on the train I mean

Good question James!

twiggers - Less than 3 months! How exciting. Your Belgium itinerary looks much better. I think you'll be glad you decided to stay the night in Brugge. You can easily do Ghent in 4-6 hours, depending on which sites you want to visit. I think I read a post here that Ghent is under construction, so that might limit your experience.

It's much easier to use a city/town as a base, but sometimes, when you're <i>travelling</i>, you just need to do a few one-nighters. We usually try not to do more than 2 in a row.

One other item... if you like to eat chicken soup, you should try the Waterzooi. It's to die for. We enjoyed it so much, I now make it here at home. (I think I know what I'm making for dinner this weekend.)

Robyn :)>-

Don't bring cannabis with you from Amsterdam, just smoke it there if you must. They patrol trains for people taking cannabis into other countries.

Robyn: Thank you for your insight and opinion! I really appreciate it. My husband isn't really looking forward to the trip (he much more of a camper/water sports kind of guy), so I really want to make this fun and stress-free for him.

There isn't a ton that I want to do in Ghent. The cathedral and the castle is about it. So a half day seems reasonable.

Hopefully it won't be too bad with Belgium in the middle of the trip....we'll have some time to kick back and relax in Luxembourg towards the end of the trip.

Tulips: Thank you for that info!

Airfare for my trip has dropped $60 pp, but I still need to wait a few more weeks to book. My fingers are crossed that prices will stay low or keep decreasing.

I'm such a dork, that I'll probably be making a travel book of my own....plus bringing guidebooks in case we change our minds.
I have some Luxembourg books coming from the library...so I hope to get a better itinerary for that trip soon.

Hoping to book plane tickets within the next month and then will tackle hotels. After that I'll need to determine transportation choices (i.e., whether it is really worth it to buy a Benelux pass).

Also need to look into some trip insurance....

James - that is a good question and personally after crossing the Dutch-Belgian border umpteen times i have never seen any kind of border checks - on trains or in cars - in cars you do not even stop usually.

And since Belgian pot laws are so liberal a minor amount no doubt would not mean a trip to the Gulag

But as Tulips says on trains going into France and Germany there can be IME intense checks - done by French and German border police. Even at the Gare du Nord in Paris folks can be thoroughly searched and even drug dogs brought in.

Personally on my last train from Holland to Germany i was on a night train and well inside Germany - Stuttgart area i was rousted from my bed and taken to the baggage car and every little thing of mine was searched - even down to a look at various cavities of mine.

I have never ever been searched like that and it may have been my 100th crossing of the border - so take Tulips advice and leave the pot in Holland - Belgian cops could well target some trains - but i would think they'd go for younger backpackers and not me - an average looking senior citizen!

Wow Palenque! I wonder what motivated the search???

There is a lot of discussion between Belgium and Holland about this issue. It's illegal to sell cannabis in Belgium. The dutch put up coffeeshops just across the borders, to attract Belgian, French and German customers. Occasionally there is a crackdown, and people coming into Belgium are arrested or fined for possession of cannabis. Cars are sometimes stopped and searched as well.
Even in Holland, where you can buy the stuff in coffeeshops, it's not all that clear. Growing cannabis is still illegal.

I spoke to an expert on this recently (who runs a clinic for addicts) and he told me that cannabis is not the innocent stuff that we remember from the 60s and 70s. It's much more potent now, and you definitely get addicted to it. Worse, people move on to more serious drugs after starting with cannabis.

So do whatever you like, but if you must smoke the stuff, stick to the coffeeshops in Amsterdam.

Wow Palenque! I wonder what motivated the search???>

beats me but i think it must have been a case of mix up in targeting someone else.

I spoke to an expert on this recently (who runs a clinic for addicts) and he told me that cannabis is not the innocent stuff that we remember from the 60s and 70s. It's much more potent now, and you definitely get addicted to it.>

he is not an expert, obviously, as numerous studies show cannabis is not physically addicting - like nicotine and alcohol can become

and those could well be considered gateway drugs as well - so let's make those actually addicting substances illegal before cannabis which has been proven to be non addictive - in no matter what levels of THC are involved. For one thing the body has a tolerance level for THC so that when you get high you really do not get higher by smoking more THC - unlike alcohol where you could die if you kept drinking enough.

Airfare is still hanging out at the lower price. I keep checking every day....hopefully it stays there. Flight is relatively empty, so I'm thinking that is why. I like empty flights....more room to move around!!!

Addiction or not, lung cancer seems like a hard way to go.

In addition to the erroneous information about THC being addictive, of course the "evidence" of marijuana as a gateway drug is suspect. Ask a bunch of addicts if they smoked pot before they moved on to harder stuff - of course most have. Therefore, pot is a gateway drug, right? Not really. There are loads of people who have smoked pot and never anything heavier.

However other health risks like lung cancer are important to consider. Frequent smoking of anything can cause lung problems.

Addiction or not, lung cancer seems like a hard way to go>

another false assumption -NORML (National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws) and other groups calim that not a single death from physical reasons can be attributed only to pot use.

In fact a major research study at UCLA the lead researcher even said cannabis may HELP the lungs - he said he downplayed that aspect as it was not conclusive but did say relatively harmless.

Now studies done by the DEA have used the leaves of the cannabis plant and not the flowers when they say pot has as much tars, etc. as tobacco - well if they tested the flowers - the part that people smoke - those findings would be different - just as if they tested tobacco buds they would not find much tar either.

twiggers seems to be a coffeeshop type person and besides legal cannabis (well 'legal' has to be parsed in this case - it is legal to sell cannabis inside the coffeeshop but not legal to bring it in the back door or take it out the front door - at least that's what a display at the Amsterdam Historical Museum explained - the so-called 'backdoor, frontdoor situation.

but there are also energy shops selling psychedelic mushrooms if you want to add even more twinkle to Amsterdam say at night than it has!

LOL Palenque...it's actually hubby who is a coffeeshop person. Hmmmm....I was under the impression you could take it with you and smoke in the parks, etc.? I don't want hubby to do anything that will get him in trouble.....but it's kind of hard to pop in and smoke a gram at a time.

"another false assumption -NORML (National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws) and other groups calim that not a single death from physical reasons can be attributed only to pot use"

Wouldn't it be possible that we are just now cresting the age where there will be a good control group for this research?

Haven't you ever wondered, while cleaning out a bong, how much of that is now in your lung?

I don't have anything against pot, I’m just saying…

twiggers - yes it is safe for folks to smoke in parks, etc - discretely of course so others do not get smoke blown in their face, etc. Feel comfy doing that as cops IME will not be proactive in trying to enforce any law in that regard - and in fact i have seen many Dutch folk smoking quite openly but still be discrete - a bench along a sleepy canal, etc.

Thanks Palenque! I'd hate for DH to get busted or something while on vacation!

I make make sure our luggage is not exposed or used as a storage place for it while in Amsterdam (to avoid drug sniffing dogs LOL)....and that nothing is taken over the borders!

Weeee....I'm getting excited. Still 2 months 1 week...it will all start sinking in when I finally buy the plane tickets!

Addiction or not, lung cancer seems like a hard way to go>

Lsky - i just wanted to document the study i mention above - a reputable study at UCLA, one of the world's foremost research universities.

Pot Smoking Not Linked to Lung Cancer
May 23, 2006 ... Pot Smoking Not Linked to Lung Cancer. Study Shows No Increased Risk for Even ... MD, of UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine tells WebMD. ...
http://www.webmd.com/lung.../pot-smo...to-lung-cancer

and i agree the tar-like substance that accumulates in a bong or a pipe or at the end of a joint that has nearly been all smoked may be worrisome

yet long-term studies of Jamaican field workers who smoke cannabis incessantly have yielded little difference in life expectancy.

When i said NORML and its ilk say there is not one single death attributed to cannabis use it means i think one cannot say he died of X disease because of his cannabis use. But it cannabis raises someone's blood pressure that would be hard to quantify and perhaps pot use attributed to an earlier than normal death. I have a friend who is a heavy pot smoker yet has jogged about an average of 10 miles a day and never gets out of breath - that tells me the effect on the lungs may not be much, if any. He said he started smoking tobacco once and could hardly run a half mile without getting out of breath.