No Drugs Required: 24 Hours in Amsterdam

Friday night, 10:30 PM:

I'm feeling high, and I haven't touched what's being passed. I'm sitting at a dimly lit bar watching tendrils of smoke roll over the tops of the pool tables. My backpacking companions are settling into their stools. I haven't known them long. As is generally the case when hostel-hopping alone, we are together out of a kind of necessity, bound by little in the way of actual friendship. Of course, that doesn't matter much; we are tied by what we are- a loose and hopeful band of seekers. There's Maria the Mexican and Pablo the Chilean chatting in rapid-fire Spanish. There's Jean the Kiwi with his unsettling blue eyes. There's Dan the Australian pocketing coasters for postcards. There's the Stringbean from Sydney, too full of shrooms to be decent. There's Brad the obnoxious American who sputters on about his efforts in the War Against Terror. There's me the trying-not-to-be obnoxious American dodging Brad's advances and snapping photos through the haze. It's amazing how strongly country of origin postmarks the traveling nomad. No one can escape from it, even when we'd like to. I don't know anything about these people except for where they come from, but that doesn't diminish a thing. We are a multi-cultural hodge-podge enjoying the pleasant camaraderie of people with the same short-term goals: to get drunk, to get high and anonymous in the city where we're told anything goes.

Friday night, 11:15 PM:

From every corner and every beam, our coffee house offers graffiti to its patrons. The walls are on fire with it, vivid bursts and blooms that seem to breathe in the air like coral reef. Ceiling fans whip Sharpeed sonnets through the smoke. Shards of super-glued glass on the wall cut off pieces of our bodies and stick them onto others.
I don't plan on buying any drugs while in town. I have nothing in particular against marijuana, but I've never particularly liked it. It gives me a headache and makes my legs feel numb. The smell of it reminds me of bad nights behind locks doors in high school, sore throats and downward spirals. This is Amsterdam, though, and sampling the product seems mandatory; the air is laced with it no matter where you go. There's the thrill of doing something that feels naughty, but that actually isn't. There's the satisfaction in doing something publicly that usually must be done in basements. The exhale here smells different, somehow; it smells safer and more hopeful.

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