We have a day off before we face the Dutch National Team (The Lions). So we have some time to explore Amsterdam as a team. Chris Krattiger (the GM) grabbed me and said that he would show me around since he had been there a few times.
The players split off into groups and basically everyone did their own things with their friends.
The first thing Chris does is skate into a small shop … he emerges a few minutes later with two cans of Heineken. Well when in Amsterdam … yup do as the Amsterdamites.
We wandered down a main street along one of the more than 150 canals and I’m getting the sense that everyone around me is smoking a joint. The scent (and haze) is dense on certain corners.
Amazing – but then we cruise past the “Hash, Marihuana & Hemp Museum” (complete with a green Volkswagen Bug complete with Marijuana (or Marihuana) leaves stenciled on the door on each side!
Then you begin to see the bicycles … literally thousands of them. They actually have streets reserved for bikes only! And sitting atop these bicycles are these very big people.
Its impressive to see these streets. You have to wait at a traffic light to cross the bike roads. As far as these tall people – I am told the Dutch are the tallest people in the world. Man it looks like it.
We dodge the bikes … avoid a contact high with the marijuana users and slip across several streets. Chris is grinning and announces that we are going to hit the “Red Light” district.
Sure why not … after all it is early afternoon and should be safe enough. So, apparently we cut across a corner of the famed area. Just as advertised there they are …girls scantily clad in negligees waving at us from floor to ceiling windows.
We spend a minute of two admiring the Dutch architecture and then continue across an alley way and there stands a beautiful church with a dingy bar directly across from it (apparently the church was built in the 1300’s!)
We sit down at some beaten down table on metal chairs and get a beer. Directly behind me is some dude smoking a joint that Bob Marley might even admire.
I say to Chris … now I get it. You get high or drunk or both … then you head into the red light district and commit some bad acts, cross over the road then go to church and ask for forgiveness. For penance you head across the street and drink your punishment while saying the Rosary and “The Act of Contrition”!
Hah … what a life!
OK … enough about having a “High” old time …lets play the Dutch!
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