posts.. so keep ur eyes open.. :)