After 502 Amsterdam-free days, the 4AM alarm call couldn't come fast enough, and even after 4 hours sleep, it was time to Wake and Bake. A couple of strong coffees and mild spliffs later I rang my mate J who was going along with me, and sure enough, he was up and ready too. The flight was smooth but some delay meant our plane had to circle around a few times before landing, causing the flight to be a marathon 60 minutes. On the descent into Schipol I took a couple of snaps from the plane window, marvelling at the engineering skills which made this country.
At Schipol J was struggling to keep up with my walking pace as I strode eagerly onwards through the Tuesday morning crowds, with a nice buzz going it seems like you're walking at 50mph on those flat moving walkways. Downstairs we scored train tickets, I asked for them in Dutch and was totally baffled by his reply - he laughed at my blank expression and flipped seamlessly into English "Sorry, I thought you were fluent!". I only know about 10 words in Dutch, so I don't know how that happened. Must be the blond hair that fooled him. Down on the platform we realised a train was only 3 minutes away, and right on time it arrived. With only hand luggage we had a textbook journey, and less than an hour from touchdown I was scoring some NL5XHaze (€12) from the Rokerij on the Singel, while J got the drinks in. Tasty old-skool smoke that always hits the spot on a sunny morning. The sun streamed in and we grinned at each other and agreed that this last-minute trip was a very good idea. A quick chat with some Swiss guys next to us revealed that they had some Swiss buds with them! (indoor). They passed it around and we enjoyed sampling their efforts. About now it starts getting a bit blurry as Amsterdam's finest worked it's magic.
I did buy some Malika hash later too (not Rifman though), and it was a disappointment. I'm pretty sure that this stuff gave me a terrible headache, and it wasn't a good buzz for me. It looked and smelled lovely but didn't do it for me.
Next stop was the 420 Cafe where J grabbed a bag of nice White Widow for €6 or 7. As always, a nice spot to spend an hour or 2. By now I was really hungry, and the bakery opposite was calling me - a cheese and ham croissant and chocolate chip pastry fired me up and the widow was very nice for the money.
Onwards to Basjoe, a place that seems to get rave reviews that I had never visited before. The shop is comfy enough, and the Orange Bud at €7 (as recommended by Boner) was good (in fact it totally wasted J for a while), but the 2 owners weren't very friendly at all. As it was now sleet/snowing quite heavily we stayed a while and I took a few more photos to amuse myself while J sat and chilled. The last 2 purchases proved that you can still get great quality buds for under €8/g in the Centrum. If you choose well, that price will get you much better weed than you would find in most of the world. My hash headache really put me off trying others this time, I think Waterworks was the only other one I tried.
Suddenly realising that it was past check-in time at the hotel, we stumbled up Warmoesstraat in the sleet and reached the familiar faces at the Hotel Winston. Although some of the rooms are getting a bit shabby, renovations are taking place, and the general vibe of this place makes up for it's shortcomings. J was less impressed, being used to plusher places than me, but even he thought the place was OK. The staff are all great, and they have outstanding vending machine munchies, very important for stoners!
After checking in we ended up in the GHE bar as it was still sleeting and it was close.
We chatted to the barman and a local dude for a while and eventually moved on to the Tweede Kamer for supplies. Feeling very stoned and headache-y I popped a 600mg Ibuprofen and asked the 'tender what was the most uplifting smoke on the menu - "John Sinclair" (€8/g) was his immediate reply, and John Lennon's slide guitar from the song he wrote about Sinclair looped through my brain as I waited for my weed. The weed did the job nicely, enough for me to buy a big bag of it as we left! Fantastic taste and high - but here's the weird thing: the first joint made me cough like crazy, but subsequent ones didn't at all...in all my years of smoking I've never had that happen before. A Turkish couple sat down next to us and we all got on really well, sharing different weeds and stories. They had a football match to go to, but took us for a walk up the canals towards Haarlemmerstraat en-route, and by now the clouds had gone and the light was amazing, so I took some photos and thanked the weather gods for such good luck in early April - with the sun, if not the temperature.
After our new friends left we somehow ended up walking through the RLD and were amazed at how few street dealers approached us. I think only once did we hear "Pssst coke, ex-ta-seeeeee". Lots of cops around, which is a good thing in my book - although I was disappointed not to see the 2 cops from TV's Amsterdam Nights!
J's exacting requirements on the food front meant that we walked miles looking for a restaurant (Why we chose the RLD area, I have no idea at all), eventually hitting the point where we were both running on Empty and fast getting desperate for anything, we settled on Stones Bar near the hotel for a burger and chips. The barmaid looked horrified when I asked if we could smoke, strange when they have a coffeeshop just up the street. The food was good and reasonable at about €10, but my hunger demanded more, so we headed to Rene's Croissants for a custard pastry.
I really can't remember what happened after that, some more coffeeshops and then some more joints back at the hotel. We saw a group of pensioners touring the RLD quite late on, one of those Amsterdam happenings that I would have thought was a dream if I hadn't got some photos
A fantastic first day all round, days 2&3 coming soon.
The next day I met a cool Austrian couple in the same spot strangely enough. Popular with mountain people.
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I swear that's 100% true.
