It was here that my friend Lu and I made the very poor decision to eat an entire piece of cake each instead of sharing one. At first we didn't really feel anything so we didn't think anything of it and even helped our friend Em smoke her joint.
In a couple of hours, however, space cake started hitting us pretty hard and I ended up in the middle of the "ocean" unable to move my limbs in the middle of our hostel room. My friend Max finally had to come "save me" from this "ocean," which basically consisted of him leading me to my bed. I felt enclosed in a little bubble where I couldn't communicate with the other people in the room unless they came inside this bubble. It was a classic rookie mistake, and one that I learned a lot from.
It was a really interesting out of body experience, and I'm not writing off pot forever, but I'm definitely not making the mistake of eating an entire space cake again. The kicker was that the next morning, on our walking tour of Amsterdam (during which I was still pretty high), the tour guide warned us against exactly what we did the night before, which we had a good laugh about.
Amsterdam is most known to young American travelers for its red light district and coffee shop culture, but it's significantly more than that. For one, it is a beautiful city, constructed from scratch by the Dutch.
Also, the entire "to each his own" attitude Amsterdamers share is really inspirational and comforting. They generally don't pass any judgment or try to place restrictions on people's personal lives. Our tour guide even said it's actually easier to be a homosexual in Amsterdam because it's so accepted there, and viewed by some as more the norm than being straight.We did a lot in Amsterdam, but the one other thing that really stands out to me (aside from our crazy space cake adventure) was our visits to the Anne Frank Museum and the Dutch Resistance Museum. It was really interesting to learn about this period in world history that we've all learned about, but from a much more distant perspective.
It was extremely moving to feel that much closer to some of the experiences people went through during the period leading up to, during, and after WWII. I'll never be able to fully understand or comprehend the full extent of what happened, but just being in a country more directly affected than my own helped me at least begin put some of the pieces together. I really appreciate the fact that these types of history museums exist and that people are going to and learning from them. Maybe preserving the memory of and reflecting on the past will prevent us from making these same mistakes.
By the end of our 9 day excursion, I felt extremely exhausted from all the intense traveling and sightseeing, but so grateful and enriched by everything I saw and experienced. At the Flying Pig Hostel where we stayed, their slogan was "Home is in Your Head," and it really resonated with me. I've always had this romanticized idea of being a citizen of the world and living a nomadic existence. For those whose home is truly in their head and can live this kind of life, I fully support their sense of adventure and hunger for new experiences.
But as much as I'd like to count myself among these people, I also like having a place to come back to. Even though I have a tendency to get restless or mildly claustrophobic whenever I'm in one place for too long, I always enjoy the feeling I get when I return to family and friends. At the end of our trip, I was ready to come home to London. It really excited me that London has become a home to me. I don't think I can be a complete nomad, but I have managed to make myself very much at home in two other cities besides Los Angeles (Chicago, and now London) since coming to college.
Now that I'm back in London, I'm really excited to spend some quality time with this city I am now calling home.
No comments:
Post a Comment