Solo Trip - Four Days In Amsterdam - RLD Included!

[Babbalonian]

My first visit to Amsterdam & a solo trip as well.......... Feb 14th - 18th (Fri-Tue)

Day 1:

Fingers crossed the weather is better 'there' than 'here'..... Not so sunny England!
Couldn't believe how quick it took to arrive from Gatwick. Seemed to take longer to get everyone on the plane & all hand luggage put away than the actual flight!
It's just my opinion but the Schiphol Airport to hotel shuttle is a waste of time if your hotel is centrally located. We had to wait about 40mins for a van to turn up & after other drop offs it was approx 90 minutes before I got to The Avenue hotel. Considering the return to Schiphol via a walk to the train station & the 20mins train journey after getting a ticket (5 euros) from the vending machine took only about 30-40mins I'd definitely get the train next time. Just a quick tip!

Now the fun begins..... within 20 mins of checking in at the hotel I'd already been to 2 head shops for a grinder, cones (I'm an embarrassment at rolling J's) and a couple of lighters. I'd completely underappreciated how small the centre of town is so instead of going to Homegrown Fantasy I stopped off at Ben's coffeeshop first. Its a bit dingy but I quite like that and there were a couple of Cali students to bullshit with whilst I induldged in my first joint in Amsterdam. Bubblegum!! Very nice toke it was too. Although I can't say I was too impressed with the Sour Diesel as it made me cough a lot & didn't have much of an effect.

First impressions: Head shops are EVERYWHERE here and coming from England its hard to put into words how cool it is to just sit & have a smoke with other laid back people and not to feel like its anything 'wrong' or 'criminal'.

Anyway, after an hour (or so) I made my way to Homegrown Fantasy to try their famous Cheese. The best recommendation I can say is that on the 4th day of my trip I went to Homegrown Seeds & got a pack of Homegrown Cheese seeds to take home for my friend! Awesome stone but super nice feeing with it. Also you guys might want to try the Critical from HF. Great HEAVY indica if you know what I mean.... And a special mention to the budtenders in there. Two of the nicest people you could wish to meet (an older lady & a student type) which along with the chilled out ambience made it my favorite coffeeshop of the trip and that is without mentioning the psychedelic, trippy toilet! Epic is the word!!!!

Day 2:

Saturday.... soooooo.... Culture & filth! Checked out the Rijksmuseum & Van Gogh Museum. Both were excellent and I would have gone to the Anne Frank House but the queues were waaaay too long for me. I will check it out 'next time'. Also managed to go on a canal 'pizza' cruise in the evening for a change of pace. Very nice pizza!

Obviously there was toking involved during the day! Grey Area was heaving so I made my way to Paradox. Nice place but the strain I bought there.... Meh! Purple (sativa) the guy said it was called & did almost nothing for me. Still, I had some Cheese, Blueberry & Bubblegum left which lasted me the rest of the day/night including a cruise of the RLD. What can I say about that? 4/10!! Seemed a small area to what I thought it would be and nothing there to exactly 'tempt me' as you might say! I did check out a live sex show. Not really an experience I want again. The guy was making too much eye contact for my liking.

Quick Note: Mario head shop in the City Centre (opposite Blues Brothers) is the best of its kind. It has everything you could need & nice easy going staff.

Day 3:

Woke up with a good feeling. Felt energised & ready for a good day. Wandered over to The Pancake Bakery on Prinsengracht. Worth the walk! Awesome apple & banana pancake. Yum! For some reason I felt like a chill day so spent the day wandering the city and via HF (2g's of Cheese & 1g of Critical) I ended up in a brown bar for the Arsenal v Liverpool FA Cup game. Four heinekens & some Cheese later all I can say is - mashed!! So it probably wasn't a good idea to have some Critical on the way back to the hotel!

Sleep young man sleep! It all must have caught up with me as I put my head down for a quick nap after making a couple of cones in the bedroom. Next thing I knew it was night time & instead of having a can or 3 of Monster I ran a bath. Needless to say I could hardly drag myself out of there & slept the rest of the night.... Damn indica's!

Observation: Having spent a good part of the day walking around it's fair to say The Dam is a beautiful place. Great architecture & reminded me a little of Prague. I guess this place must have been (relatively) unspoilt from WW2.

Day 4:

Confession time... one of my main goals on this trip was to visit De Dampkring. I love 'that' scene in Ocean's 12 and the place doesn't disappoint. It wa relatively quiet when I got there - approx 11:30am and no queues at the bar or weed counter. It looks great inside as I expected it would & so bought 2g of the Jack Herer strain. Never had it before, would love to have it again! It took me to space camp city and I almost fell off my stool when a party of tourists on a guided tour stopped outside and seemed to be staring at me for what felt like hours! Loved the 60's/70's rock they were playing on the stereo but one thing I observed on my trip - why no Monster Magnet on the playlist in any of the coffeeshops???

Another observation: Chips! They are so good here I never want another soggy, fat laden English 'chip shop' chip again. Special mention to Vlaams Friteshuis Vleminckx which is located the next street up from De Dampkring. Its easy to see why the place has been here for over 50 years.... I think I must have put on a stone in 4 days!!!

Obviously I needed a bit more culture so I checked out the Medieval Torture Museum (the guillotine being my favorite instrument and it was nice to be stoned & stood there imagining D.Cameron's head on the block) & the Marijuana Museum.... both are well worth a visit methinks.


Day 5:

Hometime!!!! Of course there was time for a milkshake & a pre-rolled Northern Lights joint(still my favorite strain) in Hill Street Blues on the way to the station. Actually I had my final smoke outside the airport but there you go!

I've left a lot out (mainly the bars ect) but all I need to say is I'm coming back in early April with friends so it was obviously an awesome trip..... happy toking one & all!

Shops Visited & Rating:

Ben's - 6/10
Homegrown Fantasy - 10
Paradox - 5
Grasshopper - 4 (hip hop staff who seemed bored to be there)
De Dampkring - 9
Betty Boop - 6
Kuil/420 - 7 (nice music & people in here)
Hill Street Blues - 7
Kroon - 5
Prix D'Ami - 4 (far too plastic & touristy for my liking)

[FlyByNite]

Good introductory trip.

What dates in April will you be in town?
I'll post you on the Whos In Town page.
You can see who else may be in town and any Toke & Talks that are planned.

Enjoy
FlyByNite - Travel preference, not business practice
Coffeeshop Menus - Let your mouse do the walking

[Lemon Haze]

Great read mate! I'm staying by the Blues Brothers on my next trip so thanks for the heads up on the head shop. Will be stopping by for sure. Curious, what made you give Betty Boop the 6/10 ranking?

[KeyMonCha]

Excellent little report you have there... Thanks for taking the time.

Can i ask how much the "Pizza" cruise cost you? ...How long do you get? ...What choices available?

...Probably only asking because i really hungry right now.

[Willjay]

Thanks for the report, we stayed at the Nadia Hotel and watched the lines at the Ann Frank every day, hint go in the evening about an hour before they close, you'll have enough time.

[Babbalonian]

I'd read that Q.Tarantino wrote Pulp Fiction in there so was expecting it to be a classically cool place like De Dampkring but it seemed really small to me with not much of a 'vibe'. I just expected 'more'...
Each to their own I guess!!

The pizza tour was £30... Well worth it if you feel the need to chill out & see a bit of the city whilst being pampered. I had the tuna pizza, very good. The tour lasted about 90mins but the wine glasses kept getting refilled so it seemed shorter!

I'm looking at going back - April 10th (Thu to April 14th (Mon)

I will definitely check out A.F.House next time.... And in the evening!! Thanks!

[Lemon Haze]

Bummer about Betty's, yeah that's where he wrote the script. Will be visiting there this month, will go by for nostalgia to check it out before it closes, hopefully it'll be a cool hang for an hour or two one day.

[Babbalonian]

Bummer about Betty's, yeah that's where he wrote the script. Will be visiting there this month, will go by for nostalgia to check it out before it closes, hopefully it'll be a cool hang for an hour or two one day.

I'm going back in May..... So will spend a bit more time there (just to make sure I haven't underestimated it!!) & also I'll make sure I check out Voyager's this time round

[Babbalonian]

Holy shit!!!!!!!! Saw the list of shops to close from Lemon Haze' post on the Betty Boop page..... Sad news indeed!

[Lemon Haze]

yeah, really sad. Going to get as many trips over as I can before next January when some great shops have to close their doors.

[CloudMaster]

Great reading

Hope you have fun in May

[Babbalonian]

Thank you Sir!!

Dates confirmed: 8th-12th May..... Can't feckin' wait!!!

[new2amsterdam]

Ha, good read

If anyone fancies meeting up for a joint/chat/beer or whatever when they are in Amsterdam, just let me know... I have all the free time in the world, and hopefully know what is good to smoke at the moment!

Was in Betty Boop yesterday as they have this lovely hash "fifty" at only 15e/g really lovely.

[Babbalonian]

Return trip is now booked for 8th-12th May so will find out the where/what/when of my itinerary & let you know for a smoke

Will defo have to check out Utopia, Voyagers & Betty Boop (for a reappraisal!)