Arrested in Amsterdam

So my friend, Lilly, and I walked through the Market where I got freshly squeezed orange juice. We then went to a café to get “breakfast” at around 2pm. There, we met Dennis.

Dennis was born in Holland, grew up in New Zealand, and now lives in London.  He was in Amsterdam for the World Cup final game and to meet up with his friends the next day.  He was by himself all that day and wanted some company…  Well OK, if someone wants to tag along with us all day today, I have no problem with that.

I wanted to go to a local brewery [NOT Heineken] and do some taste testing.  The brewery is called “De Prael” and they had pretty good beer.  The three of us tested them all.  There was a piano in the place that I decided to play and entertain everyone.

Afterwards, we went down the street to a bar so that Dennis could watch the New Zealand vs. South Africa rugby game.  No one in the bar understood the rules of this game or what it even was.  Then, the 3rd/4th place game for the world cup was on and I rooted for Germany (for my new friends that I had just met in/from Hamburg).

After the games, we went to a place called “The Grasshopper” where there was fantastic dancing going on – by one guy… and by “fantastic” I mean doing some sort of Irish Jig, shirtless, with lots of clapping, and yelling, using his shirt as a lasso/helicopter, and miming golf swings (of course).  I mean, does one dance any other way?!

So after our time at The Grasshopper, we started to walk (back) to Dennis’ hotel room to get our bags that we had previously stashed there.  On the way, a crazy guy tried to hit on us.  We thought nothing of it and continued to walk.  He got mad, started yelling, and then followed us all the way back to the hotel!

We got to the hotel door where we needed to be buzzed in by someone at a desk that could see the door from a camera.  We told them that we were just picking up our stuff, but they wouldn’t let us in while the crazy guy is behind us (yelling and getting really angry for no reason).  We tried to tell the people at the desk that we NEEDED to get in at this point, not only for our bags but for our own safety – the guy was getting out of hand.  But they wouldn’t let us in.

We were trying not to pay attention to the crazy man who was then screaming about Uganda and how we didn’t care about Africa and other stuff that made absolutely no sense.  He called us not so nice names [to put it mildly] and then threw a can at us!

Dennis and I ignored it knowing that us getting mad at the guy is not going to help matters, and, all the while, still trying to get into the hotel!  Lilly, on the hand, got really upset about the can that hit her and the nasty names she was being called and thought it would be a good idea to run her mouth.  Dennis and I tried to hold her back and shut her up…

OOOOOOK, so things, at this point, were getting really out of hand!  So we decided to leave and go next door to the restaurant – somewhere public where we could wait for this guy to leave since the people at the desk of the hotel were no help.

At the exact moment that we turned to leave the hotel, someone came out of the door.  We yelled for them to hold the door and made our way inside.  Yes! Finally! Safety!

Or so we thought…

The crazy guy tried to get in and now there was someone else with him.  I was already up several stairs when I heard Dennis behind me say “no you can’t come in here… Hey! I swear if you touch my face again….” So I immediately turned around to see them pushing each other and Lilly trying to wedge herself in between!

Oh my God!  The guy is clearly crazy, was to the point of being physical, and now has a friend with him!  I don’t know if he has a gun or a knife or what, and now my friend is trying to get in the middle of this?!  Is SHE crazy?!  Oh my God!!!  Uhh so what do I do?! Grab her?!

Dennis manages to push them out the door and close it which locked automatically.  Good.  The guy is banging the door, cursing, and is furious at us, but he’s outside so… Finally safe?

You’d think so!

We go upstairs, get our bags, and wait for about ten minutes for the crazies to leave before we try to leave the hotel.  Honestly, I didn’t even want to leave because that guy was probably still outside, waiting, doing God knows what… I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to find out.  I just wanted to crash on the floor of the safe hotel and wait until morning…

But that didn’t happen (of course).

As we were in the hallway of the hotel, the Amsterdam Police walk over to us with the second crazy man that hit Dennis in the face and asked us “what’s the problem?”  What?  Yeah there’s a problem, he’s crazy, touched our friend, and tried to get into the hotel – keep him away from us!  Well, it turns out that this second guy was the hotel manager.

Seriously?  Seriously?!!!  He didn’t even tell us who he was when he was trying to get into the hotel and put his hands on our new friend… why would he hit Dennis?!  What is going ON?!  I talked to the police, had to give them my passport and everything but told them the whole story.  Ok, they understand why we were there and understand we were trying to keep crazy people away from us, but one minor detail: the manager is telling them that he wants to press charges against Dennis.

WHAT?!  He did nothing!  He was trying to keep crazy guys away from us girls.  He tried to explain this to the police, but there was nothing they could do.  I advised him to just be quite and go with them… nothing he could say would give them the power to let him go since they have to follow protocol so…

We walked outside, they put him in backseat of the cop car, and Lilly and I just stood there… helpless.  Poor Dennis.  They drove off with him looking at us with puppy dog eyes out the back window of cop car.  Kind of funny, but not funny at all.  I tried to take a picture but my camera [that lasted for over a week without being charged] died at that exact moment.

So, to summarize… we make a new friend and then 12 hours later, accidently get him arrested – and don’t even have pictures out of this ridiculous situation.  What a bust.  Oh Dennis…  Oh Amsterdam…

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LESSON LEARNED

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No matter how minor you think the situation is, GET HELP.  I guess we should have kept on walking (even when the door was opened for us) to the restaurant next door to sit, breathe, and call the police ourselves.  If we had done that, the right man would have been arrested.  We saw that open door, and in that split second, the right decision was lost.