I Looked To My Right And Saw A Naked Woman Standing In The Window

Since Amsterdam, located in The Netherlands, is only a 4 hour train ride from my new abode in Germany, and my birthday is approaching, I decided to visit for 3 days and 2 nights.

I just returned last night and my mind is still processing all that I saw.

A few weeks ago, I watched a documentary on www.arte.tv about mass tourism in what's known as "the Red Light District".

I wanted to watch it since I knew I was going to Amsterdam soon, but I chose it mainly as an interesting way to practice listening to German since over half of it is in German.

Of course I'd heard of the Red Light District before the documentary. I'd also heard of cannabis coffee shops galore, the Van Gogh museum, the canals and colorful houses.

I was excited to see them all for myself after 3 decades of waiting.

The canals and houses, including house boats, were all prettier than I expected.

I imagined Amsterdam to be like Venice, but it wasn't. It was more spacious and had a French, not Italian, flair to it.

There were waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more bicycles than I ever imagined there would be in any city, but especially a large, urban one.

You have to be very careful where you walk because the lanes for bicycles are also for scooters and motorcycles. The cyclists go fast too!

There are hoards of them.

Some have this wheel barrow looking thing on the front as well where I saw children, pets and random items stowed.

Coming from the U.S., I was really surprised to see only ONE person on a bike wearing a helmet. I know that I came across at least 200 people on bikes over the course of 3 days.

I didn't see any accidents, which is good, but it still made me nervous to see so many people on bicycles, even sitting on the front handlebars or riding on the back of the bike, without any helmets, in the midst of heavy traffic.

The wide variety of amazing food options- in restaurants, cafes, supermarkets and even fast/junk food places- was incredible too.

Oh the chocolate….my knees went weak when I tasted Dutch chocolate, but this box of Belgium pralines was the best chocolate I've ever had the honor of tasting. They were simply sitting, unassumingly, on the top shelf in the chocolate section of a supermarket.

On my third and final day in Amsterdam, I decided to go to the lovely Vondelpark. To have a large, spacious and beautiful park, with multiple water fountains, like that in the middle of a city is fantastic!

It was also unusually warm and sunny yesterday, which was an unexpectedly delightful treat to the usual cloudy autumn weather in this part of Europe these days.

As my boyfriend and I made our way to the train station in the afternoon, our heads were swimming with all the things we wanted to do the next time we visit Amsterdam.

That will not be until the coronavirus cases are consistently low again.

There were very few people wearing masks, despite the sharp increase in cases the past couple of weeks. They're not required anywhere- indoors nor outdoors. We still wore our masks while indoors. They were only required on the train.

Like I said in the beginning, I'd heard of the Red Light District. I'd just watched that documentary about it.

However, it still shocked the hell out of me to walk down the street in broad daylight, turn to look at a store window and see a woman completely naked.

In the above photo, on the left, are the buildings with naked women standing in the windows.

I am very comfortable with nudity and do not look down on sex-workers, but seeing live naked women, not mannequins or photos of naked women, threw me for a loop.

I didn't stare, but I did look, and nodded politely toward them, which a couple of them acknowledged with a slight nod and smile. I passed about 4 or 5 of them in total.

One was on the second floor. She was was standing and had the boldest pose of them all, in terms of showing a lot of her body. The ones of the ground floor did have some lingerie on.

It got me to thinking more about sex work and the reality of it- what it's really like for the women who work in places like these, particularly in Amsterdam since it is openly legal.

However, the extremely high amount of tourism, for various reasons, creates unique situations for those who live and work there- in any industry. The documentary that I mentioned in the beginning of this piece goes into this a bit. I plan to do my own research into it as well.

From what I've learned so far, the majority of women who prostitute in Amsterdam do it because they make a large sum of money with only a few skills. At what cost though?

Also, I'm curious to find out more about the reality of sex trafficking in Amsterdam.

It is all quite a juxtaposition for me that I wish to explore further.