Amsterdam revisited - Part I

I got my first passport in 1991 for a trip to Aruba. Yes, I know hamsters don't normally live this long - but I know of a zebra finch currently in its 8th year, so anything is possible. I didn't need the passport for Aruba, but it was a good occasion to have one (now Americans need passports to go anywhere - like everyone else - rightly so!). My friend John and I were told how friendly and beautiful the Arubans would be by our travel agent Debbie, who seemed to go into a trance when reminiscing about her trip to the island. We guessed the locals were really friendly and really beautiful. She exaggerated. People were friendly enough and lovely enough, I guess I didn't meet the same people Debbie did. Aruba wasn't really lush and green - the beach was lovely, water clear blue, it was windy. I loved the food, and......actually, I'm completely digressing. I had no intention of writing about Aruba at all - you've probably already been there! How this started is I noted the Dutch architecture of some hotels, and in the capital Oranjestad, and it made me think of seeing the real thing: Amsterdam! With my new passport it seemed the likely place to go next. I returned to New York I went back to Debbie the travel agent who was pleased by my good reports of a great stay on Aruba. I gave her updates about the hotel, beaches and shops for her future clients to benefit from. She was disappointed I hadn't met Paulo the waiter, or Derk the concierge at the Palm Beach Resort. I'm not sure why. We started planning my trip to Amsterdam! Lucky Hamster I, the flights were confirmed on standby via the friends/family program of my friend Patrick, a reservationist with Air Canada. We would be flying on Martinair, a Dutch airline. Sounded perfect, arriving in Holland on a Dutch airline. The vacation would begin in the sky (clearly I was dreaming - we all know planes are busses in the sky). The fantasizing travel agent wanted Pat and me to stay at Hotel Pulitzer. Indeed it is an amazingly luxe hotel. I promptly went to check it out online before discovering the internet didn't really exist yet - I'm always getting ahead of myself. I had to wait for mail from the tourist board with a brochure of hotels. After much thought and weighing possibilities - exhausting Debbie who asked me to come back when I was ready for Curacao - I selected Hotel Vijaya in the heart of the red light district. It's a Dutch/Indian owned hotel I discovered. I regret choosing it only for the name - people tended to snicker when I told them where I was staying. And this was years before the word vijayjay had been coined on Oprah or Tyra (or was it The View?). Hotel booked, and flight on standby I needed only to wait for summer to end before my September trip commenced. In the meantime, I was enlightened by other hamsters who'd already been to Amsterdam about all the fun I would have: the great sex waiting for me, the drugs, the cool music, the sex, the sex, the drugs.....Not to sound naive, but I really planned this because of the architecture, and museums. I'd read The Embarrassment of Riches. I wasn't going for sex, drugs, and rock and roll - wasn't I already living in New Jersey? I don't even do drugs, although the other two....Needless to say, by end of summer, I was as randy as half the others boarding this Dutch flying bus to Amsterdam.