In which Talinn meets the Red Light District

In case you've ever wondered, Holland really is an entire nation of people riding around on bicycles. And they're kind of like the students at the crosswalks in uptown Athens: they do whatever the heck they want whenever they want and you just have to make sure you don't hit them. There are more bike lanes in some places than there are car lanes. Seriously.

And there really are prostitutes where you'd least expect them.

I had spent an afternoon in Maastricht, in the southern Netherlands way back when I was in high school. I was not impressed. I do not find naked bodies (which are almost women's) plastered onto buildings, windows, postcards to be a selling point. (I'm sorry, but bare boobs are not a marker of advanced culture.) But there were other things in NL that I did want to see, so we decided to spend our long weekend there.

So we'd spent a long and often frustrating day in Amsterdam--had spent 3 hours, maybe more, standing in assorted lines to get into assorted museums--and were walking back to the train station to leave. One minute we were walking past a nice cafe, the next minute past a sex shop. And then another cafe...and then another sex shop.

And so I started having this conversation in my head that went something like this:

"You know, just don't look at this stuff. You see crap and then it gets burned into your brain and ten years later, even, no matter how badly you want to forget it, it's still there forever and ever and ever. Insert here image of crazy naked guy at the hospital, for instance: still there, ten years later."

"So okay, yes, it's a sex shop, but I'm not going to look at this sex shop...which it turns out is a gay sex shop with--what is that in the window...?? Look away! Look away! Look over there, across the street at the...other gay sex shop. %^*$!!"

"With Live Viewings, Come on in. Don't look at it! Look at the ground! Look at the ground!"

"Look over here instead at the...what is that? Is that an empty stool in a window? Why is there an empty stool in a display window? Weird. There's a red fluorescent bulb in that window. I've never seen a red fluorescent bulb before. Strange. Wonder where you go to buy a red fluorescent bulb.

Wait. The whole window is surrounded in...red...lights. %$@#! %$@#!!!!! How the #*&# did we end up in the?? Look away! Look away!!

Like over there at the...hooker standing in the window about to... %$@#!!!!! %$@#!!!!! %$@#!!!!! %$@#!!!!! %$@#!!!!!