Oldest and craziest memories of trips from 80s and 90s

[delovelynugs]

I'm loving these stories I've only been going amsterdam from 2013 so it's hard to believe how shady the rld was back then but keep the stories coming

[Nuggz]

Found this blurb from a Fodor's forum:

Ah yes the sleaze was ubiquitous in the early 80s in Amsterdam - a time when I took hundreds of folks thru it on tours and more than a few were victimized by folks selling bogus drugs or pickpockets or real drugs - I had a guy put his hands in my shirt pocket just out of the blue.

Acid and hard drugs were sold over the counter at the Flying Dutchman pub on Zeedijk - I used to see an old grungily dressed man come in the Dutchman and then roll open the newspaper he was carrying and out came thousands of hits of acid the pub owner sold to customers - often hundreds at a time.

The Other Place in the red-light district was a complete reprobate place - again open trade in acid and hard drugs by a loose cannon Hells Angel guy who seemed to run the place (owned it was said by the Hell's Angels - the pub did not even have pub beer - no license or whatever but just cans bought from Albert Heijn probably. a totally gruzzy (and fun!) place where you never new what would happen - from brawls to shouting matches with the crazy guy who seemed to run the place.

Squats were still at several places right in the heart of things - like at Vondel Kirche on the edge of Vondel Park - my groups had parties in this abandoned chruch with sand floor for a few years until the building was reclaimed by owners.

The old jail at the entrance to Museumplein was a squat I think with a renegade cafe - now an established cafe. A group of reggae bands held court in the basement.

Amsterdam in the 80s - fun but rough and yes that is all cleaned up now - all for the better I guess.

The rest can be found here -

http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/ ... -1980s.cfm

Honestly there's only a few other comments that pertain to what's in this thread, the other thread looked like it had promise to be one like this until that Menachem bloke high-jacked the thread by giving us the lowdown on the Jewry of Holland...

[CopenhagenCouple]

Great read people, some real diamonds in there and some really sobering stuff also (good to have some remedy for that right at hand ). Love to read about first time experiences in the dam, we had a few nice ones and luckily missed those really bad ones. As we haven’t seen the RLD and sleezier (or any) parts of the dam for about seven years we can’t really chip in on how much “cleaner” it is now a days but we saw the gradual change from the early ‘0s to when we were last in late ’09 of the RLD (for the better and worse). The no alcohol in CS ban was a big game changer for many things (not least our beloved Nes, RIP), but there were many other small changes, restrictions etc. that cumulatively added up to a noticeable change which in general, sadly, was for the worse.
Don’t get us wrong, it was nice to see less of the nastiest sights you saw in the RLD late at night, and sometimes even by bright daylight. By this we mean the sad, disturbing and sometimes dangerous, but more or less always quite miserable and pitiable, people that at times made up the majority of certain areas there and the questionable activities they were engaged in (although it of course begs the question whether the problem has been remedied or just moved?). Sadly with the disappearance of more and more of these “sights”, also went a lot of the charm of the place, at least in our (perhaps weird) point of view.
We would like to share a first time story (actually relived / experienced over a string of visits) on a more positive note, although it did at times have the two of us a bit nervous for the outcome. The stories revolve around our discovery of Leidseplein (and a few noteworthy establishment here).

Our first experience started off with CC sitting at Nes with (if we remember correctly) Dave having treated us to good beer, some fine spirits and the ever so wonderful dealings of that special counter at Nes. We were, if we may say so, in a particularly fine and up-ish mood and looking to perhaps “extend the party further afield” later on when Nes would close done, but were not very experienced in areas beyond the top center of the city and not very keen on a night of boozing in the RLD. We had hear good thing about both Leidseplein and the area around Rembrandsplein (although we at the time figured Rembrandtsplein were perhaps for the more mature audience).
Luckily for us what we figure was a regular at Nes (Dave seemed familiar with him and gave him a thumbs up) was very friendly and after sharing some drink and good smoke (can’t remember if the sympathetic stranger smoked), he encouraged us to join him on a trek to Leidseplein. We can’t really remember (due as much to our rather impaired cognitive skills then as to the time passed since the experience) if he at this time enlighten us to the owners and operators of his favorite bar there to which he was taking us, but we were soon to know.

So here we are walking, or rather slightly staggering, from Nes to Leidseplein with a complete stranger just the two of us, our other friends having thrown in the towel some hours ago, who was very entertaining with his stories and knowledge about the dam, but clearly also had a bit of a wild streak to him. We discussed this (rudely) a few times there in our native tongue, which is completely unintelligible to anyone but people from Scandinavia, questioning if this could be the start of one of those bad first time stories… But the really nice walk (“uh look, nice plants in front of store” – “Uh shiny gold on pretty building” – “Uh uh, very pretty canal”) and the funny stories combined with a “fuck it, we’re prolly gonna be fine *hiccup*” attitude spurred us on.
We arrive at Leidseplein and navigate through the surreal multitude of people, lights, sounds and impressions, our new friend and guide leading us on. Most of the place looked to us like a amped up version of places we have been to before, thrown in with a smattering of a mild feeling of being on shrooms without actually having done any (we’ll get to that later on…). “This seems nice, but a little chaotic” we agreed and merrily followed suit.

We then arrive at the bar our friend was leading us to. If we hadn’t been told (or more likely hadn’t listened very well) at this point that the place was called the Last Waterhole and run by our friendly motorcycle club with the winged skull, it was quite obvious from the six or so guys sporting their club colors right outside and the giant in the door wearing the same.
This guy was HUGE! Mr. CC stands 195 cm tall (that’s 6 feet 5 to ya’ yanks) and weighed a deal above 100 kg. at the time, so you have to be built on quite a scale to draw attention to your size next to him, but this guy sure did. He stood almost a full head taller with massive shoulders and hands the size of freaking frying pans (those nice cast iron things, felt similar to grip also!). Let’s just say we had no trouble remembering the Dutch custom of tipping the doorman on the way in…
Inside we sit down at a free table and get some drinks. Right as we are about to take in the place and are starting to notice that it is actually quite gezellig and roomy at the same time a group of guys sit down next to us at another free table. They were not wearing club colors, but were quite obviously at least related and all of them rather serious looking types if you know what we mean, and while not as big as gigantor at the door also quite hefty. The guys that had his back turned to us had a big red hoodie with the a large, stylish text reading “Three people can keep a secret” on top, and “…if two of them are dead” at the bottom separated with s stylized rendering of two empty and still smoking shell casings. We quickly agreed to stick our fingers in our ears and mmake loud noises should he ever come within earshot (thank FSM there was music playing).
At this point we were split between making a concerted effort at beating the 100 meter record in obstacles while getting the heck out of that place (of course whilst being extremely polite, apologetic and throwing Mr. Green Mile at the door an extra tip) and, well, seeing if the table could possibly be used as a shield if things took a turn for the worse. So we did as any pair of reasonable individuals would and started to roll up some of the nice greenery we had recently acquired (if memory serves us well it was Stella Blue, but if not it was something else from Nes with a good sprinkling of waterworks from tweede).
Wonderful thing started to happen when we lit up and sat back in our chairs. We noticed that the music was not coming from some lousy jukebox or even from third rate DJ, as one might have suspected from a “place like this”. It was in fact coming from a live band, and a rather good one it seemed.
*Toke toke*”Hmmm…. This place actually has a nice clientele if you look around, and the big fellas sitting next to us just seem to be having fun, not looking for the first opportunity to stab us!”
We take even more notice of the band about half way through the smoke, they are not just rather good, they are great and are putting on a killer show. The beer was good also, as far as we remember they had an ok selection of bottled beer and lots of variety on the spirits side also. A “place like this” quickly turned in to a very fun and lively bar that, before long, we were every happy to continuing our partying and smoking in.

At this point our collective memories start getting a little fuzzy on what led to what, but as far as we can put together our new friend who led us to this nice place had to go somewhere. At this time we were having a great time and chatting to a local girl who was really friendly also, so we opted on staying. After a few more drinks and several smokes we agreed to join our new found friend to a place she recommended. We initially mistook the name for “booger factory”, which to us was a bit weird, but hey we were in an adventurous mood. The name, of course, was Sugar Factory and we quickly found ourselves on the dancefloor with awesome lights going and killer music.
Properly loaded on the finest the dam had to offer on green and generous amounts of alcohol we were having a great time and after a bit noticed that we were standing right next to the DJ stand that was placed right on the dancefloor. There were two DJs playing, one of them unfamiliar to us. The other DJ Mr. CC recognized as a quite well know Danish DJ which at the time was one of the favorites of one of the friends that had previously thrown in the towel saying that "nothing really exciting was going to happen anyway that night", and that we would probably just be chilling at the Nes anyway all night. This and hanging in the gallery smoking while getting even more hammered was the perfect end to a surprising and great first encounter with the Leidseplein area.

CopenhagenCouple

[CopenhagenCouple]

Our second encounter with Leidseplein was of a more spacy and less nervous kind. This time we were (again) hanging at Nes, but as we remember it was after it gave up the license. We were trying (and at least almost succeeding) not to let the fungi we had previously ingested make us too unsociable. Having mostly nonalcoholic drinks, we were still in a bit of a party mood because of the merry influence of a not too strong but still heady and energetic trip on the mexicans. So we decided to go out on an adventure and visit the Leidseplien again. Being this time on a bigger budget we decide on a taxi there.

This turned out to be quite a ride as the taxidriver obviously was trying to make his best Schumacher impression and get us there in record speed. He was reaching speeds of 80 kph easy, and while that maybe doesn’t sound like much is sure as hell fells that way going through the narrow streets, along canals, around sharp bends and over bridges. Add to that the influence of the shrooms, alcohol and smoke and it is a scary but also entertaining ride.

We arrive a Leidseplein to find it packed from end to end with people partying, taking in the sights and generally have a great time. In one of those short but funky moments that are quite prevalent under such influence Mr. CC things he spots an apartment that has been turned into a floating disco that sits just on top of a very calm bar. It turns out to something not so spectacular, but still entertaining and we share a good laugh at Mr. CC’s expense.

Walking along towards the Waterhole for a drink and look at what’s on for the night, we see a metal pole approaching us sticking out above the heads of the packed crowd in the street ahead. As it gets closer we can tell that it is attached to a moped being drawn by a chap in his 60s. He stops more or less right in front of us and starts ushering the packed crowd aside to make way around his moped.
Now, not wanting to be rude and quite curious we stand back and watch the scenery unfold. The elderly gentleman proceeds to tie three lines from the top of the pole (that is about 3 meters tall) to a tree, a lightpole and the edge of something sticking out from a sidewalk restaurant. The pole is now reasonably secured and satisfied the gentleman proceeds to strip of his clothes.
We watch in a mixture of emotions, partly fascinated, partly curious and ever so slightly disturbed. He strip down to nothing but the tiniest of flesh colored thongs (it had a miraculous ability to stay put and cover the hardware). This elderly guy was a bit hunched, but quite fit. He didn’t look like an acrobat though so we were stunned when he proceeded to almost vault onto the pole and start what can only be described as a slow and weird (semi-naked) impression of a cirque-de-solei budget act.

Being in the state we were this was quite the experience and we are still not really sure what to make of it, other than the fact that it was awesome.

The rest of the night gradually fades away in the mists, but we remember fun times at the Waterhole and Sugar Factory. How the night ended or we got back to bed is for ever lost, but we woke up happy without much of a hang over so all was good!

[LLMReb]

This thread contains some great stories. Thanks for the addition, CCs!

[Double Life]

Our second encounter with Leidseplein was of a more spacy and less nervous kind. This time we were (again) hanging at Nes, but as we remember it was after it gave up the license. We were trying (and at least almost succeeding) not to let the fungi we had previously ingested make us too unsociable. Having mostly nonalcoholic drinks, we were still in a bit of a party mood because of the merry influence of a not too strong but still heady and energetic trip on the mexicans. So we decided to go out on an adventure and visit the Leidseplien again. Being this time on a bigger budget we decide on a taxi there.

This turned out to be quite a ride as the taxidriver obviously was trying to make his best Schumacher impression and get us there in record speed. He was reaching speeds of 80 kph easy, and while that maybe doesn’t sound like much is sure as hell fells that way going through the narrow streets, along canals, around sharp bends and over bridges. Add to that the influence of the shrooms, alcohol and smoke and it is a scary but also entertaining ride.

We arrive a Leidseplein to find it packed from end to end with people partying, taking in the sights and generally have a great time. In one of those short but funky moments that are quite prevalent under such influence Mr. CC things he spots an apartment that has been turned into a floating disco that sits just on top of a very calm bar. It turns out to something not so spectacular, but still entertaining and we share a good laugh at Mr. CC’s expense.

Walking along towards the Waterhole for a drink and look at what’s on for the night, we see a metal pole approaching us sticking out above the heads of the packed crowd in the street ahead. As it gets closer we can tell that it is attached to a moped being drawn by a chap in his 60s. He stops more or less right in front of us and starts ushering the packed crowd aside to make way around his moped.
Now, not wanting to be rude and quite curious we stand back and watch the scenery unfold. The elderly gentleman proceeds to tie three lines from the top of the pole (that is about 3 meters tall) to a tree, a lightpole and the edge of something sticking out from a sidewalk restaurant. The pole is now reasonably secured and satisfied the gentleman proceeds to strip of his clothes.
We watch in a mixture of emotions, partly fascinated, partly curious and ever so slightly disturbed. He strip down to nothing but the tiniest of flesh colored thongs (it had a miraculous ability to stay put and cover the hardware). This elderly guy was a bit hunched, but quite fit. He didn’t look like an acrobat though so we were stunned when he proceeded to almost vault onto the pole and start what can only be described as a slow and weird (semi-naked) impression of a cirque-de-solei budget act.

Being in the state we were this was quite the experience and we are still not really sure what to make of it, other than the fact that it was awesome.

The rest of the night gradually fades away in the mists, but we remember fun times at the Waterhole and Sugar Factory. How the night ended or we got back to bed is for ever lost, but we woke up happy without much of a hang over so all was good!

Yes, the wife was impressed with his underwear choice when we watched him do his pole thang........ He wasn't so awesome in the cold light of day

[CopenhagenCouple]

Dude, sweet, that is exactly the man! I still see commedic genious even in the light of day, granted it is probably unintentional