We had plenty of down time while we weren’t playing games during the tournament. Chris and I became friends with two players from Minnesota that were also friends and played together in their home state. Tom was a scary looking guy. About 6 foot 4 inches tall with long hair and a long beard. He looked like Jesus Christ. One hell of a hockey player though, he was about 40 years old and fun to play with. Steve was about the same age and more of a dry Midwestern kind of guy with a nasty temper on the ice. Two guys you were glad that they were on your team. Chris and I hung out with them a lot during our down time and subsequently got into some really interesting situations. Our first trip, into Amsterdam, was very eventful. A mandatory visit to the Red Light District was crazy! Countless tiny streets of red neon trimmed windows, each with a different themed prostitute inside depending on which street you wandered down. We didn’t dare indulge in the festivities of course being the married men that we were, not Chris though. He was single and a bit of a wild child. He took up a conversation with a pretty young Russian girl who invited us into her “Domicile”. A scant room with a small bed, sitting area and a wash area. What a way to make a living. We would wander around and catch up with Chris a little later. We strolled past the multitudes of foreign sailors and soldiers that indulged themselves with the girls of their dreams. I guess. Our next stop was the Anne Frank house. Blew me away. What was so interesting was the fact that there was really nothing interesting about it. Aside from the way the house was disguised inside to hide Anne and her family from the Germans, there was nothing unique to the fact that a normal family was living in a normal house that was decorated like houses that I had been in back in the day. Like an old Frankford rowhouse. I couldn’t comprehend that the atrocities that happened to Anne and her family and millions of others at the hands of the Nazis, could happen only like 50 years prior. When I walked through, I felt like I could have been in my grandmothers house. Anne’s room had pictures of American celebrities I knew well of and newspaper clippings of current events thumbtacked to the walls. A normal teen bedroom. It sickened me to think about what happened there. A must visit and experience if you are ever in Amsterdam.
The next and final stop for the boys was a small bar in town. Marijuana is legal there and you just need to be inside the bars to partake. They literally bring over a tray with a selection of different strains to choose from. Not my cup of tea. After grabbing a Coke , I watched two young American guys next to us blabber incoherently figuring how they would be able to persuade their parents to let them remain in Holland, legally and constantly inebriated. Pretty funny. I excused myself. I made my way down a tiny side street, exploring the area. The streets were so narrow there. So old. Brick and stone paved, only bicycles could make there way through. And there were zillions of bikes everywhere! Just sitting parked everywhere. All along the canals of Amsterdam, on the bridges, lined up along the sidewalks, everywhere. I came upon a tiny shop on one of the streets near the bar. A beautiful blond Danish woman was behind a glass counter/ case. The place was maybe ten feet wide. The case held several trays of hot food and assorted salads. You picked what you wanted and she doled it out to go in plastic containers. There was no kitchen. That was upstairs. Her daughter would send down more food as she needed it on a dumbwaiter. Business was brisk. She spoke excellent English and we had a great conversation about her business, family and my trip there. There was one small table and I had a great lunch as well as three servings of the best Chocolate Mousse I ever had! And those guys just got drunk and high. Ha!
Next up: One More Adventure