Last Entry

I'm home. It's been a wonderful trip overall. But still, it's good to be home and be with the boys, and sleep in my own bed. ahh... the small luxuries in life. :) More on the boys on my regular blog. I'll stick to the Nederlands stuff here.

I went back and added some pictures to the previous blog entries. I had also missed a few things in my previous entries, and thought I'd add a last entry to that, since the last day and half in Holland was a bit uneventful and no need to get into them. Flight home was thankfully not cold and customs was a breeze. Had a funny flight attendant though, which made the flight slightly more interesting than watching snail crawl.

Anyway, back to business...

Remember I had mentioned that taxis are made up of expensive cars like Mercedes and such? I was curious as to how much Mercedes cost and whether the price difference between Mercedes and other cars, say a Japanese make, isn't as pronounced here. So we went to check out two dealerships locally, a Mercedes one and a Toyota one. Surprise, surprise. What I thought to be a simple comparison turned out to be much harder, since the models of each make were totally different from the States. Whereas the Mercedes S series cost an arm and a leg here, and the c series cost less, it seemed to be the other way around in the Nederlands. Toyota's even worse! There are no Corollas, Camery's, or Avalons there. There's Avensis, which seemed to be the size ofa Camery. They did have Yaris, which is pretty new to the States, and Prius. A Prius costs over 20,000 Euro, and the basic model of Mercedes costs 40,000 Euro. So I guess the price difference isn't as big as we have here. The trip to the dealership didn't tell me as much as I had hoped though. bah!

Now to the "exciting" stuff.

Apparently several cities in the Netherlands decided that it was better for everyone that they acknowledge that there are women who are addicts to drugs and sells their body to feed their addictions. So instead of arresting them, or ignore them, they quarentined off a designated "tented" area in the city where the heroin hookers can gather, and legally and centrally sell their bodies. The entire area is tented, where the front section (also behind white tent material, but open on top and sides) was where the hookers tries to get customers. Cars drive through on one side and the hookers pretty much stands along behind the white tent and flaunt or hope someone would stop for them. If a customer decides to take one someone, the two of them would go to the tents behind and well, do whatever they do. If not, the customer can just keep driving out through the other side and go on their merry ways. The idea is that this way, at least they're all in one location and the cities can sort of keep an eye on them, and provide them with medical attention if needed, etc. It was an interesting concept.

And speaking of hookers, the next item on my list was about the Red Light District in Amsterdam. Since I couldn't really take pictures there, I couldn't show you what the buildings of the Red Light District looked like. But they are really nice old buildings, architecturally speaking. Apparently I'm not the only one who thought so, since the city of Amsterdam has been trying to buy up these buildings slowly and sell to developers. So slowly the Red Light District in Amsterdam is shrinking, and maybe one day it will disappear all together. Then what will happen to Amsterdam, where one of the main attractions for tourists was just that?! But it's inevitable I suppose.

Oh, about the url of this blog... That's cuz Holland is not the Nederlands. It's a southern province in the Nederlands. It's a common misconception and common mistake that everyone makes. Here's what Wikipedia had to say about it. Since this is a blog about exploring Nederlands, I thought it a fitting title.

And to conclude it all, I wanted to mention that most of the facts in this blog came from Fabian. He was a generous host and a wealth of information about the Netherlands. I saw places in the Nederlands that I'll bet most tourists had never seen. It was fantastic! For that and more, I am very grateful to him. Thanks, Fabian, for the best vacation I've ever had!

Dag 7 -- the Movies and the Darn Rain

We were supposed to head back to Amsterdam today. But they called for rain, rain and more rain. So we bagged that plan and went to see Hancock instead. My first experience with a movie theatre in Holland! Woohoo!

Surprisingly, it was very much like the movie theatre in the States. The ticket price is outrageous, the popcorn, soda and candy price is outrageous, and there was way too many commercials and previews. Cell phone off, check. Silence is golden, check. Beer commercial???? Yep, beer commercial, check. Oh yeah, for a country (or maybe a continent) that sells beer at its gas stations, why should beer commercials during a movie surprise me?! oh yeah, the movie was in English (not dubbed, thank Goodness!), with Dutch subtitles.

Anyway, after settling ourselves in and enduring all the previews, Hancock was really good. What's not to like, right? Take a super hero movie, throw in some humor, Charliz Theron and Will Smith. Hot, hot and double hot. So it was good.

I went shopping for the boys after the movie. Have to bring my babies some cool stuff. Not having much luck with finding dutch things that they might appreciate, I loaded up on chocolate and Pokemon stuff. haha!

I'm feeling a little braver by now. I just walk up to shop keepers and start talking in English. Though sometimes they still speak Dutch and I can sort of pick up a few easy things. Very cool!

We went to an Indonesian restaurant for snacks and a Turkish place for lunch. Both were quite yummy.

I went to my first supermarket in Holland. It was pretty big, indeed very big in Dutch standards, but only about normal in American standards. I got more chocolate to bring home, and Fabian got me Dutch yogurt and a dessert called Vlan to try. The yogurt is very very thick and not sweetened at all. Much like our plain yogurt with a different texture. The Vlan was very similar to our pudding. Apparently Dutch pudding is much thicker, almost solid. It was smooth, and not too sweet.

After the grocery store, we ordered pizza for dinner. I got a pizza with mushrooms, pineapples, spinach, broccoli, Italian beans (look a lot like red kidney beans, maybe they are!), tomatoes, peppers and.... (insert drumrolls here) BANANAS! That was pretty much the reason I ordered this pizza. I've never had bananas on a pizza before. It was decidedly interesting. The crust was very good, the toppings? Iffy. It was tasty still though. Fabian's 10-thousand-meats pizza was good too, though a bit greasy and salty for my likings.

Ok, I'm tired, and tomorrow is my last day here. I THINK, we're going to Amsterdam.

Dag 6 -- Hamburg

Ambicious day! We decided to go to Hamburg, Germany today. It is 3 and half hours drive away, and supposedly the most visited German city. Since it is the closest foreign big city, and Fabian hadn't been there either, it seemed like a good idea.

Driving over the border on the freeway was again no big deal. No passports necessary. Don't even have to stop the car actually. We drove on the famous Autobahn. There was apparently no speed limit on parts of it! There are all kinds of weird signs in Europe. Speed limits are on circular signs (most of the times) with the kilometer in the center and a circle of red on the edge. But sometimes, when the speed limit is going up, instead of having a sign with a larger number on it, there's a rectangular sign with the same number, but three diagnal lines across it, signifying that the speed limit is going up now. Apparently this is true all across Europe.

The road signs directing us to Hamburg was also not clear. At some point, the signs no longer say Hamburg, but rather HH. We weren't sure if HH was indeed Hamburg. So we skeptically drove around looking for telltale signs that we are in the right city. Nothing on the train depot. Nothing on the bus depot. Nothing on the bank. Nothing anywhere, until Fabian spotted a bus with the large "Hamburg City Tour" on its side. We breathed a sigh of relief!

The train station was packed! And apparently paying for public bathrooms applies here as well. Though there is again a public urinal (YUCK, double yuck!) where men can just stand in the semi-enclosed stall in broad daylight, and relieve themselves. yeah, ok....

There were Chinese takeout stands, where people buy noodles or rice, and just stand on the side of the street and eat out of the takeout box. Very strange sight for me. We bought a box of fried chicken strips and ate them along our way to finding downtown Hamburg.

It took us a while. We first headed to an entirely wrong direction, that landed us in what must be the shady side of town. There were scores of sex shops and run down motels along trashy streets. Turning back, we spotted the river along a far street, with small row boats and sailboats lined up along its banks. It was very pretty and peaceful.

After a few more wrong turns, we finally found downtown Hamburg. It was, surprisingly, a lot like a big American city, with wide streets and shops. The difference being that there are old churches all around, and people smoking everywhere. The smoking was really getting to me! I hated that about Hamburg.

The old churches, including one that was burnt in WWII', were spetacular. Again, we took lots of pictures, looking every bit the tourists that we were. :D We had a wonderful time taking pictures and discovering new things. I tried a couple of yummy pastries that I had never seen before, and got ripped off with a "bubble tea." I was so excited to see a sign advertising "bubble tea" at a coffee shop that I was determined to get one without knowing how much it would cost. Well, 2.95 euro (roughly $4.5) later, I got myself a small glass of milk tea with undercooked tapioca (bubbles). For those of you who don't know this, bubble tea is a Chinese thing. They put black tapioca pearls in various beverages, including milk tea, hence the name bubble tea. This, was NOT the right thing. blech!Seeing that we were in Germany, I decided that we should have German food for dinner. I asked a shopkeeper that spoke very little English who insisted that since I'm Asian, I must want Thai food. Anyway... We left him in search of a German restaurant. We found one. In fact, we found 3, but I picked the one with an old decor, and dark interior. If it looks old, it must be good, right??? WRONG! The sausage appertizer Fabian ordered both looked and tasted like overgrown hotdogs. My Goulash and noodles were tender, but funky tasting. I've had really good Goulash before in the States. So maybe these are more authentic. If they are, I like the fake stuff better. :D

Anyway... it was getting late, and the long drive home got us back at almost midnight. Bed sounded soooo good at this point. Lights out.

oh, speaking of lights, the sky was still bright at 10 p.m. In fact, at 10:30, there was still a gorgeous red and orange along the horizon. At 11, it was finally getting dark, and the red diminishing. Long days.

Dag 5 -- Fillet American, Getting Lost and Utrecht

We had a late start today. The past several long days are catching up with us. So we went lazily into town and had our customery sandwich breakfast. I had a chicken curry sandwich, which turned out to be much better than the one I tried in Amsterdam. Fabian had a "fillet American", which apparently is a popular dutch sandwich, but it's neither with fillet, nor any bit American. The beef in the sandwich is raw! Ewww... Though you can't see that, cuz it's all orange and quite yummy looking. I took one bite (not knowing that it was raw) and though it was kinda gooey. Then Fabian said "oh, by the way, it's raw!" I almost choked on my bite! That one, I will not try again!

After that, we drove around, and around, and around, and around (literally), looking for some antient burial sites, which we eventually gave up trying, and headed to Utrecht, a southern Dutch town. Utrecht was also built around a moat, much like Amsterdam and Groningen. It was a nice balance between the sin city of Amsterdam, and the quiet but somewhat forgotten city of Groningen. It was a city, but without the busy and harried feel of a big city, and with the flavor of a small town. Can you tell I really liked Utrecht? :) We weren't here very long, as it was late in the day already, but we stayed for dinner and had a pleasant Indian dinner along the moat. The restaurant was almost like an Indian restaurant in the States, with free Indian chips (some sort of crisp bread that looks more like chips than bread which I don't know the name of), and free water! Imagine that! FREE water! And the waiter spoke Indian flavored English. ahh... I almost felt at home! Though most of the Dutch people I ran into speak relatively good English. Not too surprising to me, since I find Dutch to be fairly similar to English in some ways. I've been able to pick up some sentences and words. I can now read a basic menu without much difficulties. Poor Fabian has been very patient with my "What's this word?" "What does that say?" heehee

Dag 4 -- Delfzijl, Stone Factory and Westerbrook

We set out today with no specific goal in mind. Well at least i didn't, but Fabian apparently did. We went and visited Delfzijl, his birth town. It has changed so much apparently, that the house he was born in is now a space between two new houses. The town is quiet, and cold. It was closer to the North Sea, with a resident windmill in the town center area.

I tried my first kroket, a deep-fried meat thing that's shaped like a hotdog, but tastes nothing like one. I've been trying new things everywhere I go. And this was a weird thing! LOL. Fabian had fries, of course, and this sausage looking thing (a frikendel, I think I spelt it wrong though) that he claims is typical dutch also. The dutch like their meat along with their fries and bread.

Next we went to an old deserted stone factory. I think I got a tick there, cuz I pulled a tick off my leg this morning. NOT GOOD! But the stone factory was very cool. We took TONS of pictures inside. It was just the place for two photography nuts. :D The place was so spooky in a way that I had some unpleasant thoughts relating to disposing of my dead body. ok, I'm weird, what can I say?!

From there, we went to Westerbrook, a Jewish deportation camp from WWII. We walked through some quiet woods, winding along the semi-paved path, and ending at the camp. The cold weather and the rain was somehow fitting to the sadness still lingering in the air. Part of the fence from back in the days has been restored and stood there as a brutal reminder of the past. Some remainder of the railroad was still standing, as well as some of the walls from camp buildings that was left behind.

After a chilly walk around the grounds, we headed back to Groningen for dinner. Mexican today. Well that was interesting to say the least! I ordered chips and salsa (no, it's not free!), and guess what I got? Chips and tomato sauce with mexican spice and some sort of ground meat. Hmmm!!! Though the dutch explanation of the chips and salsa did say chips and tomato sauce, I refused to accept that they would really dare to serve tomato sauce as Fabian had insisted. Alas, I was wrong! Though it wasn't bad, I was really looking forward to some salsa. boohoo! I ordered a marinated lamb dish, which turned out to be not at all Mexican. The dish came with some rack of lamb, potatos and cole slaw! bah!

Dag 3 -- Driving Aimlessly Around

As I have mentioned before, NOTHING is open on Sundays, other than restaurants and pubs. Ok, so what to do today??? We drove around.

One of the things on my list of things to see was windmills of course. So we drove to Ten Boer and saw the most peaceful and beautiful country side, with a couple of nicely restored windmills. There were people living right next to the windmills. Just another family with kids and plastic kids playground equipment much like what we have in the States. It was an odd contrast from the ancient windmill.

Next we drove through more country roads to a little fortress that, of course, weren't open! But the surrounding grounds were very pretty. Oh, but the pub on the grounds were open, true to their nature. :D

More driving took us to Bourtate, a big fortress that has never been overtaken in all of Dutch history. There was a faire going on on the grounds. There were arts and crafts by local artists for sale. Other than the resident restaurant on the grounds, there were food carts selling your typical street fair foods, burgers with curry sauce, various kinds of sausages that are a foot long, FRIES with mayo, and fish. On top of your normal fish and chips, there were also kipper. RAW kipper where you just put in a roll and eat it. I couldn't bring myself to try that, even though I have so far been very good with trying new things everywhere I go. I did here too, but NOT the kipper. Oh, and there was also an ice-cream cart. The Dutch must really like their ice-cream. There are ice-cream shops everywhere too! There was a family of actors dressed in the traditional clothes, from a little baby in the arms of his mom to the head of the family. They fired their guns and did a demonstration of firing a cannon. LOUD! There were also ordinary everyday people living in all the houses in the fortress area. In fact, there was a house for sale while we were there.

From there, we drove to... GERMANY. We were close to the border, so we just drove on through. There was a sign on one side of the road saying "Bundesreublek Deutchland" and a sign on the other side of the road facing the opposite direction saying "Welcome Nederland". No border checks, nothing. Just like driving into a different Virginia from Maryland.

Driving down the country sides of Germany is very much like how it was in Netherlands, with a few small exceptions. The houses are bigger, and more spaced apart. The styles of the architectures are slightly different. Apparently quite a lot of Dutch people live just across the border in Germany because taxes are cheaper there.

Enough sightseeing for one day! We headed back to Groningen for my long anticipated Dutch pancake dinner at the Pancake Ship. Yep, it's a pancake restaurant on a ship docked on the river running through the city. Quaint. The kids menu came equipped with Eyepatch pancakes and pirate pancakes. The regular menu came with tons of different types of pancakes! There were bacon pancakes, thai pancakes that came with beef and thai basil and peanut sauce, vegetarian pancake that had white asperagus, eggplant, cucumber, zuchini and more. That was what I tried. It was quite yummy! The pancakes are thin, MUCH thinner than what we're used to in the States. It's more like crepes than pancakes to us. There were also sweet ones, with strawberries, banans, apples, whipped cream, etc. Yum!!! A good way to end Day 3.

Dag 2 -- Amsterdam

We took the train to Amsterdam on Saturday. The train ride was very nice and smooth. The scenery? Uh... pretty much the same as the first ride from Amsterdam to Groningen. Farmlands! Though there are more houses around this time. Very cute and very small single family houses. On the whole, everything's small in scale in Holland, other than the people. Apparently they are on average the tallest people in the world!

The train has three (as far as I can tell) different sections, the Silence section (watch out, if you are talking on your cellphone, someone just might come and yell at you!), the regular section (where people conversed loudly to each other NON-STOP the entire time they're on the train), and first class (where the seats are more comfortable, and there might be a private booth with doors).

Finally after 2 and half hours of train ride and 2 train changes, we arrived in Amsterdam, the city famous for it's red light district, and "coffee shops". The first weird thing? You have to pay to go to the bathroom at the train station, 50 euro cents, which completes the "nothing is free in the Netherlands" observation. There was a Burger King that has ultra slow service much like the BK's in the States (good to know!), and a Ben and Jerry's at the station.

Now Amsterdam. There were tourists everywhere! On a quick look around, there were little shops where they sell fries (of course), sex toy shops, sourvenier shops, and "coffee shops" with a distinct marajuna scent. In fact, that scent is pretty much everywhere as you walk around the city. Not a very pleasant smell, but I guess when you are high, you don't really care what it smells like.

The sourvenier shops are full of wooden clogs in various forms, sizes and patterns; windmills, sex and coffee shop/weed on various items including postcards, magenets, shot glasses, keychains and more.

Sex toy shops range from your usual "items" to S&M specific shops, to pure DVD shops, all openly displaying their merchandize. "Coffee shops" does not seem to be hiding the fact that they sell marajuna either. It's a common misconception that weed is legal in the Netherlands. It is not. But the law is very lenient towards it, and no one gets panelized for using or selling it apparently. In fact, it's expected that you don't get punished for it. Only mass trafficking is illegal. The smell made me shy away from the coffee shops, even I was extremely curious about what the menu looks like in them. I'm told the fact they sell weed is on the menu as one of things to be ordered. Oy!

The red light distrcit. ahh... well, it looked a lot like the red light district in Groningen, only MUCH bigger. There are even hookers in windows on the second floors. There's even a section with transvestites. Some of them are so "decorated" that Í couldn't tell that they're not female! There were strip clubs, peep shows and live sex show clubs everywhere. 25 euro, on average, will get you in the door.

There're buses and trams in the city that run on electric lines above and tracks below. I haven't seen the buses with electric lines above in ages, since I was little in China. Speaking of China, we went through the Chinatown. It was small, but adorned with the usual Chinese bakery, Chinese restaurants and grocery stores. I tried hard to find egg custard tart, but failed. I'm told one of the bakery down the street serves it, but since it was close to 5pm and the stores were closing fast, I couldn't get to it in time for them. This 5 pm closing time is for the birds, I tell u!

The square in front of the Queen's Palace was packed. There were street performers, living statues (in the form of Renaissance Knights, Darth Vader and weird monster looking person), protesters and the "Free Hugs" people. There were some people holding signs that says Free Hugs and were giving out hugs to anyone who were willing to accept one, apparently trying to get people to be more comfortable with giving and receiving hugs. Okay!

The Queen does not, however, live in the Palace. It is currently completely empty. Netherlands is the only country in the world (I'm told), that the government (Monarchy or otherwise) does not function out of its rightful capital. The parliment and the queen work in Den Haag, leaving Amsterdam in the hands of tourists.

After a full day of walking all aruond Amsterdam (crossing the main section several times), we took the train back to Groningen and had ourselves another expensive dinner, this time in an Italian restaurant. I'm told there are NO chain restaurants other than McD's, KFC and BK. The Italian restaurant was small (most of the restaurants here are), and packed. The food was rich and yummy for the most part. I had a shrimp salad that was wayyyyy too rich, and mussels that were delicious. The cheesy pasta side dish was awful in my opinion, since I'm not a big cheese fan and cheesy pasta was just not my thing. Yeah, I know, I'm weird. :D

After dinner, we had a beer and iced tea in a local pub. It being Saturday night, the city was hopping. But it being only 10pm, it wasn't quite as hopping as it would be at midnight, I'm told. I feel old!

Dag 1 -- Schipol, Amsterdam -- Groningen

So I decided to blog after all, cuz it's just too weird not to. LOL.

The flight was loooong and cold! I landed in Schipol at 7 am. The customs and luggage process was very smooth and simple, with the only glitch? My passport picture was taken in 1992 and I have changed a WHOLE lot since then. I look nothing like my passport picture. And everywhere I go, they look at me suspiciously, and carefully scruitinize my passport picture to see if it's indeed ME. Doh!

The first odd thing I encountered? A cheese stand at the aiport. Yep, complete with a big painted cow standing next to it too. It's a stand like any newsstand or food cart at the US airports. Only this one is full of wheels of cheese. Showing my true touristy nature, I took a picture of it. :D

The 2 and half hour car ride out of Amsterdam was, umm... uneventful at best. The majority of the time, it was endless farmland on both sides of us. Pastures of cows, sheep, and occationally horses mostly dominate the scenary. There were quite a few big trucks on the road, but no 18-wheelers like we do in the States. There were licence plates from Belguim, Germany, France, and Denmark, very much like we see licence plates from Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. Oh, and there're pockets of water everywhere. Lakes, ponds, rivers. And windmills. Though not the traditional kinds, but the white modern kinds that we have in the States as well. Cars. Ah... well, the cars are mostly small. VERY small in fact. And mostly of brands we don't see in the States. There's the occasional Toyota, and Honda, but there are a lot more small Fords that they don't sell in the States here. Hardly surprising there are a lot more European makes here. The surprising thing though? Taxis are mostly Mercedes! And not your cheapest C series Mercedes at that. They're also not always advertised. As a matter of fact, as long as the car has a bright blue license plate from NL, it's a taxi. Regular plates are yellow, and some OLD (over 50 years old) cars has very dark blue (almost black) license plates. So if you want a taxi in the Netherlands, look for a blue tag!

Groningen, finally. It was a very peaceful, and somewhat poor town. It's a mostly "white" town, with the occasional Asian and Black. I kept getting caught by surprise that people are not speaking English around me. Ha! The one odd thing I find, is that I get a lot of stares. It's not like there are no Asians around, so why me???

Anyway... after a much needed shower (more about that later), we went setting out to see the "inner city" of Groningen. Food was on both of our minds, so we started with what the Dutch likes best, FRIES! Who'd thought?! Well, there are Fries stands everywhere! Every restaurant, it seemed, had fries. There are at least 10 different sauces to go with them too. Among the weirdest? Peanut sauce and curry (in the form of curry ketchup, which is oddly VERY tasty!).

The big market sprawls out in the normally empty square in the main part of the city. For 3 or 4 days a week every merchant sets up their booth for the day at 6am, and takes everything down around 5pm. no Sundays! In fact, NOTHING is open on Sundays other than restaurants and pubs! Even those open later in the day. Oh, and don't say 5 p.m., nobody understands that. It's 17:00. :)

A couple of streets over from the big market, is the fish market. There're people selling fish, meat, cheese, and surprise, FRIES, here. There were a trio playing Hungarian Dance #5 from Liszt on one street corner, and a guy playing multiple instruments attached to one another, on another street corner. The big forboding looking ancient building facing the market? It houses a supermarket!

There are bikes locked up everywhere. Mostly very old, rusty bikes though. If a bike isn't locked up, it was probably stolen and left there. Even the very rusty and falling apart looking bikes are locked up! People ride bikes everywhere. There are cars around, but VERY VERY few SUV's. And I didn't see a single mini-van. There are big vans, but no family style mini-vans yet. And no wonder. The streets are narrow, and there're usually cars parked along side of them.

Now about street signs. There are cryptic signs everywhere. The red circle around a sign apparently means it's not allowed. So if you see a sign with a picture of a car in the middle, with a red circle along the outside of the sign, it means no cars allowed to drive into that street. That does not stop some people from driving through it nonetheless though. Apparently the Dutch does not have a high regard for traffic signs. Änother common sign is the "except for bikes and mopeds" sign. Most roads are accessible to bikes and mopeds.

We wandered all through Groningen. Went into Media Mart (the biggest electronics store around), a bar (I had a delicious cup of "warm chocolat", sans the slagroom -- whipped cream), and finally, a Chinese buffet for dinner! Yep, the Chinese people in here indeed speaks Dutch, as well as Chinese, and some English. Woohoo! The word got around very quickly among the wait staff that "I" speak English. Ha! It was somewhat different from the Chinese buffets in the States. Each table come equipped with a can that's white with a number on top and red with the same number on the bottom. When you need service, you turn the can upside down to reveal the red side, and a wait staff decends upon you quickly. Very cool! The food was much different from the Chinese buffets in the States, though delicious still. The noodles (mie) is the common dutch Chinese noodles that is sold everywhere. Very smooth and quite good! The only similarity? The cream puffs, canned fruit and soft-served ice-cream for dessert that is so common of the American Chinese buffets. Oh, and the fact that what most people consider "extremely spicy" isn't. The biggest shock? STICKER SHOCK! For the two of us with beer and water (yes, you have to pay for water here at restaurants, they don't serve anything free), it was over 50 Euro (at today's exchange rate, that makes it over $70!) Yikes!

Ok, now that my first day here is almost over (getting dark and everything closes at 5pm, other than restaurants and bars again), it's time to talk about the Red Light District. :)

Very odd indeed. There are a few streets (almost alley-looking actually) that are dedicated to hookers. Each street is lined with windows on both sides. Each window is decorated almost artfully with dildos, vibrators, and the occasional chain and whip (with the words SM on those windows). Each window has curtains to one side and a chair for the hooker to sit in and flaunt their (umm... questionable) beauty and body. They're dressed skimpily (naturally), with lots of makeup and quite a few, with wigs. If the curtain is closed, it usually means a customer is in there already. They do not take kindly to anyone taking pictures of them though. So don't! LOL. Men wander down the street checking out the "babes" and decide which one, if any, they might visit today. You can tell though, if someone means business. haha!


Ok, enough of shocking discoveries for one day! Time for bed. It's been a looooong day!