Last night after dinner we toured the nabe (Amsterdam Central), which meant joining a massive throng of tourists circulating around the canals. I suppose there was a residual charm about the buildings (old and quaint) and the swans (beautiful and numerous). But the window girls were a disappointment, even though waxed and plucked and tanned and clad in ever more amazingly tiny bits of cloth. But frankly it was all a bit samey. I guess blokes are happy just to gawp on by, but I was looking for a little more of a narrative beyond the hand poised at the door handle in expectation of a customer (YOU!) stepping into their looking-glass world. I had a good stare into the cells. There’s a narrow bed with a towel folded upon it and a loo exactly like a prison cell. No doubt there’s also an eftpos machine and a till. But a lot of the beauties were so openly bored they were yakking on their cell phones, just like shop assistants in department stores when all you want is a helping-hand. (‘Sorry to interrupt your LIFE but I’d like a little relief if it’s not too much trouble.’) There wasn’t quite enough light for my little camera but I took a few pix anyway, and that encouraged a door or two to open on my behalf. But not caring to mix my pleasures I declined all offers. We did see one man go through the pink doorway with his chosen one. I suppose they were negotiating terms. But it was all a bit over-populated and, well, tawdry. There. Now I’ve said it.
[View from my window at night]
The hotel I’m staying at is one of the ‘railway’ hotels, just across the canal from Central Station. I thought it might be a bit of a ‘frat’ house when I got here, because of the huge number of yoof swilling around out in the street.
The non-stop blend of people, cars, bicycles and trams is chaotic, and a little frightening. A woman hit by something (hopefully not a tram) was sitting in the road surrounded by ambos as I dragged my luggage through the huge central station entrance. I copped a bit of yelled abuse myself for stepping onto the sacred cycler’s thoroughfare at the wrong time. How it all took me back to the days when walking the river pathway to QUT meant getting a death stare from under every passing helmet. Sometimes those cyclists can go rogue, and then - watch out
I had two intentions when I got here and this morning did one of them and that was to visit Rembrandt House. I even bumped into an Australian acquaintance while I was there, loitering in the great man’s studio.
Rembrandt managed to go broke at the height of his career (created his own one man GFC). He was also was attacked in his kitchen by an enraged mistress seeking better palimony terms. The red light district would have been just the ticket for Rembrandt, but I don’t suppose it was quite so energetic in those days. Anyway I love the paintings he did in his old age, and some of those are viewable at the Rijksmuseum, which I’m hoping to get to tomorrow morning before I take off for Den Haag.
The other thing Rosemary and I planned to do, and actually succeeded in doing was to get together for a rijstaffel and here we are, settling to our first gossip of the season:
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