Red lights (2022)

It was a Tuesday morning in Amsterdam, and the bus ride was quite enjoyable, because we got to see big parts of the city. The sun was shining, and there were so many people who were on their way to work and school, so the streets were full, and there were people bicycling every where. (And no wonder people were bicycling, because the ground was flat wherever you looked).

I found it quite charming watching so many people bicycling to work, school, or to drop off their kids at kindergarten.

When we arrived at the bus station one hour later, Google maps told us that our hotel was supposed to be almost around the corner. Turns out our hotel was actually a 20 minute walk away, but luckily we didn't have that much heavy luggage, so we decided to walk over there.

On our walk, we were on the lookout for a store so that my friend could buy a pack of cigarettes, and so that I could buy some groceries. Unfortunately, we didn't cross one single store, and according to Google maps, there were no stores in the area where we were going to stay?

As we approached our hotel, we were a tiny bit confused, because our hotel had the appearance of a business hotel, and its location and surroundings didn't quite match the description fully. According to the travel company, our hotel was supposed to be very central to the city.

When we walked into the lobby, there was a long line of people who were waiting to check out, buy water or order food from the minibar/restaurant. And there was only one person there because they were short-staffed.

Eventually, after waiting for quite some time, it was our turn, and we asked the hotel receptionist when we could check in. She answered that we could check in at 15:00 pm, and our current time was only 11:00 am.

My friend and I asked if we could leave our luggage in the luggage room while we were waiting to check in, and luckily that was okay.

Before we walked out of the lobby, I decided to change my pants into shorts, because it was really hot outside. The temperature was already around 25 Celsius, and I knew I was going to become hot and grumpy if I didn't change clothes.

As we started walking, the sun was shining heavily, and we quickly got hot. According to Google Maps (again), there was supposed to be a café somewhere "around the corner". In fact, according to Google Maps, there was supposed to be SEVERAL restaurants and cafés nearby.

Me and my friend had been walking for around 30 minutes, and I was starting to get really pissed off because my thighs were chafing, and my temper also gets triggered when I'm hot.

Google Maps had led us to a big park dog park, and we were so confused to as where we were headed. Google Maps kept telling us to continue into the direction that we were headed, and after 10 more minutes, we were walking past an international school yard, completely confused about our surroundings.

But Google Maps kept telling us to walk two more minutes, and then we would reach our destination.

When we finally arrived (after 40 minutes of walking). We were standing in some type of industrial area with several warehouse's next to each other. Where the actual fuck were we?? Haha.

We looked at one of the warehouse's, and there it was... A sign that had the exact same name as the café that we were currently looking at on Google Maps. The only difference was; there was no café!! It was only a warehouse with storage for the products of the café.

How fucking misleading and ridiculous. The café even had a coffee pin on Google maps!!

Me and my friend looked at each other in despair, while we were both simultaneously cursing and being dramatic. Then we eventually burst into laughter because the whole situation was so ridiculous.

We turned around and started our walk back to the hotel. None of the other restaurants and café 's were to be seen on our way home, and the sun actually disappeared behind big gray clouds. Halfway to our hotel, it started raining a bit, and the wind was getting stronger. And mind you, I was still wearing shorts and a white tank top, so this wasn't really a cheerful moment either.

At this point, me and my friend were starting to get tired of walking. (After all, we had been walking for almost two hours in a short amount of time).

When we finally arrived at the hotel again, the time was 12:30 pm, and we were starting to get really hungry, because we hadn't eaten anything since 05:00 am in the morning.

We looked at the menu from the hotel mini bar/restaurant, but eventually realized that they were still short-staffed, and that it wasn't possible to order food any time soon.

Right next to our hotel, a new Burger King was opening, but of course they didn't open until 14:00 pm on that specific day, because of construction work. (This was starting to feel a bit personal against me and my friend). Like, what are the odds? Haha.

After one more hour of dreadful waiting in the lobby, the time was finally 14:00 pm, and we entered Burger King. We politely ordered our food, but the staff seemed to hate their jobs, and didn't enjoy the fact that we were ordering in English, so there were no smiles to be found - from any of them. Lovely!

When our food arrived they'd also forgotten our sauces and ketchup, which was quite annoying to be honest, because we had paid extra to get them.

After we had finished our meal, me and my friend was tired, and we wanted to go back to the hotel, so that we could check in, lay down in our hotel room, and take a nap. (We had only slept for around three hours the night before).

Finally, the time was 15:00 pm, so we collected our luggage, and went to our hotel room.

When we opened our hotel room, we were surprised (once again), to see that our hotel room only had one single room next to our bathroom. (And our bathroom looked like a white space rocket).

According to the hotel description, we were supposed to have two separate bedrooms inside our hotel room, and that was in fact not the case. Me and my friend looked at each other again, and burst into laughter, because what the actual fuck was going on? This day was starting to get out of hand.

We took a look at our bathroom, and turns out, our bathroom was actually a toilet and a shower COMBINED! HOW FREAKING LOVELY. So when we needed to use the toilet, we were actually simultaneously sitting INSIDE the shower. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!

After we had finished laughing and almost crying over the situation, I went over to the window, and pulled the curtains to the side, because I wanted to have a look at the lovely view that I was expecting to see. And LORD.. Let me tell you.. WHAT A FINE VIEW!! OH MY GOODNESS. ANOTHER INDUSTRIAL AREA WITH A PARKING LOT RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR WINDOW!!

Me and my friend looked at each other completely appalled and flabbergasted by our view. We quickly burst into tears of laughter, cause how the fuck was this actually happening?! HAHAHA.

After me and my friend had finished laughing, we took a power nap before going out for dinner.

We took the bus to Amsterdam Centraal around 7 pm. The sun was shining strongly at this time, and it was really hot outside! My friend was still on the lookout for cigarettes, but we couldn't find any stores who had normal cigarettes. Only "coffee shops" aka weed stores, lol!

After searching high and low with no luck for a good while, we sat down outside a restaurant to order dinner. I remember the sun was still shining so bright, directly at my face, to the point where it felt like my face was almost starting to melt because it was so warm. In others words: it had been a very long day. But.. The dinner was lovely!

After dinner, me and my friend was still on the lookout for cigarettes. Eventually, we found a store that was selling all kinds of cigarettes. Cigarettes with exotic flavors, mostly. But they were also selling super slim cigarettes.

Cigarettes that are considered "normal" here in Scandinavia (like Marlboro red, Marlboro fuze beyond and Prince), were much harder to find. But my friend was super excited and happy that we finally found a store, so she purchased the cigarette packages she found interesting.

On our way home, we stopped by at a grocery store to buy some extra water, snacks and toilet paper. The city had been flooded with people all evening, so we were looking forward to going back to our hotel.

When me and my friend arrived at the bus station by Amsterdam Centraal, my friend REAAALLY wanted to smoke her first cigarette. But she was unsure if it was allowed to smoke there, because the bus station was really fucking huge with tall glass ceilings. Technically we were still outside, but we were also inside, if that makes sense? She looked at the ground, trying to find traces of cigarette butts, but there were none. She was still contemplating if she could have her cigarette there, so I encouraged her to light it up, haha. It didn't take much convincing before she brought her lighter out, and lit her cigarette. A few seconds after she had inhaled her first cigarette in 3 months, I hear her saying:

« AHH!! That felt so fucking good!! » with a very smug smile on her face. HAHAHA. She was soo happy in that moment, that I started giggling. The sun was setting, so the sun was shining with a golden light behind her. She continued to inhale that cigarette like it was solving every problem in the world. All of the stress that we had encountered earlier that day, was now gone in a blink of an eye. It was a beautiful and epic moment to be honest.

After we had taken the bus back to our hotel, me and my friend sat on the outside for a while, before we went to bed.


Day 2.

Me and my friend were pretty beat that second day. It was very hot outside, and we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do.

There were some beaches or pools that we could go to, but they all required us taking the bus at least one hour each way. (And we were not in the mood for that). Eventually we just ended up staying inside our hotel room for the whole day, and then we ordered some food with Uber Eats around 4 pm.

Some hours later, we took the bus to Amsterdam city again, because we were planning to go to a rooftop bar called ' Sky bar '.

We had gotten all dressed up and ready for the night. Unfortunately, we didn't expect that so many others would share our interest in that particular sky bar, since there were plenty to choose from. So when we got there, we quickly realized that this was indeed a very popular bar! The line was filled with over 20 people (and the line wasn't moving).

Me and my friend stood in line for about 45 minutes, but we had barely moved any further in line, and they were only letting in one person at a time. The Sky bar was so full, that they were only letting one person in if another person was leaving Sky bar. In other words, if we had stayed in line, we'd might get in after waiting three more hours down the line, or we would not have gotten in, because of the insane amount of people.

And to top it off, I realized that I had forgotten my ID as well. (Yes, I still get asked to show my ID sometimes, even if the age limit it 20-21 years old, lol).

So around 9 pm we gave up, and decided to take a walk around the city. We were headed towards Red Light District. (This was not my first time walking the Red Light District, because I had visited Amsterdam once before, when I was 18 years old), but it was the first time for my friend.

We walked around for a while, and then we decided to go to Casa Rosso (an erotic theater aka live sex show).

This was something I had been wanting to experience since I was there the last time, (when I was 18 years old), but I didn't get the chance to, so I was really excited about this.

The show lasted for about two hours, and it was really entertaining! The theater was almost completely full of both women and men, (mostly women, actually), and there were a lot of friend groups and couples in the crowd as well.

The show involved couple performances with a story line or role play, solo performances, dancing, pole dance and other entertainment.

Several of the solo performances were actually pretty epic. One of them included a woman who was pole dancing with flames, and then she ended her performance by inserting a dildo (while she was standing up), and by lighting a flame to it.
So, the show did not disappoint.

I was a bit surprised, because I had expected to feel weird about the fact that real, actual human beings would perform live sex on stage, but in all honesty, it felt natural.

I mean, we all come into this world naked, right? And most of us have had intimate relationships with another human being. So watching others being intimate with each other, themselves, or having sex, didn't exactly shook us to our core. 

However, as the role play progressed during the performance, some of them ended up looking pretty much exactly like a hard core porn video at the end. So kudos to the actors for their hard work! Some of them really had an extreme workout up there! (The sweat was literally dripping down from their bodies).

After the show ended, me and my friend were just walking around in Amsterdam city for a while. We took some pictures, and then we found an Italian restaurant, that was still open, and was still serving food at 10:30 pm. Lucky us!

We stayed out for a while before we returned to our hotel and went to bed.

Day 3.

Me and my friend had planned in advance that this was going to be the night that we got in to Sky bar. So we dressed up, and went there EARLY. We arrived at Sky bar right before 8 pm, but I kid you not - once again, Sky Bar was completely full, and there was a line with over 20 people in it, again. Ahh!

So we waited.. And waited.. But my friend was starting to get hungry, because she hadn't eaten in many hours, so after we had stood in line for one hour, and only three people had gotten in, we called it quits.

So now, we were on a mission to find a restaurant that was located in the same area as the bar street that we were headed toward later, because we were planning on going out after dinner.

But we didn't realize how far we had to walk because ACCORDING TO GOOGLE MAPS, it said it would take about 12 minutes to walk, when in reality it took over 35 minutes.

Finally, when we had reached our destination by foot, we got to sit down to order food and drinks. We didn't have dinner before 10:30 pm (once again), haha.

When me and my friend tasted our drinks, we quickly realized that whoever made us our drinks, was not being shy with the amounts of liquor that were poured into them. We ordered several drinks, but we couldn't finish many of them, because the taste of alcohol was simply too strong. Many of them literally tasted like several vodka shots combined in one glass. (Although, we did appreciate the generosity, even if we couldn't finish them), haha.

When we had finished our dinner, we were headed towards Amsterdam's most famous LGBTQ+ bar street.

The colors and lights on that bar street were so bright and pretty!! And the vibes were good. It felt safe. Like receiving a hug.

But there were so many bars and clubs to choose from, so we had a hard time figuring out where to go.

I think we ended up going into 3 of them, but these clubs were actual buildings/houses with 3-4 floors each, AND there were bars and dance floors on every single floor, playing DIFFERENT music. There was even a DJ with a full set up, who was playing music inside one of the bathrooms. Haha. 

Me and my friend were definitely not drunk enough to handle that high intensity level of music, so after many tries, we decided to go home.

On our way home, I bought some really epic pastries from one of the food trucks, while we were having a stroll around the city. Then we discovered a big ferry near Amsterdam Centraal. We realized this was the ferry we needed to be on, to get to the other side of the island, where A'DAM Lookout was. (A'DAM Lookout is Europe's highest swing), and we had planned on going there, while we were planning for our trip.


Day 4.

For our last night in Amsterdam, me and my friend had decided that we were going to spoil ourselves that evening. So we had decided to eat at a tapas restaurant in the city, and then we were planning on going on one of the canal cruises, and then eventually go to a club. This restaurant was very popular, laying right next to a canal, and the restaurant was flooded!

Me and my friend enjoyed ourselves very much! We had ordered different tapas plates, and some drinks.

There was a large group of men (around 8 of them), who joined the restaurant, and sat down at a table not far from us. It was very entertaining to watch, because clearly all of them had been smoking weed, and they had some severe munchies going on. They were all laughing and giggling, and sometimes they took their sunglasses off, so you could see their bloodshot eyes as well. Haha.

After me and my friend had finished up our plates and drinks, we asked for the bill, so that we could pay. Both me and my friend had forgotten to check our accounts before we went to dinner, so we were both logging in to the app to check our currency. But the app wasn't working for her. I also tried to log in to my bank account, but I couldn't get in either. After many failed attempts, I went to the website of our bank (we have the same bank), and there was a statement from the bank, that they were having issues, so all mobile banks and online banks were currently down for the rest of the night. Are you fucking serious?! How the hell was this even possible? How could we really have THAT much bad luck on our trip?! Haha. Me and my friend started cursing beneath our breath, while we were shaking our heads. I had no idea how much money I had transferred to that account the day before, so I wasn't sure if it was going to be enough to cover our bill. The waiter came over to our table. Me and my friend took a chance on my card. We sat there looking at each other and on the credit card machine while the waiter was running it. The anxiety was building up. But finally, the receipt came out, and the bill was approved. Whew!!

Unfortunately, since we didn't have any access to our online or mobile banks, we didn't want to risk doing something more, in case we wouldn't be able to pay for it. Soo.. We decided to take the free ferry that went across the pond (from Amsterdam Centraal), to the other side of the harbor, where A'DAM Lookout was. (The ferries are huge, and they depart every 15-30 minutes, I think.)

It was starting to get a bit late, so A'DAM Lookout had been closed since noon, but me and my friend wanted to enjoy the city, and the view from the other side of the harbor.

The ferry was completely packed with people, and many of them were cycling on their bicycles straight onto the ferry. (Pretty cool to watch).

And in under 10 minutes, we were on the other side of the harbor. And holy fuck, how beautiful it was there, on the other side. The view was absolutely beautiful, and there was this huge restaurant and bar, with so many people who were enjoying themselves and dancing.

Me and my friend walked over to the dock, to sit outside the Eye Film museum.

People were just hanging out by the dock. Some of them had brought speakers so that they could play music, and there were people freestyling and dancing (just enjoying themselves). And some had brought swimming suits and towels so that they could have a late night bath in the ocean. The sun was setting, so the atmosphere and the vibes were really peaceful.

We sat there for a while, just chilling by the ocean, before we had a stroll around the harbor, and decided to go home.


Day 5.

On our fifth day in Amsterdam, me and my friend weren’t going back to Norway, until late at night. So we were finally going to try A’DAM Lookout!

We took the ferry over to the other side of the harbor, and went inside the building of A’DAM Lookout. The panoramic view from the top was insane!!

After taking a look at the top of the building, me and my friend went in line to try out the swing. (EUROPE’S HIGHEST SWING, FOR YOUR INFORMATION). As we were getting closer in line, my friend started getting more anxiety about that it was soon to be our turn, and she started to become nervous about the height of the swing.

Me, on the other hand, was completely calm while we stood in line there, waiting. But I noticed that one of the swing operators was dancing, laughing, singing and having the time of his life. (And nothing wrong with that!). But he also seemed very high? So now I was starting to stress a bit more. Could this man really function properly as the swing operator, while still being high? (It was Europe’s highest swing, after all!! And I obviously didn’t want to die).

I didn’t want to make any assumptions, but man, now I was starting to feel more nervous, and I could feel my heart started racing.

I told my friend that I was getting worried, but now my friend seemed to had calmed down, so now I was the one who was starting to freak out.

A few minutes after, it was finally our turn. (I think we had waited in line for about 45 minutes).

Me and my friend got into our seats and the metal bar was pulled down in front of our crotches. (That was the ONLY thing that was keeping us in our seats. (No belts or other forms of back up). Now my friend was starting to freak out again, and I was also starting to panic a bit. The swing started moving, and I know you’re not supposed to look down if you’re afraid of heights, but I couldn’t control myself, so of course – I did look down.

And holy fuck, did I regret getting on that swing!! When I looked down, human beings looked like ants!! We were swinging from the top of a skyscraper, that was 100 meter tall. I was nervously laughing, screeching, panting and almost started crying out of fear for my own life. Both me and my friend were whisper cursing, and clenching and grasping our hands as hard as we could - to the metal frames of the swing. I told her that I looked down, and when I turned my head around to look at her, I saw that she was sitting with her head bent over to the side, with her eyes closed, and she mumbled « Don’t look down. I can’t look down.. I can’t look down.. I CAN’T LOOK DOWN!! »

I burst into laughter, while we were still simultaneously cursing and praying we would still live to see another day, and after a few more minutes of pure torture, it was FINALLY over.

Holy fuck, that was terrifying!!

We both went off the swing, and after me and my friend had managed to regain normal breath work again, we sat down at the panoramic restaurant at the top, and enjoyed ourselves a meal before we were leaving.

On our way out from the building, I had totally forgotten that they took photos and filmed us while we were sitting on the swing. Before it was our turn to sit on the swing, I had imagined these photos were going to be LIT! And let me tell you...... They almost looked FAKE. Like we had been photoshopped onto the pictures??! HAHAH. But I bought them anyways, because even if they looked FOUL, it was still a memory worth laughing over.

Me and my friend went back to our hotel, gathered our luggage, and then we traveled to the airport for our departure.

We were back in Norway right before midnight, and my friend's mom came to pick us up at the airport in Kristiansand. The weather was soo cold compared to The Netherlands, but it felt good to be home. Nothing beats breathing in Norwegian air!

I’m going to share photos from our trip down below!


And if anyone is against live theater performances, I would just like to add some information:


- Many of the couples who do live performances, are actually long term couples in real life.

- During a live show, at least you'll get to see how the actors are treated while they are performing, and if they are under safe circumstances. With online porn, you can't really know for sure. (There's a reason Pornhub had to delete over 80% of their content, which resulted in 10 million videos).

- The actors get attention and praise for the work they've done, when they get to experience a whole theater crowd woo'ing and clapping at the end.

- There are bodyguards around for the whole performance, and they are quick to react if someone is not behaving themselves.

- All couples who were performing, used condoms before any penetration.

Photo album:

The first picture of the album, was the the view from our hotel room, haha.