Neusdruppels

I haven't posted anything in a while. There are two reasons: 1: I forgot, and b: I was in Amsterdam for two weeks. Amsterdam - a city where you can go to a Smartshop to buy hallucinogenic mushrooms, then go to a coffeeshop to buy hashish and marijuana, then go peruse the many prostitutes in the windows. Despite all this easy accessibility to things that are off-limits in the US, there is a problem if you catch a cold. What about cold medicine? I caught a cold while there. I thought that Amsterdam, being the world's foremost champion of tolerance, should provide ample opportunity for me to purchase cold medicine. Nope. In the antihistamine realm, all they have is Claritin. That's great if Claritin works for you (it doesn't work for me). In the decongestant realm, can you buy Sudafed? Hell no. All they've got for decongestant is Xylometazoline nose drops (neusdruppels in Dutch). Now I understand why my 9-month-old son hates nose drops. Interestingly enough, side effects include: risk of permanent irreversible lifelong congestion (if you use them for longer than 5 days), headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and oh yeah... coma! So in order to breathe, you walk the tightrope between coma and a lifetime of congestion. I'm guessing that's why they allow all the other stuff. They try to take your mind off of things like inability to breathe. That's why the US is still the best country on Earth. Cold medicine.