This trip was my first significant solo to AMS. I've visited solo before for an overnight lay-over and another for an extended day and night, but never for multiple days. I was very excited and a bit hesitant all at the same time.
May 11th. Wednesday
Carryon luggage, so I just zip through customs. I purchase a one way and return ticket from my first favorite site of AMS - the Schipol ticket counter. It is a great mix of confused tourists, confident travelers, and thoughtful, smiling visitors who are just happy to be there. It is at this ticket counter that you first meet the diverse mixture of visitors and residents that you will see throughout your trip to AMS. And you, yourself, are going to fit into one of those groups (or some group I omitted for brevity).
My second favorite view of the city is exiting AMS Centraal. At first glance, and if you did not know better, the view is not a particularly beautiful view due to power lines, cables, busses, and mass confusion. But to me, this view is a great view. I know I've arrived, and the view really stimulates all of my other senses and great memories. I exit and I know I'm about to add some great memories.
I walk to my hotel in the Jordaan. I really love this location! It's on Bloemgracht and it's cross street is home of Paradox! Oh, man, Paradox is one of my absolute favorite shops!!! Drop luggage and go inside. Yea! Slimline Cup! Gotta snap a photo of that award.
You guys need to check out the haze joints over there. They are very good. Perfect for the moment because I'm going to the AMS Historical Museum while I await my room opening. If any of you have visited AMS in May, you will recall the trees shedding the last bits of the winter leaves. They are small, white leaves and they fall and fall and fall like a light snow. It's very pretty. This particular day the sun was shining, so the little white leaves would catch sunlight as they fell. Those sorts of experiences while sitting on a bench along a canal are why I come to AMS whenever I get a chance. This entire town is a living museum where you get to reside for a while and interact.
If you zoom in, you can almost see the little white leaves. Man, that Paradox haze joint - highly recommend.
After the AMS Historical Museum, little stop over at Begijnhof, which is really just a bit of a walk-through from one door to the other. If you have not been here, I personally recommend learning how to get here easily. It is so peaceful amid the hustle and bustle of AMS. I went to the little English Church for Easter, and the choir sang the Hallelujah Chorus. It was amazing and a great sermon. That was another story, so moving along . . .
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To La Tertulia. I love this place! Before I've always just tolerated it, and it was just enough out of the way that it was a coffeeshop that I wanted to frequent because fewer tourists visit there. Now, I have a new appreciation for it. I will be the first to admit that the wares are not going to get you super high, but getting super high is not what La Tertulia is about. It is about socializing. It is about reading. It is about writing. It is about relaxing and listening to music. It is about drinking fresh juice. It is about clean weed, a clean shop, and good beverages. It is eclectic and quirky and mismatched, and it just seems to fit perfectly in AMS. Pull up a seat and enjoy yourself.
And what to get . . . well, I like to come here and purchase a little pipe. I'm going to purchase from someone, so I prefer to do my business here. You'll pay 10 Euros for a small pipe. Sounds good to me. Check out Kali Mist.
Very, very dry sativa. Very clean. Not the most potent, but a nice uplift and cerebral buzz. It was not a stupid, cannot function buzz, which was exactly what I did not want! This stuff started out slowly, but next thing I knew I've annotated about 60 pages of this book I'm editing. I have a completely new respect for this stuff. And the ambiance in La Tertulia is perfect for reading, writing, cipering (ha, just kidding on the last one).
Alas, La Tertulia closes at 6 p.m. Still about 3.5 more hours of daylight! Down some redbull and keep on trucking.
Walked to Wust for chicken schnitzel. The schnitzel at Wust is a favorite of mine and my wife's. Wust provided a great little moment that had me cracking up. I appreciate the restaurants in AMS that so often turn into a dining theater experience. Wust was in high form tonight. I'm just minding my own business, and 2 pilots sit next to me. They are talking about pilot things, flying and whatnot. Then a girl rides by on a bicycle, and one says, "That bicycle seat sure is lucky to have that girl sitting on it." The other would whip his head around to look as if he had never seen a woman, much less a woman riding a bicycle. They obviously didn't know I spoke English, b/c they just kept on going. Lord help those guys, they were idiots. Every girl, and I mean every girl riding on a bike had a lucky bicycle seat. They said it about 50+ times, over and over. They were going to take Viagra so they could hook up all night in the RLD. One guy had evidently never philandered about with hookers b/c he just kept asking the other guy a ton of questions, like, "What if I get a disease? What do I say at the door? Will you walk up with me?" These were grown ass 45+ year old men. It just went on and on. It was all I could do not to laugh. In fact, I had to ask for the check because I was starting to choke to keep myself from laughing. Then I ask for the check and thank the waitress. The naïve guy then looks at me and says, "You speak English?!!?" I said, "Barely, I'm from Mississippi." They just looked at me with the reddest of embarrassed faces.
The air in this town smells so good! The city is so green, too. If you have never been to AMS when it is green, you have a new to-do on your list. I've been plenty of times in the Winter, but in the Spring it is so beautiful and, well, green!
(My apologies - I cannot get that picture to turn).
Over to Utopia. The BT was friendly. It was a guy with a beard. He shares with me that Utopia received a 6 month extension to remain open! Yeah for others visiting after June 30th. He spends time chatting with me about everything in the boxes. In the end, he points to Tangerine Dream and claims it is the current leader.
I very much like Utopia, but I realized on this trip that I like it because the BT'ers are very friendly and helpful, they are knowledgeable, and their products are very good. Those 2 qualities really set a shop apart from the others. But the interior . . . I just cannot hang out here. Here I am an adult with responsibilities and stuff, and I look around Utopia to see the one guy with his cap on backwards and a jumpsuit, another guy that must be some rapper with all that gold jewelry and loose clothing, then 2 guys in tight white tshirts who are chattering like little girls because this visit is clearly their first time to purchase from a CS. I'm not knocking it, but I feel like I grew out of that crowd. I stay a while and just do not feel comfortable. Time to head out. I do enjoy buy-and-fly from Utopia though.
Whoa. Tangie is a super mind-numbing high where all you can do is get out the door, then mindlessly walk in the general direction of where you think you want to go. Suddenly I'm fairly aware that I'm on Haarlemerstraat. Apparently I thought a banana milkshake would be a good idea, and here is Barney's Lounge. Barney's Lounge is a great place to relax and get comfortable with a little table. I can spread my gear out, do a bit of thinking and writing, and enjoy the milkshakes. Wait a minute . . . is the waitress telling me that their milkshake machine is broken? What the hell, Barneys? You do one thing well, and that one thing is unavailable for the 2nd @#$@#$ time this year? The Barney's across the road said theirs was broken over Easter. Dammit. Well, I have to order something. Sparkling water it is. Screw Barney's and their broken milkshakes.
Gotta finish the Tangie because I have just decided that I'm going to explore the lighter stuff where I do a better job of keeping my wits, but it is high quality! Good, powerful stuff, the Tangerine Dream, but perhaps too strong for this trip.
