Thursday April 20th – 420!!!
It is passed seven o’clock when I wake up and the sun is shining happily in through the drapes, which inexplicably again have been drawn half way open sometime during the night. At least the room is reasonably quiet this morning, our Spanish roommate has evidently decided to drop this morning’s speech and the rest of his posse are surprisingly also keeping their noise level down. Maybe it was these tranquil surroundings that allowed me to “sleep in” this morning, or maybe it was the after effects of last night’s heavy consumption. Whatever the reason, I am feeling well rested and am looking forward to what promises to be a wild day.
After a short bathroom visit, I am back in the smoker’s lounge for another w&b sesh. The uptown piggy is a bit more busy than previous mornings and I am kept company by a pleasant mix of other stoners. The forum chat is quite lively this morning and soon ACD’s resident energizer bunny Papi is suggesting a trek to De Pijp for a fried fish and Stroopwaffle breccy. Not feeling the fish this early (we are Danish, not Norwegian after all) I pass and tug in to the breakfast served at the Piggy.
It isn’t long before I am joined by the missus who has also had a good night’s sleep and is fired up for the day’s festivities. We settle in for the traditional w&b and some breakfast for the missus, spending an hour’s time getting properly baked for this special day and making plans for the time up to the boat trip.
After a quick shower, we pack up our belongings, check out and say our goodbyes for this time to the uptown piggy staff. It’s time to head for the downtown piggy, where we will spend the last night, but as we are in relatively good time we decide to take it slow and head past Tweede Kamer on the way for a pick up.
Arriving at 2e we find the place almost empty with only the BT behind the counter and one lone customer taking up a corner seat. We originally planned for just a b&f, but decide to take a seat and have a couple of lattes to join the Laila and Tblisa hash we bought. As the BT is preparing our coffee I make a quick skip next door and get a box of Van Stapele cookies. If you haven’t tried these chunks of chocolaty heaven yet, book a flight to Mokum right now and go get you some, they are fooking amazing, especially when they are fresh.
We have a beautiful, quiet and very relaxed little session as we enjoy the great coffee, an awesome cookie and the two very nice Moroccan classic hashes. The new décor is really growing on us. We still miss the old place with the über gezellig and unique style, but the new place isn’t bad at all. The style is pretty “clean”, with a nice mix of classic and modern elements. It is neither as loud and insisting as some shops are, nor as minimalistic and somewhat sterile as others are. It also seems a bit roomier and even though a few more customers arrive and there is a steady stream doing b&fs, we never get the feeling that it is getting cramped and there are still seating free for several more visitors.
It is approaching noon and we have a few things to get through before the pre-boat meet up at HSB, so we get our act together and jump back on the bikes for the uptown piggy. The check in is over in a few minutes and our luggage is quickly stashed in the lockers, so we agree to check out the smoker’s lounge as we try to figure out what the rest of the gang is doing.
We roll up a big fat doob with silver bubble, G13 Mr. Nice and some GG#4 ice and share this while trying to track down Nugs and team OHMF. As we skin up number two we finally make contact with Nugs who informs us that he is heading for 2e where the yorkies are reportedly to be found. I light up the joint as we are getting on our bikes, but before we get going Nugs is back on the horn to inform us that the minty brothers have moved on to New Times. We haven’t visited New Times before, but a quick peak at the ACD map ensures us that it is very close and we start heading down NZV sharing the joint as we cruise along.
We are both quite crispy at this time and somehow convince ourselves that we have teleported over to Spuistraat, which means that New Times should be coming up on our right-hand side very soon. We are a bit surprised as we emerge onto Spui plein without having passed New Times and turn around to go back up “Spuistraat” (actually NZV) and look harder for the shop, which obviously must be well hidden.
As we pass Rosmarijnsteeg I spot Kadinsky and remember that I wanted to try the Habibi Rouge. We swing around and the missus holds my bike as I pop in to Kadinsky for a b&f. Unfortunately the Habibi Rouge was out, but the caramello looked pretty good so got a gram of that instead.
Emerging from Kadinsky I realize our previous mistake and we head out onto the real Spuistraat, turning right for New Times which isn’t that well hidden after all… Taking a quick look in to New Times we fail to spot our comrades, so try to catch Nugs on the phone, but he is out of contact again. We decide to head back down towards Spui, but just as I jump onto my bike I spot Nugs standing a few meters away from me, sporting a cheeky grin and an expression that seems to say “so there you finally are, what kept you?” Nugs informs us that we are now to head towards Dampkring and together we ride down to Spui plein, where team OHMF comes up behind us as we approach Handboogstraat.
We do a quick b&f at Dampkring where we get another gram of the mushina and head back out. Nugs and OHMF is going on a short shopping mission for the team and we leave Ricky at Dampkring as we head towards the Amstel on our iron horses.
Somewhere along the way we break of from the other two and head towards the balloon for a restock of the Tangie and some G13 Mr. Nice for Ricky.
At Het Ballonnetje we are greated by a friendly staff who happily provides us with five grams of the Tangie and the G13 Mr. Nice for Ricky. We sit down to spark up a quick doob of the Tangie and make plans for the final bit of shopping before the boat trip.
Before we leave I decide to get a hoodie for myself, the missus got a black one at the meet up and I have been contemplating getting one in grey. As I am handed the hoodie from one of the nice lady BTs and get my money out to pay, owner Roger pops around the corner and insists that it is on the house. I am pleasantly surprised as they have already been more than generous enough to us, but happily accept and again express our appreciation for the royal treatment we have had.
With big smiles and promises to be back as soon as we hit the city again (and we will be, very soon
), we are out the door and on our way to look for some quick grub and some beverages for the smokeboat. We raid an Albert Heijn somewhere near Waterlooplein, have a quick snack on the steps outside and are soon back on our bikes heading for HSB.
Crossing through the RLD we decide to park our bikes near the take-off and return site of the smokeboat and lock them up a bit south of Oude Kerk. Walking towards HSB we spot the boat docked besides the church, taking on passengers for a trip. We decide to check it out a bit and ask if there is a toilet on it. That question had been raised more than once on the forum by ACD’ers worried about the possibility of having to lean over the side of the boat if the need became too great. There was a guy standing at the back´, who we later found out was the captain, and asked about the facilities he lit up in a smile, saying “Yesh, we have a Bear Grylls style toilet right here, you schee?” and pointed to a bucket in tiny 5 foot closet labelled “Herren”.
At HSB we find a small gathering of ACD’ers and head downstairs to occupy the window seats for a pre-gaming sesh. Fat joints are quickly skinned and passed around as more joints are prepared for the trip. Even though we have been on the move for most of the day, we have taken time for a smoke almost everywhere we went and we are already pretty melted, but the pace is really picking up and it looks to be a wild and fun afternoon.
Nugs soon joins us and out comes the syrup. Mrs. CC has ordered a fresh OJ and the Tangie flavored syrup goes amazing with the juice. I can’t remember what drink I put the teaspoon of syrup into, maybe a beer, but I remember it quickly adding an edge to the already quite heady high I was feeling.
Papi walks in and with a big smile pulls out a massive party sized cone, explaining that he thought we should add a bit to the fun with an giant communal joint, but as the time is drawing close to the scheduled meetup at Oude Kerk we decide to do a quick roll up on the boat before 420 instead of rushing it at HSB. Right before we get up to leave I think “fuck it, it’s only 420 once a year” and take a big gulp of the syrup directly from the bottle. It was thicker than I expected and had to be coaxed a bit, which resulted in me talking a bit bigger gulp than I had planned. Woops...
There is a big group of ACD’ers gathered at the canal side by the Oude Kerk when we arrive, but so far no boat. As more and more of the crew keeps appearing it looks like macky’s cat herder skills have resulted in a massive turnout, I don’t think we had even one no-show. There is a brief moment of “what do we do if the boat doesn’t show?”, before it finally appears a few minutes before the scheduled departure time.
With everyone aboard and the crew giving some kind of introduction that we didn’t pay any attention to, we got immediately busy grinding up weed for the giant joint. We didn’t keep count of how much got loaded in that monster, but it was a lot. Papi must have put in a couple or more grams, we put in about a gram of SFV OG, about a gram of Amnesia Kush and a few scraps of different strains, Lemming threw in the two grams he got from Voyagers and a bunch of other ACD’ers threw in a truckload more. The result was a massive bat of choice greens, all good to go for 420 along with the absolutely ridiculous amount of other cannabis products the ACD gang had brought for the trip!
We weren’t ten minutes into the trip before the youngest of the crew, who was standing in the entrance to the cabin not far from us, slowly shook his head in amazement and exclaimed “I have never seen anyone smoke so much in my life!” Nugs, Papi and the two of us who were closest to him and overheard him had a good laugh and agreed that he hadn’t seen anything yet. We were, after all, still busy rolling the giant joint and the dab rig wasn’t even going around yet…
Soon cold beers were spiked with that magic syrup and we managed to get a dab in before it approached 420. As the time drew close I noticed the same kind of excitement in the air as you get at a really good new year’s party, only without the inevitable scrambling of wasted partygoers looking for champagne glasses and trying to figure out who brought what bubbly drink and if it would be a good idea to shot a rocket out the window just as the clock strikes midnight...
When the clock finally struck 420 everyone cheered and whished each other a happy 420, whilst lighting up joints, taking hits from vapes or pipes or doing dabs. The boat must have gotten an ounce lighter within half a minute, so many tokes where being had that we were burning through flower, hash and concentrates like a bushfire. That giant joint burned for quite a while and gave off some massive hits that had many an ACD’er smiling as they puffed away on it.
At one point I was trying to talk to OHMF about something or the other when I leaned over and pushed the tabletop right off the table he and a bunch of other were seated at. It apparently was not really a table as much as it was a loosely fitting board covering a bunch of lifejackets in a wooden box. The top tipped right into the box resulting in drinks, pipes, dab rigs and all the other stuff sitting on the table being knocked all over the place. By some 420 blessing nothing was broken and the “table” quickly righted again, letting us get back to the festivities.
The syrup was working better for me than the night before and we were going pretty hard at it alongside the crazy smoking pace on the boat, so before long the already blitzed state I was in got even deeper. Mrs. CC was clearly also enjoying the festivities and for a bit we went out on the sunny open back end of the boat to take in the sun and canal as we chatted to the ACD’ers hanging out and having fun there.
MadmaxXx was dabbing happily away on his quite handy and portable little dab rig, giving a characteristic grin doing so. I noticed that he hadn’t put any water in it and offered him some we had handy. He just smiled and said something like “Nah mate, it works fine like this” and gave off another big grin. Hardcore that maxXx
It was brilliant watching the reactions of people we passed by in the boat, especially the tour boats full of gawking tourist and the people standing on bridges we passed under were hilarious. We must have been easy to track, going by the smoke and smell alone you could probably follow us down the canals long time after we had been there.
All too soon the boat trip is over and we are approaching Oude Kerk again. What a trip it was, I must admit that we were a bit skeptical at first if it could be done, given the hit and miss history of such attempts, but as macky took charge of the operation and demonstrated his champion cat herding skills it shaped up to a very memorable time and perfect way for the ACD massive to celebrate 420! Big thanks to macky for setting up such a great day!
(tbc)
She thought it had a more stoney kick than the 24K and the combo of syrup and the fat dab had her grabbing for the sugary drinks and floating along in an extremely crispy state for a while. 
