bigmouth strikes again: red light district, van gogh and walking around

today i went to the van gogh museum and it was beyond amazing. it's nice how they focus on one artist and you get to have more of a feeling for that artist and the different periods they went through in their life. van gogh was so sad at the end and looking at his later works you almost actually feel the pain and sadness as he produced works while he was checked in at the mental hospital. he was only 37 years old when he killed himself. he was truly brilliant and worked with so many fantastic artists of that time including gauguin, seurat, toulouse-lautrec, bernard, etc. they also had works on display from some of the artists mentioned above and also monet, manet and rodin. i spent hours there - it's absolutely amazing! it is a must see for when you are in amsterdam.

everyone in amsterdam is so nice! seriously! but i think it's maybe because everyone is high all the time! they have these "coffee shops" and they are every third or fourth shop on the street if not more so! i walked in to one thinking it really was a coffee shop - i was like, i'm going to get a cappuccino and when i walked in i realized that was the last thing i was going to be getting in there! ;) the boy asked me if i wanted to sit down and if i was interested in anything and i politely said no and excused myself. it's so funny! and there are always people in all the coffee shops that i've seen. it's so hilarious, i love it! i wonder if people go to work high, if they drive or ride their bikes around high? i need to find out!

so i went walking down to the red light district and i have to say i was surprised at how mellow it was. maybe mellow isn't the right word - tame? there was very little nekkidness (i've seen more nekkid peeps on tv here than in the actual red light district). there were tons of sex toy shops and porno palaces and girls dancing in windows. and of course, plenty of boys (some desperate, some very nervous!) one boy was actually following me around saying "um hmm" for a few minutes. i was getting irritated and getting ready to turn around and kick him in the cajones when he decided to start um hmm-ing someone else. did he think i was a prostitute or something? gross! maybe i just went too early or something. there were a lot of guys yelling from the stores to boys walking by saying "for you?!?!?" i laughed a lot and it was fairly entertaining but not nearly as much as what i was thinking it would be. i may try again later tomorrow night. there really has to be more to it than what i saw.

so here are some pics from today. i just uploaded the pics from yesterday to yesterday's blog as well in case you want to check those out:

walking down to the van gogh museum along a canal: