I’m like a broken record when it comes to how I feel about the Netherlands: I’m always surprised by how progressive it is and therefore, how backward I must be because I have this surprise. There are so many issues where they have taken the lead: gay marriage, euthanasia, age of consent, legalization of drugs, prostitution, abortion, flopping soccer players—the Dutch are showing the way. In at least one instance, prostitution, I read that there has been a rethink about the effectiveness of the controlled red light districts, but the point is that the Dutch are at least trying something where most everyone else is burying their heads in the sand.
I have a foreign friend living here who says learning to speak Dutch is a waste of time and he doesn’t even bother asking people if they know English; he just starts with it. I was thinking that might be a little rude, but I found over and over that when I asked, “Do you speak English?” I got a haughty, “Of course!”
OK, relax, Ubermensch, I get it. You can do it all.
Seen in Vondelpark, Amsterdam. I’m ready to go into rehab from all the second hand marijuana smoke I have inhaled.
Take that, you prudes!
White chocolate and date cookies, plain evidence that my bachelorhood is the mystery of the century.
Hanging out with friends by the iconic “I am amsterdam” sign.
It took longer than I thought to fight off the kids for one of the big tricycles.
I overheard one little girl say to another, “This is a deer twerking.”
I like Nijntje, what can I say? In Japan she is known as Miffy.
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