Amsterdam Hotels
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Starbucks With A Kick
Entry 32 of 61 | show all | print this entry |
December 18, 2007
Amsterdam - Starbucks with a Kick
Before Steve and I went to Amsterdam, we heard that it was legal to smoke marijuana there. In fact, we knew that certain "coffee shops" actually sold it. What we didn't know was that there were over 300 of these "coffee shops" located within the city.
At first the advertisements of these shops were quite subtle. You would see a picture of a cup of coffee on the window of the store and that's about it. It was very difficult to differentiate a "coffee shop" from a café' that actually sold real coffee. For example, while Steve was taking a nap in the hotel, I went shopping and wanted to get a real cup of coffee. I must have stopped at three different places and as soon as I walked in the door all I could smell was pot. After my fourth attempt, I finally gave up and went to a restaurant and had a beer instead.
The farther we ventured into the "Entertainment District" of Amsterdam, the more "coffee shops" we began to see. We soon discovered that places where you could buy and smoke marijuana were in fact called, "coffee shops". For future reference, we won't be looking inside these for a cappuccino again!
As we walked through the city and continued to see these "shops" every other block, we decided to stop inside one to see what all of the hype was about. As soon as we walked in the door, we felt like we were in a dance club of some sort. The lights were dim and the music was very fast and extremely loud. It was difficult to see at first because the entire room was filled with a haze of smoke. Through the murky air, we saw two guys sitting at table smoking what looked like cigarettes. When I took a closer look, I realized that they weren't cigarettes but rather huge joints. Now I'm not that familiar with marijuana but even a novice like me could tell that what they were smoking was a lot of pot.
As we approached the bar, a lady came over and gave us a menu. I was expecting to see various types of coffee...code words for something else. Like cappuccino really means this...and expresso really means that...But the menu was pretty straightforward. It had a simple list of the different kinds of pot they had and how much it each one cost. They gave you the option to by it by the joint or by the gram and you could choose to smoke it there or take it "to go" just like if you ordered a real Starbucks coffee. It was crazy!
While we were checking things out, we watched two other guys come in. We gave them our menu since we weren't going to order anything, we were just "looking". Anyway, the first guy orders a bag of pot and she hands him one with 4 grams in it (again, I think this is a lot of pot). The second guy buys a joint the size of my middle finger. They pay for their items and leave.
Steve and I looked at each other and I thought, "Is this really happening?" If you get caught with this stuff back home, you go to jail and here people are walking around with it everywhere. We saw people smoking it in the streets (even though it wasn't supposed to be legal) and even our hotel was advertised as being "smoker friendly". I shouldn't say they encouraged it but they certainly allowed it because I smelled it the whole time we were staying there. What I found most interesting...it is illegal in Amsterdam to carry or drink alcohol on the street but you can carry around as much marijuana as you want!
Based on everything we've seen, I can now see why everyone travels to Amsterdam for the weekend. The lure of the "coffee shops" is just too enticing to resist. If I had to hazard a guess I would say that the "coffee shops" in Amsterdam would be a close similarity in popularity to the Starbucks we've seen almost everywhere here in Cologne. Now if someone could find a way to combine the two...I bet you they could make a fortune!
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