Amsterdam is cold and sleepy—gray lays over it, thick like a comforter. The tall, old buildings curl in on each other, leaning close for warmth, folding into each other. Cyclists steam by like schools of metallic fish. In the huge parking lots they huddle together, slumberous silver and rusted turquoise or engine red, glossy black, chipped copper frames. Vin wraps himself up to his nose, saying his Asian blood is too hot for the damp cold that goes all through you. By the ferry, little ducks bob and peck in the damp green-gray water.
Sleepy Amsterdam is full of a million languages, and no one seems to really bother with Dutch. We spend the days strolling through the streets, along and over the glossy canals, crossing tram tracks and bike lanes haphazardly, ignoring the crosswalks with their beeping timer mechanisms. Amsterdam is adorable, quaint, reminiscent of the things that you think of in Portland, or maybe San Francisco. I linger outside the shop windows gawking at the novelty gifts, handmade soaps, woolen hats, quirky t-shirts, pastries, waffles, psychedelic truffles, marijuana lollypops, little glass bongs and grinders with the big triple x across the top. We find a shop entirely devoted to buttons; too cute for words.
At the market there are booths set up with little yellow wheels of cheese, with jars of pickles, with flat waffles and poffertjes—fat pancakes the size of silver dollars. We eat the poffertjes with butter and powdered sugar using little wooden forks as we meander through clothing booths full of colorful scarves and bizarre American flag leggings, Amsterdam caps with tassels and bright green Heineken sweatshirts. As the market begins to shut down, egrets appear and pick at the ice left behind by a seafood booth.
The coffeeshops are dimly lit and sweet-musty smelling, with little nugs labeled and displayed in their countertops, with laminated menus and pre-rolled joints stored in slim plastic tubes. In one shop, an electronic panel in the counter glows pleasantly, displaying the menu on one side, and as the shop keeper weighs and packages the weed in small plastic baggies, the other side displays the weight and price of each strain, tallying up a neat total. People sit at the tables in pairs, rolling spliffs and drinking tea. Vin and I frequent a shop called New Times, with a burnished purple counter and purple candles at each table. We smoke Vin’s long spliffs and sip on English tea, Earl Gray, Moroccan Mint or Rooibos. The third or fourth day we stop by, the man behind the counter hands back our money and bumps fists with Vin. One day, an older man behind the counter is weighing out clumps of hash. Vin asks what it is and the man tells him couscous, handing him a little clump with a friendly smile.
One evening we stop at a dark little smartshop full of glow in the dark posters and metal pipes. The man behind the counter has long hair and shows us a menu of truffles that are rated based on the intensity of the physical high, the energy, and the visuals that each type produces. We buy two little boxes of Cosmic Connection. Back at the house we open them up and contemplate the black clusters. They look like animal shit. We eat them with Nutella, cringing at the acrid after taste. Vin’s friend, a thin blond girl, stops by and sits on his Fatboy bean bag sipping a beer while we watch some show about some nut job living with lions. When she leaves I go to the bathroom and sit on Vin’s strangely high toilet seat; my legs dangle off. I realize my toes suddenly seem miles away and the rug is undulating softly. Back in his room, the deep red curtains are rippling, deep velvety burgundy, the golden shapes on them glowing faintly. We are feeling melty, listening to Gramatik with the TV on mute, watching shadows spill across the African plains in lazy half-fascination. Mostly, my mind fills up. I feel like I can see myself from a strange new angle. I look at my legs stretched out before me. I pull a blanket over my head and watch the white polka dots drift sleepily through the dark.
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