Non Fiction/Fiction

My Time in Amsterdam
My two girlfriends and I have landed in Amsterdam on December 27, 2005. It was 9am, we’re starving, tired, and freezing our asses off. We had no idea how cold Amsterdam would be that time of year, but we bundled up alright. After we picked up our back-packs, we hopped on a train to go to our hostel. The pamphlet said that our hostel was just 10 minutes away from Amsterdam’s Central Station, but 10 minutes turned out to be 2 hours and a couple of cougar brothels away instead.

We found our hostel, settled in and went back to Central Station to reunite with our other girlfriend who was meeting us there. The hostel really was 10 minutes away from Central Station, but we were walking aimlessly which is why it took us 2 hours to get there. Finally we see our friend, screamed with full joy, and had to commemorate this happy moment one way and one way only….RED LIGHT DISTRICT BABY!!!!

We arrived at the motherland of debauchery, the Red Light District. We went on our search for their version of “legalized cigarettes”. We stopped at a café that provided us with these amenities and bought 5 Euros worth of it. It was way too much for 4 girls, but we can’t waste money, so we smoked what we can and saved the rest for later.

I had never felt so happily free (high) and relaxed in my entire 22 years of living that I did the unthinkable…I called my mother. I had to call her anyways, to let her know I was ok. I told her I was high and she got really upset about it. She asked me “What about your morals?” which I replied “My morals are fine, it’s legal here, I didn’t do anything wrong!”

My One Night in the Wreck Room
It was around senior year of high school (2001) and I definitely caught the “senioritis bug” that was going around. My girlfriends and I planned everything accordingly to go to a lounge in the Village called the Wreck Room. We all told our parents about our “slumber party” that weekend and all got approval. There was nothing our parents could feel odd about being that we usually had a slumber party once a month and they never suspected a thing.

So it’s Friday night, and all 9 girlfriends and I are all on the L train on our quest for a night of simple drinking and dancing and no harsh responsibilities that the 12th grade usually offers. We’re on line for the Wreck Room and we’re playing cool to get in. The bouncer knows my friend Denise who is a regular there. We all showed our college i.d. (which we were taking college courses at BMCC) and got right into the lounge.

My friends and I headed straight to the bar and had the usual rounds of Amaretto Sours and Long Island Ice Teas. Here we are with not a care in the world. No worrying about college acceptance letters, or grades, or our parents. It was just us 17 year old girls who were just living up to our senior year expectations. Time flies as it was 4 o’clock in the morning, so we headed out to the train station. There was nothing usual about seeing drunken men on the street until they were cat calling one of the girls, Denise. We just ignored them, until they threw a beer bottle at her which they luckily missed. But the damage was done and all hell broke loose. She went and grabbed one of the hooligans and we went and shoved the other guys with him. Then the cops came.

I wanted to cry at that moment because we’re drunken minors. But that feeling went away as one officer asked me “What’s going on, Ma’am?” I sobered up, ASAP, and said “He threw a bottle and almost killed her”. I then started to cry, but only for story effect and sympathy, which worked. The assholes were handcuffed and taken away and we were all relieved. After all the girls were questioned and not asked for i.d.’s (thank GOD!), we hopped on the first cab and went straight home. All we kept on saying was “Shit that was close!” We got to our friend’s house and went straight to bed.

I woke up around 10am and headed home where it was safe. My mom asked me “How was your night?” and I said “it was ok”, ok my ass! I thought. I wanted to forget that night and prayed the cops had no need to question me further by calling my house. That Monday at school, during Mr. Mirchin’s Physics class, all the girls huddled up and said “We so have to do this again this Friday night!” And after all the agony I went through that night, my emotions turning into a roller coaster ride, I said “HELL YEAH!!!”