Trips to the Dam October 2009 & February 2010
Posted: Sat 6th Nov 2010 11:33 pm
Hi everyone and thanks for reading, this is my first travelogue, I hope it's a decent read! I'm Lawrence, 22 originally from Ireland but now working and living in London trying to make inroads on the stand up comedy circuit. Obviously I'm a bit of a rookie compared to most people on the forum but have enjoyed green for a few years, although it would only really be a weekly session with a few friends. I worked in Spain for three summers and myself and two very good friends closed our bar on a Tuesday, so we could have CHT, Crack Head Tuesday, where basically we would go to a new destination each week and get pretty wrecked (one experience with brownies left me crying on top of a mountain and laughing for about an hour at a tree which looked like it had a vagina in the trunk).
It was our last season in Spain in 2009, and we all live in different parts of the UK so we arranged to have a Crack Head Tuesday in Amsterdam in October 2009 which would be our first time there for the three of us, apart from when I was a baby my mum and dad took me there and a school trip when I was 7, so obviously no coffeeshops were visited unfortunately!
A good friend of mine from Ireland who had been to amsterdam twice before also joined us along with his girlfriend, we all met at the airport and realised the train was down due to maintenance work at Schipol. This led to a pretty long bus journey to another train station, but we were all in good spirits. We hopped on the train and arrived at Central station, but for some reason my friend was certain this wasn't Central station so we stayed on the train. Which eventually started travelling again backwards towards the airport, not an excellent start haha, but eventually after another train journey we arrived again at central station and hopped off. The first warning I was given from my friend was watch out for bikes and trams, this was tough for a newbie and I was pretty worried about this as I was finding it hard cross the road when completely sober never mind wrecked. It was a short walk to our hostel, the meeting point which was a great location in the RLD, the staff were friendly and they had a smoking room in the bar area. Was really impressed with it seeing it was quite cheap as well.
We threw our bags in the 18 man room and ventured out into the greatest city in the world at around 6pm. Our first coffee shop was Route 66, which basically became our local and was a really nice venue that had just been recently refurbished I believed. Loads of big comfy sofas and a pretty cool, modern shop with a variety of music for everyones taste. Like a lot of Dam virgins I just couldn't really get over the fact I could just go up to the counter and order different strains of weed! My friend suggested we get white widow to start and orange bud, which in Route 66 everything is pre-bagged and 15euros. Two bags, a grinder, skins and 3 cups of tea sorted we sit down and begin rolling our first dam spliffs. My rolling skills at this stage were really quite poor, andy rolled a perfect fatty whilst mine resembled a wet cigar which had an impotence problem. After everyone laughed at me to my embarassment including a few random Italians, we lit up and got the party started. About an hour later and a number of joints we left route 66 and we all realised we were pretty fucked, so we did the only thing you can do and that's go to Baba's and get a brownie, and wonder around the RLD checking out the, erm, talent shall I say. At this stage we were tapping eachother shoulders and just generally trying to freak eachother out a little. I was just blown away by the city though, it really is a beautiful place. We made our way back toward the Hostel and stopped by at Hunter's coffee shop first, buying 2g of NYC Diesel and 1g of Chocolope. The NYC Diesel was probably my favourite smoke of the Dam, which we enjoyed across the street in Hunter's Vodka Bar along with a few Heinekens. At this point we were all pretty mashed and going to the bar to order another pitcher of beer seemed like a pretty daunting prospect. The bar lady there though was an absolute legend and rather quite hot too!
At around 11pm we went for another wander around the RLD, stopping to get pizza slices and waffles before ending up in a smoker friendly bar playing pool and having a few more beers, before deciding we would buy some mushrooms the next day and rent bikes, as we were heading home early on the third morning. Let's just say this decision will live with me until I die.
We got up early, grabbed breakfast in the hostel (which for 4euros was great, but not paticulary appetising as it was simply a hard boiled egg, a slice of cheese and a piece of bread) and had a nice wake and bake in the smoking room. We headed to route 66 again for another bag of White Widow and AK47, then to a smart shop where we bought three packets of their strongest truffles and a massive cone which we packed out with the rest of our weed. A quick walk to the bike hire shop to collect our bikes, we decided to cycle to the Vondelpark to enjoy the mushrooms there. Remembering the smartshop guy said not to smoke any weed beforehand and have an empty stomach, we lit up the massive cone and started munching down the mushrooms on a bench in the Vondelpark which was quite secluded from the rest of the park, thank the lord for that as within about 20minutes I went on a massive freak out. I had tried mushrooms before and had a really nice mellow trip, so I munched down a bit more than anyone else hoping for the same effect, this was a bad BAD call.
Basically the sky turned a shade of purple and stars started falling from the sky towards me, and I started talking gibberish quite loudly, freaking out that we were in Amsterdam and had bikes. "Why... why do we have bikes? Why are we in Amsterdam, oh god, we shouldn't be here man. WHY AM I IN AMSTERDAM! This is bad.. this is bad!" Luckily my Irish friends girlfriend didn't consume any mushrooms and tried to calm me down, whilst everyone else pissed themselves laughing at me. This continued for around ten minutes until finally I started to calm down a little and enjoy the trip... until an old lady in a wheelchair rolled past me which scared me to death for some reason, "AAAAHHHHHHHH!" "Lawrence mate calm down it's fine" "She smelt of death... why are we in amsterdam? WHY DO WE HAVE BIKES". Queue another half an hour of freaking out on the freak out bench, where everyone laughed at me again. Finally again, I calmed down thanks to an American tourist who was probably high, crashing her bike into the tree in front of us which had us all in hysterics for literally an hour, sorry to the American lady, but her and her friends laughed it off too.
We decided we were ok to cycle back after around 2 hours and began cycling through vondelpark to the mainroad. This is when we realised we were all still wrecked, it literally felt like I was in a movie and the bike was pedalling itself. We got to the mainroad, seen how busy it was and immediately bailed, cycling back to the freak out bench to try and calm down (and have another sly joint). It was at this point I was staring at a bracelet I was wearing, which has religous pictures on it, and it dawned on me. I was Jesus! It was up to me to lead my friends out of vondelpark and this was a test from god (I'm not actually religous at all, but thanks to good old mushrooms and weed I thought I was the new Jesus Christ). I cycled at the front and led us on the 20min cycle ride back to our hostel, how none of us died on that trip I have no idea and I want to apologise to any one who was on the roads that day.
We got back to the hostel, stocked up again at route 66 and headed to my favourite place in Amsterdam, the Green Light. It's a smoker friendly bar with lots of cool different decor, low tables where you sit on the floor on cushions around the table. The staff there were great, and laughed at me upon hearing about my mushroom trip, whilst filling up a lovely grape shisha with our bag of weed in it. We stayed there for literally hours, smoking the rest of the gear laughing about the day, drinking beers. This I'm sure will remain with me as one of the happiest moments of my life, I was alive, unfortunately I figured out I probably wasn't Jesus, but I was enjoying cold beers, great weed from a shisha and got to share it all with my best friends. Moments like that are definitely to be treasured.
We staggered back to the hostel, smoked the rest of our stash and hit the sack around 3am, awaking at 6am to get the train back to Schipol (luckily in the right direction this time). On the plane home, I was really sad and I knew I was hooked and had to go back to Dam as soon as possible, and this time check out more coffeeshops as I think we only visited maybe 6 different ones, the names of which I unfortunately can't remember from October, but I can remember the January places.
Upon arriving home I booked the trip on sky scanner for January 2010, the travelogue to follow. Lit up a joint and told my stories with my friends sitting around me, all wishing they'd have been there too.
It was our last season in Spain in 2009, and we all live in different parts of the UK so we arranged to have a Crack Head Tuesday in Amsterdam in October 2009 which would be our first time there for the three of us, apart from when I was a baby my mum and dad took me there and a school trip when I was 7, so obviously no coffeeshops were visited unfortunately!
A good friend of mine from Ireland who had been to amsterdam twice before also joined us along with his girlfriend, we all met at the airport and realised the train was down due to maintenance work at Schipol. This led to a pretty long bus journey to another train station, but we were all in good spirits. We hopped on the train and arrived at Central station, but for some reason my friend was certain this wasn't Central station so we stayed on the train. Which eventually started travelling again backwards towards the airport, not an excellent start haha, but eventually after another train journey we arrived again at central station and hopped off. The first warning I was given from my friend was watch out for bikes and trams, this was tough for a newbie and I was pretty worried about this as I was finding it hard cross the road when completely sober never mind wrecked. It was a short walk to our hostel, the meeting point which was a great location in the RLD, the staff were friendly and they had a smoking room in the bar area. Was really impressed with it seeing it was quite cheap as well.
We threw our bags in the 18 man room and ventured out into the greatest city in the world at around 6pm. Our first coffee shop was Route 66, which basically became our local and was a really nice venue that had just been recently refurbished I believed. Loads of big comfy sofas and a pretty cool, modern shop with a variety of music for everyones taste. Like a lot of Dam virgins I just couldn't really get over the fact I could just go up to the counter and order different strains of weed! My friend suggested we get white widow to start and orange bud, which in Route 66 everything is pre-bagged and 15euros. Two bags, a grinder, skins and 3 cups of tea sorted we sit down and begin rolling our first dam spliffs. My rolling skills at this stage were really quite poor, andy rolled a perfect fatty whilst mine resembled a wet cigar which had an impotence problem. After everyone laughed at me to my embarassment including a few random Italians, we lit up and got the party started. About an hour later and a number of joints we left route 66 and we all realised we were pretty fucked, so we did the only thing you can do and that's go to Baba's and get a brownie, and wonder around the RLD checking out the, erm, talent shall I say. At this stage we were tapping eachother shoulders and just generally trying to freak eachother out a little. I was just blown away by the city though, it really is a beautiful place. We made our way back toward the Hostel and stopped by at Hunter's coffee shop first, buying 2g of NYC Diesel and 1g of Chocolope. The NYC Diesel was probably my favourite smoke of the Dam, which we enjoyed across the street in Hunter's Vodka Bar along with a few Heinekens. At this point we were all pretty mashed and going to the bar to order another pitcher of beer seemed like a pretty daunting prospect. The bar lady there though was an absolute legend and rather quite hot too!
At around 11pm we went for another wander around the RLD, stopping to get pizza slices and waffles before ending up in a smoker friendly bar playing pool and having a few more beers, before deciding we would buy some mushrooms the next day and rent bikes, as we were heading home early on the third morning. Let's just say this decision will live with me until I die.
We got up early, grabbed breakfast in the hostel (which for 4euros was great, but not paticulary appetising as it was simply a hard boiled egg, a slice of cheese and a piece of bread) and had a nice wake and bake in the smoking room. We headed to route 66 again for another bag of White Widow and AK47, then to a smart shop where we bought three packets of their strongest truffles and a massive cone which we packed out with the rest of our weed. A quick walk to the bike hire shop to collect our bikes, we decided to cycle to the Vondelpark to enjoy the mushrooms there. Remembering the smartshop guy said not to smoke any weed beforehand and have an empty stomach, we lit up the massive cone and started munching down the mushrooms on a bench in the Vondelpark which was quite secluded from the rest of the park, thank the lord for that as within about 20minutes I went on a massive freak out. I had tried mushrooms before and had a really nice mellow trip, so I munched down a bit more than anyone else hoping for the same effect, this was a bad BAD call.
Basically the sky turned a shade of purple and stars started falling from the sky towards me, and I started talking gibberish quite loudly, freaking out that we were in Amsterdam and had bikes. "Why... why do we have bikes? Why are we in Amsterdam, oh god, we shouldn't be here man. WHY AM I IN AMSTERDAM! This is bad.. this is bad!" Luckily my Irish friends girlfriend didn't consume any mushrooms and tried to calm me down, whilst everyone else pissed themselves laughing at me. This continued for around ten minutes until finally I started to calm down a little and enjoy the trip... until an old lady in a wheelchair rolled past me which scared me to death for some reason, "AAAAHHHHHHHH!" "Lawrence mate calm down it's fine" "She smelt of death... why are we in amsterdam? WHY DO WE HAVE BIKES". Queue another half an hour of freaking out on the freak out bench, where everyone laughed at me again. Finally again, I calmed down thanks to an American tourist who was probably high, crashing her bike into the tree in front of us which had us all in hysterics for literally an hour, sorry to the American lady, but her and her friends laughed it off too.
We decided we were ok to cycle back after around 2 hours and began cycling through vondelpark to the mainroad. This is when we realised we were all still wrecked, it literally felt like I was in a movie and the bike was pedalling itself. We got to the mainroad, seen how busy it was and immediately bailed, cycling back to the freak out bench to try and calm down (and have another sly joint). It was at this point I was staring at a bracelet I was wearing, which has religous pictures on it, and it dawned on me. I was Jesus! It was up to me to lead my friends out of vondelpark and this was a test from god (I'm not actually religous at all, but thanks to good old mushrooms and weed I thought I was the new Jesus Christ). I cycled at the front and led us on the 20min cycle ride back to our hostel, how none of us died on that trip I have no idea and I want to apologise to any one who was on the roads that day.
We got back to the hostel, stocked up again at route 66 and headed to my favourite place in Amsterdam, the Green Light. It's a smoker friendly bar with lots of cool different decor, low tables where you sit on the floor on cushions around the table. The staff there were great, and laughed at me upon hearing about my mushroom trip, whilst filling up a lovely grape shisha with our bag of weed in it. We stayed there for literally hours, smoking the rest of the gear laughing about the day, drinking beers. This I'm sure will remain with me as one of the happiest moments of my life, I was alive, unfortunately I figured out I probably wasn't Jesus, but I was enjoying cold beers, great weed from a shisha and got to share it all with my best friends. Moments like that are definitely to be treasured.
We staggered back to the hostel, smoked the rest of our stash and hit the sack around 3am, awaking at 6am to get the train back to Schipol (luckily in the right direction this time). On the plane home, I was really sad and I knew I was hooked and had to go back to Dam as soon as possible, and this time check out more coffeeshops as I think we only visited maybe 6 different ones, the names of which I unfortunately can't remember from October, but I can remember the January places.
Upon arriving home I booked the trip on sky scanner for January 2010, the travelogue to follow. Lit up a joint and told my stories with my friends sitting around me, all wishing they'd have been there too.
Glad you got to see a few different shops in the end. 
Lsd it`ll be next time...