Waffles, Chocolate, and Pot

Another interesting thing about Amsterdam is the well-known fact that marijuana is legal here. That doesn't mean it can be openly sold. It is legal but somewhat restricted. It can only be sold in licensed establishments known as "coffee houses." So if you're looking for a cup of coffee in Amsterdam, you don't want to go into a coffee house - logical as that might seem. For coffee, you go to a cafe. A popular dessert - or snack here is waffles. In fact, there are many snack bars here that sell only waffles and crepes. These waffles are very sweet and come with a dazzling variety of toppings: fruit, milk chocolate sauce, white chocolate sauce, powdered sugar, whipped cream, ice cream, to name a few. These shops are filled with so many sweet toppings that the smell as you walk down the street is sickeningly sweet. And something has to be REALLY REALLY sweet for me to consider it to be sickeningly sweet. We also saw places that sold strawberry kabobs - chocolate covered strawberries on a stick. And there are lots of chocolate shops here. So as you walk down the streets of Amsterdam, you smell a mixture of scents - from the sickeningly sweet waffles and chocolate, to the pungent odor of marijuana. We frequently passed people on the street openly smoking marijuana. And in the souvenir shops, you can buy cannabis cookies and instead of chamomile tea, they sell Cannamint tea.