Rainy Tourism

Amsterdam is obviously a very popular tourist definition. As Bill O’Reilly has said, it’s Disneyworld for “those people.”

(I should probably italicize that to represent Bill’s scorn toward those who would rather visit a city that is notorious for its decriminalized prostitution and marijuana than a children friendly corporate creation: it’s Disneyworld for those people)

Given my city’s popularity, I’ve been inundated with couchsurfing requests since I changed my address from Albuquerque to Amsterdam. I initially agreed to host Ana earlier this week, a pair of travelers a week later, and another traveler a few weeks from now, as well as my friend Lucien from the U.S. in between. So I decided to decline the fifteen or so other requests I’ve received in a week.

However, Caro, a woman from Germany traveling with her friend Mathius, responded to my rejection by begging and writing charming follow-up emails. I liked the persistence, so I agreed to host them from their arrival on Friday at 6am to their departure on Sunday at 11pm.

They turned out to be very fun people to host. Unfortunately for them, their visit has been marred by some pretty hellacious weather. They wanted very badly to do two things last night: visit the Red Light District, and go to the Paradiso dance club (a famous club in Amsterdam that is situated in an old cathedral). The rains came and went during the daytime, with clouds moving quickly above the city and briefly dumping misty showers. But things really took a turn for the worse around 7pm. The temperatures fell well below 60 degrees – perhaps even below 50 – the rain fell harder, and the winds began gusting. It felt like one of those rare cold, damp days in a Phoenix winter that would dump snow on the Superstition Mountains outside of the city.

We managed to walk around the Red Light District and see many prostitutes only feet away behind their windows (and, in fact, one had her window/door open) while we huddled under our umbrellas and danced around two-inch deep puddles of water. But the winds were so bad that we were occasionally pulled in the air like Marry Poppins, and our umbrellas broke in places. It felt like the type of North Sea rage I picture when reading Beowulf or Hamlet, and it was bad enough to elicit a lot of Masato-like “what a fuck”s from Mathius. Ultimately, it exhausted, depressed, and discouraged us from making it to the dance club. We eventually retreated back to my apartment via cab instead.

This picture was taken before our extended trudgings through the rain. Hopefully Caro and Mathius enjoyed their stay despite the cold wetness. It did make me wonder how many well planned and eagerly anticipated vacations to Amsterdam are fouled by lousy weather.