Ach das goot en nederlande, Ya?

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  Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
Monday, May 19, 2008

I arrived uneventfully to Schipole Airport and took a shuttle to the hotel. The shuttle driver warned me about the steep steps, but I thought he must be joking. Wrong. I was *not allowed* to carry my own bag up the stairs. Holy crap! I have never seen anything so treacherous in my life! I was welcomed warmly, given a soft drink, a huge bouquet of flowers and shown to my closet..er...room-ette. Whoa. My room is 6 feet wide and 10 feet long and that INCLUDES the bathroom! The bed is just slightly larger than a twin and I have two feet of walking space on the side and on the foot-end. THe shelf above my head is for clothes because the "closet" is 18" wide and 12" deep. Leave it to the Dutch for such effieciency, but above a shelf-desk on the other end of the room, a coffee maker, a small fridge and a fan are neatly built into the wall. A moroccan light hangs from a chain above my bed. The bathroom made me take pause. I have to draw the window curtains because once on the throne, I cannot close the door. The apartments directly across the street could potentially watch me do..everything...but, then, why would they? LOL

In a coffee shop

! The toilet sits at a sharp angle to the wall with the tank near the ceiling. The wash-basin sits below the tank. The shower has the edge of the wash-basin sticking right into it, so water from the shower drains down the sink and the floor drains. Amazing!

I settled in and then went down the Devil's stairs to get a light meal. One door away from the hotel entrance was "Sara's Pancakes" which served huge, paper thin pancakes with your choice of toppings. I got chocolate and banana. It was 9:50 pm but still light enough to read a paper outside, so I went for a walk. First I walked past Anne Frank's house, then I returned to the canal and walked past every restaurant you can name. There was every cuisine imaginable in the space of a city block, and it went on forever. I began to get cold so I decided to head back. Out of sheer curiousity, I stopped in a coffee shop and yakked it up with an Argentinian guy who called himself Damien, and a man from Surinam named Gus. Yes, it was a marijuana shop and they were happy to relieve me of my ignorance about the drug situation in Amsterdam. Many men, but no women came into the coffee shop and made purchases. I looked at the menu and was astounded to see that you could buy marijuana hashish and hash oil cheaply, by the gram or larger quantities. I'm talking CHEAP. A gram of flowertop marijuana starts at 5 Euro.

I was looking for an excuse to leave the shop when my Brian called right on cue. As I walked back down toward the Nadia, I bid my sweetie goodnight and made the Devil's climb back to my cozy room.

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Tiny bathroom

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