Put On The Red Light

Eight years of doing this blog, approximately. Eight years, 1100 posts and at least 10 hoodies, and I'm actually losing followers. I'm down from 20 to 19.
Must be doing something right, or several things incorrectly.

I'm sitting on a circular tube filled with air and I don't want to talk about it.

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes! Amsterdam.

Visit the tawdry Red Light District, whispered of in parlors around the world. Behold the alluring sex workers as they beckon you to keep them warm for 15 minutes, for approximately 50 euro. Cheat on your wife or loved one with these unforgettable sirens as they glow azure in the sheen of their red lights. 

The number of times to best visit the Red Light District, for me, is as many times as there are days.
Mathematically, that looks like this, presuming we're solving x as 'number of red light district visits', and d as 'number of days in Amsterdam':
x ≥ d
So, that's solved. 
If I was some romantic Mr. Ripley type, just visiting Amsterdam for a sojourn of some kind, I'd take a wander through there at least once a day, I'm sure. 
And why not? I appreciate that no one likes a window shopper, but you just can't find these wares at home. 
I didn't mean to call the sex workers 'wares', but here we are. 
And there we were, hand-in-hand and dazzled, exploring these cobbled streets, bestrewn with their bridges. 
"Have we been down this one yet?" we'd ask one another about this alley or that avenue. 
"Fuck it, couldn't hurt look again," was the general response. 
Anyone looking for context who hasn't been there, there are about one or two hundred ladies on display, depending on the evening, distributed among several streets over a many-block radius. 
None of them are naked, but all of them are in lingere or underwear. I'd love to show you pictures, but the snappy snappy is very not allowed there, and they won't hesitate to bang on their windows to let you know this. 
There are bars and places that sell condoms shaped like little men and there are pizzeries, and the girls are among these usual distractions, pulling their curtains back as early as 7pm or so. 
All of them are beautiful (given your tastes, that is) and enticing. 
Were I ever there as a single man, I'd probably have partaken by now. Perhaps. It's also possible that I'd be too afraid to come knockin'.
For example, one larger black lady was very keen to speak with me, and I didn't do that. 
Now, if you linger they will sometimes pounce with beckonings, as I referred to earlier, but this was different. This woman wanted to get my attention. Me specifically. Paul Warford. 
She did it each time I walked by, which was more than once because we couldn't keep track of what streets we'd already been through. 
I may have approached her if I wasn't so high, but probably not. I assume it had something to do with my hair. I know I know, you Christians, assuming a black lady wants to talk with an afro'd guy is racist blah blah. I'm familiar with the lingo. I'd counter this by asking what other possible reason could there be for a Dutch prostitute wanting to have a conversation with me. I'm open to any suggested interpretations. 
We were too high, though. Way too high for such a street. Surely, there's a 'just high enough' to be for the red light district, but Andie and I seemed to have a tendency of overshooting that by a yard or two. 
It was usually my bright idea to stop by a coffee shop in the area just before getting started. 
This is all well and good if you just wish to ogle. Marijuana, as you likely don't need me to tell you, is great for ogling. 
It's when you have to start interacting that things can become complicated. 
Interactions like seeing what the prostitute wanted with me, for example. 
Or, asking the bald gentlemen how much the sex show is, and what it entails exactly. These questions can be very complicated if precaution isn't taken. 
While walking by one of the venues, the guy said (to no one in particular), "C'mon everyone. It's pussy time."
I loved it because he sounded as authentic as the women were (also explained in that earlier post), and I was tickled by that. It didn't sound dirty when he said it, despite what he said. Perhaps that's because he was right: it was pussy time. 
It's pussy time for him right now, at this minute while I write this. What a job. 
What a job it must be to see stoned tourists chicken out several times in one evening. I know that we did that because I have vague recollections of it happening. 
We had a tough time landing on one to drop into, first of all, since they all looked the same and we didn't discuss specifically what it was that we wanted to see or not see. I recommend doing this if traveling as a couple. Unless you avoid getting totally blasted because then you can just have that discussion whenever you want on the street. 
Not the case for us, though, so we took turns getting too nervous. Andie did try doing the talking once or twice, but then we started getting squirrelly on the price. 30 Euro each? That's like, fifty bucks. Do we want to spend that on something when we don't know what it is? 
Besides, call me old-fashioned, but some things, though novel, I may not want to see. Watching a woman try to hit me in the face using only her vagina and a ping pong ball might be memorable, but 50 bucks? Not even if we got to play actual ping pong afterward would I do that. And I love ping pong. 
Table tennis.
However, and again, this may be my age talking, but watching two oiled women give each other a massage etc. etc. may be worth the bother. 
Hardly matters when you're too high to go to the bathroom though, does it?
I can't remember if it was night one or night two, but I wanted to stop in to drink or smoke or both somewhere on the street, and we ended up in the backyard of this place. 
It was a bit cramped and very full inside, and that was a bit too much at the time, so we stayed out. 
However, some British asshole was properly pissed, and he was causing a real ruckus that appeared to be getting heated. 
So, I suggested we go back inside because we were only a table away and I was becoming frightened. 
While walking back through the bar, I accidentally walked into a man, bounced off of him, and stumbled into another man who ended up being a machine that dispensed small cans of Pringles. 
We weren't great at blending in, either of us. 
I believe I mentioned Andie's incognito in Amsterdam style, which she also wore in the district. 
We must've been something to see, this pale white duo of clearly frightened tourists who couldn't even go inside any of the naughty bit shows. She in a trench coat and he colliding with vending machines. Oh yes! We were a couple of pigeons, alright. 
However, we enjoyed the swans. 
What a bizarre area. I can't stress it enough. This swan is in front of one of the larger sex show establishments, and though you can't see it in the snap, there's a guy urinating within a specially-designed cylinder about three feet to my right. 

I eventually used one of the cylinders because when in Rome and you have to pee, or however that goes...
We saw a sadder sight the following evening out in the canal when Andie pointed out that, "Oh, it's a dead swan":

"The b'ys should really fish those out," I replied. 
"No wait, it's a bag." It's always a bag with us. 
On the third night, we had it all figured out. 
No joints! No joints just yet. Let's experience some debauchery while we're clear-headed enough to appreciate it, and then we can complicate what remains of the evening after that. 
Evening three we kept another important red light district tip in mind (and this is sort of a real one): dress up. 
You can't walk around a beautiful city while appreciating beautiful sex workers while wearing some ratty sweater you've been sweating in all day with stained jeans. Well, you can, but after two nights of that I realized that it just doesn't feel right. 
Put on a slinky dress. Put on a shirt you'd wear to the bar. Treat it like a bit of an event because if you have a stamped passport, it is. 
Third day we switched and I wore the coat. I felt queerly confident in it. I was ready to take the strip on by the third night:

I even asked the alluring waitress whether or not there were any comedy rooms in the city to jump on. I needed a couple of days before asking that. The (illusion) of comfort's gotta be there. 
We went to the same district restaurant two of the three nights. It may have been called Italia. Wait, lemme see if I can find it. 
Here it is! Caffe Italia! I recommend this place, and not just because of the alluring waitress. 
She was a real charmer, though. She served us both nights, and while paying I asked about the comedy room. 
I said, "Umm," and she replied, "Yes, tell me. Let me help you," and that was really sexy. I have no idea why. I suppose because she legitimately wanted to help us out, and I like it when people take care of me. She knew I had a question and she couldn't wait to hear it--that's really what it seemed like. Notice the wording of her response. I specifically wrote it down. 
When we were leaving I wanted to tell her that I thought she was very beautiful, but you don't need to go telling waitresses that; it weirds them out. Especially when you're with your fiance. 
Anyway, clear-eyed, where are we going?
I suggest the strip club because that's nice and straightforward, no ping pong balls, and you sort of decide what you want to spend. 
Unless you get drinks, of course, and then you're about 30 Euro in before you've even taken a seat. 
When in Rome, spend what the Romans spend. 
It was a great strip club, though, despite the lack of space, and Andie and I gave one girl a really admiring back rub (don't ask). 
On top of that, we made a friend while we were in there. 

This is Rob. Rob is divorced and British and that's about all we got from the conversation because he was hammered and he was from somewhere that has an accent you can really sink your teeth into. He may have said the north somewhere. 
So, there you go! Everyone got something they wanted. We didn't see the 'banana show', but we're not ashamed of that at all. 
We saw the Amsterdam that was tailored for us, and I suggest that someday you do the same.