Day 2 - Sunday - Part 1
This day began extra early as my biological clock decided that the proper time to wake up was 3:30 AM Amsterdam time. Infuriating but made perfect sense as in San Francisco is was 6:30 PM. After a few minutes of tossing and turning it became clear I was not going to fall back to sleep on my own. So I made the obvious choice - bundle up and out for a quick toke on the fire escape. I finished up the leftovers of the 420 Haze joint and then back to bed for a few hours.
That didn't last long though and I was soon awake again and it was obvious that I should just get up and get the day started. A quick shower, check in on the family via Skype, and then downstairs for a huge buffet breakfast. They do put out a tasty breakfast at the Renaissance, but I was glad the company was paying for it not me!
I hit breakfast at 7 AM and figured that it would be light out by the time I finished. I kept looking out the window and thinking, "when is the sun going to come up already?". Now, for those of you not from Northern Europe, here's a little tip about winter in Amsterdam: the sun comes up late. I mean really late, like after 8:30 AM. And once it bothers to raise itself over the horizon, it never gets much higher in the sky than 45 degrees.
This is completely bizarre to someone from a lower lattitude where the swings between summer and winter are not so dramatic.
Here are some pics I took from the roof of my hotel to prove it:
Fueled up and ready to go I decide to get out and start walking and enjoy the morning light. Given the early hour I thought that it would be a good time to hit Voyagers as they are supposed to open early. So, bundled up, out the door, and walking east along Prinz Hendrikade towards Voyagers. The early morning light was great for photos:
I found my way over to Voyager's but sadly they were closed! Their opening hours state 8 AM but it was not the case on this morning. I guess everyone was taking it easy on the day after New Year's. Oh well I said to myself, I will try to make it back here later. I consult my handy ACD map and decide to head down Warmeostraat to see what's open at this hour. I cut across a couple of canals to get there, taking more pictures on the way. I'm not high yet but still having fun with the camera...
On Waremeostraat, my first choice was Hunter's. (the one with the fishtank). After all the mixed reports on this place I was a bit nervous, but no angry spanish budtender, just a couple of friendly folks who were happy to help me. Budtender was happy to show me whatever I wanted to see. I selected 1g of Super Silver Haze (12.50 euro/gram) and 1g of G13xAmnesia (12 euro/gram). The one comment I'll make about this shop is I don't like how the budtender has his backed turned to you while he is weighing out your buds. Maybe I missed a screen somewhere but I don't see how you can check to make sure you are actually getting a full gram? In any event the bag looked right and I settled down with my purchases and a nice cappucino. Rolled up a 1g cone of the SSH and lit up the first j of the day. Very smooth smoke with a great Sativa UP high. A perfect wake n' bake weed, it burned nicely with fluffy white ash.
Hunters SSH:
After Hunters I walked through the Centrum and made my next stop at Anyday. This was a quiet little shop when I was there, had to get buzzed in by the budtender. He was a friendly guy and was happy to show me what I wanted. He also gave me a lesson on how to use the Verdamper as it was my first time. My selection was the White Russian which I'd heard good things about here on the forum. The bud looked really nice with some nice snowy crystals on it, and it was good fun to smoke it out the Verdamper. It was also relatively cheap at only 10.50 euro/gram.
White Russian - Anyday:
After Anyday it was time to make tracks for the De Pijp to complete my "mini-crawl". I grabbed the nearest tram and headed south. After visiiting a few other non-coffeeshop shops to pick up stuff for the family I made my way to Papillon. This is a pretty basic looking shop with a counter at the front that you hit before actually entering the smoking area. I had heard good things about their hash here so I asked the BT for some recommendations. He sold me "Gerdera" at 11 euro/gram and the Papi Special for 7.50 euro/gram. one other thing worth mentioning is 15% discount on two grams. Nice! Moving on from Papillon I decided to hit the actual Albert Cuypmarkt but once again I was disappointed to find the market was not running on this day. I don't know if that's true of every Sunday or just this particular day, but I was bummed...had been looking forward to sampling some of the tasty treats for sale in the market.
Well, there's one way to cure those blues....more smokables. So on to Katsu next. This seemed like a chill shop but it was pretty full so I just did a buy and fly. Katsu is all prebagged and I selected a 20 euro bag of SoGouda...I think it was 1.70 grams if I remember correctly.
After the buy and fly at Katsu I was ready to sit down and have a smoke so on to Club Media. Another shop where the budcounter is in the front and then you make a purchase before you can enter the smoking area. I came here specifically for the Hindu Kush and they did have it in stock at 9 euro/gram. I headed into the smoking area and rolled up a joint of SoGouda with some of the Gerdera hash mixed in. Lovely smoke along with a nice cappucino for 2 euro and I was a happy camper.
SoGouda - Katsu:
After Club Media I walked up the street to hit DeGraal which was the last shop on my mini-crawl. Sadly it doesn't open until 4pm on Sunday so I was out of luck. I was finished here, time to head back to the Centrum to hit a few more shops including Grey Area....details in part 2 of this very full day!
