Toli does Amsterdam

Second trip to Amsterdam: first one was right after college with all the imaginable stereotypes: flea-bag hostel, coffee shop visits and a fellow traveler mostly strung out on drugs (not rama).

Second-time around, very different. A lot colder, a lot less coffee-shops and a lot less gawking at "hookers" and "freaks". Turns out living in SF, going to burning man and passing hookers on the way back from work every night in Leeds really opens your horizons.

Anyway, lessons learned: don't travel to Europe when it's cold. It's just not fun. No matter how picturesque or beautiful or interesting the architecture is, you don't really want to walk around in the blithering cold (esp. if you are a moron that forgot his scarf and a hat at home).

And since i wasn't into "doing the coffee shop thing" or buying hard drugs off the street, and was too museumed-out to see a row of Van Goughs or other Renaissance painters, I think that this trip to Amsterdam may have been "wasted" on me. It was really nice to walk around though and gawk at tourists, have a drink at the original Supperclub and leave w/out having a friend being chased by little green men b/c he ate the wrong shrooms.