Part 3: Amsterdam

Some friends invited me to stay at their classic Old World apartment overlooking the Amstel river.

Rowing and rolling on the Amstel river.

My introduction to the city was nothing short of spectacular. I arrived by train, as the afternoon sun was sinking, to encounter a flurry of activity on the streets and the river below. It turned out that the annual Liberation Day spectacle was going to be held a stone’s throw from the apartment — on the river itself, no less.

Soon the world-renowned Concertgebeow orchestra was tuning up on the opposite bank. A small floating stage for featured performers was placed on the river. The citizenry began arriving by bike and boat. Lights were set in place. Then a collective sigh signaled the arrival of Queen Beatrix’s barge! It was a Cleopatra-like entrance. Then the orchestra was accompanying the nation’s top pop singers, performing one showstopper after another.

In between acts, Her Majesty and I were treated to various mimes and interpretive dances. The Old World is considerably more tolerant of mimes than the Old West. They don’t tar and feather near as many of them or make them dance by emptying six-shooters at their slippers.

What a welcome!

The wondernment continued the next day, as I was blown away by Amsterdam as a green city with incredible transportation management.

It has to be best biking city ever. I’d soon discover that you can get anywhere on a twenty-year old one-speed. Virtually every bike in Amsterdam is an ancient, creaky contraption that’s beat to hell; anything newer is instantly gone.

The country actually revolves around people, not cars. That’s a tough concept for American to swallow, I know. Though the natives are similar in physical stature to Americans, their cars are a third the size. A typical American Chevy Tahoe SUV would have to park half on the street and half on the sidewalk. Dutch delivery trucks are smaller than our minivans.

Sophisticated transportation systems direct traffic for boats (Amsterdam has more canals than Venice), cars, bikes, pedestrians, trams, mopeds, and buses.

Looking for green leanings amongst the greenery? Once you ride to the city’s periphery, you start to see all the huge wind turbines punctuating the ruthlessly flat terrain.

Apparently, ecological concern is hardly confined to Amsterdam. The entire nation practices a credo of “waste not, want not.”

This progressive state of affairs is counterbalanced by a collective loathing of large appliances.

If you can get past the environmental enemyliness, there is a valid argument for refrigerators over three feet high.

No one can, which is why refrigerators in swank apartments are the size of desktop computers. You have to lie on the linoleum to tell the endives from the lettuce. Washing machines may have belonged to Mrs. Khruschev. Dryers are rarer than moon rocks. Queen Beatrice might be the only European monarch who hangs her own laundry.

Likewise, the NL is obsessed with conserving timber, as for centuries its craftsmen have erected the world’s steepest, slimmest, and flimsiest staircases to preserve the precious commodity.

That’s all good information.

But I sense you’re not reading this to learn about my brushes with royalty, classic apartments, or my impressions of Amsterdam’s low carbon footprint. So why have I started off a Cannabis Commerce post by describing a pop concert, a cycling paradise, and the national aversion to major appliances?

Let me answer that in three simple words: because I’m procrastinating.

I’m procrastinating because I’m embarrassed to tell you how poor my video came out depicting the Amsterdam portion of the expedition. Why is this video barely viewable, after the superb travelogue shot in Leeuwarden?

Bear with me. I’m getting there. But I’ll feel a whole lot better if I could procrastinate for a few more paragraphs.

As previously noted, I assumed that my stimulating visits to Leeuwarden’s provincial coffee shops were a mere prelude to the superior pleasures surely awaiting me in Amsterdam. And I maintained that delusion the next morning, setting off by rickety-yet-treasured 20-year old bike to discover Amsterdam’s pot district which just happens to overlap its equally infamous red light district. That’s a slant on city planning I haven’t encountered in my previous travels. The resulting hodgepodge could be called the “Green Light District.”

Yeah, there’s a few bikes here and there.

Biking through Amsterdam was both empowering and disorienting. The city is clearly set up for it. Every wrong turn led to centuries-old architectural wonders, or a vast variety of urban bird life waddling along the canals.

Less pesticides = more bird life. The air is thick with bird songs.

Eventually, the wobbly but willing conveyance bore me down narrow streets and canals until the typical retail displays promoting clothes, household goods, and electronica gave way to windows revealing bondage chicks bathed in red neon and their artfully arranged collections of rubber and plastic dildos. I’d arrived in the red light district, home to wanton women and Amsterdam’s notorious coffee houses.

Deep breath. I’ll preface the following remarks by noting that I’m the last guy to bemoan the ready availability of world class depravity. But it pains me to report my disappointment with this scene. I had high hopes I’d find a better, brighter cannaworld, in particular a better, brighter cannaworld to video for your viewing pleasure.

It was not meant to be. The cannabis gods did not smile upon this video:

Problem #1 is that the coffee shops in the red light district, where the action is, feel cheesy, touristy, and uninviting. They won’t let you film inside. You’ll find a hand over your camera in no time flat. And the hand inevitably belongs to a bouncer who looks like he earns his keep.

Some of this heightened security is surely required to protect the privacy of patrons who have to hide their cannabis affection even in a country widely thought to be the world’s most cannabis-friendly. I couldn’t verify that assumption, because coffee shop owners can’t be bothered talking to “reporters.” One possible explanation is that the cannabis trade is just a cash business for them; discussing the socioeconomic impact of cannabis commerce may not qualify as the highest and best use of their time.

“On behalf of the Russian mafia, we welcome you, comrade.”

The scent of organized crime is palpable. Budtender Menno explained why in the Leeuwarden video. To refresh your memory, cannabis is absolutely illegal in all of the Netherlands. Coffee shop owners can’t grow their own weed. Regular folks who grow are hunted down by the government. That leaves only one player with the guts to bring buds to market: organized crime. You may recall that as “the backdoor problem.” Except in Leeuwarden, the backdoor problem remains out of sight, out of mind. Here it was in plain view. You couldn’t miss it.

Problem #2 is that most of Amsterdam coffee shops serve alcohol on site. And, as Sheeba budtender Toni tells it:

Cannabis tourist lads, from heavy drinking lands like England and Germany, can’t have just one beer, they have to have ten.

There’s something really off-putting about people slamming drinks when you’re used to the therapeutic vibe of medical marijuana dispensaries in Denver — the very same ones I’ve ragged on for this, that, and the other thing. However, in Denver, a dispensary is a sanctuary which handles buds as if they were holy communion wafers— not Cheers with cheebah.

That said, surely some people view establishments serving both alcohol and tobacco as “convenient” — a variation on one-stop shopping. They’re entitled to their opinion. Just saying it felt uncomfortable for me.

The sad fact of the matter is that I didn’t find many Amsterdam coffee shops inviting.

And they could get on perfectly well without my camera and me. So the accompanying video, intended to show you the wonderful world of coffee shops, is spotty at best.

Still, with some pre-planning (the trip was an on-again, off-again saga which came together at the last minute) I probably could have identified mellower, non-alcoholic coffee shops, and given them a heads-up I wanted to shoot video. But, seriously, who’d think I’d need to turn over rocks to find inviting coffee shops in Amsterdam? Or suspect I’d need approval from Moscow to shoot video? I was two-for-two at sniffing out great spots in Leeuwarden, but, gulp — zero for Amsterdam.

For example, I’d heard what a hotspot The Grasshopper was. If a bar area twice the size as the dispensary area works for you, great. I’ll pass. And if a hooligan-type’s patrolling the entrance, I’ll make like Burt Bacharach and walk on by.

I just didn’t feel like hanging around the district very long. While the accompanying video is not going to win a Palmes d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, it offers more in the way of explanation.

I managed to console myself with a few hits of White Widow. In an effort to salvage the day, I mounted my steed and set a course for the Van Gogh Museum.

I arrived by way of several rewarding wrong turns, one of which took me past the Anne Frank House.

Empathizing with the tortured, one-eared artist wasn’t too difficult, especially after suffering my latest brush with disillusionment in “The Green Light District.”

I never knew Vincent was infatuated with Japanese woodprints. Apparently, he emulated them as part of his therapy during his extended stay at Saint-Remy Mental Hospital.

Then again, penniless Vincent never knew his destiny would include becoming a monolith of merchandising in the museum’s crowded gift shop. Who knew?

Picasso in Paris was the featured exhibit.

My favorite work was “Madwoman With Cats.”

The theme of insanity ran through both Picasso in Paris and the museum’s permanent Van Gogh collection.

Me ‘n Pablo are birth twins, born October 25th.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m procrastinating again.

Amateur self-analysis tells me I have a tendency to do that when I can’t end a post on an inspirational note.

No doubt I’ll perk up when things pick up at the Cannabis Liberation Day Festival, a mere 48 hours away.

And prospects are definitely looking up on the Green Thinking front: my friends have invited me to their idyllic country retreat in a dot on the map called Rupst.