Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Meag: Three and a half months in, and we have yet to figure out how to get ourselves out of bed on time for free breakfast at the hostel. Oh well, what can you do. We wound up at a delicious little café for pancakes and an omelette overlooking a canal. It was in an area called the Nine Streets which is chockablock full of unique vintage, knickknack and designer stores. After breakfast we wandered around a bit and found the greatest little store called “It’s a Present!” There was a card with a t-rex holding a selfie stick that said “Finally!” We couldn’t resist. We bought two.

Sav: We went on an alternative tour today, which was interesting to say the least. There was only us, another young man, a woman and her daughter with a nerdy enthusiastic Amsterdamer as the guide. We started off in Dam square, where he informed us all about Provo, an anarchist group that was very active back in the sixties and seventies.

M: They had a whole bunch of very interesting campaigns, like the white bikes, and also a few very interesting characters in their midst. Case in point: one member, who was a medical student at the time, drilled a hole in his forehead. He had his reasons – but still.

S: The tour guide then took us around the city to different coffee shops, which here are basically weed and space cake shops. I’ve been baffled at the sheer openness of Amsterdam, but particularly the 150+ ‘coffee shops’ they have everywhere. I knew before coming that this was a part of this city, but it’s still odd coming from Canada where it is totally illegal. All of sudden it’s not taboo. All of a sudden people are openly smoking in public. We stopped at a Coffee Shop called De Dampkring where our guide told us all about soft drugs and soft drug policies in the country. He also pointed out a cat in the shop who was looking extremely slow and relaxed…. Apparently the cat literally never leaves the premises.

M: Once the tour was over, it turned out that we were right near the bench from “A Fault in Our Stars,” so we walked over there. The bench had a whole bunch of locks on it. Some had names and dates, while others had quotes from the book. “Okay? Okay.”

We went to get milkshakes after this, to help us digest all this new information from the tour. Now with a fuller understanding of how Amsterdam came to be as it is today, it makes a bit more sense but I think we both still have a lot of questions. A police officer will wink and wave at someone smoking a joint and going into a prostitute’s door, but will arrest that same person if they have an open beer on the street. Whaaaat?

Speaking of…we went and strolled around the red light district for a bit. It is a surreal experience. We ate some deep fried cheese and played a game of “real or fake.” Sometimes it was very obvious, but other times it took some thinking. We washed these thoughts down with some amazing cannolis.

S: We’ve really tried to take Amsterdam as a city with a grain of salt, and you know what? It’s been great. Accepting the city exactly the way it is and understanding that this is all normal here has helped us relax and enjoy it.

S&M