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Published: August 30th 2008
The city of Amsterdam is incredibly beautiful and the canals that the city sits on give it a different sort of feeling. However after WWII the people of Amsterdam decided that they were sick of conservative right wing thinking and the facist laws of the nazis so they decided that they would move as far to the left as possible. By going to the far left the city of Amsterdam ensured that it was not the beauty of the city that attracted people but other things.
In the 1970's the city deemed that all 'soft drugs' would be decriminalised and that they could be bought and sold in special shops. This means that anything that grows in the ground like marijuana and magic mushrooms was A OK and would be decriminalised, NOT LEGAL. Man made or refined drugs are classified as hard drugs and they are still illegal.
This means that if you go to a cafe in Amsterdam you can get a coffee or a beer or maybe even some food. However if you go into a coffee shop you will get cannabbis or some other cannabbis realted product. While if you go into a smart shop you won't
Coffee Shop
This was the first ever Coffee shop to start in Amsterdamget a calculator or protractor or even a dictionary. You will get magic mushrooms.
The city of Amsterdam also legalised prostitution in the year 2000 although it was not really punished before this. The city looked at who was losing and winning from the business and decided to legalise it. However pimping is very illegal. This means that in the red light district you walk down the street and girls sit in little rented windows wearing lingerie, waving to you and generally encouraging you to partake in some sort of activity. This is very distracting to everyone and people (men and women) walk down the street with thier eyes darting back and forth trying not to fall into a canal. After a while however you don't even notice it and just watch out for the canals. All the windows also have a sign saying no photo's, we were told by our tour guide. That it is best to obey this as the girls will throw urine at you and later on your camera will go missing, usually by force and end up in the canals.
These sights and activities are now the main reason why people come to Amsterdam.
However the city is very beautiful and there is plenty to see and do. The Van Gogh museum, The Anne Frank House, The worlds first stock exchange, The headquaters of the Dutch East India trading company and some of the best museums in Europe are also situated in the city.
The Van Gogh Mueseum houses the biggest collection of works by the painter and makes for an intersting jaunt. The most visited sight in Amsterdam is the Anne Frank house whic in fact isn't really a house at all but is actually the business office of Anne Franks dad, as the family lived int he Jewish Quarter and this probably wasn't the best place to be hiding when the Nazis arrived. Everyone knows the story of the Franks so I wont repeat it except to say that Anne Franks father survived the war and found his daughters diary and had it published knowing that whe wanted to be a writer.
The head quaters if the Dutch east India company are also interesting this was the worlds first company as before they came along everyone just worked for themselves, they had the idea of paying people to go out
Trading company
This is the home of the worlds first ever trading company- the east indies trading company and work for them and they would just sit around counting the cash. The company also had the worlds first trademark and was they set up the worlds first stock exchange to help fund their trips to what is now Indonesia. All in all it was a pretty successful time in Amsterdam until the British started the British west Indies trading company and took a big slice of the pie.
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