"be happy" eh? there is no correlation between legal pot and happy smiling people. none whatsoever.

> Also, I believe it's the only country in Europe except for the UK where everyone speaks good English. In most big cities in Europe you will eventually find someone who speaks English, but in Amsterdam the odds that it will be the first person you approach are no worse than in London or California.

Stockholm is similar -- most people speak good English.

Amsterdam is one of the biggest tourist destinations in Europe, no wonder about the quality of their English (although this applies to the whole of Netherlands, not just Amsterdam).

I hear the Danes speak excellent English too, but I haven't been to Denmark myself.

As I understand it, the reason the Dutch speak English so well is that a lot of American television is shown there...still in English, but with Dutch subtitles. So kids grow up essentially in a semi-immersion program of English as a second language, which gets reinforced later in life due to tourism and English being the current effectively most common language.

I remember dialing a wrong number in Amsterdam a number of years ago, and the woman responded, in nearly perfect English, without missing a beat. I was impressed.

on a serious note, I would say Amsterdam's message is 'be more creative' (or 'be creative').