Dialogue: Ho hum, early to bed, early to rise

I must have such a short attention span: barely two weeks in Leiden and I've had enough. You could call what I have here a routine, a regime or a lifestyle but I still smell a rut.

I set off on this foreign adventure partly to avoid the southern winter since I don't have much of a winter wardrobe, but also to get fresh and inspired.

I needed to renew my sense of self, see some sights and indulge in a little cultural exchange.

I wanted to get a tan and write a couple of plays but now, oh great adventure, I rise at dawn, do yoga, wash, dress, eat some healthy muck.

Then I work for a few hours at the writing thing, go for a skate, get some sun, go swimming, go home, write some more, eat some more.

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

I mean I'm supposed to go out, get wasted and make a "you'll never see me again" fool of myself. Instead, I'm early to bed and early to rise while all around me is legitimate drug use and I'm playing the part of Goody Two Shoes.

The smart shops in neighbouring Amsterdam sell all sorts of fun magic mushrooms, herbal ecstasy and ephedrine-based speed products but oddly I just don't feel like it.

Do I have issues with authority and only want to indulge when it flouts the law? God forbid that I still have an adolescent attitude to drugs; I'm early 30s for goodness sake.

And don't get me wrong: I'm not sad or ungrateful to be having this time out, I'm just at that two-month point of being away when you wonder if home still exists, when you worry that, if everybody's been fine without you this long, perhaps they'll be fine forever.

Hello, is there anybody out there?

Anthropologically speaking, of course, this leg of the journey has been highly educational. Drugs or sex, whether you're doing them or not, are still fascinating things. You can buy them both in Holland and, what do you know, the place isn't falling apart.

Talk about functional. Two of human nature's most powerful urges have been legitimised and still the fibre of society is strong. The safety factor is high, cultural pursuits are encouraged and unemployment is estimated at between 3 and 4 per cent.

If I were less tolerant of people whose views differ from mine, I might blow raspberries at moral majorities everywhere: Sodom and Gomorrah this place is not.

So, I ask people: what's bad about Holland; can it really be as good as it seems?

In response to my query most Netherlanders just laugh and say the weather could be better, although I've had no cause for complaint.

The worst thing I've encountered so far was when our clean-cut neighbour, Michael, told us to steal bikes. I'd asked him how to get mobilised that way and Mr Nice Guy suggests I be a bicycle thief.

And Sander, a coffee shop friend, when asked how the trams worked, just said to get on and hope you're not asked for a ticket.

Once you ride a few times for free, even if you do get caught you've probably made up your losses.

Well, if that's the seedy underbelly of depravity in this country, maybe New Zealand could look at going a bit Dutch and adopting a few Netherworld ways.

I often wonder what the big deal is when there are such obvious ways to make crime pay by regulating it. The criminal is cut out of the business, the people involved are protected and the state enjoys increased revenue, not to mention the savings made by not exhausting an overtaxed police force into tracking down perpetrators for offences that have no victims as such.


* Contact Elisabeth Easther on her travels at imabroad@chickmail.com.