Dave Fox's Outbursts!

Dutch Tolerance isn't Just for Humans

I reported last winter from the Netherlands on the Wacky Stoner Cats of Amsterdam. Now it seems that while Dutch felines are toking up, the pooches are swigging back a few brewskis.

Here is an extremely helpful travel tip for my devoted following of canine readers: Doggies, if you like beer, spend your next vacation in Holland. BBC News reports a small Dutch brewery has just created a beer brewed from malt and beef extract, especially for dogs. Woof!

"Once a year we go to Austria to hunt with our dogs," said pet shop owner Gerrie Berendsen, who invented the beer, "and at the end of the day we sit on the verandah and drink a beer. So we thought, my dog also has earned it."

Thanks to Beth in New York for tipping me off on this hot story. Beth writes, "If only they'd make something that pregnant women could drink, I'd buy it by the case."

Well Beth... the doggie beer is non-alcoholic and safe for human consumption.

The Netherlands: Honest Politicians and a New Way to Brand Sheep

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende has confessed to the ANP news agency that he is, "maybe a bit boring."

The confession came after Balkenende refused to campaign for his Christian Democrat party in discotheques as a way of wooing younger voters.

Now if only a certain US leader would admit that he is, "maybe a bit stupid...."

Meanwhile, also in the Netherlands, their leader may be boring but the sheep certainly are not. The Dutch website, Hotels.nl, reports a significant upswing in business since it has started advertising on sheep. Sheep have been outfitted with waterproof blankets that sport the website's logo.

Hotels.nl CEO Miechel Nagel says he is looking for more prospective sheep to wear his advertising -- preferably in areas that experience frequent traffic jams.

"As a company in modern times, you have to take some risks," Nagel told the New York Times.

Huh? Yes, that is true, but since when were sheep on the cutting edge of technology.

The Wacky Stoner Cats of Amsterdam

Haarlem, Netherlands

It's my last night in this country, and I've got some blogging to catch up on when I get home. I'm staying tonight in Haarlem, a town outside of Amsterdam, visiting my friends Maggie and Steven.

Whenever I tell friends in America I will be in or near Amsterdam, I end up having the following conversation:

Them: Amsterdaaaaaammm! Duuu-huuude! Woooooooooo!

Me: Excuse me?

Them: Woooo hoooo! Dude! Amsterdam, dude! You can, like, get stoned there!

Me: Ummm... yes. I can get stoned in America too if I choose to, so what's the big deal?

Them: No way dude!

Me: Way. People do it every day in America.

My point is this: There is a breed of American tourist that comes to Amsterdam for the sole purpose of smoking pot. They spend a thousand bucks on a plane ticket to go sit in what the Dutch call a "coffeeshop" and inhale for several days. When they get home, and you ask them what they did in Holland, they reply, "Duuuuuude! Hoooooweeeeee! Ummm, I don't really know."

This wouldn't be so bad if the people doing this were, shall we say, law-abiding Americans who would never touch an illegal substance in their home town and are truly coming here for a unique cultural experience. There is something refreshing about the decriminalization laws here that is worth experiencing if you choose to. But the people who come here for the sole purpose of smoking do so with drooly, stupified grins on their faces. The people who come here just to smoke are the stoners who smoke up every day at home anyway. It's a hell of a lot of money and time to spend doing the same thing you do at home on a daily basis. Like... at least go visit the Anne Frank House or something. Seriously, dude, your dealer will still be waiting for you when you get home.

The truth about coffeeshops in the Netherlands is that they tend to be frequented by foreigners more than Dutch people. I'm generalizing, of course, so if you happen to be Dutch and stoned right now, it is not necessary to write to me hate mail telling me Dutch people smoke pot too. I get that. But people in other countries need to understand it's not the screaming national pastime here that they might think.

But you are not Dutch. (Unless you are.) And you have been thinking, "Dave in Amsterdam! Marijuana marijuana marijuana! We want stories about marijuana!"

Okay. I do my best to give my readers what they want. So here is a quick story for you:

I was sitting in a bar yesterday, having a beer (yes, just a beer), when a guy named Martin told me the shocking tale of Freek and Sipke, the Dutch Stoner Kittens.

Martin was cat sitting for a friend, and decided to inhale a little bit. As he sat on the couch and lit up his joint, both cats came bounding into the room and jumped in his lap. He did what he could to blow his smoke upward, out of the kitties' reach, which inspired the cats to start jumping in the air as high as they could. Eventually, the cats' athletic skills faltered to the point that they could jump no more. They munched some food and went to sleep.

Martin's friend called an hour later. "I forgot to tell you," she said, "whatever you do, don't smoke pot around my cats. They're addicted."

The moral of the story? Hell, I don't know. It's the middle of the night here. I have insomnia, and a plane to catch in eight hours.

The reason the story is in my blog? Because I know I've got readers out there waiting for tales of my marijuana escapades in Amsterdam, and when it comes to my personal habits, let's just say I follow a don't-ask-don't-tell policy in public. Rambling on about all of my wacky adventures in the coffeeshops would be too much of a cliche anyway. But rest assured, the cats here are happy.

Just Like Chicken?

Groningen, Netherlands

I'm in the Netherlands on a quickie vacation, visiting my friend Erin, who is studying in the north part of this country for a semester, and my friends Maggie and Steven, who live in Haarlem, a city near Amsterdam.

I'm worried.

Yesterday, Erin and I went into Albert Heijn, a Dutch grocery store chain, in search of something for dinner. The store was plastered with posters announcing "Hamster Weken" -- Hamster Weeks.

I think I might make another attempt at vegetarianism.

Whining About Wine

Groningen, Netherlands

I am on the ground, in a land below sea level. Time for blogging is limited.

Seattle to Amsterdam via Washington, DC on United Airlines.... I usually fly SAS to Europe. I'll stick with them from now on for reasons too complex to go into. But there was one incident on United that I must report.

The airline has just started charging 5 dollars per drink for all adult beverages on their international flights. In the past, drinks have been free, to compete with the standard practice on European carriers.

Fair enough. Times are tight in the travel industry. But when I handed the flight attendant a ten dollar bill for an airplane-sized mini bottle of wine, he asked me if I flew United often. I thought maybe he was going to just give me the drink for free. When I answered yes though, he asked if I would like a voucher instead of the five dollars change he owed me.

"A voucher for what?" I asked.

"Another drink."

"Huh?"

"Some people like to have two drinks."

The incident reminded me of the time when I was about six years old, and my mother gave me 50 cents for an ice cream sandwich from the Good Humor Man. Instead of giving me my change as he should have, the ice cream man kept asking me, "What else do you want?"

I learned from the Good Humor incident. I learned that if I accepted something I didn't ask for instead of my change, my mother would be very angry at me. And we can't have that. So on my flight to Amsterdam, I did what my mother taught me. I told the flight attendant I did not want a voucher, and to please give me my damn change, and no I did not want fries.

Next thing you know, they'll be trying to sell you an extended warranty to go with your drinks.

No Toe-Licking Please! We're Dutch!

Utrecht, Netherlands

I've stopped off in Utrecht, 30 minutes from Amsterdam, to visit friends on my way back to Seattle. The Netherlands, known for their liberal laws, have developed a somewhat dubious reputation over the years thanks to their decriminalization of so-called "soft drugs" and legalization of prostitution.

But if you think the Netherlands are an anything goes kind of culture, think again. The Dutch Labor Party is attempting to crack down on one particularly sordid form of sleaze -- unsolicited toe licking.

A 35-year-old man has allegedly been sneaking up on women sunbathing in a Rotterdam park for the last three years and licking their toes. Police have been unable to prosecute him because in the liberal Netherlands, there has been no law against toe licking. That could change soon, however, if a new law passes making it a crime to lick people's toes without their consent.

But toe lickers of the world, have no fear! You will still be allowed to travel to Amsterdam and lick all the toes you want. If you pay to lick someone's toes in the Red Light District, it will be considered consentual, and therefore okay.

[Thanks to Beth in New York for alerting me to this important issue.]

Northwest Airlines Veers Southeast

I'm scheduled to fly to Italy in six days on a Northwest/KLM flight via Amsterdam. I'm feeling kind of nervous following an Associated Press report today that a Northwest pilot on a flight to Rapid City, South Dakota, accidentally landed an aircraft full of passengers at an Air Force base rather than the Rapid City civilian airport.

Oops.

A few minutes later, passengers were instructed to close their shades and not look out the window while the pilot and crew were interrogated for three hours.

According to the AP, Northwest Airlines Spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch refused to identify the pilot or crew. And, the article states, the spokesman would not "say if the pilot made an error."

Mr. Ebenhoch, sir, with all due respect... the pilot screwed up. Royally. You can admit it.

I can't remember the last time I've flown on Northwest, but I remember quite well my last flight on its European partner airline, KLM. The year was 1994, and I was flying from Amsterdam to Chicago. At around noon, Amsterdam time, the first round of drinks was served. Most people were sticking to juice and soda.

A little while later, now two hours out over the Atlantic Ocean, the head flight attendant came on the intercom and announced, "I'm afraid I have a very annoying announcement." The plane had a technical problem. We had to turn around and go back to Amsterdam.

This was followed by another announcement: "Please do not be alarmed if you see fuel spilling off the wings of the aircraft."

Then came a third announcement that there was no time to serve us lunch, but the flight attendants were going to come through with another round of beverages. This time, people started ordering booze.

And the airline encouraged it. They didn't use the usual airline mini bottles. They brought the good stuff from first class back to us peasants in economy class, and started pouring large, stiff drinks for anyone who requested one. I'm not sure what the logic was in getting us all sloshed just before making an emergency landing. If we had to evacuate, sobriety seemed the most logical state of mind to be in.

We landed safely. We spent six hours at Schiphol Airport waiting for a new aircraft. Add that to the four hours in the air on the first U-turned flight, and the total delay was 10 hours. To compensate us for the inconvenience, KLM bought us each a sandwich.

The Church of Cheese

It's that special time of year when I begin having a nervous breakdown in my attempt to depart for my other life as a European tour guide. Part of my annual pre-departure ritual involves sifting through the pile of crap that's been sitting on my bedroom floor since I returned to Seattle after last fall's tours and emptied out my backpack.

Yesterday I stumbled upon a brochure I picked up last year for the "Kerk van Kaas" or "Church of Cheese" in Edam, the Netherlands. This is not just any church of cheese. No! This is, the brochure brags in six languages, the "biggest church of cheese" in the world -- a 1:10 scale replica of an actual church.

I have several concerns about this. What happens when it's hot out? Does the church melt? Do they have problems with rodents? And why did they build it out of Edam cheese instead of Swiss? A Swiss cheese church would be holier.