DAY 2, OCTOBER 31, 2007 (HALLOWEEN!)
Wow, what a great feeling waking up in Amsterdam! We were up by 7 am or so and RARING to go. We stopped around the corner from our apartment to BETTY BOOP...didn't pick up any green since we still had plenty but we WERE in desperate need of a coffee & fresh oj (oj, of course, squeezed by hand on the spot). The budtender and his buddy (local Dutch) busted my chops a bit when I asked what music was playing "it's our own, we make it in our spare time"...now, they kept this up for a good 10 minutes, claiming that they'd never sell it etc. I figured this was a bit of a "tourist" test. Once they ended their full-of-shit performance I started busting the tenders balls and we've started our mornings there since with a good relationship. Hell, he even had me "take over the bar while I take a piss"...dang, dream come true : me RUNNING A COFFEESHOP if not for only 5 minutes with no customers coming in!
Now the wife and I are off the find the Albert Cuypstraat Market. Of course we DIDN'T take a map with us since I've been doing absolutely nothing but researching amsterdam for the past 2 months I thought I had its location down PAT! So off we go down the dam towards the museums, passing Bushdoctor, Little and Mellow Yellow. In need of a smoke, we stop by at THE MELLOW SH@DY, I mean THE MELLOW YELLOW

. Ya know, it looked DIFFERENT from our only shop visit 10 or 11 years ago (was the upstairs ALWAYS there? Wasn't there a mirror somewhere?) so we grabbed soda's since our walk left us a wee bit sweaty! Our purchase...
ORANGE HAZE (14 e/g), CHEESE (11/g) & HONEY HASH (12/g). The Haze REALLY was SENSATIONAL! That soapy starter taste followed by a strong orangy citrus finish! We rolled a spliff of honey and although it tasted GREAT (a tad dry but oils showed their faces when broken up) but we were really SO stoned off the OH it was hard to tell how good it was!
So NOW wer're completely lit and a bit hungry...RECOMMENDATION: there's a little deli/grocery store a couple of doors down from the Little that will fresh slice the deli meat and make these KILLER small broodjes on fresh bread with arugula, cukes, butter/mayo/curry (whichever), some nice hams/salami's. Now this is a REAL local Dutch joint and we are greeted in Dutch. Of course, all of my lame-ass practice at learning a few Dutch words are COMPLETELY gone so we're just "hello, good morning, how are you" and she is absolutely sweet as can be! Now she's a sturdy, older, responsible store owner and we're VERY high American's tyring to be polite and she treated us like gold - showing us each meat, what it was, how it tasted, if it was cooked or smoked - ALL while locals waiting patiently in line with their few items in hand. Like I said, EVERYBODY has been good-as-gold with us this trip!
We head out toward where I THINK the Pijp is, for about 45 minutes to an hour until we wind up RIGHT where we started near the Little & Mellow! Fuck it, we say, we'll find it another time...let's head back towards the centrum. Ok, we now head back to where we THINK the centrum is (see, we're pretty cocky - everyone's so nice and some are mistaking us FOR locals - and we're, like, "it's THIS way, of course!") at a quick pace and suddenly NOTHING looks familiar BUT we find this side street with all clothing stalls. Low & behold it's the Albert Cuypstraat Mkt! A HA! We wander through and peak around for our goal (other than THE freshest fish I've ever seen):
KATSU
I've seen their menu and it was a toss up between the Citral Afghan & the Sulu hasj. All systems go Mr Sulu, we're OFF! Black & Afghanni-like, it offers us up a NICE bake while we sip on our umpteenth Hot Chocomel!
So after what felt like a 12 hour walk BACK to the Centrum (this time asking directions while we were STILL heading in the wrong direction!) we stopped by what would be our last purchase of the night:
PRIX D'AMI
Never seemed to notice this coffeeshop before but we've heard SUCH good things about the Fisherman's Friend that I HAD to stop in. Of course, I can't for the life of me remember what I came in for at the time so it was, like, stumble stumble "ahh, I'll take some MOONSHINE ICOLATOR (a mere 15 e/g)". The tender looks like he's no older than 17 and JUST before we go to bolt back to the room I'm like "SHIT, GIVE ME A GRAM OF FISHERMAN'S!". At 7.5 e/g he seemed surprised that it had such a good reputation when I mentioned it and we were off to the room.
Ok, the HONEY HASH from MY WAS excellent - a nice oily taste and strong-ass 'high'. The Sulu was good but more of a novelty hash than something I'd buy all the time. I mean it was GOOD it just didn't seem worth the extra price. All the same, it DID fufill a HISTORICAL HASJ destiny! We went off to POPEYE'S to hang with Johnny & use the internet (remember, no purchase except Chocomels) and we were showing him the Bushdoctor review of Alladdin's Chocolate...he hadn't seen it yet! We smoked the MOONSHINE ICE from Prix and could BARELY walk down the street! BLASTED.
After a brief walk around the red light we headed back to the apartment and smoked the FISHERMAN'S...best bang-for-the-buck so far! QUITE a good stone at 7.5 e/g!
Thanks again for all the good words...Bhang Buddie, I DO have some pics ready to go, I just gotta find a way to post (I'll read through the threads).
TALK TO Y'ALL SOON!