Saturday, Sep 23, 2023 at 2:14 p.m.

Woke up at 6am this morning for my flight to Amsterdam Packed quickly and quietly and trecked 10 minutes to the bus stop for the airport shuttle.

On the bus went online to check into my flight. I had meant to do it yesterday but was too tired. The website told me checking closes 2 hours before departure. No where had anything about in person checking so I just had to hope they had it at the airport. They did.

Security at the Edinburgh airport is ridiculously strict. I passed my bag through and went to the other side. Probably about 80% of the bags were getting additional screening. My big bag made it through okay which was surprising because I thought the giant bag of tesco oranges might be a problem. My little bag got stopped. I had to wait for another 20 minutes while security got through the backup to my bag. The problem was that I didn't separate my toothpaste into a separate bag so I had to much liquid in one bag. This is insane because my toothpaste is like 25ml. I think they might have an automatic bag screener on the xray that sorts it because I didn't see anyone doing it. That would explain why its so much stricter than other airports and why they had way more secondary security than at other airports.

Got through only to find out my flight had been delayed 2 hours - from 8:30-10:30. They emailed saying I could use my boarding pass as a 3€ voucher at certain airport locations but the website to tell you which ones didn't work. Got a discount on a burger king breakfast.

Eventually made it aboard. Emergency seat aisle so they were very picky about me not having anything under the seat or on my lap. Another 30 minute wait on the runway to get clearance. Some kids went up to check out the cockpit. I wanted to but decided I'm not the right demographic. Fell asleep and woke up right as we were arriving.

Security was pretty minimal on the NL side. Got on a train to Amsterdam. Before even starting, a dutch girl had to translate that the conductor had made an announcement in dutch that the train wasn't working and we should all board the one on the opposite side of the platform. It was insanely packed by the time I got over there so I skipped it. Got back on the old train and we were moving within ten minutes (with significantly fewer people than before).

Getting into Amsterdam, the first thing I saw off the train station was an enormous bike lane. Not like any at home - this thing was a highway. It had every type of bike as well as a lot of not-bikes like mopeds, scooters, and tiny electric cars.

Dodged these things all the way to my hostel. Its super central and the street outside it was packed. The inside was very secure as a result - a doorcard and turnstile system to get in - first time I've seen that. The lobby is a bar which isn't uncommon for hostels. But there were also two separate indoor smoking rooms off of it. One for hash and the other for cigarettes.

Very clean place overall. My room hosted over 20 beds but it was quite nice. Chatted with a Torontonian and Aussie at the hostel for a bit because it was pouring outside. After it stopped raining, I wandered.

Judging from the shops, Amsterdam is a city of cheese, flowers, weed, and sex.

Got pasta at a great little Italian place near the red light district. Passed through the district on my way back to the hostel. It was around 10pm so the place was in full force. was packed. They had massive crowd control everywhere - barriers to create one way pedestrian traffic, lots of staff to guide the flow. Totally shoulder to shoulder. They have girls behind glass doors who you can rent. Seems like they actually rent the space judging by the signs in some of the empty windows. Whenever you make eye contact they try to wave you inside. Almost all of them had a lot of plastic surgery so there was kind of a common look to most of them.

Other than that, there were lots of standard sex shops and some "live porno shows". They were the only ones with prices: ~60€ (veeery pricey). They all had lines out the door. Guy at the hostel said he'd gone with a group earlier and that it was pretty wild - "stuff that would be hard to find online".

I came across a street preacher with a megaphone talking about how sinful it was that we were all here and I kinda agreed. Made my way out of there after that.

Hung out at the hostel for a bit. There was a beer pong tournament going on. I'm bad at beer pong. At this point the early morning was catching up to me so I made my way to bed.