It's great getting a chance to see so many of his paintings. They had one of the sunflowers there. The highlight for me though was the paintings by Monet, whom I consider to be an altogether better impressionist, especially if you're talking landscapes and gardens. Let's get to the seedy side of Amsterdam, beginning at the flower market, which sold lots of marijuana seeds and home growing kits. It's weird to see such things at flower markets, especially when the clientele consists mostly of little old ladies and tourists who haven't managed to find the drug dealers and prostitutes yet.
Newsagents stock all sorts of drug-related merchandise, and pornographic postcards as well.
I was sorely tempted to post some of the latter back home, but I fear that Australia Post would have launched an investigation against my parents, so I chose one of the canals instead. Coffee shops line the streets of Amsterdam, and it is in these that you can go if you'd like to sample some of the green stuff. Generally you can get all sorts of cakes and cookies which contain a bit of leaf, and there's the odd coffee shop which goes a step further, such as the one which sold fine boxes of chocolates laced with the drug. Actually getting a coffee is a bit more difficult, and getting a beer is impossible, as it's actually against the law for the coffee shops to sell both marijuana and beer. A box of twelve nougat squares cost about a dollar, and we bought four boxes.