Wednesday, 16th of January

Amsterdam and News

Amsterdam was an interesting experiance. The influence of tourisim and the main reason why tourism is so popular is due to the well known relaxed regulations (de-criminalisation) involving drug use.

Unfortunately the negative impact of this is that other higher drugs start appearing even though, and the effect on these on the dealers make it much more unsafe than it should be.

I was suprised to find out that although "weed" is tolerated, it's still illegal but isn't a crimnal offence - you can't get charged, but can be fined for inappropriate behaviour. The whole system is quite regulated but despite this you can certainly see the long term effects on the population (especially youth). 

Our experiances 

We arrived quite late at our hostel, and the young woman booking us in couldn't  make anything work, forgot what she was doing a few times. Never the less we finally managed to get in, although half the swipe cards she had issued ended up only working for a day. 

Our first day involved a tour around the city learning about the history behind amsterdam and visitng a few of the tourist attractions - Once you get past the drugs and the plain numbers of tourists, the city itself has a lot of history behind it. We visited Anne Frank's house and had look around the red-light district. 

I certainly have to hand it to them that turning prostitution into a business, that side of things seems to be a lot more safe for everyone involved. Unless you decided to ignore the "no photos" sign.. You'd end up with a bunch of girls beating the living crap out of you. 

Photo from Michiel Revuecamp (cheers bro) - My camera died recently so I have to start relying on friends or use my cellphone camera. ;)

Why no updates? 

Sorry for not doing any updates over new years and christmas, I've visited 4 countries in under a month and was on a tight schedule, meeting friends and parting! Photos are on facebook for incrimination! 

So far I've managed to board in Austria, Bavaria, then rocked down to Spain for christmas with Andy (cheers bro!) then busted 500km north to Göttingen for New Years with my Girlfriend and a bunch of mates from NZ who seem to swarm together in groups! 

Never the less good times were had!

Its back to work now for a few weeks of hard core development before I have to bust back to NZ for a short stay (2 weeks) for Giles and Sheree's wedding. It's going to be an insane month!

Peace out!

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