The Yellow Car Prostitutes

During the Carnaval vacations, I went to Amsterdam with a friend and her family. Typically, I'm not a fan of large cities, but Amsterdam proved to be an exception. I'm not a hipster, but if I were, Amsterdam would be my heaven-- bikes everywhere, weed and magic mushrooms in every other shop, and thrift stores all over the place. 

Perhaps being the offspring of two hippies gives me an automatic liking for these types of things. DNA, baby. 

We started the three day vacation by visiting Anne Frank's house. I've read the book and done my own research (I have a sick fascination for the Holocaust and Anne Frank), but this visit proved to be more informative than anything Google or Wikipedia has ever offered me on the subject. Seeing the pictures she'd put on the walls to liven up the place and the emotional pages of her original journal was a powerful experience that made everything seem so much more real.

We visited two museums. One, of course, being the Van Gogh museum. Being surrounded by his artwork made me overly giddy. Pointillism for the win.

After exploring the city and taking a boat tour (during which we saw one of the narrowest houses in the world), we spent a portion of the night doing some prostitute window shopping in the Red Light District.  Originally, I expected a small street of girls behind lit up windows, but the district is actually quite huge. There are streets of girls, followed by a couple of blocks of sex shops and adult theatres, then a few more blocks of girls, and so on. Obviously, the prostitution business in Amsterdam is nothing like it is in the United States, but, even so, I didn't expect the rooms and the girls to appear to be so clean. Please notice I said "appear." I have absolutely no idea what the actual level of cleanliness is. Surely it can't be too awfully high.

I'm sure a large majority of you are wondering, "Cayenne, did you smoke some weed?" The answer is no. I apologize if I disappointed you by going to the "weed capital of the world" and not consuming cannabis. However, I did purchase some weed-flavored products. Yes, suckers are one of those products. And what surprisingly delicious suckers they are! THC free, too, though I recall laughing a bit more than normal while ingesting the goodness....

Holy Saints of Mystical Muffins, the Girl's Alive

I'm reintroducing bubble baths into my life. When I was younger, I preformed the greatest science experiments in the bath tub. About the time I was in fourth grade, I developed the opinion of "baths are for babies." The younger we are, the older we want to be. Less than a year from legal adulthood, I'm proud to say that I've rediscovered the happiness of bath time.

I spent last week in Paris with my school. These are the three things I think of (apart from the much earned reputation of the rude Parisians) when I reflect back on my time there:

     1. Romeo and Juliette. In a tiny, over-heated theatre, we watched a group of young actors preform the famous Shakespeare play. I've seen quite a few plays before, but this one, in my personal opinion, was the most stunning of them all. The enthusiastic energy of the actors, the haunting tones of the music, the slight pain I felt in my heart when it was over.... It was perfection.

     2. The Eiffel Tower. For most people, this is an expected favorite. I, however, was quite surprised by the legitimate beauty of the structure. Back when I'd only seen it in pictures, I never understood why people always talk about how magnificent it is. After all, it's just a load of industrial metal, no? I'm going to give the rest of the world a bit of credit and say that the Eiffel Tower is, indeed, breathtaking.

     3. Vomit and mafia. After resting on a low wall for a while, I decided it was time to get up and let my feet die a little more (we did a lot of walking). The very moment that I stood up, a boy I go to school with walked in front of me and spewed his lunch all over the place. It's been a little too long since I've been on YouTube with my cousin, so my tolerance for vomit isn't necessarily at its peak. I grabbed my friend and walked over to a seemingly safe area. It was there that a man of bizarre character approached us with a piece of paper. We waved him off, but he was persistent, and started throwing in lip-to-paper gestures. After a long period of said persistence, he finally left. Immediately after, a couple of friends came up and asked me, "Cayenne, why were you just talking to the mafia?" And there you have it, people. I've directly spoken to the mafia without knowing.