Friday flicks: scenes from a pirate bar in Amsterdam

Man, some weird stuff happened in Amsterdam.

I know I am not the first person to utter those words, but I'm guessing I'm the rare individual for whom the "weird stuff" does NOT involve, say, being chased down the street by demonic giant squid or having a profound conversation with a fire hydrant--that is to say, the ingestion of substances not legal back home. We did none of that (no wink wink, nudge nudge here; it's the truth).

But we did spend several days chasing and being chased by creepily dapper secret-society initiates:

[You thought I was kidding?]

... And we did inadvertently start a massive party in a pirate bar.

Before I tell you the story of the pirate bar, I need to remind you that ours is something of an Odd Couple pairing, that Lee is a freelance writer whose beats include nightlife and the singles scene; that I recruited him for this trip in part because Frommer says that "Amsterdam is a swinging town," and Lee is the swingingest guy I know; and that I am, as the Dutch say, kindofaneuroticintrovert.

Let us also have a quick by-the-numbers establishing of some key facts about yours truly:

Total number of bars I had entered during the trip before Lee arrived: zero

Times in my life, ever, that I had been bar-hopping (as in, you know, patronizing multiple bars in a single evening): not a one

Lee and I had joked that it was his job to get me into trouble, and now, as we wander the streets of Amsterdam that first night together, in search of our--count 'em*-- fourth bar of the evening, I am both congratulating and cursing myself for the fact that this "joke" is apparently becoming reality.

It's sometime well after dark, and we've found ourselves in a bustling commercial entertainment district, all neon signs and blaring music and restaurant hosts imploring passersby to try come in and try their drink specials. I'm standing on the sidewalk, taking it all in, when Lee says, quietly, "There."

As I'm about to ask "What? Where?," he cuts me off with a decree, firm and authoritative but tinged with worrying mischievousness. "Pirate bar."

"Pirate ... what?" I don't like where this is going.

"Pirate bar," he repeats. He points toward the forest of neon. My eye follows his gesture, and defying my brain's instructions to feign ignorance, settles on a flashing yellow sign that says, sure enough, "Pirate bar."

"That's where we're going," Lee says, striding forward.

"Um," I say. I compose a mental inventory of reasons why this is a bad idea, but there are so many that I don't even know where to start listing them out loud. So I follow him.

As we get closer, I notice that it looks surprisingly non-kitschy, not much follow-through on the pirate thing. What it looks is totally frickin' sketchy, the Amsterdam equivalent of the candy-offering strangers your mom always warned you about. Come here, little backpacker, it seems to say. Come inside, have a drink, pay no attention to the fact that the weird skeleton out front looks nothing like a pirate and everything like that British college student who went missing here last year ...

I've got it: that's my out. "I disapprove of the lackluster theming," I say as we examine said skeleton outside. "Where are the palm trees and parrots and Jolly Rogers?"

But Lee can't be dissuaded, not by the lack of kitsch, not by my mumblings about roofies and canals and that friend-of-a-friend who woke up without a kidney, not by the fact that we appear to be the only patrons but for two young women dressed Amsterdam-appropriate attire, if you see what I mean. As we sip our Heinekens, we look around the room and note that (a) there really, seriously is no pirate theme whatsover, and it really is just a sketchy dive bar, (b) there is a weird riser-stage thing that is too small for a band but would be just about the right size to serve as an operating table for kidney-removal, and (c) the two women have disappeared through the swinging saloon doors leading to a dimly-lit back room.

As I whimper to myself, two more young women enter through the front door. Thank God. Strength in numbers. They're dressed as if for clubbing. They speak with English accents. They order beers and Jag bombs. A couple of minutes later, few more women enter, same attire, same accent, same order. And then they start coming in waves, clones or sorority sisters or something, dozens of English twenty-somethings, nearly all female.

Within ten minutes, the place is jammed beyond the fire marshal's worst nightmare. The force of the crowd is slowly pushing us off our bar stools. The music starts up, then the fog machine and the strobe light. The party has frickin' started.

I look at Lee, my jaw agape. I want to ask him if he ordered up this party, if he can just snap his fingers and conjure a crowd, if it's going to be like this every night. It's too loud for conversation, though, so I just mouth, "What the hell just happened?" He grins and shrugs, "Who cares?"

We order another round, sit back, and watch the spectacle. Trays of shots pass through the crowd. Several of the Brits crowd the stage-slash-operating-table, dancing to the latest pop hits to reach these shores (meaning, of course, the songs that were popular in the US ten years ago, and whose performers have long since dropped out of the pages of People and Billboard back home).

Very late at night, as the crowd's energy peaks, we're finally treated to a bit of pirate-ness here at the pirate bar. The music and the strobe lights turn off, the bartenders light torches, one of them puts on a tri-corner pirate hat ... and then this happens. (The camera cuts away at the crucial moment, but you can probably deduce what's going on.)

[Yes, it's just six seconds long. I'm running really low on videos!]

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* Lee, my friend, allow me to preempt any quibbles that this is exaggeration for effect. In case you have forgotten, the others were:  

1. The bar on the little pedestrian street by the hotel, with the enormous wooden kegs and the one tiny booth in back 
2. The cafe/bar on the bridge over the canal, where our waiter gave us little porcelain Dutch clogs 
3. The place in the Jordaan (or thereabouts) where I ordered "nachos"--totally not Frommer-approved; sorry--which turned out to be plain ol' tortilla chips with foul mayo-guac

Friday flicks: Not your mother's brewery tour

Mom visited the Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam in 1967 and sent my dad a brilliantly-designed mailable coaster that opened up to reveal a small booklet of photos from the brewery. If you addressed it, they mailed it for you, with a Heineken postmark, no less. (The coaster is at my parents' house; I'll try to scan it and post it here soon. It's a genuinely cool design.)

In the "Readers' Suggestions" section of his Amsterdam chapter, Frommer quotes a correspondent who visited the brewery for its once-daily tour: "While guests are waiting for the tour, they are seated at a very long table, scrubbed white, in a charming tap room with beamed ceiling, and they are served excellent coffee and a variety of cigarettes to please everyone. The tour is very interesting and lasts about an hour and fifteen minutes. Following the tour, you return to the tap room for cheese and Heineken's beer. ... A worthwhile tour, and no fee of any kind."

Let's file this in the every-growing category of "my, how things have changed." Like the Glockenspiel in Munich, this seemed like a case study in how modern tourists--make that modern people in general--demand that their attractions be a bit more whiz-bang, a bit more technologically advanced and interactive than what passed for amusement and entertainment a generation ago.

The first clue that this would be more than a mere self-guided stroll through a brewery came from the site's name: it's no longer merely the Heineken Brewery. It's the Heineken Experience. And "no fee"? Incorrect. That'll be fifteen Euros, please.

The video below shows some of the scenes from the tour. Alas, I don't have any footage of the beer ride (yep), in which you stand on a platform that tilts and lurches as you watch a movie about the brewing process--specifically, what it would be like if you were being brewed. When you're being cooked, heat lamps come on. Sprinklers spray you with water. And when they add the hops, GIANT BEANBAGS drop from the ceiling onto your head!!

Okay, I made up that last part. But I half-expected it, given the intensity (and general weirdness) of the ride.

Anyway, here are just a few of the things we did see at the not-free, over-the-top Heineken Experience:

Oh, and they didn't have any beer coaster postcards, free or otherwise. They did have free e-postcard booth, and Lee and I sent my mom a cheesy note with a cheesy photo of us mugging with a Heineken-green windmill. And they did have big packs of coasters--not the mailable kind--for sale in the gift shop, alongside other items, such as ...

Friday flicks: a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a light show, and/or the apocalypse

Here's what Frommer has to say about the Grand Place in Brussels:

It's a spectacular sight: I know of none other in Europe to equal it. ... This is a square whose only buildings are the ancient and untouched Guild Halls of the Middle Ages. Each is festooned with a brilliantly-colored flag, and the cornices of the buildings are covered in pure gold leaf. Stand in this square, and you will be thrillingly transported to the world of Breughel and Van Eyck, of Rubens and Rembrandt. 

He's right: the Grand Place is indeed spectacular, if mildly overwhelming in its Gothic grandeur. I half-expected a fanfare of trumpets to fill the air as Lee and I stepped into the sprawling square, or to catch a glimpse of a ghostly regiment of medieval soldiers on white steeds lining up in formation in front of City Hall. The whole space seems to echo with history and import and opulence in such a powerful, hypnotic way that you can't help but feel majestic and important yourself. You might be sitting on a curb, eating a Belgian waffle, but that is one epic waffle. Your paper plate suddenly looks like silver. The busker a ways down the sidewalk? He's your personal musician, a member of your High Court, retained purely to entertain you as you feast. It's good to be Tourist King.

This is, in short, an impressive place. No wonder it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

So why, I ask you, do they feel the need to liven it up with LOUD, SCARY LIGHT SHOWS?

Lee and I were staying in a hostel mere steps off the Grand Place. We were settling in for an early bedtime (okay, Lee was doing that; I was compiling my notes) at about 10 p.m. our first night in Brussels, when we heard an earth-shattering blast of Wagner-or-something--the sort of ominous and over-the-top opera music played during the opening frames of Hollywood battle scenes, as the army of bad guys appears on the horizon. The music seemed to be on an endless crescendo, the intensity and volume rising with each passing minute. It was terrifying. We looked out the window for the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse but saw nothing. Arming ourselves with, um, pens--we're writers, after all--we went outside to investigate. This is what we found on the Grand Place (for the full effect, turn your speaker to 11, then put a megaphone in front of it and put your ear in front of the megaphone):



(Just watch ten or twenty seconds to get a feel for it; the spectacle doesn't translate to video very well, and my hand was less than perfectly steady, so there's really no reason to watch the entire video.)

Friday flicks: the best street musicians in Amsterdam

I was surprised by Amsterdam's relative lack of good street musicians--most were half-stoned backpackers strumming beat-up guitars and slurring out Bob Marley's greatest hits, or wheezing into a didgeridoo.* 

Of all the cities on our itinerary, I had expected Amsterdam to have the liveliest street life, and the widest range of living statues and jugglers and mimes and musicians. But there really weren't that many, and those we did find were, as a rule, atrocious--like the world's creepiest, least-coordinated Michael Jackson impersonator, who stood outside our hotel most days. Alas, I took no video of him (I didn't want to feel obliged to give him money). 

But I do have a video of some musicians who made up for their less-talented peers. This group, from Spain, was good--transcendently good--particularly the clarinetist. 

Incidentally, I think that street performers are one of the benefits of tourism. Yes, there are performers in random parks and streets all over the world. But crowds attract performers, and some of them--like this band, or the various entertainers at Mallory Square in Key West--are mesmerizingly talented. If you want good, cheap entertainment, seek out the places with great street performers--seek out the beaten path.

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* I saw at least two or three didgeridoo-playing backpackers in each city (including a duet in Vienna), and always found the sight both laudable and laughable. That's a heck of an instrument to lug around for weeks or months at a stretch, so kudos for the audacity and determination required to do so. But really: why? A guitar I can kind of understand; a recorder or something that fits in your pocket makes even more sense. But a huge horn that is not particularly melodic and which you, dear backpacker, clearly don't even know how to play? That I will never comprehend. (Although I will state, for the record, that I think the didgeridoo does sound kinda cool. For the first 90 seconds.) 


Okay, granted, I suppose it's conceivable that you, white American backpacker, have played the didgeridoo all your life, starting on the mini-ridoo when you were a toddler, jamming with your high school buddies in your parents' garage, showing off your skills at the college talent show, getting in on the retro music craze with a didgeridoo-wop swing band, maybe playing a hymn or a Beatles ballad at your friend's wedding. It's not impossible.  Or ... Did you recently decide to start playing (and hauling) it because this particular instrument--more than, say, a tuba or an oboe or the similarly-shaped Alp horn--has all kinds of fascinating cultural connotations and is an ideal symbol of how you're a true citizen of the world, deeply aware of indigenous traditions across the globe? (... With whom you're currently hanging out in spirit, even if you it appears that you are, in fact, sitting smack in the heart of tourist territory.)   


(Sorry, I'm in an especially snarky mood today. I've been reading The Tourist.)

Friday Flicks: off the beaten path in Amsterdam

Our tour guide in Amsterdam said that if we rented bikes and followed the Amstel River out of town for just a mile or so, we'd find ourselves in Ye Olde Holland, with cows and tulips and windmills and clog-wearing farmers inviting us into their ramshackle canal-side cottages to sample their Gouda ... Okay, slight exaggeration. But we really were promised cows and pastoral countryside.

Instead, no matter how far we pedaled, we found nothing but suburban wasteland:

I should take my photos from this excursion and photos from the New Jersey Turnpike and make them into a guessing game: "Jersey or Holland?" Like this one below. Which is it, Jersey (or suburban area in the USA) or Holland?

Yeah: Holland. No cows here, at least not in forms larger than a quarter-pound (with cheese). It was pretty dreary: malls and fast food and industrial parks and even self-storage. Self-storage!

Also the world's most depressing car wash. Excuse me, make that Car Wash Center 2000. With incongruous Statue of Liberty figurine (dressed in some kind of American flag toga thing) on the roof:

Lesson: just because it's off the beaten path doesn't mean it's charming. As I said at the end of the video, it's definitely a part of Amsterdam that most tourists don't see. And for good reason.

Friday flicks: History and Beer in Munich

New E5BID feature! Every Friday, I'm going to post a video from the trip. At least until I run out of good footage. Or get sick of it. Or forget to do it. But it's a goal.

Frommer says that Munich is "a light-hearted, fun-loving city, whose residents look upon the pursuit of pleasure as a full-time occupation. ... Its avenues are broad, its theatres and nightspots are numerous and its prices are rock-bottom." Lee and I, ever the intrepid journalists, headed out to see if this was still true.

Here, Lee explains how the budget travel experience has changed and what you'll find in a typical hostel today. 

Unstated but worth noting as crucial elements of the modern European hostel: 

• Currency from around the world taped to the pillar in the middle of the bar. 
• Bartender and other staff not natives of the country in which said hostel is located (in this case, they were British).
• Assorted jaded backpackers straight out of central casting, going on and on--with pride--about the sketchiest, dirtiest places they'd stayed in all over the world, and having the classic "travelers" vs. "tourists" conversation. They, of course, were travelers. I strongly suspect that when they e-mailed friends back home, they claimed to be in Mongolia or Mozambique or someplace exotic and far-flung, rather than in Munich, mere steps from the central train station and the Oktoberfest grounds.