I love South Park completely and entirely. It has never failed to make me laugh or to cheer me up in inexpressible ways, and when I hear others say they do not find it funny or do not understand it, I privately snub them and disregard them as inferior beings.
Anyway, on a lighter note, whilst stalking my boyfriend's twitter page today I found out the 20th of April is National Weed Day, along with Hitler's birthday. Two new pieces to add to my long list of useless trivia; so far, so good. However, what slightly bemused me was that I had never been aware of this counter culture holiday before in my life and suddenly quite a fair few people I know were throwing "Happy 420"'s around as casually as if they had been born with a joint in hand and that these celebrations had been going on longer than Christmas.
Obviously I spent a good amount of time thinking back to when I could of possibly been living underneath a rock.
What tickles me is that my sudden enlightenment of this "holiday" coincided with me visiting the lovely city of Amsterdam for the first time last week, the mecca of potheads worldwide. I had a very fun time. Despite the partying and hangovers, I managed to fit in a visit to the Heineken Museum/Experience, the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House.
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| Heineken Brewery |
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| Anne Frank Statue |
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| Sunflowers are the bestest. |
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| Harmonie Luminaire - Alphonse Osbert 1904. |
On my return I found out on the handy iamsterdam.com, that since 2010 "The cabinet has proposed introducing a membership card system that would mean that exclusively residents of the Netherlands above the age of 18 would be able to enter coffeeshops." Hmmm.
Further reading revealed more sad news for potheads everywhere, "There are also concrete plans to introduce distance requirements for coffeeshops. If these plans are implemented, coffeeshops will have to be located a minimum of 350 metres from secondary schools and intermediate vocational education institutions. This would mean that 116 of the 222 coffeeshops in Amsterdam would no longer be tolerated."
While this probably sounds like a sensible idea for some, I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be a positive thing for Dutch tourism. But then again the city has plenty more to offer to visitors than getting a legal high. Personally, if these plans go through it would be a shame; the world would have one less quirky oddity in it's midst, and that is never a good thing.
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