The Cannabis Cup

In the begining of the 20th Century the Netherlands was the largest producer of Cocaine. The US wanted to restrict the use/sale of this product and in 1911 during a conference in Shanghai the opium act was created, and Dutch Law regarding drugs still operates by this policy today. The Act criminalizes possession, cultivation, trafficking and importing or exporting. It seperates drugs into 2 catagories. Hard Drugs like heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and LSD. Then there are soft drugs like Marijana and Hash. Soft drugs are legal to buy but only in limited quantities. Basically everyone smokes weed here. It's weird. You see people sitting in bars or restaurants with weed on the table rolling joints. They buy the weed from "coffeeshops", I happen to live right next door to one. They have menus of different types of weed and hash, and I'm sorry I can't explain to you the differences between the different marijuana sold because i'm a non smoker. Different products put you in a different mood I guess. They tell tourists not to go into a coffee shop and try to order the strongest one, because the strains here are so much stronger that what most people are used to.
Now here is where my story begins. My co-worker scott was all excited lastweek because the Cannabis Cup was here. The High Times Cannabis Cup is the world’s preeminent Cannabis festival. The event allows judges from around the world to sample and vote for their favorite marijuana strains. These judges decide the best new product, best hash and of course the best marajuana. Scotts girlfriend Sandra works for a company called "Green House Company".They are the most successful cannabis company in the world. Since she works for Green House she was able to get a
hold of some VIP judges passes....and guess who got a pass to go? Yours truly...

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The judges can walk to any of the cannabis manufactures and get free weed, afterall they are responsible for judging it. Since i'm a non smoker, how the heck could I ever judge the quality of the marijuana...hello? I'd be like, oh, that one is pretty green, or that one looks nice and fluffy, or even oh, that one comes in really neat looking balls! Obviously I wasn't a real judge, I just had the credentials to get me into the parties in a VIP fashion. The last night was the awards ceremony where they handed out the winners. I was cheering for greenhouse (since sandra works for them). Greenhouse won the best hash, but the took 2nd and 3rd in the other catagories. I also saw the biggest joint i've ever seen!! It was for real, someone even smoked it I think. A real smoker would get excited at the thought of smoking it, for me I took it as a photo opportunity. The ceremony was nice, and filled with americans. I ran into these 5 mexican american guys at the bar, from chicago and they live blocks away from me!! Small world. Apparantly there are many americans in the growing business. There were guest speakers like the writer for the american medical marijuana journal, high times, and then there was this CRAZY stoner family that reminded us of the Osbourne family, only 100x crazier. See the video below.

The average smoking age here is 28. The country sees a decline in marijuana smokers every year. Making it legal is their way of controling it. Most of the smokers are young, and as they grow older they grow out of it. The people here are calm, and the smokers are peaceful. I will remain a non smoker because its not my thing. Now, If I happen to walk through a room of smokers and inhale the lingering smoke for temporary enjoyment, well I can't control that!

Cock, Yes I Said Cock.

There are some words in American English that just sound..well they sound bad in British English. Today I had one of those moments. I was riding along with one of our sales guys to an account called B&Q, its very similar to a Home Depot. A female customer walked up to me and asked where she could get hardieplank, lavender blue color. I explained to her kindly how she could order it, and to make sure she had all of her accessories I asked her, "Do you need Caulk?" BZZZZZZ. PAUSE. It was like the music had stopped playing and everybody was looking at me. Caulk sounds like Cock in British English, and I asked this poor lady if she needed Cock!!!! OMG. I like to try and add pictures for everything I talk about. I think for this short story a picture of silicon "Caulk" is most appropriate.

I forgot to mention, in London we took a bicycle taxi, the same thing you see in wrigleyville and other neighborhoods. We thought it would be a good way to see the city. We asked the driver to take us to coventry garden where there were many restaurants. He drove us around for 10 minutes or so, dropped us off and charged us $18 dollars. Not bad for a nice 10 minute ride...until 2 blocks later as we started walking and we were right back to the same place he picked us up. That guy was such a "Caulk".

As I left London today, my co-worker didn't want to drive me all the way to London City Airport (not a caulk,traffic wasreally bad.) He sent me on the "tube" and I arrived within 45 minutes. It really wasn't bad except for the 3 flights of stairs I had to take with a suitcase in hand. You can really travel around anywhere in the london area by "tube", it's a much faster and better system than CTA train systems in Chicago. Now i'm back in Amsterdam until Monday, when I head back to the UK. Stay tuned...

Gambling Queen of England

I'm staying in a gorgeous hotel in the center of London. I'm across the street from Buckingham palace at a hotel voted by tripadvisor as the best boutique hotel for 2011. The room is one of the most unique I've ever stayed in, and with all of my travels I've seen many. The room is 2 stories with a living room on the first floor and a bedroom upstairs. The best part of the room? There is no ceiling. Well there is, but it's glass and you can see the stars, clouds, everything. When you feel you've had to much of the sun, you hit the remote to the retractable canopy that covers the glass ceiling. The staff at this boutique is more than accommodating. They help us with everything and I feel a little spoiled.

I saw my first show at the theater this weekend in London, Billy Elliot. What a great musical it was. These kids were great dancers, the humor was good (some british humor I didn't get though), the acting was wonderful, and the theater was beautiful. Theaters in London are highly competitive and unlike the US, they allow you to buy a drink at the bar and bring it into the show. Sounds great right? No. There is nothing worse than having to pee, not able to get up because you're stuck in the middle of the section around many people,
glancing at your watch every minute hoping that intermission is right around the corner. Of course you know, once intermission comes there is always a mad dash to the bathrooms. I dashed alright, only to be stuck in a line behind 20 other women, 4 bathroom stalls, 2 which didn't flush! My advice...Enjoy the show, skip the cocktails.

London has these cool looking phone booths all over the city. When was the last time anyone used a phone booth? I opened the door just so I could get a quick picture. What a stinky nasty graffiti urine covered experience. Ick. No wonder people don't use them. After walking around the city for hours, taking random pictures I was able to hit a Casino in London as well. Sorry Mom, there are no video poker machines here. Everybody plays roulette. My friend and I turned 60 US dollars into $522.00 in Roulette. We were winning every spin. Evens, Odds, Black, Red,numbers...everything. It was great! To celebrate we wanted to take a shot of tequila but it cost almost $14 dollars a shot. We refused to spend that much money on a shot of patron. As we were leaving with all of our winnings, we found a $10 dollar chip in our pockets.... And THAT is when the master plan started. We decided to gamble the $10 on roulette, and if we win, we would splurge and buy the shots of tequila and would continue to do so until we lost. Well guess what? We won, and we won, and we won again. With my headache this morning, I don't feel like such a winner anymore.

Nibble on this...

Why do they British have to do everything differently? They drive on the wrong side of the road, they use pounds instead of euros for currency, and they spell words wrong by putting a u in them. Colour, Flavour, Honour, Neighbour,Rumour...etc. :) OK, maybe and just maybe Americans are responsible for the change in spelling. If you believe Wikipedia definitions then believe this. The British say if the word is of Latin origin then it should be spelled -or and if it is of french origin it should be -our. Noah Webster in 1828 (creator of Webster dictionary) wanted to simplify the American English to make it more phonetic and easier to learn.


It is going to take some getting used to jumping around between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. In both places I still don't know how to use the currency (maybe that's cause I lost my wallet and I'm living on borrowed money!), but I keep getting put in awkward situations. In England they use the GBP or Great British Pound. It is made up of 100 pence (not cents, people get mad when you say that here). There are so many coins. 1 penny, 2 pence, 5 pence, 10 pence, 20 pence, 1 pound, and finally 2 pounds. People use terminology like 6 pence, one shilling, and have a crown....and by doing this I'm ultimately confused. Is it rude just to hand the store clerk all of my change just so they can figure it out for me? I had to pay 2 pounds for some nuts that I fancied...and I gave the bartender 2 pence and he just looked at me like I was nuts. I paid the 2 pounds and nibbled on my fancy nuts.



20 Euros= $27.15 USD
20 Pounds = $31.56 USD


Rather than doing the conversions every time I take the easy way out and just say..."oh, so it just costs a little bit more in dollars", so I don't have to do the math :)

Tipping in Europe is also somewhat bazaar. In the Netherlands, you just don't do it. No tips for waitors, taxi drivers, hotel staff. The service industry here receives a higher salary and don't depend on tips for their income. Of course, tips I assume would be always welcomed by them; as a matter of fact they love to serve Americans because we generally tip anyway. It's part of our culture and it feels wrong NOT doing it. Here in England though, tipping is more common.

NIBBLE ON THAT! HA

London - Buckingham Palace

26 million people visit London every year, for me it is an unusual city. Everything here revolves around the royal family and Buckingham palace. Thousands of people are crowded around the palace daily (i know this because my hotel is right across the street). Believe it or not, it costs British tax payers 32.8 million dollars for for the royal families annual household expenses, security..etc. There is a lot of criticism regarding this, but when you think about it the royal family brings in so many tourists (like me) each year who spend millions of dollars stimulating the economy. Those who criticize the royal family for using this money need to do their research.



Changing of the guard was a really neat experience. Thousands of people line up to to view the music show, parade of horses, and the changing of the guards. I so badly wanted to stand next to a guard and get my picture taken, but once you're there you see there is zero opportunity. I always thought I would be able to stand there make a funny face, and try to get the men to move. Not the case. You can't get anywhere near the guys.

Everyone here drinks tea, all sorts of types. Today we had afternoon tea in the hotel, the tea was served with small sugar cubes. It's the weirdest thing, whenever I see sugar cubes it reminds me of the black stallion, remember how the little boy fed the horse sugar cubes? We were shocked to see that afternoon tea comes with sandwiches (all have butter on them of course), scones, white chocolate, chocolate, cupcakes, lemon meringue, and cookies galore! $100 for tea, who would have thought...

Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet

I didn't think I was going to write a blog every day, but today was too good to pass up. I rode a Vespa through town today to help celebrate a dutch tradition. Today in Holland they celebrate SinterKlaas. Similar to santa and his elves, Sinterklaas has helpers but they are slaves. People actually dress up and paint their faces black and attend this parade. Sinterklaas (santa claus) lives in Sunny Spain and comes to holland by boat with his helpers... The Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). Black Pete walks around and gives children cookies. Parents tell kids if they are bad, black pete is going to take them away to Spain.

If Europeans ever critizie us americans on racisim in our country, this is something we can throw back at them. Not only is it weird, but it's super creepy. The country is trying to address these racisim issues and they say Pete's face is black from the soot from climbing down the chiminies, and petes lips are red because his lips scrape on the way down.

Small dutch children everywhere dress up as Black Pete and paint their faces black. This is a childrens holiday but it's apparant the parents have just as much fun with it. There were small drinking boats on the amstel river partying it up.

Finally on December 5th, Sinterklass and Black Pete will visit childrens homes. Before going to bed, kids put their shoes by the fireplace filled with carrots for sinterklaas's horse. The next day they will find candy or a small present in their shoes.

If you don't believe any of this, google it. It's totally true! See the video below that we shot of the parade.

Welcome to Amsterdam

I remember 7 years ago traveling through mexico, taking pictures every chance I could get, and sending emails to my friends and family via aol to talk about my adventures. I wrote about the good, the bad (well PG13 bad) and the ugly. Remember when I was so sick and the doctor who gave me a shot of penicillin in the butt turned out to be a taxi driver and not really a doctor? How about almost getting my entire backpack filled with clothes stolen by the Mexican laundry mat owner who answered the door to us in his underwear? They are stories like these that need to be told, and I am happy to share the tales of my European Adventure.

Day #1: I was told to be at the James Hardie office around 9:00am, as things don't generally start earlier than that. They offered to send a car for me, but I thought it would be nice to walk through the city so I could get to know the shops, cafes, and just have a general feel of the neighborhood. I mapquested the walking directions and I was on my way. I believe I have a good sense of direction, but the walk that was supposed to take me 40 minutes, took me 2 hours as I got lost on every turn. I can blame it on construction and roads being closed, I can blame it on mapquest being semi-incorrect, or I can blame it on the faint scent of marijuana floating from the coffee shops, but the fact of the matter is I couldn't recognize the streetnames right away and each Van der sloot type road made the image of Natalie Holloway pop into my mind.

After arriving the the office 2 hours late, I was welcomed by an amazing group of co-workers. They were very welcoming and kind. I was invited to a French bakery by the two french marketing guys. We walked 15 minutes to have fresh baguettes with cheese and procuitto. As I reached for my wallet in my pocket...IT WAS GONE!! Yes, on my first day in Europe I was pickpocketed. My drivers license, my debit card, my personal Amex, my corporate amex, my blue amex, 2 pairs of earings, 40 euros, and 4 american dollars were taken from my pocket. I walked back to the office and cancelled my cards, luckily nobody had used them but then I started thinking...what the heck am I going to do for money? No cash, no debit cards, no credit? Hello???

My first day and all I could imagine was everyone in the european office whispering sterotypes about americans like "stupid gringa" and I was embarassed. Remko, the nice IT guy walked me to a cash machine and took out 200 euros for me untill my cards arrive. On our way back to the office I received a phone call from American Express saying someone had located my wallet. Big deal I thought, a wallet full of useless creditcards, no cash, missing earings...que bueno. What am I going to do with that? But to my surprise the American Express operator explained to me my wallet was found on a street by a lawyer walking into a courthouse, and they wanted to meet with me to return it!! I did not get pickpocketed afterall....I was STUPID and literally dropped my wallet on the way to the bakery.

I learned an important lesson. Sterostypes always exist for a reason. Stupid Gringa? Yup. I mastered that one.