Today was….rainy. I mean we knew it was going to be like that already but man oh man Amsterdam you sure are wet! We had our whole morning planned. Emily had to take photos in the hotel so we were going to wake up super early, get some hotel shots while the lobby was empty, then head out to meet one of Emily’s insta-friends who lives in the Netherlands. Welp, that plan went to crap. We waaay overslept. The hotel bed was so comfortable I think our bodies were like, “nah, were not getting up!” So after waking up 3 hours later then planned, we rushed to meet her friend an hour late (sorry!).
Emily’s friend is also a blogger, @adashoffash, so of course she picked a very insta-worthy location. We met her at The Corner Bakery which is known for their epic milkshakes. This shake had whipped cream, sprinkles, marshmallows, and a donut on top. It’s for sure probably the amount of sugar you should intake in a week not a day but it was too cute not to try! But honestly that wasn’t the best part of this place, Amsterdam wins breakfast, we had the red velvet pancakes here and O.M.G. those things were LIFE. So so so so so so good. I wish I could bring them with me back to London cause Lord knows their breakfast is very…shall we say…”meh.” I feel like we’ve been eating on eating on eating. I kind of can’t wait to go grocery shopping and cook for myself again but I’m definitely enjoying all the amazing places we are trying during our travels.
After brunch we headed to The Red Light District. This is probably the most infamous thing about Amsterdam and we were not leaving without seeing it! Prostitution (among many other things) is legal in Amsterdam and The Red Light District is the area where you go to find them. It’s a very touristy area with bars and restaurants and nestle in between are essentially brothels and the women stand in the window enticing men to come in and “play.” The women don’t actually live there, they basically rent the room out to work their shift. I don’t know why I’m fascinated by this, I’m fascinated in general by the idea of legal prostitution but Amsterdam takes it to the next level because these women are willingly doing it. In fact they try their best to crack down on anything otherwise. The city has people who search the houses to make sure the women are ok and that everyone has all the required permits.
How do I know this you ask? Well while walking around the red light district we stumbled upon the Museum of Prostitution and decided to check it out. It was SO informative and gave a real inside view of prostitution in Amsterdam with first hand narration from a working prostitute. They treat it like a job as if any of us would our own job. I do think it says a lot that there are no male prostitutes. I think it’s because it wouldn’t bring in enough business?? What is it with men and these sexual desires? They see on average 2,000 clients A DAY! Just ONE house of the many prostitution houses. I’m floored.
But the most interesting part about Amsterdam is that even with legal prostitution and the fact that most drugs are legal there, they still have dramatically less crime, drug, and sex trafficking problems then America and many other countries and that’s the part that really fascinates me.
When we left the museum we took the 15 minute walk back to the hotel and at that point we were drenched. I’m so proud of us for thuggin’ it out in the rain, we even took pictures and everything. Nothing was gonna stop us from enjoying this trip!
We ended the night with dinner at the hotel restaurant Jansz we were craving something hearty so we both got burgers and they were bomb ( I know I know). We only have a short day here tomorrow as we fly back to London but I’m so glad we squeezed Amsterdam into this trip. I actually really love this city and hope to visit it again sometime in the future!
xx
