A report from Amsterdam
June 08, 2003 ~ 4:24 p.m.
AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands�Well, my "lost weekend" is nearly at a close, and I can say, in all honesty, that I engaged in all the behavior commensurate with satisfying the hedonistic lure of the skunk.
I'm really putting great concentration and effort into typing this out. My typing speed has dropped by 40 words a minute. Scandalous for someone who normally types no slower than 60wpm. Now, that shit was strong!
It's been showery today, beginning with a loud squall that started almost as soon as we woke up. Different from yesterday, which was sunny, hot and humid. But despite cooler temps, it remains humid, thus comfortable.
As we made our way down the Zeedijk toward the Warmoesstraat yesterday just after arriving, in order to get to a coffeshop that I knew there, it was all "rush, rush." But once I got to the coffeehouse and had an entire joint, I couldn't have cared less if I was having a leisurely stroll. You know something's potent when you can get me to slow down and not be cursing under my breath about it.
I lit up outside the hotel this morning just after coffee, breakfast and checking out, and one of the hotel's staff had stepped onto the sidewalk for a break.
"Ah, hash, ja?" he said. "Is very good, I smoke it every day."
From his accent, I assumed he was Dutch, but he told me he was German but has lived in Amsterdam for fifteen years.
"I can't smoke it in the U.S. or the U.K.," I said morosely.
"Ja, and you know," my German pal said, "is like this, you get people drinking beer all day. All day, you understand? Just the beer, all day." He started making exaggerated gestures of drinking. Then he pulled off his expression of the timid hash user, fingers up to mouth and looking worried, he continued, "But zis? 'Oh, no no no, is no good for you, is bad for the body,' ja? But drink ze beer all day long, ja, is good, eh?" He rolled his eyes to polish off his example of hyprocritical drug policies in nations like Germany, Sweden, France, the U.S. or the U.K.
I must say, I couldn't, and can't, disagree with him.
Well, time to step back out into the moist air of the Leidseplein and kill the roach, so to speak.
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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