Reading some of the travelogues on here is an education, so I thought I would share my experience with you all of my first trip (of many, no doubt!) to Amsterdam. I feel like I discovered ACD & particularly the forum AFTER visiting, but this was no stoner’s, pack as many cc’s & strains kind of trip, more of a touristy stay with the mrs. Luckily she smokes too, so we did manage to cram in as many as possible in 3 and a half days – doing a solo trip on November 23rd – 26th which will be all about coffeeshop tourism, with a bit of culture if I can drag myself away!
DAY 1 – THURSDAY AUGUST 6TH
Up at half 3 to make the coach from Stratford bus station which left around 4, a quick spliff with the mrs before getting on. It was packed, but I barely noticed as I was zoning out the whole way. Checked in after only 10 minutes’ wait, then did the usual lounging around the airport waiting for the gate to open. The usual rush on Easyjet followed, but around 7am we were off, the flight was golden – 40 minutes airtime, off the plane in 55. No messing around with luggage, so we found the train from Schiphol to Central quickly, and were in town by about 9:30am.
After reading so much about Central coffeeshop, we made an attempt to find it. Had a map, but couldn’t work out which part of Prins Hendrikkade it was located on (can’t have been stoned enough evidently!), what a shambles. Despite that we quickly found Warmoerstraat, and it was immediately obvious that this was 1 hella busy street – I’ve since found it it’s the oldest in the ‘Dam, and the volume of human traffic at half 9 was on a par with the busiest parts of Central London. We seemed to be spoilt for choice for cs’s, so we settled on Hill Street Blues, which I remembered had some good reviews on the Directory pages of ACD.
The all-important 1st smokes of the trip were 1g apiece of Bubble Gum (10E) and Hill St Blues Special (9E). The Bubble Gum was pretty potent, had a faint taste of gum & a decent, quite strong Indica hit. The Special was less impressive, a bit dry and not as tasty, clearly some kind of Indica, but I remember thinking I’ve definitely had better at home. We skinned up 1 each like a couple of maniacs who hadn’t seen punk in years, chilled out with a couple of Fanta Cassis’ and enjoyed the view. Spoke to some French dudes from St Denis, and a couple of Italian lads whose last day it was, and got a feel for the amount of stoners there were in town that summer, the place was packed out by 10, so we left & headed for the trams.
Got the 24 to the Museum Quarter, as we were at the NH Museum Quarter on Hobbemakade for 3 nights. Top drawer hotel if you have the cash, if a little business-orientated. The place is always full of air hostesses for all you single lads, sadly with the mrs about all I could do was look. By the time we’d left our cases we knew we had a 2 hour wait till the room was ready, but we both already had a feel for how much smaller a city Amsterdam is in comparison to London, so strolled up Albert Cuypstraat, knowing full well that De Pijp has a decent number of cs’s dotted about.
1st stop was De Graal, where we stopped every single day. It was the closest to the hotel & also our favourite place of the trip. We bought High Rise (aka Master Kush) at 10E/g. It was amongst the most potent, sticky, smelly buds of the trip – absolutely superb. We also got 1g of Mako Haze (8.50E), 1g of Edelweiss (8E) & 1g of Goldrup (8E). All were great, the Mako was a creeping kind of sativa high which made us both cough after a bong or 2. Edelweiss was sticky, with a sweet taste & Goldrup was a superb Indica type bud. The shop is second to none – nothing like most Centrum shops, mainly locals and great if you like chess. Really friendly staff and Dutch locals, cool cat, you can sit on the roof......just a great place to chill for hours, with a cheap pizza place next door & the Albert Cuyp Market a stone’s throw. I knew Katsu was round the corner & it was a must visit for the trip, so we went there next after browsing the market and getting some waffles.
Wasn’t as impressed with the interior, and the budtender was less friendly than at De Graal, but we settled on 1.8g of Black Widow for 20E & 1.4g of Orange Bud at 10E. The Orange Bud was mellow, a mild hit compared to most of the unkown skunk I get at home, but still great value for the price. The Black Widow was next level – ‘brutal’ as it rightly states on the menu. The taste was slightly hashy to my palate, but it was a pretty hard hitting stone. I’m surprised to hear it’s a sativa-dominant strain, but it felt more like a crushing indica hit. Totally worth it, perhaps the best smoke of the trip? We chilled for a couple here and then bailed.
Back to the hotel, then both slept for a few hours as we were drained from both the early morning start & from smoking. Props to NH hotels for giving us an immaculate (bar 1 cigarette burn on the carpet) and huge room with a canal view, just a great place to stay. We woke up & I was hungry for more coffeeshops. We were also ravenous, so went to a great place called Eetcafe Loetje, which is a local place on Johannes Vermeerstraat, close to the museums. Whoever said this is the ‘Dam’s best steak wasn’t bullshitting – just Google the name of the place or peep tripadvisor & you will see for yourselves. At 14E for a huge, perfectly cooked fillet steak with great sauce, fries for 3E and great salads for the same, this is a place worth visiting if you are in the area & hell yeah it could well be the best steak in town! I digress, as I’m writing this at lunchtime, but do check it out!
It was getting dark, so we decided to stay around De Pijp that night rather than hit Centrum & explore, but De Pijp is a great place to explore. Unlike the Museum Quarter, which is all old money, ladies who lunch, posh boutiques and....museums (!), De Pijp is trendy, cosmopolitan, edgy....and most importantly, had loads of coffeeshops, where the Museum Quarter has virtually none. We found Atlantis, where we tried some OG Kush, or maybe it was Kushage? I can’t remember a great deal, as it was a stop off only, but I do remember being very impressed with the gear and the service.
Next was Media (Club Media), which is a damn good cs. Ultra modern inside, a hint of sports bar about it, with mainly all locals. Perhaps the friendliest budtender we met greeted us, and let us open up a bag of everything on the menu, inviting us to check the crystals & have a good old whiff of each strain. We settled on 2g Sour Diesel at 17E, 2g Amnesia Haze at 18 to start. Damn they were both good – the Sour D was very light & fluffy, with a great taste & sativa high. The Amnesia was even better, very sticky, smaller buds but a great hit, pretty trippy. We were so impressed we got 1g of Hippie & 1g of 6 Shooter too. The Hippie was superb for 8E, wish we had bought more. It stunk and was a good choice for night time. The 6 Shooter was less impressive, a bit dry & not as sweet as the menu had claimed, but for 8 Euros it was worth a try.
We then hit a bar which I’m sure is called Eddy’s nearby. We felt like the only tourists in there (we were) & the only non-Dutch (again, we probably were), but it was friendly karaoke crowd in there, full of locals. That was enough to decide we should call it a night, so we went back to the hotel, had a few more drinks & smoked more bud until about 3am.
Well that was Day 1 – hope I’m not rambling on too much. More to follow!
Better late than never? 1st trip to 'Dam - August 6th - 9th
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DeathRowRecords
- Posts: 295
- Joined: Mon 14th Sep 2009 02:14 pm
- Location: E1-E17, London, England
Better late than never? 1st trip to 'Dam - August 6th - 9th
10 B&H + a packet of rizla,not the greens
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jollylittlehun
- Posts: 587
- Joined: Mon 12th May 2008 08:25 pm
ive yet to make it down to Katsu and Media 
the details in this report is another reason to do so -
liquidSwords
- Posts: 1400
- Joined: Sun 11th Jan 2009 11:21 am
- Location: East London
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DeathRowRecords
- Posts: 295
- Joined: Mon 14th Sep 2009 02:14 pm
- Location: E1-E17, London, England
Cheers for the comments all, much appreciated, I guess I’m rambling to an interested audience so everyone’s a winner!!
DAY 2 – FRIDAY AUGUST 7TH
Woke up to a blazing hot day on Friday, opened the windows & gazed at all the locals sailing up the canal, sparked up the chipped out joint of Black Widow, opened the fridge to about 6 or 7 types of bud all bagged up, rubbed my still slightly red eyes and thought: ‘Where the hell did it all go wrong?!’. Made me realise I shouldn’t have put it off all these years.....to all you young tokers (& older ones) who’ve never been, book that ticket!
Friday started with a trip to the Van Gogh museum, we joined the queue about 12 after the mrs was finally ready and had done her hair (!). Took the Sour D and a bag of something else with us, not to mention a few in the hotel prior to leaving, so felt quite chilled when queueing. Luckily we stood there for all of 2 minutes before getting in – sweet. On the flip side, as those of you who’ve been there will know, we got seriously delayed by peeps on the audio tours, who were stopping at every picture (it felt like) before listening to the tape for that section. This was a serious wind-up to both the mrs & I, so we did the tour in about 90 minutes – I hear it should take longer?
I needed a cs after that, so we headed up to Overtoom as we fancied a walk and a change of location. We wandered a bit aimlessly for a while, then decided we were in the wrong area, before spotting Blue Lagoon. I think we bought White Widow (8E/g) and something else here, were really impressed with the pool table and friendly local crowd in there.
Not having much of a plan and both pretty stoned up, we decided a trip to Centrum was in order that afternoon, after wasting 20 minutes trying to find Greenhouse Tolsraat. I swear that we walked the length of that street – we found no. 89 (Greenhouse’s address is 91 Tolstraat), but the place next door had the shutters down, which were completely graffiti’d over, so we couldn’t tell if the place was shut, closed or (more likely) we were too out of our tiny little punked out minds to find it! Slightly disappointed, we headed back through De Pijp and to De Graal, where we smoked some of what we had & got coffees. Burger Meester across the road was the spot for lunch & I highly recommend it, even though they were out of veal burgers at the time, it was some gourmet shit!
We were about to get the tram, but decided to walk as it was a blazing hot afternoon. I think we got as far as the Heineken Experience when the penny dropped that Mellow Yellow was across the road. I was totally down to check out this legendary cs, and I think it holds that staus deservedly. The Blueberry (2g13E) was decent, not a knockout bud, but great value and a good hit clean hit & taste. Possibly the bargain of the ‘Dam’s weed selection, though I hear The Noon is cheaper? We also tried a Haze here, whether it was Strawberry or Mako eludes me, but it was top drawer, well cured smoke well worth the 11 or 12 Euros for 1g.
We left, eyed up Little’s next door, but the mrs was determined to check out Centrum & the Red Light district so we got a tram (a bit more heavy in the legs than before stopping at M.Y) and jumped off near Beursplein. After walking around most of the Red Light District, which wasn’t as much of an eye-opener as I’d expected, we found ourselves back in the centre of town, exiting somewhere near Dam Square. I remember walking around Kalverstraat, around Spui & Spuistraat, basically looking for shops as the ball&chain was after some clothes. This was seriously killing me, but after a while we found ourselves in the direction of Haarlemmerstraat. I remembered that Dampkring 2 was here, as we’d been told by the dude in their seed shop on Day 1 whilst trying to find Central. I was seriously tempted to stop at Picasso, which from the outside looking in appears to be a very classy cs, but settled on Dampkring 2 up the street, its reputation for a fat selection of dank buds won out.
On entering we faced a queue – the cheek of it – which we waited in patiently for 5 to 10 minutes before getting served. I had a play with the microscope on the counter and was pleased to find trichomes look better under magnification! We had a good long look at the menu before getting 2g of Cheese and 2g of SSH apiece – the Cheese was 1 of the top 3 buds of the trip, just stunk the house out with a great old school skunk taste – could smoke it all day long despite its strong Indica vibe. The SSH was a bag of smaller, but stickier buds. Quite trippy, but we both preferred the Cheese. At 10E/g and 10.50E/g, the Cheese & SSH respectively were worth that, with the Cheese edging it. I wish I’d known about HGF’s version now, but you live & learn.
After sitting at Dampkring 2 for an hour, we got up and realised we were wrecked, so proceeded to walk up Haarlemmerstraat, hoping to find Central Station and get a tram back. We also hit a few shops but the mrs couldn’t find what she was after, at which point we started having trouble. Perhaps it was the cheese, or maybe the crap map, or both? Either way, we found ourselves failing badly to find Prins Hendrikkade and anywhere recognisable & ended up on Bickers Island! As nice as the place is – it reminded me of a gentrified, upmarket former dockside area – I wasn’t mad for exploring the place after being lost for over an hour, infuriatingly unable to find the tram station between the 2 of us! We cut our losses & took a short bus to Central Station, then a tram to the hotel to rest our feet.
That evening we went out for a good drink, although I can’t remember the name of a single bar we entered. I do remember queuing for a vending machine token, then wasting 5 Euros on a huge 50g pouch of Pall Mall rolling baccy & rizlas, all in a cardboard box & having to get a bloody token again to get the cigarettes I wanted. Was also surprised that Albert Hijn shops are not legally allowed to sell anything other than small rizlas! We visited De Graal again that night & bought some pollen, which was tasty and the best hash (who buys hash in the UK?) I’d had for years, but I’m no expert.
The mrs wanted an early night, so after a purchase of 1g Afghaan from De Graal (recommended for an old school smoke at a good price – 8E/g) it was lights out, although I couldn’t help rolling a pure cocktail of what was in the fridge to knock me out – you cannot beat a goodnight spliff!
More on Day 3....soon!
DAY 2 – FRIDAY AUGUST 7TH
Woke up to a blazing hot day on Friday, opened the windows & gazed at all the locals sailing up the canal, sparked up the chipped out joint of Black Widow, opened the fridge to about 6 or 7 types of bud all bagged up, rubbed my still slightly red eyes and thought: ‘Where the hell did it all go wrong?!’. Made me realise I shouldn’t have put it off all these years.....to all you young tokers (& older ones) who’ve never been, book that ticket!
Friday started with a trip to the Van Gogh museum, we joined the queue about 12 after the mrs was finally ready and had done her hair (!). Took the Sour D and a bag of something else with us, not to mention a few in the hotel prior to leaving, so felt quite chilled when queueing. Luckily we stood there for all of 2 minutes before getting in – sweet. On the flip side, as those of you who’ve been there will know, we got seriously delayed by peeps on the audio tours, who were stopping at every picture (it felt like) before listening to the tape for that section. This was a serious wind-up to both the mrs & I, so we did the tour in about 90 minutes – I hear it should take longer?
I needed a cs after that, so we headed up to Overtoom as we fancied a walk and a change of location. We wandered a bit aimlessly for a while, then decided we were in the wrong area, before spotting Blue Lagoon. I think we bought White Widow (8E/g) and something else here, were really impressed with the pool table and friendly local crowd in there.
Not having much of a plan and both pretty stoned up, we decided a trip to Centrum was in order that afternoon, after wasting 20 minutes trying to find Greenhouse Tolsraat. I swear that we walked the length of that street – we found no. 89 (Greenhouse’s address is 91 Tolstraat), but the place next door had the shutters down, which were completely graffiti’d over, so we couldn’t tell if the place was shut, closed or (more likely) we were too out of our tiny little punked out minds to find it! Slightly disappointed, we headed back through De Pijp and to De Graal, where we smoked some of what we had & got coffees. Burger Meester across the road was the spot for lunch & I highly recommend it, even though they were out of veal burgers at the time, it was some gourmet shit!
We were about to get the tram, but decided to walk as it was a blazing hot afternoon. I think we got as far as the Heineken Experience when the penny dropped that Mellow Yellow was across the road. I was totally down to check out this legendary cs, and I think it holds that staus deservedly. The Blueberry (2g13E) was decent, not a knockout bud, but great value and a good hit clean hit & taste. Possibly the bargain of the ‘Dam’s weed selection, though I hear The Noon is cheaper? We also tried a Haze here, whether it was Strawberry or Mako eludes me, but it was top drawer, well cured smoke well worth the 11 or 12 Euros for 1g.
We left, eyed up Little’s next door, but the mrs was determined to check out Centrum & the Red Light district so we got a tram (a bit more heavy in the legs than before stopping at M.Y) and jumped off near Beursplein. After walking around most of the Red Light District, which wasn’t as much of an eye-opener as I’d expected, we found ourselves back in the centre of town, exiting somewhere near Dam Square. I remember walking around Kalverstraat, around Spui & Spuistraat, basically looking for shops as the ball&chain was after some clothes. This was seriously killing me, but after a while we found ourselves in the direction of Haarlemmerstraat. I remembered that Dampkring 2 was here, as we’d been told by the dude in their seed shop on Day 1 whilst trying to find Central. I was seriously tempted to stop at Picasso, which from the outside looking in appears to be a very classy cs, but settled on Dampkring 2 up the street, its reputation for a fat selection of dank buds won out.
On entering we faced a queue – the cheek of it – which we waited in patiently for 5 to 10 minutes before getting served. I had a play with the microscope on the counter and was pleased to find trichomes look better under magnification! We had a good long look at the menu before getting 2g of Cheese and 2g of SSH apiece – the Cheese was 1 of the top 3 buds of the trip, just stunk the house out with a great old school skunk taste – could smoke it all day long despite its strong Indica vibe. The SSH was a bag of smaller, but stickier buds. Quite trippy, but we both preferred the Cheese. At 10E/g and 10.50E/g, the Cheese & SSH respectively were worth that, with the Cheese edging it. I wish I’d known about HGF’s version now, but you live & learn.
After sitting at Dampkring 2 for an hour, we got up and realised we were wrecked, so proceeded to walk up Haarlemmerstraat, hoping to find Central Station and get a tram back. We also hit a few shops but the mrs couldn’t find what she was after, at which point we started having trouble. Perhaps it was the cheese, or maybe the crap map, or both? Either way, we found ourselves failing badly to find Prins Hendrikkade and anywhere recognisable & ended up on Bickers Island! As nice as the place is – it reminded me of a gentrified, upmarket former dockside area – I wasn’t mad for exploring the place after being lost for over an hour, infuriatingly unable to find the tram station between the 2 of us! We cut our losses & took a short bus to Central Station, then a tram to the hotel to rest our feet.
That evening we went out for a good drink, although I can’t remember the name of a single bar we entered. I do remember queuing for a vending machine token, then wasting 5 Euros on a huge 50g pouch of Pall Mall rolling baccy & rizlas, all in a cardboard box & having to get a bloody token again to get the cigarettes I wanted. Was also surprised that Albert Hijn shops are not legally allowed to sell anything other than small rizlas! We visited De Graal again that night & bought some pollen, which was tasty and the best hash (who buys hash in the UK?) I’d had for years, but I’m no expert.
The mrs wanted an early night, so after a purchase of 1g Afghaan from De Graal (recommended for an old school smoke at a good price – 8E/g) it was lights out, although I couldn’t help rolling a pure cocktail of what was in the fridge to knock me out – you cannot beat a goodnight spliff!
More on Day 3....soon!
10 B&H + a packet of rizla,not the greens
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DeathRowRecords
- Posts: 295
- Joined: Mon 14th Sep 2009 02:14 pm
- Location: E1-E17, London, England
DAY 3 - SATURDAY AUGUST 8TH
Woke up to find we still had a lot of bags left over with bits & pieces in, so the mrs thought getting a pipe would be a good way to smoke it quickly. We had our first spliff or 3 at De Graal, greeted by the 3rd different girl in as many days. Now Dutch women are definitely on the taller side, and are very good looking in general, and this girl was cream of the crop....will be keeping an eye out for her in 2 weeks (without the mrs in tow!) when I go back, who doesn't love a bit of eye candy when they're stoned?
After sitting down for a bit one of the crazy, but very friendly local customers who we'd seen every day came over with a candle, lit it, and left it at our table with the words: 'For the happy couple' in a thick Dutch accent. We had a laugh, but it then dawned on us that we had been here every day, and would probably be back next time. De Graal lets you take your drinks & smoke up on their roof, which has a quite realistic painted sculpture of a bulldog up there - FACT! The place also faces the back of rows of turn of the century, 3 or 4 storey houses. A girl was leaning with both legs hanging out of the window gassing away on her mobile, oblivious to us, a quite mad sight to see after a few smokes. The mrs then insisted we check out the Albert Cuyp market once again, which we did, with her making a few small buys, both soaking in the truly cosmopolitan nature of the city and the variety of excellent stalls of all kinds.
Instead of getting the tram, we thought we'd make the most of the weather and walk along the canals, so we headed back in the direction of the hotel & chose the route along Prinsengracht. On route we couldn't resist a second visit to Mellow Yellow, where despite wanting to try more from the menu, we smoked more of the bits we had left. A long, but relaxing walk along Prinsengracht followed, with my map skills really kicking in, though sadly my skills in patience were tested to the max with the mrs a yard or 2 behind me the whole way. We though we would take this route as it looked a decent walk, and we hoped to end up near the Anne Frank Museum. It took about 30 minutes walking in the glorious summer sunshine to reach the museum....5 minutes later the mrs arrived too
Looking at the huge queue was a downer, as our last real evening in the 'Dam was approaching. A bit like the dilemma of queuing for any popular nightclub, we toughed it out for 20 minutes to assess how long it might take. We had about an hour and a half till the place closed, and after 20 minutes we'd moved about 2 inches - there were even slugs going past us kicking up dust, so we opted to bail. Since finding out that you don't even get to see the famous room where Anne hid, I'm relieved we didn't queue only to find that out. Having said that the diary is an amazing read - I cannot wait for that sequel! (sorry, only joking). We took the opportunity of being in this part of town to have a look around the Jordaan, which I found to be a great part of town, with stunning houses and a lot of history. Seems to be a really upmarket and trendy suburb, with some beautiful buildings, rows of quirky, unique shops and an abundance of restaurants & bars. We ended up on Marnixstraat after heading towards the direction of Central station and entered a cs called Bronx. The place was playing 'All that Jazz' by Stetstasonic, so it passed the music test, but they were sadly out of crash mats so I had to sit there with a drink and a spliff. I was conscious that we would leave the mnext day, but was keen to try another hash, so bought 1g of Nepali, at a price that escapes me. It was great, black, sticky hash, which I would buy all the time if only it was around in the UK - better than the Pollen I'd bought the day before.
We headed back to the hotel, asked their advice on a good local Indonesian restaurant, where we went later. The food was pretty good, with a mixture of Surinamese and Indonesian dishes on the menu. After that we hit a few bars in the area around De Pijp, stopped at Club Media for a few spliffs. I simply couldn't help buying 1g of Pot of Gold, which is a great Indica strain. We smoked it virtually pure in 1 joint & stumbled back to the hotel bar. This was full of American tourists on business, who were a friendly but tone deaf bunch musically, and unlikely to be tokers, so we had a shot at the bar with them, took our drinks up and smoked some more. After staying up till the early hours, we called it a night, with a bit of a sad feeling that we'd be home tomorrow night.
DAY 4 - SUNDAY AUGUST 9TH
As we got up on the last day, we looked at our diminishing stash on the top shelf of the fridge, it was sad to see so many empty bags but a great feeling nonetheless to have sampled so much top skunk and hash. There was some Black Widow, some Edelweiss, Amesia Haze and a nice bit of Sour D still left. Our mission was to get through this before checking out, leaving a spliff or 2 for our last hours in the city.
The hotel were very nice about letting us check out late, so we made the most of this and left at 3pm, leaving our luggage for later. We headed to the cheap pizza joint again for lunch, stopping afterwards at - you guessed it - De Graal coffeeshop. Hot budtender number 1 from day 1 was back, and told us about her experience of living in London for a few months - 'a harsh place' she called it. I thought about the punk situation at home and thought damn, she's nailed it. We said out goodbyes to the legendary place that had been our 2nd home, finishing off the Edelweiss and Amnesia.
Around 5pm we got our bags, and headed for Centrum. Our flight was at 9pm, so we were aiming to get to the airport for around 7, knowing full well the Easyjet flight to London would be jam packed. We had a wander around Damrak and a last look at the Red Light District before arriving back on Warmoerstraat. With a spliff or 2 only left, we couldn't decide where to stop out of the 10 (?) cs's on the street. Hill Street Blues was out, as we'd tried it, so we opted for Hunter's. I'm pretty sure this was Hunter's CS and not Hunter's Bar. There was a cartoon dog on all the menus and on the glass window from memory, if this helps to distinguish between the 2.
As much as I wanted to try something different on the menu, the mrs wasn't having it, so we polished off the last of the Black Widow and Sour D in 2 pure spliffs, which led to much coughing and a general sense of well-being with a hint of being totally bashed up - my favourite kind of high!
We boarded our train to Schiphol around 6:45, arrived and then the sad news that the flight didn't leave until 9:55pm hit us. This was, to use the words of Danny Dyer, news that proper rocked my nut, as me & the mrs immediately realised we could have stayed in Centrum and sampled some gear at Hunter's, looked round Amsterdam a bit longer and generally not been stuck in the drug-free zone that is Schiphol. We compensated by having a couple of Heinekens and getting Duty Free, but there was a real feeling of coming down having smoked constantly during the stay, and knowing that the next, inferior quality, spliff would be after getting home.
Before we knew it, we were at the gate, where we bumped into a French friend who lives in London. Small world. She looked pretty red eyed herself so we knew she'd had a good weekend too. A short flight later, we were back at Stansted. On the 3 minute train from the terminal I could smell a passenger who had an unmistakable aroma of punk about him. I smiled & wondered if I could get away with bringing some back next time. It had been 1 hell of a trip, and I was already planning the next 1.
Woke up to find we still had a lot of bags left over with bits & pieces in, so the mrs thought getting a pipe would be a good way to smoke it quickly. We had our first spliff or 3 at De Graal, greeted by the 3rd different girl in as many days. Now Dutch women are definitely on the taller side, and are very good looking in general, and this girl was cream of the crop....will be keeping an eye out for her in 2 weeks (without the mrs in tow!) when I go back, who doesn't love a bit of eye candy when they're stoned?
After sitting down for a bit one of the crazy, but very friendly local customers who we'd seen every day came over with a candle, lit it, and left it at our table with the words: 'For the happy couple' in a thick Dutch accent. We had a laugh, but it then dawned on us that we had been here every day, and would probably be back next time. De Graal lets you take your drinks & smoke up on their roof, which has a quite realistic painted sculpture of a bulldog up there - FACT! The place also faces the back of rows of turn of the century, 3 or 4 storey houses. A girl was leaning with both legs hanging out of the window gassing away on her mobile, oblivious to us, a quite mad sight to see after a few smokes. The mrs then insisted we check out the Albert Cuyp market once again, which we did, with her making a few small buys, both soaking in the truly cosmopolitan nature of the city and the variety of excellent stalls of all kinds.Instead of getting the tram, we thought we'd make the most of the weather and walk along the canals, so we headed back in the direction of the hotel & chose the route along Prinsengracht. On route we couldn't resist a second visit to Mellow Yellow, where despite wanting to try more from the menu, we smoked more of the bits we had left. A long, but relaxing walk along Prinsengracht followed, with my map skills really kicking in, though sadly my skills in patience were tested to the max with the mrs a yard or 2 behind me the whole way. We though we would take this route as it looked a decent walk, and we hoped to end up near the Anne Frank Museum. It took about 30 minutes walking in the glorious summer sunshine to reach the museum....5 minutes later the mrs arrived too
Looking at the huge queue was a downer, as our last real evening in the 'Dam was approaching. A bit like the dilemma of queuing for any popular nightclub, we toughed it out for 20 minutes to assess how long it might take. We had about an hour and a half till the place closed, and after 20 minutes we'd moved about 2 inches - there were even slugs going past us kicking up dust, so we opted to bail. Since finding out that you don't even get to see the famous room where Anne hid, I'm relieved we didn't queue only to find that out. Having said that the diary is an amazing read - I cannot wait for that sequel! (sorry, only joking). We took the opportunity of being in this part of town to have a look around the Jordaan, which I found to be a great part of town, with stunning houses and a lot of history. Seems to be a really upmarket and trendy suburb, with some beautiful buildings, rows of quirky, unique shops and an abundance of restaurants & bars. We ended up on Marnixstraat after heading towards the direction of Central station and entered a cs called Bronx. The place was playing 'All that Jazz' by Stetstasonic, so it passed the music test, but they were sadly out of crash mats so I had to sit there with a drink and a spliff. I was conscious that we would leave the mnext day, but was keen to try another hash, so bought 1g of Nepali, at a price that escapes me. It was great, black, sticky hash, which I would buy all the time if only it was around in the UK - better than the Pollen I'd bought the day before.
We headed back to the hotel, asked their advice on a good local Indonesian restaurant, where we went later. The food was pretty good, with a mixture of Surinamese and Indonesian dishes on the menu. After that we hit a few bars in the area around De Pijp, stopped at Club Media for a few spliffs. I simply couldn't help buying 1g of Pot of Gold, which is a great Indica strain. We smoked it virtually pure in 1 joint & stumbled back to the hotel bar. This was full of American tourists on business, who were a friendly but tone deaf bunch musically, and unlikely to be tokers, so we had a shot at the bar with them, took our drinks up and smoked some more. After staying up till the early hours, we called it a night, with a bit of a sad feeling that we'd be home tomorrow night.
DAY 4 - SUNDAY AUGUST 9TH
As we got up on the last day, we looked at our diminishing stash on the top shelf of the fridge, it was sad to see so many empty bags but a great feeling nonetheless to have sampled so much top skunk and hash. There was some Black Widow, some Edelweiss, Amesia Haze and a nice bit of Sour D still left. Our mission was to get through this before checking out, leaving a spliff or 2 for our last hours in the city.
The hotel were very nice about letting us check out late, so we made the most of this and left at 3pm, leaving our luggage for later. We headed to the cheap pizza joint again for lunch, stopping afterwards at - you guessed it - De Graal coffeeshop. Hot budtender number 1 from day 1 was back, and told us about her experience of living in London for a few months - 'a harsh place' she called it. I thought about the punk situation at home and thought damn, she's nailed it. We said out goodbyes to the legendary place that had been our 2nd home, finishing off the Edelweiss and Amnesia.
Around 5pm we got our bags, and headed for Centrum. Our flight was at 9pm, so we were aiming to get to the airport for around 7, knowing full well the Easyjet flight to London would be jam packed. We had a wander around Damrak and a last look at the Red Light District before arriving back on Warmoerstraat. With a spliff or 2 only left, we couldn't decide where to stop out of the 10 (?) cs's on the street. Hill Street Blues was out, as we'd tried it, so we opted for Hunter's. I'm pretty sure this was Hunter's CS and not Hunter's Bar. There was a cartoon dog on all the menus and on the glass window from memory, if this helps to distinguish between the 2.
As much as I wanted to try something different on the menu, the mrs wasn't having it, so we polished off the last of the Black Widow and Sour D in 2 pure spliffs, which led to much coughing and a general sense of well-being with a hint of being totally bashed up - my favourite kind of high!
We boarded our train to Schiphol around 6:45, arrived and then the sad news that the flight didn't leave until 9:55pm hit us. This was, to use the words of Danny Dyer, news that proper rocked my nut, as me & the mrs immediately realised we could have stayed in Centrum and sampled some gear at Hunter's, looked round Amsterdam a bit longer and generally not been stuck in the drug-free zone that is Schiphol. We compensated by having a couple of Heinekens and getting Duty Free, but there was a real feeling of coming down having smoked constantly during the stay, and knowing that the next, inferior quality, spliff would be after getting home.Before we knew it, we were at the gate, where we bumped into a French friend who lives in London. Small world. She looked pretty red eyed herself so we knew she'd had a good weekend too. A short flight later, we were back at Stansted. On the 3 minute train from the terminal I could smell a passenger who had an unmistakable aroma of punk about him. I smiled & wondered if I could get away with bringing some back next time. It had been 1 hell of a trip, and I was already planning the next 1.
10 B&H + a packet of rizla,not the greens
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cattales1960
- Posts: 2975
- Joined: Sun 25th Jun 2006 06:20 pm
- Location: Saint Louis MO
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puffpuffgive
- Posts: 763
- Joined: Sat 31st May 2008 09:21 pm
- Location: UK
fantastic grade A trip report, you really made the most of your first trip and sampled some of the best coffeeshops- And you have inspired me to check out De Graal, a C/S I've managed to miss in my 10 visits..
ik hou van amsterdam
photography https://www.flickr.com/photos/bananaface1000/
photography https://www.flickr.com/photos/bananaface1000/
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DeathRowRecords
- Posts: 295
- Joined: Mon 14th Sep 2009 02:14 pm
- Location: E1-E17, London, England
Thanks for the comments people, I am sad to say no pics from the trip for a while.....I lost my phone drunk a month back (they say weed is bad for you - booze is worse!) which had all the pics of bud/cs's and other cool things seen during the trip. 
If I may reply to y'all individually:
jollylittlehun - DO peep the BW at Katsu, it's unlike any other weed I've tried and I've sampled some great strains from indoor growers in Europe over the years. Particularly the high - a supposedly sativa-dominant strain which bashes you up like a good Indica, well it did me anyway!
stew1974 - My bad, I meant no hold luggage....a small case with wheels as hand luggage is the way forward...your mrs has the right idea!
stuart1976 - As you can see, I like to ramble! Glad you like the travelogue.
cisco - I'm an Amsterdam novice, but the fact that the consensus on here and other weed forums that Centrum is overrated says it all - check out the other parts of the city, like De Pijp. If my hotel hadn't been nearby I might have never explored the place, but it was, so we did & I rate the area highly (no pun intended!), the cs's are great and there's no sense of rush or being hassled as in the busier places. De Graal, Katus & Media are my top 3 for Oud Zuid (to date).
liquidSwords - Thanks, we tried to find Central, honestly! But simply weren't high enough to read a map I guess!
geoffk - thanks, I love the area. You have to go to De Graal next time!
Twichaldinho - thank you very much. I have been reading your recent travelogue and I think it puts mine to shame, great stuff, brilliant pictures especially.
ftcarer - Thanks!
cocobrova - Cheers. Loved De Pijp, more than Jordaan, most of Centrum & the posh Museum Quarter. Atlantis was a cool cs, wish I'd stopped there longer.
cattales1960 - Hell yeah - it WOUNDS me to say that I did have fun! (only kidding). I guess you are too far away to just pop over for a weekend, but when you make it, it'll be worth it!
puffpuffgive - Thank you, thanks to this forum I checked out what I thought would be the best cs's in the city, and found 1 or 2 more. As mentioned - check out De Graal, I'll be there myself every day from 23/11 to 26/11.
Enough rambling from me....back to work.
If I may reply to y'all individually:
jollylittlehun - DO peep the BW at Katsu, it's unlike any other weed I've tried and I've sampled some great strains from indoor growers in Europe over the years. Particularly the high - a supposedly sativa-dominant strain which bashes you up like a good Indica, well it did me anyway!
stew1974 - My bad, I meant no hold luggage....a small case with wheels as hand luggage is the way forward...your mrs has the right idea!
stuart1976 - As you can see, I like to ramble! Glad you like the travelogue.
cisco - I'm an Amsterdam novice, but the fact that the consensus on here and other weed forums that Centrum is overrated says it all - check out the other parts of the city, like De Pijp. If my hotel hadn't been nearby I might have never explored the place, but it was, so we did & I rate the area highly (no pun intended!), the cs's are great and there's no sense of rush or being hassled as in the busier places. De Graal, Katus & Media are my top 3 for Oud Zuid (to date).
liquidSwords - Thanks, we tried to find Central, honestly! But simply weren't high enough to read a map I guess!
geoffk - thanks, I love the area. You have to go to De Graal next time!
Twichaldinho - thank you very much. I have been reading your recent travelogue and I think it puts mine to shame, great stuff, brilliant pictures especially.
ftcarer - Thanks!
cocobrova - Cheers. Loved De Pijp, more than Jordaan, most of Centrum & the posh Museum Quarter. Atlantis was a cool cs, wish I'd stopped there longer.
cattales1960 - Hell yeah - it WOUNDS me to say that I did have fun! (only kidding). I guess you are too far away to just pop over for a weekend, but when you make it, it'll be worth it!
puffpuffgive - Thank you, thanks to this forum I checked out what I thought would be the best cs's in the city, and found 1 or 2 more. As mentioned - check out De Graal, I'll be there myself every day from 23/11 to 26/11.
Enough rambling from me....back to work.
10 B&H + a packet of rizla,not the greens