Day 0, 20th August 2009
Nope, not a typo. I definitely need to explain what went down on this day. After picking up our A level results we went for a drink… starting at about midday. Numerous drinks later we headed home at about midnight, so 12 hours of drinking, including 3 hours at a cocktail bar. You can imagine how we felt when we realised that the amount of drinking that had happened, followed by about 3 hours sleep was not gonna have us set up well for a 6.45am flight.
Day 1, 21st August 2009
Waking up at 4.30am felt like death after the events of the night before. One of my friends had stayed over that night and with our lack of sleep we piled into the car that my dad had offered to drive to the airport and headed to pick up our last friend. After the short trip to the airport check in and the flight were pretty much uneventful.
And so we hit the floor at Schipol with a spring in our step. Walk. Tickets. Train. The look on my mates faces as we all walked out of Centraal station into the sun of Amsterdam was great; “finally we’re here”. At this point perhaps I should explain that I’ve in fact been to A’dam before but no smoking took place, so I treated this effectively as my virgin trip. Indeed I was struck by the obvious beauty of the place, but perhaps not as much as the others as I’d been before.
Dodging all the trams, bikes, buses, mopeds, cars, lorries and in fact virtually anything with wheels was certainly an interesting experience when we were all still half asleep from the night before. Walking down the Damrak I was amazed at how empty it seemed, until I remembered it was still only just past 10 in the morning. We walked via Dam square and Damstraat to Oude Hoogstraat where our accommodation place was located. We couldn’t get in the room yet so went back out and grabbed something to eat quickly.
Then on to our first coffeeshop. We had hoped to experience Basjoe but as we walked down to it we saw that it was still shut, so we turned on our heels and headed back up towards the Nieuwmarkt and The Green Place. Our first coffeeshop! I have to say, it is certainly a unique experience; buying something you’d usually consider illegal over the counter in such a friendly environment. Here we decided on 1g of Silver Haze at €12/g and 2g of Amnesia Haze also at €12/g. We liked the look and feel of this place, nice variety on the menu and a good selection of drinks, which all seemed to be €2, a fair price. Perhaps a bit dingy inside, but looked as if there were enough seats which all looked comfortable and it was spacious and airy enough. The weather was fantastic so we sat outside and smoked a spliff of both the hazes. The silver haze smelt very fruity and tasted just as good, followed by the Amnesia haze which had a classic hazey smell and very piney taste when smoked; lovely. We sat down for a while here and enjoyed the passing of Amsterdam life and our view over the Nieuwmarkt while we experienced a nice clear high from the weed.
Silver Haze, The Green Place
After sitting in here for a while we phoned up our other mates and decided to meet up at the Bulldog energy coffeeshop as they were in the Bulldog hostel just next door. It should be noted that from now onwards we probably bought more weed than I can remember, so all I list is probably not all we smoked (hard to keep track when there’s 6 buying!) We didn’t buy anything other than drinks in here but sat down and listened to the repetitive trance type music which got old quite quickly so we didn’t spend ages in here. The seats weren’t too comfortable and it’s not hard to see how this place got its label as a bit of a tourist trap.
We split and headed to our place for a few spliffs while our other mates showered. After we were nice and baked again we decided to go for a walk… to Vondelpark. This took ages and we must’ve gone such a strange way, in the future I would certainly just get the tram if I’m honest. However, on the way we did find Mellow Yellow. I was so happy to stumble across this of all coffeeshops, we walked in and hit a major stumbling block; us getting ID’d and one of us not having any (forgot it, doh!) so he had to leave while the rest of us sorted ourselves with weed for the park. Here we bought 1g of S5 Haze at €14/g and 1g of Chocolope at €14/g plus a couple of grams of other stuff that I didn’t write down. We smoked up a few spliffs in here, had a drink and hit quite a few bags from the Volcano upstairs. I liked it in here, cool, airy, comfortable and bright. The S5 haze was a nice haze, had a good taste and nice high, but for that much I’d probably expect something a bit more special. The Chocolope was also nice, smelt sublime and smoked very well, just generally a nice smoke.
After our time here we had to leave more prematurely than we would have normally as our mate had been waiting outside all that time. We continued on our walk down towards Vondelpark but first stumbled on the Museumplein and just thought feck it, sit down on the grass behind the Van Gogh museum. Rather quickly however we decided that despite how sunny it was it was too damn windy to roll and we’d already smoked all our spliffs so we decided to search out another coffeeshop.
After a bit of a walk from the Museumplein we ended up at Dolphins coffeeshop. Another IDing and my mate called it quits and started the walk back to get his ID. The rest of us stayed here, got a booth downstairs and some drinks, averaging about €2.40 a drink. Here the menu was posted on the wall and all the weed and hash was pre-bagged in little grease-proof paper baggies. We bought 1g Royal Dolphin maroc at €10/g, 1.5g Jamaican for €10 and 3g Northern Lights at €10/g. It was comfy as hell here and we got a bong for a €10 deposit and smoked up quite a bit. Can’t say that the Jamaican or NL were really good or bad, just pretty normal filler weeds really. The Royal Dolphin was nice though, a nice sweet smelling, softish dark hash which smoked well either in a bong or a spliff to give a very strong body stone with seemingly heightened senses, especially auditory.
After this we strolled back up towards Dam square and grabbed some food from somewhere along the way, too stoned to remember where or what and onto Basjoe. This time it was open as it was now approaching about 7 in the evening. Here we bought 1g Jamaican at €4/g, 1g Orange Bud at €7/g, 3g Cheese at €12/g plus I’m sure someone bought a couple of grams of the Bas Special. Smoked up quite a few joints outside and enjoyed the view, again just enjoying watching people pass by about their business. The sad thing here is how much Basjoe didn’t live up to my expectations. I suppose the first thing that put a downer on it for me was how we were asked for ID, not really rudely but hardly in the most polite of manners when we had done nothing but be pleasant. The interior of the shop didn’t seem like anything special but the weed was of a fairly high standard and sitting outside the shop was most pleasant. The cheese and orange bud were very nice smokes, tasty, pongy and very attractive weed. Again, the Jamaican was standard filler. This smoke knocked us out however so we staggered back round the corner to our place and crashed out for a few hours.
Orange Bud, Basjoe
That evening we went out again about 11 after several spliffs and multiple bongs back at our place and marvelled at the surroundings of Dam square, Damstraat and the lower end of the RLD (not many windows), grabbed some food and drinks for the night and headed back to our place to smoke what was left from day 1…
Day 2 and more to come..
) Sounds like the prices in TGP have gone up since June/july ? lookin forward to the rest of your report 
