Drifter's Memoirs

Tags: travel memoirs pictures
Europe
humor
life
Holland
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Netherlands

Can you believe I found myself in Amsterdam, Holland at the age of 20 years old in 1982? Who would have ever thought that the girl from Richmond, California would find herself in Holland?

This was a big time party place. At times, Holland was a little frightening. Thank goodness we always were in a group of six or more people whenever we traveled abroad.

We went to a place called the Flora Palace and danced like we had lost our minds. This is one place we had to be very careful. Drugs were legal and used in public places.

Can you imagine dancing in a night club and finding yourself around drugs? This wasn't cool. We ran out of a night club when we discovered that there were drugs around us. You won't believe what type of club we ended up in that evening.

For the first time in Europe, we heard Reggae music coming out of this spectacular night club. We walked in and discovered that it was a Rastafarian Night Club. Would you believe that this was the one club where we didn't see or smell drugs? The people were extremely friendly and gave us free drinks when they found out we were Americans. We danced to Reggae music until almost daylight. We had a ball.

The next day, we took the traditional trip on our tour bus to downtown Amsterdam. We saw the Red Light District and visited every shop we could find.

We stopped by one store and everything in it was red and black. Black pants, red pants, black tops, red tops, you get the message. The store next door only had black and white clothes. We so much fun and we all left looking like the bopsie twins. Madonna was really big during this time (1982) and everything we bought was made out of lace.

Holland was a beautiful place. The canals and tulips is what I enjoyed the most. For some reason, I can't remember all of the attractions I saw there. Too much time has passed and we were only there for a short period of time. The below pictures will give you an idea of the type of sights I saw while I was there. Just remember, we had a great time and the Dutch really knew how to party.