I first visited Amsterdam in June of 2007. I believe the exact date was June 13th, 2007. We had booked out Contiki tour months in advance, and had taken note that Amsterdam was our first stop-over, meaning we would be hitting it hard very early on.
I had the idea of arriving into Amsterdam a few days early so as to get more nights as opposed to the two on the tour, but we discovered Contiki didn’t allow mid-tour meet-ups, even though it was the first stop. The funny thing is, you can now meet up with your tour at the first location, as the rule was changed in 2008.
Our trip from London to Amsterdam was exciting for the first hour or so, until we arrived into Dover to discover a long line and wait was waiting for us to cross the ocean into Belgium and then into the Netherlands.
The initial plan was to arrive into Amsterdam at about 3pm, early enough for a tour of the city on the bus before heading to our hotel and then back out for dinner at 6pm.
Unfortunately, we didn’t arrive into Amsterdam until 5:30pm, meaning the bus tour was out of the question. We arrived at our hostel (Hostel Slotania, about 20 minutes out of the city center), which was nice and clean.
The moment it truly hit me that I was in Amsterdam was walking through the common room of the hostel to see two stoned Asian guys laughing at each other.
Yes, I was in Amsterdam.
Although, seeing two stoned guys is definitely not restricted to Amsterdam. But it was good to be reminded, and it was a wonderful feeling that had gone over me!
Me being as ignorant as I am, I didn’t really research Amsterdam before I came over, so I kind of suspected that weed was available anywhere and everywhere. I soon learned this wasn’t the case, as our tour manage gave us the low down on the rules and laws during our ride into town.
Our tour manager couldn’t stop speaking highly enough about the Bulldog and the Grasshopper, so we all naturally assumed that these were the places to be in Amsterdam. I had remembered my sister saying to me not to head into the big places and to venture into the smaller, less obvious coffeeshops. They weren’t easy to find, but they were worth the effort.
Anyway, when we arrived into town I took the advice of my sister, and myself and my mate ventured off looking for a quiet, small coffeeshop, while everyone else on our tour went to the Grasshopper.
We went into this small place right near the Grasshopper. I can’t remember the name, but it had a bar along the side and a small little weed cabinet at the back. The service was terrible and the weed just so. I bought a pre-rolled joint, which didn’t even get me remotely high, so we left rather disappointed.
We headed into the Grasshopper, only to be greeted by an angry and large bouncer who asked us for ID. We headed upstairs to where the rest of our tour was, to find none of the 40+ people were smoking, but instead drinking and talking quietly.
Right.
I’m not saying everyone has to party, but at least take advantage of what’s available. And what are the chances no one smokes?
We bought some crappy weed from the rude and emotionless bud tender, smoked it, got a little high, and decided to venture out looking for some shrooms.
We eventually found some and thought it wise to get some food in our stomachs before getting ripped by some fine quality Dutch mushrooms.
I thought “what better way to wet my whistle and fill my tummy than with some local Heineken and some chips with mayonnaise!”
After a small snack, we walked around a bit, taking in the sites of wonderful Amsterdam during glorious summer. We finally found a place to enjoy our mushrooms before we remembered we had to meet back up with the group at 9pm for a live sex show, which we had already paid for in advance.
We ran to the Red Light District to meet up with the group at the good ol’ and infamous Case Rossa.
While in line, the security guard came down the line asking if anyone wanted to volunteer to go on stage for a magic act. I’d heard the rumours about this “magic act”, so I offered my mate and I as bait.
We gave them our names, and after about 15 minutes of watching some well-endowed black dude go to town on a petite blond chick, our names were bellowed out over the loud speaker, along with a few random German guys who must have all been over 40 and in the middle of a mid-life crisis.
We head up on stage and are greeted by a large and intimidating soldier-looking guy, who introduces the “magician” for the show. A fairly unattractive Brazilian looking lady with a nice body strolls out, and moves along the line of nervous men to dirty dance with us. You can imagine out embarrassed and nervous I was doing this in front of my whole tour that I would be living with for the next 17 or so days. But I kind of new what was waiting for us, so I couldn’t complain.
What happened next I didn't know would happen, though.
The lady pulls out a banana, lies down on the floor, pulls aside her panties and inserts the banana about half-way in.
That was the magic trick?
Then, just as I had anticipated, we had to each take a bite from the banana as it was dangling from this unattractive and probably heavily diseased sex worker, in front of 100+ people. Thankfully I was the first to go, but my mate was last. And, unluckily for him, the German guy before him took a nice, big bite, meaning my mate would not only have to take a bite of a banana that a stranger had just bitten, and not only take a bite of a banana that was dangling from a dirty woman’s vagina, but also take a bite of a banana that was far too close to mouth herpes for comfort.
We leave the sex show slightly embarrassed but at least happy to have such a wonderful memory from our first night in Amsterdam. Only in Amsterdam, hey?
All I had on my mind were the mushrooms, so we just decided to gobble them down then and there.
It must have been the excitement of being in Amsterdam, because that was a very stupid thing to do.
After that, we all headed to the Bulldog (the big white one in the corner, right outside of a tram stop), where we smoked some crappy weed and were harassed by Nigerian pimps trying to sell us their Thai underage prostitutes.
Note to self: NEVER GO TO THE BULLDOG AGAIN.
By the end of the night I was pretty hammered, but that didn’t stop us from checking out some coffeeshops before closing time. We only went to a few around the Bulldog, none of which were any good; bad crowds, bad weed.
We did buy a gram of some fine hash though, and ventured back to our hostel to smoke it with the cool bong I had bought along with the mushrooms.
We head back to the apartment, only to find a cute little Asian chick from Sydney passed out in our room. At first I thought “Awesome”, but then I thought, “Wait, how the hell did this chick get in our room?”
She wasn’t that out of it, thankfully, and was a bit confused when we woke her up, but she later joined us in the common area to smoke some of hash (which was supposed to be a smoke free area. How inconsiderate of us!), which got us absolutely hammered! It was the first time I’d had good hash, and all the stuff in Australia is homemade crap stuff that junkies make with a plastic bag and heated up steel knife.
The next morning we were supposed to do a bike tour of the country and head to a cheese factory, but we were way too hammered, and I wanted to check out all of the museums and eat a nice lunch before spending the rest of the day smoking some fine hash.
We were almost convinced to join the group by two cute American’s on our tour, but I thought of riding my bike in the condition I was in and thought I’d probably embarrass myself.
We headed into town and a guy from our tour joined on with us, who was thankfully pretty cool. He invited himself, but he was alright so it was no big deal after a while. Initially I was cautious and kind of pissed, but he actually made the day that little bit more worth it.
When I first posted here, I wasn’t sure which coffeeshops we had been in, but after some research, I can confirm on the second day we went to Paradise, Grey Area and Rookies.
Paradise was OK initially until it started getting full, and the crowd was really bad. There was a chick working there at first and she was really nice, but then a guy started working and he was a real a-hole. The weed was OK, but I won’t be going back.
Grey Area was awesome, and we got absolutely BAKED. I don’t remember much of our time in there or what we actually smoked as my mate bought it (and I was a little drunk after lunch), but it was fantastic.
We chilled for a bit with some tea and took some very incriminating videos and pictures, which may eventually surface on here, but may not in fear of making a fool of myself! But be prepared for some awesome footage from my trip in a few months!
I bought some very potent Moroccan hash, which I smoked just before dinner back at the hotel.
After dinner with the group, we all went to a cool little bar in the red light district (can’t remember the name) where we drank and smoked till about 11pm. It was our last night in Amsterdam and I wasn’t going to go down lightly!
After a massive night and a lot of great hash (I have never and probably never will be as baked…well, maybe in July
), we got into a cab with our new mate Charles (the guy who had joined us during the day) and decided to head back to the hotel.After 5 minutes in the cab, I realized we weren’t going back to the hotel. I asked Charles where we were going and he said, “Detour! Detour!”
We stopped right in the heart of the RLD, where we soon discovered Charles was keen to wet his whistle…literally.
I’m not the one to pay for sex, although I don’t condemn it. I do well on my own (I’m not gloating!
), although I must admit; some of the women in the RLD are stunning! Very tempting! After an interesting hour or so waiting for Charles and being attacked by Nigerians trying to sell us “coke”, we got ourselves some awesome donar kebab and our last joint for the trip from a coffeeshop that was closing up for the night.
We head back to the hostel, open a window in the common area and jump out onto the roof of the adjacent building. We kick back on the surprisingly clean cement roof, smoking the surprisingly good joint from the little unknown coffeeshop nestled deep within the RLD.
It was a fitting way to end a wild and great two nights in Amsterdam.
