Hi folks,
today the four of us went to Amsterdam to do the tourist thing, and I thought I'd share a bit about how it went.
We are definitely not weed connaisseurs and rarely spend any time in coffeeshops other than to buy. Personally I
smoke around once a month. When we smoke joints we don't use tobacco because well.. it's tobacco. Instead we use Knaster.
"Let's go to Amsterdam and visit a bunch of shops and smoke a lot of weed"
We arrived at 11:00ish at the station, and my buddy wanted to see the Warmoesstraat because he liked the name, so
that's where we went. We hopped into the first shop we saw:
1) Hunter's Coffeeshop
It was a bit crowded when we got in so we couldn't get a spot for the 4 of us. One of the gang bought some 'Trainwreck' weed and
we sat on barstools and ordered some coffee. Soon a spot opened up next to the door so we migrated over there. And we fired up the
first of many joints today. I found the music to be quite enjoyable, and there was a nice vibe. Good times were had by all. In the end
we smoked 2 joints here. The shop overall was very chill.
Next we went across the street to the burgershack and two of us had a rather tasty burger. The wall looked a bit like Jenga, and was not
too comfortable to sit against.
We walked past a restaurant that had a group of people (around 30?) waiting for something, I suspected they might have been waiting for
a couple to be married or something. Anyway it was clear we were going to have to travel right through this group. And when we
approached, they ALL went *silent*, and looked at us rather creepily while it took us forever to walk past them. Holy hell...
We had a few good laughs about it and strolled along a bit, pondering about going to the cannabis museum. We decided not to go because we
feared it would be a let-down
Yada yada, we wound up at the
2) Jolly Joker
This shop seemed quite a bit more 'harsh' than Hunter's. The radio was playing some crappy station with bands like Guus Meeuwis. Also there
were commercials. Not very cozy. The weed was 'Bio White Widow' or something. I thought it was very nice. Smoked 2 joints here.
Strolled around a bit, and walked over the Waterlooplein. This was a bit depressing, we heard one salesman complain about having to work,
and generally it seems that there's a lot of cheap junk to buy. We were looking for a specific shop that sells psychedelic wallhangings.
But we could not find the shop, too bad. We decided to head to the west a bit (narrowly avoiding the Dam square which was way too crowded
and active for our spaced out states). We arrived at
3) La Tertulia
At first it looked like it was closed, but no. We bought some 'Thai <something>', and got a table upstairs. First thing to notice was that
the place was a bit 'empty'. There's a tile floor and not much on the walls, and the chairs are not very comfortable.
Quite a few plants though which give a nice feel. We fired
up a joint and I thought it was very nice weed. The music was also very chill, some rather spaced out sounds which is just what we like.
Three of us decided to get more of this Thai weed to take home, so I went downstairs and bought it. I remarked to the very calm lady
how this was our third shop and so far I thought it was the most relaxed. We spent quite some time because we just felt very at ease.
By now I was a bit hungry so I was on the lookout. We walked by a little restaurant that smelled just awesome, http://www.rainarai.nl/
I walked inside and asked to get a small portion of food to take with me. Also, I needed a fork to eat it with. This turned out to be a problem
because there were no plastic forks anymore. And I could only get a metal fork if I promised to return it. I was in no state to be able to guarantee
such a thing, so I ended up with no food. I could have lied and the lady would have given me a spoon, but I prefer not to lie so early upon
meeting someone
Which was a bummer because it really smelled awesome. Oh well, probably lots more restaurants around.So we wandered a bit into a more 'new' part of town, or at least it looked like that. We wound up at the
4) Gouden Boon
Entering this shop could only be described as entering the Twilight Zone.
What. The. Fuck.
The place was *empty* apart from a big tv in the back, a counter with a budtender, and 3 barstools which seated 3 older (Moroccan, I think)
gentlemen. They too decided to stop talking and stare at us. We bought some Super Polm hash and got the hell out of Dodge. We found a nice
bench to smoke a joint with the hash and had a good time anyway, in the sun.
I thought it might be a good idea to travel more to 'the center' because I thought that the shops were getting a bit 'local' around here.
We ended up at
5) New Times
I think the place was run by Italians, and the one guy took really good care to give us a decent coffee. We bought some weed (dunno what kind),
and could only find a spot outside which was ok but not too comfortable because it was pretty cold and windy. Oh well we smoked a j, not too much
to say, really.
Now we were all getting rather hungry. We decided to have dinner and after that one more shop and then go home.
What to eat? Pancakes! Great, now what. So we asked the internet and 4 pancake-restaurants in the neighbourhood.
We walked to the first one. It looked rather fancy schmancy and had a sign saying 'please wait to be seated'. Too fancy for us I'm afraid, for mere pancakes.
On to the next one. We barged in only to find out they were closed and cleaning up, and we soiled their newly mopped floor. Sorry yo
When walking awayI did notice a sign in the window saying "We're open". Oh well.
We didn't like our current quest anymore so decided to find the first decent restaurant we could find. Turned out to be a Thai place called 'Thai Corner'.
We had some nice meals; soup and several curry dishes. Good eats.
So we went outside and first thing we saw was the next shop
6) Happy Feelings
Automatic sliding door for the win. I looked at the menu and saw 'Happy Haze'. Sounded like just what we need for our last smokes. So we got inside and sat
at a table. The chairs were a bit funky, dropping in height a bit when sitting upon them, and rotating easily. I would have enjoyed a 'ruggesteun' because
after sitting for a while it becomes a bit uncomfortable. Also they had a microscope and my buddy who's into that stuff asked to use it.
So we looked at some magnified weed
The music was not quite my taste, but the atmosphere was nice.And thus, while walking to the trainstation, ended our tour of some of Amsterdam's shops. Three of us thought La Tertulia was the 'most enjoyable' shop, with Hunter's second. One of us thought Hunter's 1, La Tertulia 2.
I have to hand it to La Tertulia, the place was so very chill and together with the weed I very much felt like I was floating. Wish I could have said goodbye
to the nice lady that helped me.
It was a great day and we had a lot of crazy conversations and some very good laughs.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.
