Amsterdam. Sweet Jesus what a trip. I have renewed hope for this world.

Before I continue I’d like to say if any of you reading this will be made uncomfortable by the subjects I’m about to cover, like prostitutes, drugs, and my numerous fun culture shocks, tough shiza because you’re going to read it anyway just to see what I say. You can’t help it. Neither can I. Let’s play on the same team, shall we? Teamwork!

My friends and I took a bus from Paris to Amsterdam which is 8 hours give or take. Not too bad considering there were a number of stops along the way, plenty to see outside, and fairly cheap. We saw a bit of Lille, a good portion of Brussels, Antwerp, and some others I cannot pronounce. Brussels was adorable and passing through it made me want to see more of it. Once we made it to the bus station Amsterdam Amstel, we were warmly welcomed to the city by the police (and K-9) who searched and scanned everyone’s bags. Yikes. That was the first time I’ve heard Dutch in person and by god it’s complicated. We cracked some jokes about they were ‘weeding’ out the terrorists at which point a nice old lady behind us laughed along. Once inside, it took all of our brainpower to figure out how to procure metro tickets to head to the city center. We fussed with kiosks for a while, asked some people for help, and all ended up using the metro with train tickets instead. That should’ve been easier but we saw the humor in it figured we could pull the ‘but we’re tourists and didn’t know better’ card if the need arose. Once we made it to Amsterdam Central, I immediately noticed how diverse the people were. I’ve become so used to the ethnic diversity of Paris that I was somehow expecting it to be less so in the Netherlands. By the end of my trip I figured why needless to say!

I am aware that this is a touchy subject but I can’t resist it considering I was surrounded by it all weekend. It being weed. There. I said it. You read it. Let’s move on. Spending the weekend in a city where pot is legal and tobacco use is frowned upon was pretty enlightening. I read in an article from a tourist magazine called BOOM! (Year 16 Issue 2) of the history of how this all came to be. It states “Holland decided drug use is more a health problem than a criminal issue. Instead of locking up hundreds of thousands of non violent people, the Dutch decided to turn a blind eye to “coffee shops,” where small amounts of marijuana could be sold.” It continues on to say that “the idea was to separate smokers from criminals who would deal drugs if they were illegal. What do you know? It works!” Amsterdam, though it has had its fair share of ups and downs throughout this issue, has figured out how to organize and support the legal growing and selling of marijuana without unleashing citywide chaos and destruction, which is too often the assumed outcome if it were to be legalized in the US. I particularly enjoyed the line “in other countries the mayor might not know the price of a bag of weed, but in Holland the man shaping the drug policy knows the facts.” It just goes to show that the efforts put in to open the industry were structured and supported from every angle. Who’s to say this cannot be the case in the US? Easier said than done, I’m sure. The US is obviously a hell of a lot larger than the Netherlands with a much more diverse population and political landscape. As such, if the legalization of marijuana is to ever become a real possibility, everyone would need to play ball. I am for the legalization and see many of the benefits of doing so. Holland has organized laws and taxes around the coffee shops to regulate the age of the buyers (strictly 18+), to limit how much can be sold at any given time (5 grams maximum), to track purchases by requiring the buyer to show a legit ID to be scanned (staves off illegal dealers), to place taxes on approved coffee shops (which they gladly pay to stay in business), to designate the building of smoking rooms (in which you are almost never allowed to smoke tobacco considering it is detrimental to the health of the staff), and so on. The EU is not a fan of Holland’s laws since it puts pressure on surrounding police forces who try to catch people smuggling weed outside of the country/leave the country under the influence/what have you. I feel that the use and/or possession of marijuana should not be a criminal act. There is more than ample evidence as to its benefits. I will not go too deep into this issue because I can go on for a forever about these pros and cons. What I will say is that it was pleasant to see first-hand a functional, artistic, green, economically thriving city where the legalization of marijuana had been warmly embraced.

Other than that, the city was esthetically quite enjoyable.  All of the buildings seemed to touch each other as they wove around one another herding pedestrians over and around the umpteen canals. The architecture along the canals was especially cool since no two consecutive buildings had the same height or style of facade. They were all huddling together which was, well, cute. As it is winter, lights (energy saving ones, mind you) were hung up all around, which from the looks of it captivated all those people who were under the influence of all sorts of wonderful things. Bravo, Amsterdam. Also, there seemed to be few, if any, curbs. Seriously! Strange thing to notice, yes, but it was noticeable in the sense that most of the streets were inlaid brick or cobblestone with no separations between sidewalk and street. It definitely made me feel like pedestrians dominated the whole city, which in reality, they did. From the hostel to the people to the experience as a whole, Amsterdam, I hope to see you again some day!