Anyway, so yeah, I went to A'dam last June (9th-14th; 2 nights on the ferry, 3 nights in the hotel). I wish I could type up the TR I ahd in mind before embarking on said journey. One with lots of pictures, detailed descriptions & appetising, thought tantalysing, reviews, but alas ALL my plans(yes, I mean every single plan I made) quite literally went up in smoke. Getting out of Centrum, seeing a show at the Melkweg, experiencing the city outside of the coffeshops, eating in various establishments all round the city, riding a bike, going to Haarlem for a day, etc etc...all never happened. I can't stress that enough before moving on with this 'story'
After arriving in Ijmuiden on Thursday (10th) morning, we walked up through the small town, avoiding the coach's taking people to Centraal Station, & opted to locate "Cool Joe's". It's actually a lot closer to the port than we intitially thought, but eventually we found ourselves standing outside awaiting for the doors to open. We waited no longer than 5 mins before a car pulled up, which we assumed to be the manager (or at the very least a key holder), to open for the day. This is around 10am, give a few minutes after but then who would blame the guy right?
Cool Joe's, my first actual CS experience, is ideal if you're arriving by the DFDS ferry. It's quite small, with around (going from memory here) 4-6 booths (4person), a bar-top, two computers with seating. I asked to see the WW & Cheese, to which the BT offered me Amnesia Haze instead of the Cheese. WW was 7E, Cheese/AH 10E. I didn't bother asking any Q's, & being a little too eager to get started, opted for the Cheese & WW. My friends, A & W, wen't for the AM & a pre-roll respectively. The AH was really nice, good buzz, was flushed etc, same with the WW. The Cheese on the other hand I felt hadn't been flushed properly (hard ash). I should have took the BT's advice! While smoking up a pure or 3, I remember thinking to myself "Wait, 3 nights, plus the ferry back, of constant smoking? I'm not gonna' be able to hack this". I felt myself getting pretty kained within 30 mins of sitting there & starting to fret on whether or not I'd survive...lol. We sat for a bit longer, had a Looza, bid our farewells & set off to find the Fast Ferry to Centraal- aiming to be on our way for 11:30am.
The FF port is within walking distance, but we ended up going for the bus when we were no more than another 5 mins walk from the FF port (my friend W is a big fella, & there's only so much complaining we can handle
). 5E to travel into Centraal, which is damn good imo. Takes around 30 mins, but after a few doobs I was just kicking back & watching the water wave past.After checking in to the Hotel Schroder (I'll give a little review of this place a bit later) & rolling up the smoke we picked up from earlier, we set off to get supplies from the local AH store. I'm not sure if it's the same for the more superstore style shops, but the small local one just after Harlemmerdjk (sp?) reminds me of the small local Co-Op stores you get in the UK. Not overly cheap put it that way...maybe track down an Aldi next time
From there we set off walking down Haarlemstraat (sp?), stopping into the Dampkring. Nice place, all the smoke I bought (SSH, Cheese, Mexican & Jungle Haze, Blueberry & Cheese Skunk) over the next few days all burnt with nice fluffy white ash, & from what I can recall had modest flavours (the Hazes & Cheese were in another league taste wise). Over the 3 nights we were in Amsterdam, we more or less stopped by this place once on a morning & on the way back to the hotel on the night. They're not too friendly to the idea of people wearing hats (I kept forgetting & only realised how much of a fool I must have looked when some guy rushed up to tell me they have a no hat policy). I remember using one of their bongs on the last night & ended up walking towards the door to leave whilst still clutching my empty glass. Ate one of their spacecakes on the Sunday before heading for the ferry home...more on that in a moment, ahem.
From the Dampkring2 we headed down to Rasta Baby to meet up with a few lads who had flown in that same day. Never bought anything here but I got a delicious, if overpriced, freshly squeezed orange juice. The glass was probably a 1/4 of a pint, but I was pretty kained at this point & didn't care much. From there we went to the Old Church (I'm afraid pretty much all my trip was spent in Centrum
), which isn't a bad place at all imo (read a lot of negative reviews). Can't really speak for their product aside from the Nepal Creme I got (twice) at 16E-1.5g. Was probably the best hash of the trip for us (I bought 3grams in total on the trip, the last 1.5 deal to be taken home ). They had seating ourside, which was good as it was quite warm/sunny at the time. Also, when I went to the bar to order a drink my friend W was at the bar buying a pre-roll (shudder* but hey, it's up to him I suppose) & a drink also, to which he handed over around 17E. The women serving him just stared at him, & when it appeared he was content on paying that she said, whilst still holding her hand out, "Do you like over paying for things or is this a gesture of good will?". W looked at me ina confused yet baked state. It wasn't till she said he had overpaid when he realised hsi mistake- "Got to be more careful when here" She smiled. I'd do a day by day TR, but to be honest my trip didn't consist of anything more than hanging around smoking. I was meant to go to a show at the Melkweg on the Friday (11th), had my ticket & everything (35e), but I literally smoked to a point where I should have stopped if I wanted to achieve atleast one of my initial goals, but I ended up just smoking more
Other coffeeshops I went into (& more forced my friends to come with) was Amnesia (my friend A got something here, nice ambient place though with cool purple lighting), & Grey Area, where I was the only one to go in. GA was probably the highlight of my somewhat limited trip. I bought 1g of Cacey Jones here (later coming back for another 2 grams) & 2 grams of Kushdee (again coming back for another 2 grams). Think the Jones cost me 13e/g & the kushdee about 12e/g. Both superb smoke; taste, effects etc both amazing. really opened my eye's to the quality Amsterdam can have. We had experienced a lot of stuff (that my friends had bought, & some of which I did myself) that wasn't flushed right, so I made a point of asking this to the BT in GA, to which he replied "We have some of the best product in Amsterdam, no need to worry here" with a smile. I found that reassuring
This trip report has wen't from a steadily growing daily diary of my time there, to a grinding hault to which I can't really type anymore. I literally was so kained on the second & third day that you'd be lucky to get a coherent sentence out of me. My mind, body etc felt fine, albeit kaiboshed from the smoke, but my speech was terrible. Very mono-tone, almost a whisper people said, even though I felt as if I was speaking clearly (that happens when im sober at times, but nothing this bad
).No idea on the strains I bought/tried overall, but I spent a good 200e on smoke alone. There was other places we went to but remembering it ain't gonna' happen, sorry gals & guys!
Oh yeah, about the Hotel Schroder...bit of a dump in all honesty. I mean it was fine for the amount we paid, but when asked for a spare bed for the last night (my friend W's dad was coming over for the night) all we got was a matress on the floor...again, to which I wouldn't complain about if there wasn't mice roaming around chewing little holes into things. It'd be a decent place, if not for the mice.
Recently got a job for a month during the xmas period, so have booked up with my friend A to go again the beginning of January. Need to plan out a route to take this time for sure, & maybe smoke myself silly but then do something instead of rolling another
Thanks for reading...if I remember any details I'll post back.
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