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!]

---

* 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: 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. 

"Time for some hallucinations"

Where would you expect to hear such a quote? Why, in Amsterdam, of course. Oh, don't be so alarmed: this was mere alcohol Lee was ingesting. Bright-green alcohol infused with some kind of super-potent elixir made of top-secret jungle leaves from Bolivia. Or something like that. I could check my notes, but where's the fun in that? [UPDATE: I believe it was Agwa de Bolivia, described and reviewed here.]

Anyway, this was one of our first days together. Lee was trying to set an example for me, to be the Ferris (Bueller) to my Cameron, to show me how to live it up.

By the numbers (part III)

Days on the road: 25
Days left: 15
Cities visited: 6
Current city: Vienna (Wien)
Cities left: 4
Trains taken (not counting subways, trams, and other local transit): 11
Maximum number of trains in one day: 5
Trains we should have taken that day, if the info desk woman in Munich hadn't given us completely erroneous information: 1
Countries Lee visited semi-illegally on that day: 1 (the detoured route took us through Austria, which wasn't included on his Eurail pass)
Comment by Lee as we slipped into Switzerland without event: "This is just like 'The Sound of Music'--I have evaded the authorities and fled Austria!"
Travel days used up on my Eurail pass: 5
Travel days left: 3
Didgeridoo-playing street performers seen: 3
City with best street performers overall: Copenhagen (no contest)
City with worst: Amsterdam
Pastries consumed: lost count. Probably 50-ish.
Panang curries consumed: 3
Way that Panang curry at dive-y restaurant in depressed neighborhood in outer Zurich was probably prepared: from a can
Price of said curry: 19.50 CHF (Swiss francs)
Price of presumably-authentic fondue in fancy restaurant in hip neighborhood in central Zurich: 22.00 CHF
Current exchange rate of CHF to dollars: about 1.05 CHF to $1.00 (that is, nearly even)
Price of a Big Mac value meal in Zurich (not that I had one): 11.40 CHF
Price of a single Whopper in Zurich (ditto): 7.00 CHF
Price of a really good rotisserie chicken lunch, with rustic roll, in the very heart of Zurich: 9.50 CHF
Price of a 20 oz. bottle of Coke at same restaurant: 5.00 CHF
As you will have surmised, amount that Swiss pricing is consistent or seems to conform to any logic: apparently none
Price of a room at the Sternon Oerlikon in Zurich, circa 1963: $3, including breakfast
Price of a room in 2009: 145 CHF, not including breakfast (apparently)
Adjectives Arthur uses to describe said hotel: rustic, quiet, old-fashioned
Adjectives I'd use: loud, ugly, clearly geared toward business travelers with expense accounts and a high tolerance for the greatest interior design hits of 1986
Highest price of a watch seen displayed in a Zurich shop window: 94,700 CHF
Weirdest item seen on a menu: foal
Europe's most popular food, and the most readily-available in every city I've visited: doner kebab
Favorite kebab-stand name: Kebabistan (in Copenhagen)
Second-favorite: Ali Kebab . . . or maybe it was Ali Kebaba (Zurich)
Favorite typo on English sign in restaurant: "menü's" (the rare misplaced-umlaut AND apostrophe double whammy!)
Historic Munich beer halls/gardens patronized: 4
Drinks consumed, aside from beer, that I had not had before: 4 (Old Fashioned, Manhattan, Sazerac, Havana Club rum)
Status of my mother's eyebrows after reading those last two items: arched in alarm
Number of said drinks that were consumed mostly because of the intrigue of imbibing something that is probably illegal in my homeland: 1 (Havana Club, presumably from Cuba; Lee, a bartender, had not heard of it.)
Minimum number of one-line in-jokes that Lee and I established, and which are Very Funny if you know the full context and back history: 4
List of said in-jokes: "the contessa"; "African click language"; "narrative!"; "yeah, we're famous."
Minimum number of instant crushes developed on women on bikes: 138
Number of said women who have spotted me, swooned, and nearly plowed into a canal/windmill/castle/Rodin statue, only to be saved by yours truly at the last minute: ... zero
Number of said women who have even made eye contact: zero
Eccentric pink-fluffy-bathrobe-wearing women approached by in Zurich park, with request for a kiss: 1
Headwear of said woman: plush flower pot hat
Minimum number of cats we were guessing she owned when we first spotted her: 20
Our reaction as she approached us: "It's about a 20-foot drop down this cliff. We can probably make it with minimal injury."
Level of our relief when we discovered that she was basically normal, that the outfit and kiss request were part of a bachelorette party hazing ritual, and that she did not reek of cat urine: palpable
Kisses granted: 4 (2 per cheek from each of us)
Comment to her friends for picking outfit that was just weird enough to be humiliating but plausible (and therefore more embarassing than, say, a tutu): Well done.
Swiss celebrities I can name: Roger Federer (the tennis player)
His native language, to the best of my knowledge: French
Language I assumed they spoke in Zurich, based in this information and Arthur's lack of comments to the contrary: French
Language they actually speak: German with random French and English touches, just to confuse you

The neighborhood that tourists forgot

Arthur divides the entertainment section of the Munich chapter into three sections: "for dancing," "for Bohemianism," and "for theatre."

The dance hall, which Arthur recommends "for shy bachelors," was closed, alas--it's now a furniture store. The bar next door, though, offered something for shy bachelors of a type the "girl-watching"-obsessed Mr. Frommer probably didn't have in mind. It's a bondage bar. I'm sure it would have been a cultural experience in all kinds of ways ... but I decided to give it a pass and move on to see what the Bohemians were up to.

These spots were all clustered in the northern part of town, away from the tourist center. The neighborhood is called Schwabing, and Arthur describes it as "the Greenwich Village are a of Munich ... in some respects, it's zanier and more colorful than anything New York offers."

I'll have to research this further, but my hunch is that post-E5D, Schwabing became a bit touristy. It's near the university--always a draw for young travelers--and about a 20 minute walk from the town center. And if Arthur sent the tourists there, they probably went.

Now, though, Schwabing is that rarest of finds: the place that was likely more touristy in Arthur's day, relative to other parts of the city, than it is today. I walked for blocks and blocks, on side streets and the main drag, and didn't hear English spoken once. There were bistros and hip record stores, guys on skateboards, teenagers doing parkour stunts in a plaza by the U-bahn station, and a cluster of old men playing chess on a massive board, with three-foot-high pieces, in an agreeably overgrown park. No t-shirt stores. No guitarists mangling pop songs in hopes of a few tips. It was utterly beguiling.

On Occam Strasse, I searched for restaurants Arthur recommends, and found none. But the street and the neighborhood were just as he'd promised: quiet, funky, hip, Greenwich Village-like.

I sat on a bench in a lush pocket park and pondered how it is that Schwabing retained--or reclaimed--its charm since the 1960s, avoiding being overrun with tourists and the attendant kitsch. I think I figured it out.

One word, a word that is major tourist bait: Oktoberfest.

Maybe you've heard of it. Little festival involving beer and drinking songs and men in lederhosen and women in drindls and beer and pretzels and schnitzel. And beer. As mentioned in the last post, this is why people come to Munich: for beer with a history chaser.

We'll be missing it by a few days, but the shops are filled with t-shirts and beer steins; the beer gardens and roller coasters (!) are being set up a few blocks from our hostel; the air is filled with the buzz of frantic preparation. They get six to seven million tourists every year for this thing. It's huge.

My theory is that Oktoberfest has permanently shifted Munich's tourism center of gravity to the areas around the train station and just to the south.

Oktoberfest started in 1818, so I know it was going on in the 1950s, but Arthur doesn't mention it. My guess (which I'll have to fact-check) is that it just wasn't a touristy thing back then. Probably only locals, or at least only Germans. At some point in the last 45-plus years, though, foreigners started deciding that passing out in gutters was a fun thing to do in one's leisure time, and Oktoberfest became what it is today: Germany by way of Disney by way of Vegas.

Tourists now stick to the south part of town, where there's plenty of beer to keep them occupied. Schwabing remains, or has become again, a placid-but-funky neighborhood.

So thank you, Arthur, for leading me away from the crowds. That's exactly the sort of unexpected delight that I hoped to find by using your outdated information.

Zurich on ... a lot of money a day

Lee: Maybe I can do a post about what you can get in Zurich for $5 a day now.

Doug: Nothing?

Lee: Absolutely fucking nothing. They would give you a haughty Franco-German laugh, in whatever language they speak here. They'd laugh at you in three languages, all of them official.

Seriously, Zurich: $6 for a Carlsburg? $15 for a Manhattan? (That's right, we drink classy drinks. We're classy men. Citizens of the world and all.)

* * *

Special bonus quote from Lee, as he's preparing for bed:
L: Aw, sweet!

D: What?

L: Want a free stay in this hotel?

D: Sure.

L: Here, drink from this glass. It's got a chip in the rim. Drink right here. [Points to chip.]

D: Um . . .

L: You can sue them. You'll be able to stay free whenever you want. That's the only way you could afford to stay here.

D: Um . . .

L: It's the American way: affordability through litigation. It might be the only way we get out of here without going bankrupt.