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 Posted March 13th, 2010 at 12:20PM
This is an account of my weekend trip to the Netherlands the last available weekend during my semester abroad in Freiburg, Germany, fall semester of 2005. I’m able to piece together that it was December 9th through the 12th, although additional details beyond that get hazy. This is the second part. Here’s the first part. Note that no admission of guilt or wrongdoing in any territory should be taken as stated or implied!
The first indication that I had truly arrived was the moment I stepped outside of Schiphol, Amsterdam’s international airport, where a fragrant scent permeated the evening air, which I could only credit to travelers (flight stewards? Pilots?) smoking up their remaining wares before boarding their planes. I remember thinking that I could really get behind the kind of societal ethos permissive of this! I ducked back into the airport to figure out which rail line would lead me to Centraal Station, where I’d then be in the heart of the city and within walking distance of practically everything.
Schiphol turns out to be 20 minutes southwest of Amsterdam (unbeknownst to me at the time) so while I initially determined the correct rail line to board, I turned antsy after riding for a short while. An interminable period of time later, I decided to depart and hoof it at what appeared to be a populated station – an erroneous decision. I found myself in a generically industrial outlier to Amsterdam late in the day, with only a sense of where the train tracks led (and an illuminated sky in that direction). There was no human activity on the streets and little traffic as I set out in the general direction. I ended up in an industrial cul-de-sac, and with no better options, turned back to the train and re-boarded after spending maybe an hour traipsing along a strange part of town. But whatever apocalyptic factory land that it is I sampled, it wasn’t particularly threatening (dawdling through parts of Budapest or Bratislava alone at night were more questionable moves). My ticket wasn’t re-checked and I arrived at Centraal, no harm no foul.
My hostel was situated in the heart of de Wallen, and while I can’t remember the name, I can still narrow down the location to a few square blocks on a city map. My prior hostel experience in Dublin turned rather negative, but I was doing Europe on the cheap and it doesn’t get any cheaper than a bed for 10 euro or so a night. This hostel shared headquarters with a hazy coffeeshop, filled with muted travelers. My room turned out to be a block down in a different building (adjacent a second shop). Fortuitously I only had to share the room with one other boarder, and only the last night I spent there – he was a cheerful sort, immobile the one time I met him, laying flat on his cot in the middle of the day.
While making preparations for the trip, I had researched a variety of attractions. Among them were the Het KattenKabinet, a museum populated entirely with cat memorabilia; Stedelijk and Van Gogh museums, modern art and Van Gogh, respectively; and Vondelpark, the purported “central park” of Amsterdam.
Albert-Cuypstraat Market, a pedestrian open air market, was also on the itinerary as an enjoyable way to spend some time. And heck, time allowing, Anne Frank might have gotten a visit too. But with a base of operations established and bearings properly adjusted, I began with my customary touristing method – of arbitrarily wandering the streets. In this fashion, I had found a picture-perfect square in Bratislava where I took up a park bench for hours, and listened as an orchestra played from an adjacent building, watching humanity stroll past, and puffing on my (tobacco) pipe – a satisfying way to end the evening and absorb the local atmosphere at no cost.
As expected, Amsterdam proved to be an excellent locale for this type of sightseeing, particularly because of its beauty, architecture, sights… and coffeeshops.
Saturday morning came and I began to wander, aided by good food and any number of coffeeshop, both of the earmarked and conveniently encountered variety. Five years later, in no particular order, I can recall making it to Dampkring – whose design is straight out of a Tolkien novel and where a scene of Oceans Twelve was shot; Kadinsky – more of a chain, which I surely patronized, along with the various ‘Bulldog’ locations; and Katsu – which I remember as a welcomed sight after traveling down to Albert-Cuypstraat Market only to find everything closed: either wrong day or wrong season I am unsure.
I also remember visiting the shop owned and operated by two American expats, and also the place renowned not only for good pot, but good breakfast. And it was.
Strolling along the canal-ways, taking discrete tokes, I walked by the house turned Anne Frank museum. I also took in Amsterdam’s famed flower markets, hocking not flowers this season but arborvitaes – row upon row of perfectly pruned trees, for sale to locals gearing up for the holiday season.
And my eyes were opened by the Netherland’s methodology concerning prostitution. Regulations as they exist are left to local jurisdictions, and there are no such constraints state-wide as there are in Nevada, for comparison’s sake, regarding condom use, STD testing, or zoning. (I claim no authority on this topic in either instance, I could stand incorrect today.) Yet it’s still a functional system, again seemingly better responding to a demand unconstrained by government proscription.
The infamous ‘red lights’ are found throughout de Wallen, clustered in small groups, visible from far down the block, all the better for the morally presumptuous to avoid. They herald small glass cubicles: inside black light-lit, freely advertised, diverse women on display. The cubicles are rented, include security (I don’t want to say surveillance per se, but of some sort to ensure safety), and the whole practice normalized as just another occupation.
With such a laissez-faire attitude concerning prostitution and drug use, it may come as no surprise that the people could not have been more open, friendly, and hospitable (and no, I’m not just talking about the ones paid to be). Whereas France and Switzerland get bad raps from foreigners, the Netherlands seemed as congenial as eastern Europe, on the upswing after decades behind the iron curtain. The food, as promised by previous visitors, was uniformly good. The public transportation, light years ahead of anything I’ve encountered stateside. So to, was the marijuana.
My trip was conveniently scheduled in this respect, as I arrived following the annual Cannabis Cup. My research afterward found some druggies put out when they arrived in the weeks leading up to the event, and certain eye-popping strains taken off the menus in the interest of saving some for the awards. Visiting afterward ensures that everything still in stock will be made available, and also avoids the bulk of tourists hellbent on similar intentions. (When I went to New Orleans in 2003, it was the week before Mardi Gras got under way in earnest, and I felt the same then. No matter if you’ve actually come for the same reason as all the other people – they’ll act like asshats en mass and it’s best to avoid.)
(In determining plans for the weekend, I had consulted the Amsterdam Coffeeshop Directory. I notice that it might not be as well updated now as then, and perhaps there are better resources out there today.)
I left on Monday having had my fill, a positive hangover to bode me through finals week. That Friday I was off for my flight, back to the states. My experiences abroad brought home the fact that people are basically the same no matter where you go. And similarly so are the places. Paraphrasing h. h. the Dalai Lama, “No matter how powerful our sensory experiences might be, they cannot overwhelm our state of mind; mental experience is superior to physical.”
Posted February 10th, 2010 at 2:36PM
This is an account of my weekend trip to the Netherlands the last available weekend during my semester abroad in Freiburg, Germany, fall semester of 2005. I’m able to piece together that it was December 9th through the 12th, although additional details beyond that get hazy. The retelling got long so it’s split into two parts. Here’s the second part. Note that no admission of guilt or wrongdoing in any territory should be taken as stated or implied!
It was the middle of December 2005 and I was wrapping up my time abroad in Freiburg, Germany. The following week was final exams, and I would be on a Lufthansa flight bound for the States immediately thereafter. I felt all of the tumultuous, conflicting emotions of a student whose time abroad was drawing to a close. There was relief of some end in sight, being able to see friends and family, and the simple joy of understanding the errant stranger that might ask what time it was. There was trepidation over leaving the former French barracks and surrounding neighborhood that I came to know as home, and the several dozen other exchange students in the program that I had, with varying degrees, grown fond of. I had emerged unscathed from the supposedly unadulterated ‘anti-Americanism’ of a Europe still reeling from Dubya – even given the thumbs up on a train by a Turkish immigrant after revealing my nationality. I had my regrets, but they were mostly of the ‘opportunities missed’ variety.
The study abroad program I entered – IES‘s European Union program – nearly finished my Politics degree and included a host of program-sponsored travel throughout Europe, concentrating on EU seats of power and influence. We traveled in groups throughout Europe from west (France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg) to east (Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Estonia). In addition, I had spent a free weekend in Dublin, leaving with the pukey smell of the Guinness factory clogging my nostrils and some disorderly Irish kid’s piss soaking my shoes. By the end of the program, my wanderlust was all but sated. There was a single item left on the proverbial bucket list for my then 21-year-old self, and that was to experience Amsterdam.
Now, one fortuitous result of the European Union has been the slackening of borders, to the extent where travel of persons and goods throughout the Union is practically unfettered by traditional political boundaries. Because of this, and because of some particularly enterprising fellow students who had taken a train northward earlier in the semester, I was already familiar with the exceptional products coming from the Netherlands’ coffeeshops and smartshops. In quick summation for those not aware, the Netherlands has had for decades the clear-thinking drug policy of decriminalizing natural substances you might find whilst walking in the woods (or desert, as the case may be). Any free adult is able to walk into a coffeeshop and purchase small amounts of marijuana, or the equivalent smartshop designated for psilocybin mushrooms, hallucinogenic cacti, or any of the numerous other specimen that might alter perceptions and which the Christian god purportedly gave man dominion over.
Being one not shackled to puritanical ideals of consciousness, I felt a strong obligation to blow some legal weed while giving the DEA the figurative middle finger. (The legality of so-called ‘soft’ drugs in Germany is a murkier area, much like the rest of Europe.) Sure, I had some other things planned for my trip to the Netherlands, but then I’d already read Anne Frank’s diary and heard of the unfortunate incident involving Van Gogh’s ear, so there were certain priorities above and beyond the museums and canals.
I booked a flight via one of the budget airlines and looked forward to the Amsterdam experience, still temperate mid-December. I would be missing the legendary flower markets, but giddily I could already imagine the picturesque canals snaking through the oldest de Wallen district of the city, the friendly prostitutes soliciting from their black-light-lit rented cubicles, and the now ubiquitous coffeeshops peppering the landscape.
This trip, however, was almost not to be. My status as rookie globe-trotter glaringly revealed itself after I mistakingly left my passport on top my bureau. I discovered this fact just short of arrival at Frankfurt airport, a two hour-odd train ride, and despite the sincerest regrets of airport staff, I had nowhere to turn but back. So back I went, arriving in Freiburg late at night, playing the dejected fool.
“Soul-crushing” would be proximately the correct term, but after weighing the pros and cons, phoning my parents for solace, and in consideration of the dirt-cheap cost of the original ticket and the (slim) likelihood of getting another chance to go, I booked a one way flight the next day and fervently held onto the passport. It was going to happen. I phoned the hostel where I would be staying and told them I’d be a day late. Even factoring in two tickets to Amsterdam, the cost of flying was ridiculously low, to the point where it doesn’t even make sense for an airline to fuel the damn planes. But they did, and so I went.
Posted December 30th, 2009 at 5:47PM
Post-holiday depression? Middle of the winter doldrums? Job search got you down? Here’s my list of things to turn your mind off whatever and onto zombie cruise mode – here’s to better days far away.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
An oldie but a goodie, available cheaply. From Bethesda Softworks, Oblivion plays similarly to their newer Fallout 3 title, but takes place in a quintessential fantasy land replete with elves, ogres, and plenty of rats. I missed Oblivion originally (pre-PS3 pour moi), played Fallout 3 last year, and felt right at home picking up the new (old) title. The game occasionally shows its age – fraggy graphics, hang-ups – but is still worth a play for fans of the genre who might have missed it originally.
Metal Gear Solid 4
You guessed it – I’m not one to jump and fetch the latest and greatest game at an outrageous MSRP. But I did recently pick up MGS4. Enjoyable, short on actual gameplay but long on cinematic cut-scenes, and a real eye pleaser. Being the first of the series I’ve played, I was a little lost without knowing the full back story. There is plenty here to make a replay or two worthwhile and it’s as fine a platform as any to show off the graphic prowess of the PS3. I had non-gamers following the storyline for pete’s sake!
R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated
Lest everyone think I’m permanently wired to a playstation, I’ve also been giving my thumbs a workout by turning the pages of Crumb’s illustrated book of genesis. Finally, find out what everyone’s been talking about! Crumb and I might be heathens, but as stated in the intro, this is meant to be “a straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” A faithful reproduction of the King James bible illustrated along Crumb’s signature style? If you get offended, then you’re taking life too seriously.
Dog Hikes in the Adirondacks
This was a pleasant surprise during the conspicuous consumption season, perhaps of little interest to most of you, but just the resource I was looking for. This helpful paperback (published by Shaggy Dog Press in Westport, NY) rounds up 20 trails in the Adirondacks ripe for canine companionship, with the proceeds going to animal shelters and humane organizations throughout the area. It also includes topics like acclimating your dog to the hike, elderly canine hikers, and additional precautions and considerations to take in mind. Don’t ruin a hike by bringing other people – bring your dog!
(Note that I didn’t link a single thing here, as I believe you’re all adept at googling by this point.)
Posted May 19th, 2009 at 12:57PM
The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.
In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.
“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.”
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Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that supports legalization of medical marijuana, said he is “cautiously optimistic” about Mr. Kerlikowske. “The analogy we have is this is like turning around an ocean liner,” he said. “What’s important is the damn thing is beginning to turn.”
Nadelmann nailed it. At least things have started to turn around. According to the WSJ article, the White House has also called for a change in the disparity of severity between crack- and cocaine-related offenses, and has ended federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in the 13 states that have legalized medical marijuana. That was one of those inanely simple things Obama could do immediately which I was waiting to see happen. Huzzah.
Posted April 1st, 2009 at 10:03AM
So I voted early yesterday on the way to PA to deal with the passing of a relative. There was a decent number of people milling about our polling place, and the same paper punch voting machines were in use. I checked last night and found the election at 50-50%, with ninety percent of districts reporting, and things haven’t changed much in the past twelve hours.
Dem Scott Murphy enjoys a razor-thin margin of 59 votes – 77,344, opposed to Tedisco’s 77,285 – according to the final tally printed in today’s Times Union. That turnout is better than the expected number of around 90,000 total.
Currently outstanding are 5,900 absentee ballots received, with more expected in the coming days. These have been sealed until a court hearing on April 6th, per an injunction obtained by Republican election lawyer John Ciampola to impound all paper ballots. It appears that registered Republicans have an edge in absentee ballots cast; but considering that they’re the majority party in the district, it shouldn’t come as a surprise or necessarily indicate an advantage.
Libertarian candidate Eric Sundwall was pushed off the ballot in the week leading up to the election. This was also per efforts by Ciampola, as Sundwall was expected to pull a few percentage points from Tedisco.
I did a quick google and found the usual partisan hack commentaries floating around. But ultimately it looks as if either candidate will follow lock-step with their respective party once in office. With the large Dem majority in the House, this one seat makes little difference. Still, I would rather have the guy who agrees with the Obama administration, and not the one cock-blocking it.
Despite the sorry state of the GOP nationally, this election was Tedisco’s to loose. He had the large early lead and name recognition as an elected official, and the 20th is a Republican district – but making the election an early referendum on the Obama administration wasn’t a smart move. The stink and political fallout from corporate bonuses and the still-miserable economy haven’t stuck to the White House yet. Meanwhile, nobody in the 20th really has any bearing on how either candidate stands on issues unrelated with Obama’s handling of the economy. Murphy defused extraneous issues by supporting civil unions (“Not marriage”) and gun control during the televised debate, and in recent days self-describing himself as an “economic conservative.” All of this mirroring Tedisco.
For what it’s worth, Murphy handled himself well during said televised debate, and appeared more capable of going off-talking point and responding to the question at hand. I believe he’ll be a capable representative, pending a longish, drawn out process to choose the winner. I say they just draw straws.
Posted November 3rd, 2008 at 1:46PM
PRO: My techie side loves the attractive design, unique display, and slim profile. The resurgent luddite inside me loves the simplicity of it all.
CON: Unorthodox menu and messaging take getting used to; some limitations if you text message heavily.
I don’t remember the exact series of events, but the other day I stumbled upon information about the Motorola F3 and got the hankering to buy one. The F3 was released late in 2006 and meant for developing countries like India where the cellphone market is just beginning to explode. The US version followed shortly. $33 off of eBay and a few days later my shiny new phone arrived. So far, I love it. Excerpts from its wikipedia entry:
Motorola FONE F3
physical size: 47 x 114 x 9.1 mm
weight: 68 g
“The F3 is the first mobile phone to use electronic paper in its screen. Motorola uses the term ClearVision to describe the new display, which is manufactured using E Ink’s electrophoretic imaging film. The electronic paper main display allows for the phone’s thinness (no glass), longer battery life, and outdoor viewability (paper-like reflectivity). It has a backlight for the keypad and a slit that projects the backlight onto the screen so the display can be seen in darkness.
The characteristics of the display are fairly restrictive. The text display contains only two lines of six characters each, making the use of data services and text messaging (SMS) less practical than on standard LCD displays.
Since the F3 has only two lines of (fixed) stuff icons on the top and bottom of the display, as well as one line of six 14-segment characters and another line of six 7-segment numbers available on its display, the user interface is very different from the usual menu structure normally found on mobile phones. The only thing resembling a (flat) menu is accessed by pressing left/right on the central button: It allows writing an SMS, reading a saved SMS, call history, choosing the ringtone (out of seven melodies), setting date and time, and setting the alarm clock. The menu is visualized by fixed icons in the bottom row, following the left/right pattern of the navigation button.”
To do anything besides making a call, using your address book, or what’s displayed in the menu mentioned above, you must enter a 3 digit code surrounded by asterisks (for accessing rarely used settings). Want to play games, access the internet, or take crappy 2- or 3-megapixel photos? THIS PHONE CAN’T DO IT.
Long-time readers will know I occasionally get sidetracked by slick advanced smartphones with tons of features I don’t need or necessarily want (iPhone *cough*). I’m somewhat of a halfhearted techie, after all. But truth of the matter is, I’m comfortable with a sub-$50 cellphone and my prepaid AT&T account (which has averaged about $100 a year for the past five years). Using the internet on a phone sucks, and so do the games. I don’t need mp3 ringtones, themes, a camera, or any of the extraneous capabilities they throw into phones these days.
I just want my phone for making calls and the occasional text message. And my dog might want to chew on it, too. OK?
Up to this point, I was stuck with ugly obnoxious phones, as the entry-level / prepaid market isn’t particularly innovative or courted by phone companies. The F3 changes this, sorta. None of the technology is particularly new, but it’s well used. The F3 was, when released, Motorola’s thinnest phone – and it’s still far from clunky. The electronic paper display is attractive and easy to read in any light. The fixed “digital clock” style is retro-cool. Reception and battery strength are clearly displayed up top at all times.
Text messaging is simplified and easy to send / receive – with an important caveat. Messages are restricted to one line and you must scroll right / left to read them, which works out intuitively enough for short user-to-user texts. However, with a long enough message (say, automated ones from your provider with a lot of addendum like “reply to this message”), things can start to become a chore.
Design-wise, the F3 fits in with Motorola’s other slim (literal sense) offerings. In fact, the F3 might be thought of as a baby RAZR. The notable differences being the display and the fact that it’s a candybar design, not flip (spin, slide, or whatever the RAZR does these days). I have always much preferred a candybar-type phone since they’re typically more rugged. The F3′s dimensions are svelte, but the weight belies a sense of sturdiness. The one piece front prevents dust and grime from being trapped between keys or underneath the display. There are four colors available (affecting the face only, the sides and back remain black), I went with blue. Very attractive. The flat face makes the F3 look more like a prop than a functional phone. You know the cardboard computers and TVs found in furniture stores?
Reception is an important consideration since I’m on the fringe of service at home, and fortunately the F3 is as good if not better than my previous Nokia, which as a brand is reputed to have strong reception.
Cost, as stated, was $33 shipped, off of eBay. New and unlocked. I swapped my SIM from my previous phone. One slight grumble here was that the F3 uses its SIM code to save all contacts, while my previous phone used its own internal memory. This meant I had to swap the SIM card back to my old phone so that I could use it long enough to write down any contacts I wanted to save (about a dozen all told). Not the phone’s fault.
In a nutshell, the F3 is an attractive back-to-the-basics phone for anyone, savvy or otherwise. It can also make for an excellent second or starter phone. The unorthodox menu and way of messaging can take some getting used to. But after about half a day, I was comfortable with all functions – all BOTH of them, calling and messaging!
Posted February 4th, 2008 at 5:42PM
All philosophical beliefs and ramblings boil down to a few fundamental concepts. You have your individualism versus community, belief in a religion and belief in the terrestrial, pessimism and optimism (often – evidenced in a belief of the inherent evil or good of mankind).
Et-cetera.
Along the lines of “everything has been thought of; there is nothing new.” If we allow this, then the question becomes: When was the last time man thought something truly profound?
It might be said that moments of clarity are rare, and vary in magnitude. Small ones occur more often, to many. (The smaller price on a tag showing the price per lb allows us to be savvy shoppers at the supermarket, for instance.) But truly profound moments might be considered a dying breed. How many times can man discover gravity?
The assumption here is that our moments must be on display to the world to be profound. If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If a lucid dream explaining life, the universe, and everything comes to us, but flirts away from our consciousness, then what consequence does it have?
I spent the day hauling firewood across our yard, piling it close to the basement door. Afterwards, I collapsed onto the wood and surveyed the view from atop my new pile. All day it’s been dreary and overcast. But I was warm and content: watching the cars roll by down the valley on Route 74, listening to a noisy squirrel across in the woods, enjoying the cold, flat surface of the wood. The smell of the wet, split wood. I leaned back to watch the sky. It was a uniform gray, punctuated only by a wispy thread of smoke from the chimney of our house.
The moment felt profound, not for anything that might have happened, but for the physical exertion and feeling of contentment, clarity. Another dreary February day. The state of mind of a low dose of LSD. A break in the seasonal affective disorder. A moment of profundity.
The lucid dream, the moments of clarity, are lost if we’re not watching for them. Are we? I’ve come to the conclusion that profundity doesn’t need an audience, and that expanding on these small moments is the best path towards a healthier life. How to go about doing that is the challenge!
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