Immediately after taking the train from the Airport to Amsterdam Centraal, we began to poo our pants. It was our first time in Holland, and we really didn't know what to expect. Having stepped onto the platform, we half-expected to mugged, stabbed and ass-raped all at the same time.
To our relief we were only offered places to stay, but seeing as we had already booked we skipped through the throng of smackheads and ladyboys. After passing through several unpronounceable and unspellable places we stepped off the tram at Leidesplein smacking several pot-head commuters in the face as I passed, and found our hostel for the next two nights: the Flying Pig Palace. We dumped our crap and wandered into town trying to work up the courage to a) buy some weed, or b) watch a live sex show. A pleasant surprise came when we were accosted by Huggy Bear. His TV career seemed to have taken a downward turn as he was penniless, smelly and living just outside the red light district; oh how the mighty have fallen!
"Excuse me guys," he said in his famed Hollywood accent, "could you help me out? Sorry about my accent, but I really could use some change." We gave him 2 Euros on the proviso that he'd get us good TV careers. Then we went our separate ways, Ted and I going to MacDonalds, Huggy wandering into a sex shop screaming "Daddy's got a sweet tooth tonight!". A crowd had, in the meantime gathered in the middle of the square where we had stopped. Drawn in buy the crowd and appalling Europop, we wandered over. To our surprise, two young Dutch boys were treating the crowd to a display of head spinningly, spine wrenchingly bad hip hop dancing the likes of which I pray we will never have to bear witness to again.
"How you all doin' tonight?" Whooped the first of the nylon clad Eurpoppers. Despite the least enthusiastic whoop I've ever heard, the future Eurovision winners pressed on regardless, and despite a few jumps in the CD, they finished their set. Undeniably the highlight came when a bandana and clog clad Scouser started to dance a dope and Amstel fuelled homage to Pee Wee Herman. The 'entertainment' having stopped, we wandered on to MacDonalds for a feast fit for a Dutch hard porn king. Feeling full of meat, we pressed onwards to Dam square. Its main monument, erected in the memory of the greatest 100 cum shots of Busty McBeaver, was disappointing as it now served as a public urinal and crack dealing ho house.
We then took a wander back to the hostel, and, in our room were greeted by the second TV superstar of the trip so far; yes, we were to be sharing a room with Sabrina the Teenage Witch. We quickly attached ourselves to the magical minx and went downstairs to the hostel's bar for 'Happy Hour'. Maybe they do things differently on the continent, but happy hour in England does not involve playing Radiohead and the Verve greatest most depressing hits and turning down the lighting. Fortunately someone slit their wrists to lighten the mood. We returned to bed determined to 'do' Amsterdam the next day.
Day 2
Our first full day saw us visit the van Gough museum (nice but crowded, and crammed full with this new discovery of ours called 'culture'), having queued for close to an hour to get in. We then wandered on to the Heineken museum, having decided to give our Jewish heritage a miss and not bother with Anne Frank's house. What a great decision: three free beers (served by Kieran Dyer), and some drum kit related tomfoolery later, we decided that it was time for a visit to the world of soft drugs and hard porn, but not before a quick visit to Maccy D's. Mmmmmm, we like cheeseburgers, MacYum!
Having run scared past at least five Coffee Shops (one named Terry the Tough's House of Hoes), we decided that a trip to the most commercial and sanitized would be sensible. We stumbled upon the famed Bulldog, and not being regular smokers and therefore incapable of rolling a joint, asked for two pre rolled joints. Pleasantly, these came in nice plastic containers, so commercialized is the soft drug trade in Amsterdam. The owner assured us that they had been freshly rolled that morning on the soft milky, virginal thighs of his 18-year-old lingerie model daughter. Which was nice. We found ourselves a nice anti-social corner, away from all the mocking potheads and lit up. To our great pleasure, we found that we were sharing the moment with the great Ainsley Harriot (presiding over us on the television).
"Hi Ainsley, how you doing?" said William to the television.
"Hot Graavy!" screamed big Ains from the studio in Luton. Teddy's toking served to turn him bluer as the afternoon wore on.
"Wiiiill, I can't move my arms and legs. I've lost control of ALL my muscles" said Ted as he loped over to the toilet, as fast as his jelly legs would carry him. Emerging triumphantly from the toilet, sweaty and red, Ted was a man reborn (and freshly clean and empty). "Right," said Ted "let's find us some ladyboys!"
A five minute wander down the road in the freezing teatime fog and drizzle, and we had found the infamous area with no trouble (we just followed all the used condoms and pointing transsexuals). We were disappointed to see that only two prostitutes were working that afternoon, and one of them was Peter Stringfellow in fishnets and high heels. Sorry Pete, I like you, but not in THAT way. Feeling thoroughly disappointed by the lack of Thai-style ladyboys named KungPao, we wandered back to the hostel, where we ate dinner and headed out to find some football on the telly. The bar was packed, so we squeezed ourselves into a drizzle covered table.
We had been away from England for one night, and already we were hungry for football. We were persuaded by the bouncer to 'buy a drink or get the f*** out'. So we took our expensive pints of Amstel and sat in the wet seats, awaiting kick off to Bayer Leverkusen vs Liverpool. Amidst the crowd were about 200 scouse youths, and Steve McMahon, who appeared to be rather mouthy that evening.
"Come you ****ing German *****, take it like men you ****ing...."etc. We were releived when Liverpool scored. However, we feared for our lives when Bayer scored 4. We decided to leave and retire to bed, to avoid the scousers angry joyriding after a dissappointing evening.
We awoke to find that our dorm had increased in membership during the night. Two men had joined the party. One of them slept with his baseball cap on; the other however, had a beard that engulfed not only the rest of his head, but the majority of the bunkbed he was sleeping on.. He awoke with a shock and opened his face-anus:
"Are you guys going down to eat?"
"Um, no. Not with you. You're very scary" said Ted. And with that, his companion woke up and hopped off top bunk. To our suprise he removed his cap to reveal that he had left his hair at home along with his wife, children and mortgage.
"Let's get out of here!" I screamed, running downstairs for fear of ageing. We quickly munched down our appetising breakfast of bread and coffee, checked out and headed towards Centraal train station, to use our virginal Inter-rail tickets. For today we were heading to Paris.
We did howeer have to change at Bruxelles Midi, were we fulfilled our EU Belgian culture requirement, by eating chips and mayonaise.