Mama said there'd be days like this

Over the school break, I was able to make my way to Amsterdam. Made attractive by its museums and coffee shops, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to visit. As I pursue my career goals in the public sector, I have always tried to be a law abiding citizen. In the Red Light district, where my hostel was located, there were ample opportunities to have a legal substance to smoke that would otherwise not be legal in the United States. Never having tried this herbal substance in the states, I figured the best place to try it would be where it is legal. My mother had always warned me of the dangers of any drug I may come in contact with during my high school and college years. Having heard the redundant horror stories parents use as a scare tactic with their children, I obeyed my mother's advise with my own reasons to provide support.
In the Red Light district's best known coffee shop, I was ready to try what was always raved about as the best part of Amsterdam. Taking a legal substance, of age, with a trusted companion, in a known part of town, things started to go wrong. I felt my body reacting in a way I could not explain and ultimately could not control as my dinner ended up on the sidewalk only minutes after my first experience. Being raised in a superstitious family where karmic retribution is almost immediate, my only thought, as I was bent over on the sidewalk spilling the contents of my dinner, was that this is what happens when I disobey my mother. This exact urban legend of a girl abroad, alone without her mother, did something she know her mother would forbid and ended up, insert the most horrible situation you mother could think of here, and this situation I found Myself in was my mother's words becoming a reality. Only a Roman Catholic would believe they were being punished by God for doing something legal. This feeling of remorse and shame, with just a touch of guilt is the essence of how I was raised... and I just realized it.
Whether I became sick with the thought of having the horrifying stories of my mother in the back of my mind or because of actual physical reaction of overdosing on a drug in which it is almost physically impossible to overdose from, I will never know.
My mother may not know what Strasbourg looks like, how crazy the Roman drivers are, or where to catch a bus in Madrid but she did tell me about days like this... she, somehow, was right.