Vices

Besides bikes, Amsterdam is known for its permissiveness. Coffee shops don't look or smell like Starbucks, and red lights aren't meant as traffic signals everywhere, especially in dark allies.

I arrived on an historic week, however, as it pertains to permissiveness. The European Union demanded that, starting July 1, Holland stop allowing smoking inside places of business. I was a little confused when I read that the ban only includes tobacco smoke. The famous coffee shops still allow smoking of pure marijuana indoors. I was aware, however, that the vast majority of Europeans that smoke pot, mix it with a fair amount of tobacco - partially because it makes a joint burn better and partially because it dilutes the extremely potent local varieties. So those wishing to smoke weed in a coffee shop had two choices: Smoke outside, or smoke it pure.

The ban did not just affect coffee shops though. As I walked or rode my bike around town in the evening, I would see a familiar sight to someone from California... a crowd of people outside each bar smoking their cigarettes. Although this was familiar to me, I suspected this was a totally new sight to see in Holland. I confirmed this with a bartender at a nice jazz club I stopped in. Before getting in though, I had to push my way through a couple of people smoking directly in the doorway - a practice that hasn't sunk in as rude yet here. Most of the Dutch people I spoke to about hadn't seem to have given much thought to the consequences of such a ban. I wondered if anyone thought this might hurt tourism or business at the coffee shops. I wondered how anyone would know if there was tobacco in your joint. I wondered if the ban would cause people to start smoking pure joints thus becoming far more incapacitated. Maybe they would stop rolling joints, and use bongs and pipes with smaller amounts. Maybe folks all over Holland would smoke less altogether. In any case, I knew it would affect the feel of the town and I was a little disappointed I got here after the imposition of this little corner of the new world order.

Some Dutch folks I discussed this with were delighted with a tip I handed down to them, which is that, with such a ban in effect, you can gauge the crowd in bars before you go inside by the number and makeup of the folks out on the street smoking. It beats walking in and out of places.

Another signature aspect of Amsterdam is the red light district. Prostitution is legal here, but mainly confined to this one neighborhood in town. I took a field trip down to the town center in the daytime to take a gander. I found the spot on the tourist map that indicated the general area and parked my bike. The neighborhood looked more or less like the rest of the city. The street was bustling with locals and tourists and I wondered if I was in the right place. I took a quick right turn down an alley to check another street and immediately had my whereabouts confirmed.

Before I arrived here, I had a vision in my mind of what the red light district would look like. Maybe dark and seedy with women doing some kind of slinky pole dance or maybe just sitting on stools filing their nails or something.. all in a room lit so that passers by could see them and then maybe ring a little bell if they wanted to get inside.

It wasn't exactly like that, but I wasn't far off. The most jarring thing for me was that, while walking down the extremely narrow allies, I found myself eye to eye with the ladies with just a pane of glass between us. Also I could hardly see the ladies until it was just them and me directly in front of one another. They are not passive either. They are salespeople and they wink and wave folks in, and will even open the door and come out to throw a verbal sales pitch occasionally if they think it will work. Oh and some of the ladies aren't really ladies at all, which they were not shy about demonstrating. I was a little bit shocked by the whole thing, but intrigued at the same time. I never once broke my stride, afraid that one might try and latch on.... but I did walk up and down a few allies. Crazy!

All in all, I have to say that, although this part of town clearly caters to human vices, it didn't seem all that seedy. However, I did note on two occasions, shady characters in darkish corners, who as I passed by actually said "Pssst". Really? Pssst? Nothing screams seedy like Pssst.