A Frosted Flake for Breakfast - Amsterdam

Watch out!

I was unsuspectingly drugged while traveling in Europe, but fear not I still have all of my vital organs...and most of my liver.

I'm sure you're wondering how innocent little old me got caught up in such a nasty piece of business.  Well gather 'round the spliff fire and I'll tell you a story.

I'll skip the boring bits and simply say that I had to change to a second hotel a couple of days into my Amsterdam trip.  Why?  Because the original hotel was booked up for the next few days (see, I told you it was boring).

This second place had the typical free continental breakfast.  You know the drill: some bland, often stale, breads put out on a table.

*On a sidenote, if you were an Aztec and you were told that your god gave you maize and then these dudes came through your hometown proclaiming their religious superiority and they brought stale bread, whose god would you believe in?*

But I digress.  Back to the story at hand.

I had woken up early that day and was the only one at breakfast thus far.  This place had a little eating area, not unlike the first place I stayed.  A woman came out from the kitchen, said hello and put a tray of baked goods on the table, not unlike the first place I stayed.  She then returned to the kitchen, not unlike the first place I stayed.  I step up to partake in the staleness but this is where we diverge from the previous script.

Do my eyes deceive me?  (No, that would come a few hours later.)  There are delicious goodies as far as the eye can see, provided one is near-sighted and cannot see past the rather small table.

Muffins abound, cakes overflow, brownies deluge, and cookies do something that is a synonym of the prior three verbs.

The night prior I made the mistake of partaking in local Dutch food.  (For the record, Dutch cuisine is the worst cuisine I've ever tried.)  I was left a bit hungry from not finishing my meal.  A meal that left me wondering "Is there anything these people won't put mustard on?"

So I grab as much food as I can and start inhaling it.  I'm like some bizarre hybrid from Candy Land and Kolyma Tales. 

At that point, the woman returns from the kitchen and says "[Something in Dutch, probably a curse word] What are you doing?"  I retort "Um eebink bekfest" which Babel Fish informs me roughly translates from the MouthFullafood language to English as "I'm eating breakfast."  She then goes on to tell me that those goods are for sale and are most certainly not for breakfast.
 
Well, it turns out that this hotel's breakfast area doubles as a smoking area at night.  And I don't mean cigars and cigarettes.  No, I mean drugs!  (The kids call it the marijuana.)  I know dear readers, I was as shocked then as you are now.  I'm still reeling from the fact.  What has this world come to?

Now hold onto you hats guys because you're not going believe this but they even put drugs in the food!  Have you ever heard of such a thing?

So the woman puts the remaining baked goods in a glass case with their corresponding labels which were as follows:

• Space muffins
• Space cakes
• Pot brownies
• Hemp cookies

Clearly, I was duped and take no responsibility for my actions that morning, nor for any actions I may performed the week following that breakfast.

In the end, we worked something out financially (since I was staying there for a few days) and I went on my merry away around Amsterdam (and it was very very merry).

One thing I did learn that day?  Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day.


Crashing the world one couch at a time,
The Hi-tech Vagabond