I quickly learned that Amsterdam was a place that didn't necessarily have a ton of touristy attractions above and beyond the drugs and Red Light District.
One afternoon while hunting for a place to eat pancakes, I stumbled upon the downtown flower market. I wandered around the market and was instantly impressed by the size of the place. It ran the length of one canal and had all kinds of random -- get this -- flowers and seeds. Ok, I wasn't really that impressed, but I figured some of my loyal followers might be interested in seeing some pics of it.
[The flower market ran along the entire left side of the canal]
I did find a pancake place. The execution wasn't exactly what I expected -- I ordered the bacon pancakes and here's what I received:
Near as I could tell, that's one ginormous light and fluffy pancake with "bacon" in the middle. Hmm...Maybe one place in Europe will learn how to cook bacon and not use this Canadian Bacon, non-crispy bacon stuff. It was especially weird to taste rubbery bacon in a giant pancake. Of course, it was 4pm, and I was eating for the first time that day (traveling diets are amazing!!), so I scarfed it down. Not too shabby!
I left and passed row after row of nearly identical souvenir shops, until I hit the jackpot.
Littered throughout the city were "Coffee Shops" which were generally places where legal marijuana could be obtained. These shops offered multiple varieties of weed of varying strengths and prices, and usually provided a legal place to smoke. Well, as Brandon and I had hit up a coffee shop the previous day -- he bought a strand called, "Amnesia," that definitely lived up to its name ;p -- there was another type of place that I had yet to find.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, here it was. The place, called "The Mellow Mushroom" beckoned me initially because there's a pizza place named the same thing in Austin, and I was still hungry after my pancake. When I walked through the door, however, pizza wasn't exactly on the menu (contrary to popular opinion, neither was any sort of tea -- I believe serving that had become illegal). Ten minutes and 25 Euros later, I knew what I was doing that evening (complete with an instruction pamphlet that I saved -- it's awesome!!).
One afternoon while hunting for a place to eat pancakes, I stumbled upon the downtown flower market. I wandered around the market and was instantly impressed by the size of the place. It ran the length of one canal and had all kinds of random -- get this -- flowers and seeds. Ok, I wasn't really that impressed, but I figured some of my loyal followers might be interested in seeing some pics of it.
I did find a pancake place. The execution wasn't exactly what I expected -- I ordered the bacon pancakes and here's what I received:
Near as I could tell, that's one ginormous light and fluffy pancake with "bacon" in the middle. Hmm...Maybe one place in Europe will learn how to cook bacon and not use this Canadian Bacon, non-crispy bacon stuff. It was especially weird to taste rubbery bacon in a giant pancake. Of course, it was 4pm, and I was eating for the first time that day (traveling diets are amazing!!), so I scarfed it down. Not too shabby!
I left and passed row after row of nearly identical souvenir shops, until I hit the jackpot.
Littered throughout the city were "Coffee Shops" which were generally places where legal marijuana could be obtained. These shops offered multiple varieties of weed of varying strengths and prices, and usually provided a legal place to smoke. Well, as Brandon and I had hit up a coffee shop the previous day -- he bought a strand called, "Amnesia," that definitely lived up to its name ;p -- there was another type of place that I had yet to find.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, here it was. The place, called "The Mellow Mushroom" beckoned me initially because there's a pizza place named the same thing in Austin, and I was still hungry after my pancake. When I walked through the door, however, pizza wasn't exactly on the menu (contrary to popular opinion, neither was any sort of tea -- I believe serving that had become illegal). Ten minutes and 25 Euros later, I knew what I was doing that evening (complete with an instruction pamphlet that I saved -- it's awesome!!).
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