going Dutch

The streets of Amsterdam are packed with tourists despite the persistent rain. I pull my hood up and wonder if my white coat glows in the December darkness, just like the scant underwear of the lady of the night in the window next to me. I'm almost pressed up against her window, illuminated by a soft red light, by a rowdy stag party making flirty gestures at her but I seem to be invisible. The Red Light District, with its faint scent of weed in the air, has a strange effect on everyone.

We take one of the last canal boat tours of the evening and the cheerful guide is clearly longing to go home. I sit with my friends in the back of the boat, watching thousands of illuminated townhouse windows - without curtains, a Dutch thing - reflected in the black canal water. We laugh at a heron staring at us from his perch, make jokes with an Australian tourist and dream of the strawberry mojitos we are going to have when we step off the boat.

In the morning, we dawdle in the hotel courtyard, marvelling at the wild parrots shrieking at us from the trees. We also take our time in the breakfast room, stuffing ourselves with dark bread, yogurt, and croissants with Nutella underneath a large reproduction of Rembrandt's The Night Watch.

And we walk, walk and walk. Along pretty canals, in mild greyness, through crowded afternoon markets. Almost get run over by bicycles, many times. We attend a church service, talk to a cat and giggle with a wine shop owner who wants us to take him home.

Watching a gay couple try out leather harnesses in one of the sex shops or choosing among cannabis icecream cones doesn't even seem weird anymore after a day in Amsterdam.