jawnbc | spreekt astublieft langzaan

Props to

cpratt, for inspiring this...

My love of Amsterdam began at age 8, in 1972. I remember the adverts for KLM Royal Dutch Airways: images of tulips, of canals, of windmills, of very attractive people. The accent intrigued me, and I remember thinking "I'll go there one day, and I'll like it."

Ten years later and I rather cheekily decide to backpack around Europe before starting uni. Flew into Shannon in Western Eire, then trained and ferried to France, the Bruxelles and then Amsterdam. It was July, and there was a heatwave--44C one day on the Damrak--and the city was teeming with tourists. Directly across from Centraal Station is the VVV tourist office: I was so mesmerized by the mulitlingual staff (each desk had shingles with the languages spoken by that staff person; each spoke at least 3 in addition to Dutch) switching effortlessly between English, German, French and a number of other languages. Trippy, but in a "aw wish I could do that" sort of way.

I was travelling with Steve C. Steve was, uh, different. Among the geeks of my high school we called him The Enigma, because we weren't sure if he was low key, sociopathic or bored. Originally 3 or 4 of us were gonna travel together, but the others jammed. Leaving me with The Enigma (Steve for short). I was the lead and Steve followed: I'm confident he'd have spent the entire 5 weeks in McDonalds were it not for me (every 3rd or 4th day was enough for me). Back then I was an MSM, meaning I was into piggy mansex, but didn't consider myself gay--but was semi-restricted with Stevo in tow. I managed one wild afternoon in an adult cinema near the leather bars: it was too much fun being a young humpy top-only boyo. Sign. I dragged him to the Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank Huis, and twice to the Heineken brewery tour: if you muscled your way to the lead pack, you got more free beer. Mmmmm free beer. We did make the mistake of doing the tour the day we were supposed to train to Copenhagen: we "fell asleep" (passed out) canalside across the road from Chez Heineken, turtle-like with our full packs on. Can you say back ache? I left reluctantly, swearing to be back.

Four years later I did the backpack thing again, this time after uni. It was 86, so there was Chernobyl, wine scares in Italy, and terrorism. My trip was spur of the moment and I drunkenly told some friends, if they go to Amsterday July 4-7, I'll meet them at Vondelpark Hostel. I got there 2 days early and spent my time doing everything all over again, plus sampling the space cakes a bit--in the company of two dowager Costa Rican boys on holidays from Swiss boarding school. I don't recommend tripping out with boys so sexy and sooo str8. But we had a larf. When the gang (4 other geeks from high school, all on the alpha track of dot.com millionairing, vetrinarian, grad or medical skool. 'Cept moi) arrived, we whooped it up in the evening; I made one sojourn to a queer club, and went home with an icky guy who lived with a str8 family. At 22 I was not ready to have Dutch brekkie with my trick's flatmate family. Especially deathly hungover. I left swearing to be back, but gay.

3 years later I'm in Amsterdam in February for my gay honeymoon with PsychoLoverFromHell. I don't recommend a gay honeymoon for those inclined to monogamy. The first night we ended up in Company, a jeans/leatherish bar off Rembrandtsplein, and PLFH goes for a slash. "Wow, I was in what I thought was the bathroom, and there was this wall with a hole in it, so when I stuck my dick in to pee someone swallowed it. Before I knew it I came! I swear I didn't mean it to happen." Oh, OK [how stoopid was I?] But a couple of hours later, when I went up and "checked it out" PLFH threw a hissy and stormed out. The next 9 days were largely PLFH throwing hissies and me stoopidly trying to make him happy. But the last night was the kicker: geez why I didn't move out the day I got back to NY still amazes me.

That last night he wanted to try space cakes. I'd recently decided that drugs were bad, stick with beer, but figured it'd be fun once. We bought two cakes: he ate 1/2 of one, I ate the rest. In about 45 minutes I was flying...and then nodding off in Route 66 (a bar). I excused myself and away I went...until about an hour later there was banging at my door. I came to and realized PLFH was having a problem in the bar. I came downstairs and he was phreaking, so badly that an ambulance had been called. So he's sitting on the back of the ambulance, breathing into a paper bag (hyperventilating), when I make eye contact with ambulance man #2 (#1 was sternly lecturing PLFH about how "you tourists come here and think hash is no problem then you can't handle it"). In one of those nanosecond non-verbal communications we both ascertain that: 1.) this is serious 2.) laughter is wholly inappropriate 3.) my lover is a big (6'4") gurl and needs to get a grip. We bite lips, look away, lock eyes again. Then we both slowly walk to the front of the ambulance and collapse in laughter. I take PLFH to our room to sleep.

Except he wakes up again, and is running through the streets of Amsterdam jumping in front of cars. "Please! I'm having a heart attack! Help me! Please!" Shit. So I find a taxi and we go to emergency...where he gets a new paper bag and chills out. At 06h30 we leave the hospital and have to walk 5km back to our hotel, since we spent the last of our money on the taxi to the hospital. We have time to shower and pack and then it's off to the airport. The (gay) guy at KLM check-in took one look at us and felt pity, so we were upgraded to business class. I should've strapped everyone else down and popped the emergency exist and blown his lame ass over Iceland.

Last year I went to Amsterdam for the first time since 1987. I had 3 night, stayed at the Winston and spent my time as a vampire: saunas, bars, cafés. Slept til noon each day, out til sunup each night. Drink and drug free btw. Had a rijstafel, some good Dutch food, and lots of fun. I did--and do--still love Amsterdam.