Hitchhiking Holland

For our second day in the Netherlands, we wanted to go to the city of Amsterdam from where we were staying in Haarlem. Tyson tricked our host into driving us the half hour to the center of town. We took a walking tour that brought us around the inner parts of the city with a guide who explained the culture and history of Amsterdam. He showed us the royal palace and the national monument. Both impressive structures that displayed the historic architecture evident throughout the area. The second stop on the tour was the infamous red light district. Prostitution is legal in Amsterdam and as our guide explained to us, the city is "the safest place in the world for prostitutes." He said that they work for themselves and can turn away any customers that they choose. They are protected by the police and the pimps who are walking around the area. There are cameras everywhere and these prostitutes are said to have less diseases than others in the world. The truth, however, is that a majority of these women are not choosing to sell their bodies, but are rather forced into the profession through various forms of bribery, manipulation and most of all blackmail. Some of the stories we heard throughout our time really shocked us but also went completely against all the positive points that our guide was telling all the toursits. We were warned that tours guides only pound in the positive points of their legal system and deny that they have any problems so we should have expected it. We heard that pimps use the date rape drug on girls, take awful and embarrassing photographs of them and then threaten to go public with the data if the girls do not work for them. Other women are foreigners or uneducated young people who think they have no other way to make money. Some of the girls working there have been kidnapped at young ages from third world countries. Many of them do not keep their own money and I doubt if any of them enjoy their profession or take pride in their work. We also heard that as many as ninety percent of the girls have sexually transmitted diseases and that most young people in Amsterdam have suffered from one of the nasty things spread around the city through sex. The people of Amsterdam have become so desensitized to this that they think it is normal to have women sell their bodies for less than it would cost to buy a chicken for dinner. They have prostitutes as old as eighty six and apparently she has a two week waiting list so you have to book ahead.

In the middle of the red light district stands a very old church called The Old Church, . This was the place where the sailors would go to have their sins forgiven by the priests before they went out to sea again. The priests saw this as an opportunity for making a monetary profit. They decided to charge the sailors money for forgiveness from God. So the sailors would sin, then go to the priests, pay their fine to be forgiven and then leave with a clear conscience. This went on, but they had a problem, what about the sailors who had to set sail in the middle of the night? The priest decided that they would pre-forgive the sins of the sailors before any crime was commited. So now the sailors could pay the fine to "God" before they screwed the prostitutes and snorted their drugs so it was very convenient. The priests were happy, the sailors were happy and it all worked well. When Catholiscism became illigal in the country, everyone changed the churches into Protestant ones but the priests decided to steal the decorations and statues to sell for profit. The people did not like this and tore the place apart and set it on fire. Today, the church is used for exibitions and no longer serves as an active place of worship.

The tour guide also talked about the drug use in Amsterdam. He took us past the Pot Museum where you can learn everything you need to know about pot. Many of the people in our group had never seen a pot plant before so this was a great photo opportunity for them to snap a shot at the huge plant they have on display in the front window. During the seventies Amsterdam had over ten thousand people addicted to crack. This is a very high number (no pun intended) and the streets were very unsafe. The crime rate was so high in one area that they posted signs everywhere to warn the public not to walk through. The way they decreased the number was to tollerate the use of drugs assist the people who wanted to quit to do so. With these incentives, the number of people addicted to crack is now recorded at around three hundred. The use of weed is one of the main reasons that some travellers come to this city. They have "coffee houses" which are the places they sell the marijuana products and it is legal to smoke it. This is not to be mistaken for cafes which actually sell coffee. It is legal to sell pot products to grow and to smoke it, but it is illegal to actually grow it. The reason being that if everybody grows then the government would not be able to control or tax the product. Amsterdam is not all sex and drugs however, so let us move on.

World War II had a major effect on the world, particularly, in Amsterdam. A large part of the persecution of millions of Jewish people took place there. This was very difficult for everyone including the non Jewish citizens as well because these were their neighbors and friends, so during the German occupation, the citizens of Amsterdam held protests over a few days. Thousand of people joined the uprising each day and they became the only group of citizens to stand up against Hitler's regime . This was put to a hault when the German forces were instructed to open fire on the innocent people killing many. The story of Anne Frank is, of course, a very famous one. It took place in Amsterdam and in her story she writes about the daily life of her family before and during these terrible years. For over two years her family was forced to go into hiding in a small room hidden behind a book shelf in a building in the center of the city. They could not leave the house, make any noise or even open a window out of fear of being caught. The family was eventually turned over to the German army by someone they knew and trusted. The history is very devastating but we must remember that this is just one story of one girl. Over six million people were tortured, driven to slave labor, beaten, raped and killed. Each one of these people had a story and could have continued their story if they were not savagely robbed of it. Her old house is now a museam and a very popular place to visit in the city. We visited her house and it looks very simple, like any other house, but the history behind it makes it very special and significant.

Our tour took us through some of the many canals that Amsterdam is famous for. We learned that they were hand dug for the purpose of delivering goods throughout the city. Some of the naughtier people in Amsterdam use the canals for a different purpose, they walk around and find nearby bikes that are not locked, and throw them in. Thousands of bikes are removed from the canal every year and it is reported that on average ten to fifteen people per year drown in the canals. This is because the designers did not take into consideration that hundreds of years later drunk tourists who would fall in, would need an exit point.

Another interesting thing here is the style of houses. Some of them look like they are leaning forward and about to fall over. This was actual done for a purpose. The stairways inside the homes were constructed extremely narrow so moving furniture and trading goods up and down the stairs was impossible. The houses were equiped with a very strong hook in the center of the roof sticking out over the front of the house. The people would then throw a rope over the hook and hoist goods up from the outside and bring them in through the windows on each level. So the purpose for the slanted homes was for more room to lift the goods with.

Next to the Royal Palace stands the New Church. It gets its name from being newer than the old church. (They are very creative with their names). The church became very upset when the monarch decided to build the palace next to the church because the design was very beautiful and it would stand taller than the church. This was unacceptable because how could a royal family be greater than God? The royal family agreed to build an addition onto the church that would be much more grand and stand much taller than the palace. This was, however, never done.

There were, of course, other small stops through the tour but if I cannot remember them now then they were probably boring. The last stop on our tour was in front of a Protestant Church. This was a very impressive building but it was not the purpose for ending the tour here. Our guide spoke very highly of his city and its liberal culture so he chose this spot because it is also the home of the Homomonument. This is a symbol to everyone saying that anyone is free to do what they want. The church disagrees with homosexuality but at the same time it happens right at its doorstep and everyone just seems to be ok with everything.

The guide did a pretty good job and since he works on tips we gave him a gratuity. After the tour we walked around the city and saw a few more of the sites including the Aushowitz Monument that has been built inside of a park, and Begjinhof, which is a courtyard area surrounded by homes where only women reside. These are women who wanted to serve the church but did not want to say their vows to become nuns. All but one of the original homes were destroyed in a fire but they have been restored and still only house women who want to serve the church. It is a very beautiful group of homes with immaculate gardens and a small church.

After doing a bit of shopping, we met with my second cousin and her husband for coffee and cake. They had friends visiting from Portugal who also joined us. We hadn`t seen them in over a year and it was very nice to see familiar faces. We had coffee at a very old hotel called the American Hotel. It is also has the only free bathrooms in town. They also treated us to lunch at Burger King right after the coffee and cake. We were very stuffed after all of this but we had a great time catching up. My cousin even brought several huge tupperwares of home cooked Persian food for us which was priceless. After they left, we continued to wander through the city and passed by several street shows, markets and even a huge fundraiser with a DJ competition. There were thousands of people drinking, smoking and dancing to techno music. We sat and watched the entertaining scenes in front of us. The event had provided portapotties and outdoor urinals for the guys that just looked like bug buckets. During the time we were sitting there these urinals started to overflow and spill onto the streets but the guys were so drunk that they didn`t even notice it happening. The pee was spilling all over their pants and shoes and they would even put their bags down in it. Super nasty! There was an elderly lady sitting next to us on the bench and she was laughing so hard at these guys, it added to the whole experience.

We decided to start our journey home but not before going through the red light district one time at night. Seeing all of these girls, young and old who are forced to be there for various made me really sad and upset. Many of the girls have families at home and one of the husbands of a prostitute was quoted saying that his wife's job did not bother him because she was making money. What would really bother him would be if she developed feelings for one of her clients. Absurd. We quickly walked through the rest of the area and tried to hitch a ride back to Haarlem. It was very difficult from the city so we caught the train back and then hitched the shorter distance to our host's home. We arrived quite late and we skyped our parents. Tyson's mom told us that his Grandmother had suffered a mild heart attack but that she was ok for now.

The following morning Tyson woke up early and prepared us a delicious pancake breakfast from Dutch batter. He mixed in bananas and chocolate and we ate the whole box of them before setting off to hitch a ride into Amsterdam. This was only our third time hitching in our lives so we were not very confident but after an hour or so of no bites a nice guy stopped and drove us part of the way. We stood by the side of the road with our thumbs out willing each passing car to stop. It is a very tedious task and can get very tiring quickly when hundreds of cars pass by looking at us appologetically, disdainfully or not at all. When a car stops, even if it is not going where we need to go, we get a burst of energy and encouragement and continue our task. We hopped out of our first driver's car about ten kilometers outside of town and tried again to catch a ride to Amsterdam central station. The next guys that stopped were on their way to Switzerland for a meeting and asked if we wanted to join them on there journey. We asked one of the guys how long it takes and he said three hours. Without much thought, we agreed to take the opportunity for having an adventure, not knowing the the journey would actually take twenty six hours. What the driver had meant to say was he had to be in Switzerland for three hours.

Both of the guys we drove with were from the Muslim religion and originally from Turkey. We used this opportunity to learn more about this faith. Some of their beliefs were much different from some of our views but some were the same. For example he does not believe in the equality of men and women and he went into great detail to explain the reasoning behind the thought. He explained a woman is not the same as a man and therefore not equal. A man cannot bear children or think the way a woman does. I responded that equality does not mean sameness, but rather that the life of a woman is equal worth to that of a man and that a woman should have the same opportunities in her life. In Muslim law, if a man is hit by a car and killed, his family would be paid one hundred camels by the driver that killed the man (the equivalent in cash these days) but if a women was hit by a car and killed her family would recieve only fifty camels. He explained that this is because the man is the provider for the family and he makes more money than the female so this income needs to be replaced. Of course we know that in many cases woman make equal to or more than a man so these rules are outdated and seemed irrelevant for today's world. A thousand years ago, these rules would have worked well, but today many of these teachings have expired, in my opinion. He spoke of suicide bombings saying that they are, of course, wrong and that yes, people have made incorrect decisions in the name of religion but that they were understandable because of all the crimes that have been commited in hostory. For example all the damage that America has done to the world, makes them guilty. In Islam they have the eye for an eye belief system which is also outdated because that does not work to better the world. Overall it was a very interesting and challenging conversation that I enjoyed. They were extremely kind and hospitable to us throughout the whole ride. They made sure we were well fed and hydrated the entire time and they treated us like guests. We stopped at a petrol station for fuel and he came back with many Dutch pastries and drinks just for us. Later on in the drive we stopped at McDonalds for lunch and he insisted on paying for everything.

It was a long drive that took us right through Bern where my Uncle lives and where we started our journey through Europe. Unfortunately we had not brought his phone number with us and we could not quite remember the address, otherwise it would have been great to pop by for a surprise visit since we were in the neighborhood unexpectantly.

We had gotten into the vehicle at around eleven thirty am and arrived at the destination around ten pm. We had driven through the whole country of Germany on the way. One of the guys ran inside to meet with his business partner and shortly after they came outside. The man living there invited us to go to a jazz festival in the city so we decided to go for a couple of hours. We had a few drinks together and talked, it was a busy area in the French part of the country.

We started our journey home around midnight after a call to our host in Haarlem to ensure that he knew we would be later than expected. He was surprised to hear that we were in Switzerland since our plan was to venture into the center of Amsterdam. Tyson and I fell asleep for most of the ride back but apparently we had had car troubles and stopped a few times. Additionally, the driver became very tired while driving, so he pulled over to the side of the road to have a quick nap. At ten thirty the next morning, we all woke up at the border of Germany and Holland. Tyson and I were used to sleeping in funny places but we were still shocked that we could sleep for such a long period of time. We began driving again and finally around one pm, we got dropped off in the center of Amsterdam where we had wanted to go many hours ago. It was pouring rain so as we pulled up to our stop, the driver asked us to hang on a second and ran into a nearby shop to pick up a couple of umbrellas for us. He had also bought us criossants and juice in the morning for breakfast in addition to asking us if we needed anything hundreds of times per hour. On top of everything else, he offereds us a ride to the Hague where we were going the next day to my cousin's house, a ride to Frankfurt where we had already purchased tickets to (for a fortune) and a boat ride in their boat. We did not have much time to plan for any of these things but we told them we would call them. They were very kind, generous and we had a great time with them even if it was a tad longer than expected.

During the day, we walked around the city again visting the large and modern library buidling which was eight stories tall. We walked past the replica ship of the Dutch East India Trading Company that they built to commemorate the old trading routes. We continued on to a market called Waterlooplein where they sell clothes, handicrafts and food. All of this walking made us hungry so we sat down at the side of one of the busy shopping streets and ate the chicken and rice that my cousin had made for us. We didn`t have any forks so we just used our hands. We recieved some interesting looks from people but that did not stop us, we have very little pride left and we enjoyed entertaining others. We did a little more shopping and ate some ice cream cones while we walked through the flower market. We decided that we should start heading back home since we hadn`t been back in over a day but we noticed that the umbrella that we had just recieved was broken after less than an hour, so we stopped by the shop to exchange it. The man at the shop initially refused to change the umbrealla saying that it was our problem, not his. We were not cool with that so we argued and reasoned with him until he eventually gave in. We also found a payphone that we tried to use on the first day that stole money from us, but luckily I had my crochet needle and we could get the money back plus more.

Hitching back to Haarlem proved a bit more difficult, but each trip is an adventure and much more fun than hopping on a train so we kept trying. It was a while before we had a car stop but finally a nice couple in a VW van picked us up and brought us to the correct city. We walked for a while before we caught another ride and got dropped at our place. We were tired after the past day but we had promised our host that we would go to the beach with him that night so we drove about twenty minutes to the windy area. We walked in the sand for a while and even though it was cold, we tolerated it because of the beauty. We watched kite surfers get assaulted by the waves and wind in the ocean and they seemed to be loving every minute of it. We stopped for a drink at a very nice cozy place by the water and chatted until we got kicked out.

The next morning we ate our last Dutch breakfast with our host and he dropped us off at the train station where he surprised us with a typical Dutch candy as a parting gift. He did so much for us and we are very thankful that we met him. We took the pricey train to the Hague where my cousin's husband picked us up at the central station. From there, we went to a Bahai gathering in their community to commemorate the martyrdom of the Bab. The Bab (means the "gate") foretold of the coming of Bahaullah (the founder of the Bahai faith) and for this he was executed by a multitude of guns in Iran. We ate a beautiful and delicious lunch after the meeting and met some of the local friends. We have been very fortunate to meet Bahais in communities all over the world, and attend celebrations and events. After the meeting we walked through the city with my cousin and her friend. We went to the waterfront where we had Italian gelato ice cream and enjoyed the scenery. She took us to a very old and very expensive hotel where the rich and famous people who travel here stay. The least expensive room in the hotel is five hundred euros per night. We walked some more along the water and met with my cousin's husband and their friends for dinner at a famous fish restaurant. We tried a very local dish of fresh cured Herring. It comes whole and cold and we dipped them in onions and slurped them up. The taste was good but because it is served raw, the texture did not go over very well with us but it was a great experience. After dinner we were taken to my other cousins rental property which they kept vacant just so we would have a place to stay while we were here. We stopped at a market where my cousin ran in and bought us breakfast for the morning. She was taking great care of us and we felt very grateful.

The apartment was very big and bright and furnished with everything we needed. Tyson set everything up for me as a surprise so that I could relax and read my book while he finished the blogging. It was very nice but I passed out immediately.

We woke up early and ate breakfast while watching Family Guy before my cousin stopped by to pick us up. She suggested that we stay at her place because it might be easier since the key to the apartment was not working. The night before we had gotten a neighbor to let us in but it might not work if no one is home so we packed up our things that had somehow gotten strewn everywhere in little time. We went to my cousin's place where we ate our second breakfast of the day and it was even bigger and tastier than the first one. My cousin's husband and their friends had left for a trip to Austria so it was just the three of us at the house. After breakfast, we went to town with the tram and split up until the evening. Tyson and I walked around the outside of a synagogue and then through the city to the famous Peace Palace. We walked past the royal palace where the Queen currently has her offices and does her work. The Peace Palace is an amazing place that was set up by all the countries of the world just before the first world war. It was an idea of some of the forward thinking people of the time. Prior to this time, war was looked at as heroic and exciting but these people suggested that war was not a good thing but rather that peace would be found through consultation and not with guns. Althought the first world war broke out immediately following its initiation, The Netherlands were neutral in the war so the place was not affected. The world's court is here where justice is found between countries by judges. There are two courts, one where people who are guilty of war crimes are tried (such as Saddam Hussain) and one where two countries who are having a dispute over things such as borders and environmental settle their issues. Each court has its own system but many problems have been solved here without fighting. Andrew Carnegie of the US donated one and a half million dollars to the construction of the palace a long time ago and a French architect designed the structure. It is very grand. Outside of the palace the gardens are kept beautifully and there is a peace flame burning for world peace. They ask for people to pray for peace when they visit the site and each country has donated one rock to be displayed to represent their agreement with the principles of the flame.

We walked through the rest of the town, did some shopping and took photos. We had lunch and then mentos for dessert before walking the hour and a half back to the house to meet my cousin. She was there with her friend and she had prepared us a nice dinner of rice chicken and salad. It was very good and we enjoyed it. We chatted for a while before my cousin and her friend left to visit another friend. Tyson and I watched a movie and went to sleep a bit later than planned.

The next morning was our last one in the Netherlands. We got up early and ate breakfast before getting dropped off at the train station in Den Haag. We caught the pricey train back to Amsterdam central station where it was pouring rain. We stopped at the library but it was not open yet so we walked to the market which was not open either. We sat for a while sowing and typing and decided to walk back to the library. This is where we spent the next four hours using the wifi, eating, napping and reading. It was nice and quiet and dry so we were happy. At two thirty we caught the train towards Frankfurt. We picked up fake Starbucks coffees and got great seats on the train. Amazingly enough, even though the train we were on was going to Frankfurt, we had to get off in Koln and change to a different train going to the same stop. Although at first it was irritating, we actually benefitted from it because we got nearly an hour to run around Koln. As soon as we got out of the train station and looked up, we saw a gigantic pointy exquisite cathedral. It blows me away everytime because the size and Just as big and grand as some of the others in Italy and France. Just as we walked the two minutes to the church entrance, the skies opened up and showed us who's boss. Everyone ran, and I walked faster into the fabulous gothic building. We sat inside for a few minutes and then conitnued walking around the train station. Tyson picked up more fake Starbucks and we caught the next train further into Germany. We watched a movie on the laptop and ate all the food we had left before getting to our destination.

In Frankfurt, it took us an hour to figure out which subway tickets to buy and how to get where we were going. When we finally figured it out, we took the Subway to Laangan and got picked up by our new host. She lives in a lovely apartment and even helped Tyson to cook a late dinner. We ate and chatted before going to bed in her personal bedroom while she slept on the couch. This was her preference since she had to wake up early to work in the morning. We slept well in the big comfy bed.

"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"