Get Lost! the Cool Guide to Amsterdam - Softcover

Joe Pauker

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9076499012 ISBN 13: 9789076499017

Publisher: Get Lost Publishing, 2001

Synopsis

This ultimate listing of most underground places in Amsterdam is better than ever--completely revised and updated. For travelers who want to go beyond convention and sample real life in the world's hippest city, it lists bars, music clubs, cannabis cafes, movable restaurants and other enticing attractions that "Grandma's Guidebook" never considered. This legendary guidebook, written by an Amsterdam resident, leads alternative travelers to the real thing.

About this title

Review

Joe Pauker, who refers to himself as "a goof," has compiled what is perhaps the funniest, most original guide available to the city of Amsterdam. Get Lost! The Cool Guide to Amsterdam, which is clearly not aimed at mainstream travelers, will take you to the places that standard guidebooks don't bother to cover (at least not in any detail): sex shows, hemp and 'shroom shops, and places where you can get free samples of cheese when you're too low on cash to buy food. Pauker's not shy about sharing his opinions, either. On taxis: "They're expensive, and they treat cyclists like shit, but if you really need one ... [they're] very comfortable." On banks and developers who would evict squatters: they're "conservative pigs who care more about money than people." And on cannabis: "nederwiet (Dutch grown weed, such as Northern Lights) is spectacular."

Off-the-wall humor and opinions aside, you get the feeling that Pauker really knows Amsterdam and wouldn't give you bum advice. Hotels and hostels (including the comfortable couches at Schiphol Airport), restaurants, attractions, and shopping are all covered in some detail, and obvious care was taken in selecting those establishments hip enough (and cheap enough) to make it into the book. If you're the kind of traveler who might need the Dutch translation of "stoned as a shrimp," or if you simply appreciate a fresh perspective and directions away from the trampled path, let Pauker be your guide to the "coolest, most happening city in Europe."

About the Author

Joe Pauker was conceived in a test tube as part of an early CIA experiment. While still a child, he escaped from the military compound where he was being trained as a killing machine. Joe fled to the Caribbean, where he fought with the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs. During the years that followed he traveled the world: he marched with Martin Luther King in Birmingham, studied Shao Lin Kung Fu in Hong Kong, and was the youngest member of the Bay City Rollers. At 14 he ate a car. Later he gained brief notoriety when, after a drug- and alcohol-crazed year with the DiCaprio Posse, he streaked across the stage at the 1998 Oscar ceremonies. Joe Pauker now lives a quiet life in a monastery, where he writes guidebooks to cities he's never visited.

About this edition

• Publisher: Get Lost Publishing
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 9076499012
• ISBN 13: 9789076499017
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 104