Amsterdam’s Plea to Tourists: Visit, but Please Behave Yourselves

Don't know if I can do that??!! ;-)

I was there once... and I have to admit, I didn't behave normally. But, in my own defense, there was a really REALLY good reason for that.

I was with a group of friends, who were intent upon drinking and having a wonderful time... Drinking has never been a 'thing' for me. I'm one of those people who cannot mistakenly drink mouthwash without giggling... I have zero tolerance for alcohol, and being the person I am, I was pretty dang sure that stupidity would soon follow if I did, so I parted ways with the group, and I started to head back to the hotel. My mindset was shopping to get something for my nieces back in San Antonio, maybe something to eat, and a nice comfortable night of sleep, after which I could sneer at my friends as they moaned and groaned about hangovers. That was the plan. I should insert in here, if you have a a plan, you actually need to have some information to back that plan up.

The moral of this story, is that, when you do the right thing for the right reasons, you might want to ask someone in your group, exactly what the name of the hotel was, and just how you get back there, before you turn your back on them.

Amsterdam was a reasonably well-behaved place at the time, and I truly am thankful, because I was wandering thru their red-light district, trying to figure out exactly how to ask someone how an idiot tourist who had no idea what the freaking name of her hotel was, and more to the point, exactly how does one ask how to find something they can't name in the first place?

Four hour later, I found a couple of amused police, who stared blankly at me for several seconds before doing the laughing, holding onto each other and wiping eyes filled with mirth at one point. I was not that amused, but they did find out the hotel I was staying at, and forever put my natural stupidity into the halls of the infamous, by escorting me to the hotel at dawn, as my drunken friends were stumbling in.

"The cops brought you home?" someone laughed, "What the hell did you do?" I was about to tell them when one of the cops leaned over, put a fatherly arm over my shoulders and held up a stern finger, "No more Harvey Wallbangers, for you.... we don't like spending nights chasing Americans...."

"You ran from the Police?" Someone asked, and the policeman gave a sad sigh, "It was more like us running from her, she is tiny but she is a mean drunk!"

And there you have it. The story of how I got a name for getting drunk, and annoying fatherly policeman in Amsterdam, while wandering thru the Red Light District on my own, and yes, apparently I was just that stupid, and seriously lucky to meet good people that night.