Nieuwendijk nights...

[Nepenthe]

Currently in the airport, flight has just begun to board for Amsterdam. In just over 2 hours we will be enjoying our first joint of the day. Staying in an apartment at the top of Nieuwendijk until Monday, will try and update live when I can!

[matty223]

enjoy,

[gapie]

cool see u then somewhere

[TwoCanucks]

Good times ahead, enjoy!

[Nepenthe]

Hey, had a great afternoon so far, tried some quasar and liberty from Amnesia, silver bubble from Grey Area, now enjoying a lovely cheese joint after a really tasty burger bar!

[fscrissey420]

Currently in the airport, flight has just begun to board for Amsterdam. In just over 2 hours we will be enjoying our first joint of the day. Staying in an apartment at the top of Nieuwendijk until Monday, will try and update live when I can!

Envious and not jealous of you! Enjoy and post what/when you can!

[Nepenthe]

http://instagr.am/p/RPH360rohs/

Just enjoying an early morning smoke at Utopia - Grapefruit crush. Had a lovely fruity smell in the tub, which transfers Pretty well to taste. Feel lovely and stoned, looking forward to some nice pastries for breakfast.

Ps doing this on my iPhone, anyone know how to directly link instagram pics?

[Nepenthe]

Oh and it was Dr. Grinspoon from Amnesia, not quasar, although the strains are similar I think. Guess that's why they call it Ammesia : P

[Nepenthe]

Just had a lovely croissant from the croissanterie across from 420 cafe. Got an absolutely huge pain au chocolat too, but going to smoke some more grapefruit crush first! Looks like its going to be another sunny autumn day in Amsterdam!

[gapie]

yoo wanna meet

[Nepenthe]

hey Gapie, I'm not too sure my partner is up for a TNT, he doesn't use the forums or anything. think he may find it a bit weird. I have no idea where we will be later either, we just seem to go for a bit of a wander.

We've been on a big walk around the centrum area today, picked up loads of different strains, inc a couple of hashes recommended on here - trans Himalayan from Kadinsky and twizzla from Greenplace. We just smoked both, really enjoyed them, J is off for an hours kip so they did the job lol. Stand out weeds of the day so far are LA Confidential and Blueberry cheese from Greenplace, both great dense sticky buds, got 2g of each. BBC is stinky!

Smoking some of their Dr Grinspoon now, v diff from amnesia's but much cheaper at 10/g! Pics with full report when I get home. One big fat, really dense bud, v enjoyable smoke.

[gapie]

We're at utopia all the whole night

[Nepenthe]

I should never attempt to do a live travelogue.. never end up finding the time to write anything useful! Turned out the internet in our apartment was shared with the shop below, so only available between 10am-8pm each day, which was a minor pain, and it was slow so unable to stream anything. We found some funny things to watch on Dutch TV though, so no problems

Just uploading pics to flickr now, I'll roll up a smoke and get writing.

[Nepenthe]

25/10/2012 - 29/10/2012

Thursday
We had an outgoing flight booked for a reasonable hour for once, 1110, so with our bags packed the night before, we were up and out of the house by 8:30 am. We were worried about morning traffic, but when we hit the motorway and it was clear, we had big smiles on our faces as we cruised along to the airport. We'd had nothing to smoke for the last couple of days, so both of us were really looking forward to getting to Amsterdam. Any delays would not be appreciated! Parked at the airport and had a rubbish breakfast at a Wetherspoons bar, although we had two freshly squeezed orange juices which were fantastic, a little reminder of Amsterdam, we drink a LOT of fresh OJ over there!

The KLM flight was great, I really like flying with them, cheaper than easyjet when you're taking baggage too! I tried to read some of the Hobbit on my Kindle but kept getting distracted talking to J about where we were going to go first once we got to Amsterdam, what to smoke first, what to have for dinner etc. We arrived 10 minutes early, to a sunny (if a bit cold) afternoon in Schiphol.



We waited a few minutes for our baggage, but ours were the first two bags out! We grabbed our bags and hauled them onto our bags and started a speedy walk out to get train tickets. A minute feels like an hour when you watch the traveller in front try to work out the machines, and I'm glancing over to the screens to work out which train we can catch if we can buy a ticket in time! Tickets bought and we're walking towards the down escalators, when I walk right past the one we want and J has to grab me back "Here, this one's in 3 minutes", and down we go.

The train was busy, so we sat across from each other with our bags between our knees, and had quite an unusual conversation about death and making sure we knew what our parents wishes were, I can't remember now what started it, but it passed the time and suddenly we were seeing trams and high rise buildings and then we were pulling into Centraal.



A minute or two later of weaving through the busy Centraal station and we were at the front entrance. We crossed the tram lines and stopped for a second to take in all of Amsterdam around us.



We noticed that the buildings across the road appeared to be gift-wrapped. We didn't find out what for, our apartment was on the other side of these buildings though, perhaps a bit further along, so we didn't have far to walk.



We cut across in a zig-zag route using the zebra crossings to get across the jumble of roads, tram routes and cycle lanes, reminding each other out loud to look the right way each time. Still takes some getting used to every year! In a minute we were on the Nieuwendijk and were accosted by fantastic sights and smells; baked goods wafting, two guys walking past puffing on a joint, smart shops and pastries and waffles and souvenir shops with AMSTERDAM and all manner of cheesy slogans.



Some really fun clothes in here



Our apartment was above the Hemp Works store, and we arrived precisely on time - 2:30 pm - so I rang the bell and our host let us in. He was a Spanish guy called Pierre, he was a nice guy, told us about the market nearby and where the supermarket was etc. His apartment was nice, a good size for 2 people, had a full kitchen with dishwasher, washing machine/dryer. Even 2 bathrooms - one ensuite and one small toilet. Clean and comfortable, with big windows at the front to watch people going by. We were allowed to smoke inside too, which was something I'd looked for when booking.

We were as friendly as possible, while trying to rush Pierre along, as we really wanted to get to a coffee shop and settle in with a smoke, so while we spoke I was unpacking my things and getting my small rucksack packed with my camera, money, e.t.c. I'd been sensible this time and brought rizlas and 2 new grinders from home, so we didn't have to buy them at double the price from the souvenir shops! When our host left, we both quickly got changed into fresh t-shirts and headed back outside. We'd decided to shake things up a bit (our usual first stop is 420 cafe) and go to Amnesia first, so we took a right out the door and crossed over the Singel canal. I pointed out the closed down Rokerij to J as we walked past, and walked down the Singel towards Amnesia. I intended to cut up one of the side streets to the Herengracht but a lot of street works was going on so we stuck to the Singel until the first available street where we could turn up. Once we got on the Herengracht, J kept saying "it's right here, isn't it?", "I'm sure it was closer!"... but eventually I spotted the ivy growing out of the corner along the building and said, "I can see it now!". There was a young lady outside drinking what I assumed was a limonana and pointed it out to J as we walked past her. I said they came highly recommended on the forum and that I was going to get one, and he would probably like them too!

We opened the door to a beautiful aroma, and the wonderful sight of friends sitting around tables smoking and talking together. My heart filled up with happiness and I had to stop myself from bouncing up and down on my toes while we waited in the queue to buy some bud. There were 2 people in front of us, so we had to wait a few minutes, but we grabbed a menu after a minute and tried to narrow down our selection, but loads looked good, so when our turn came we still hadn't decided. The budtender asked what we wanted, I said we'd just arrived and wanted something really good for our first smoke! Then J spoke up, "What's the Dr. Grinspoon like? That's more expensive, is it worth it?". The BT asked if we'd seen it before, I said I had seen pictures online, and that it was really stemmy and small buds, the BT nodded his head and James must have looked a bit surprised, and was like "oh yeah?", so the BT explained a bit that it was a pure sativa, from one certain strain and not crossed to enhance other features like big dense buds, etc, and showed us some in the box. When J seen it he said "Ahh so that's why it's so expensive, must be a really low yield", he turned to me and said, "Do you want to get some, just to try it?", of course I said yes. It took the BT a minute or two to de-stem it a bit for us, but at least it meant more bud We got a gram of the Dr. Grinspoon [E17/g] (I have this written in my journal as Quazar, it's possible I have the name completely wrong, but it feels more like I wrote it down wrong) and a g of the Liberty Haze [E15/g]. The Liberty Haze is Amnesia Haze x Amnesia Lemon. I asked the Budtender if he minded if I took a picture of his menu, but he said, "Yes, I do mind, you can take pictures of the bud, but not the menu". Fair enough, I thought.

J took our purchases and went to grab a seat while I ordered two limonanas from the girl behind the bar. Went back to get J and he'd got us two seats at the window near the door. He had the Dr. Grinspoon in the grinder and was smelling it as I sat down. He asked what I wanted to smoke and I said "that!", with the reasoning that I've never been very good at telling indicas and sativas apart in effect ("high", vs just "stoned", I guess since most of them are hybrids, and at home it's just some badly grown unknown strain that's probably been shaken and not left to cure before being sold!), and if I was ever going to feel "high" from smoking weed, it would be from this! Especially since we hadn't smoked in a few days, so had a nice clear head to judge it from.

Dr Grinspoon - Amnesia


J was already hard at work rolling a J (:P), while I was faffing about taking pictures, after I took this I rolled up the rest of the gram into another spliff and we sparked them both up. We still didn't have our limonanas (the girl had to make two coffees first), and we were dying for a drink, but after a few tokes they arrived, and they looked glorious!



Lime and mint ice slushy drink, with a rim of sugar on top. These are fantastic, and we both recommend them highly! So much in fact, that when I got home the first thing I did was order a blender with an ice-crusher, so I could make my own! I made my first ones yesterday, I forgot the rim of sugar, but they were really, REALLY tasty! A little reminder of Amsterdam, right here at home J was a massive fan, he loves slush puppies, and these are a healthy, even more refreshing version. He was so happy I'd recommended them and they are now in his life.

We smoked a joint each of the Dr. Grinspoon while enjoying our limonanas, and I really enjoyed the Dr. G... it was definitely a bit different. I felt really chatty and light, not too giggly but a little bit. J commented that he didn't get the paranoia feeling he usually gets with his first smoke in Amsterdam, usually he feels like everyone's watching him because he feels really stoned, but he much preferred this. It was a bit of a creeper, usually your first joint in Amsterdam hits you like a brick and after 3 or 4 tokes you are staring into space, but I was halfway through my joint by the time I realised I felt different, chatting away about nonsense Suddenly I realised I was really light-headed, and remembered we hadn't eaten a lot at breakfast, as if on cue my stomach did a massive rumble. I spied the menu card and pointed out cheese and ham toasties to J, he agreed it was a great idea so I ordered 2 rounds of toasties and a coke for J( his limonana disappeared within seconds ).

I sat back down on my stool beside J and he was working on another joint, the liberty haze this time. I finished the rest of mine while we waited for the toasties to arrive, and they really filled a hole, the perfect stoner snack I think they were E2.95 each, so not too expensive. The coke was E2.50 for a .2L bottle, J said he wished he'd ordered another Limonana. When I asked why he didn't, he said he felt bad for the girl behind the bar having to make it again because it looked complicated! When I pointed out the price of a coffee, and how complicated that was by comparison, he felt silly, and we ordered limonanas from then on

We shared the Liberty haze joint after we finished the toasties, which I thought was a little bit lemony but wasn't sure if it was just the limonana fooling me. Still, we felt more stoned and heavy behind the eyes that was missing with the first joint, after we'd smoked the liberty. It hit us faster too, and after I'd had some I was ready for some fresh air and a walk.

Liberty Haze - Amnesia


Our plan was to check out Grey Area, and get some cheese, hopefully it wouldn't be too busy. So left out of Amnesia and left again and we were there, there was a queue, but it wasn't out the door, so we joined at the back and read the rizlas on the walls while we waited for a menu. One got passed back to us shortly and J was pleased to see Exodus cheese on the menu, and I decided on Silver bubble, one of those strains I keep meaning to buy but always get distracted by other things on the menu, so I'd never tried it before! Both looked and smelled appealing in the tub, so we took a gram of each, both priced at E13/g.

Grey Area was rammed, so our next stop was 420 for a coffee and another smoke. We crossed the bridge, past the statue of Multatuli, over the Singel and through the side streets to N. Voorburgwal, passing some interesting shops on the way.



We'd cut through this street about a dozen times over the next 4 days and J would proclaim to be lost, until the very last day when we took this route and he exclaimed "... ahh, wait! So the shoe shop must be coming up!". I think he's finally learning his way around



We crossed over the main road, across the tram lines, to the back of Dam Palace and the Nieuwe Kerk, and cut up the lane, Gravenstraat I think, past Soft Temple and another small CS I've never been in, Baraka maybe?



I spotted a little head shop built into the back of the Church.



We got onto Nieuwendijk and started to walk up towards 420, noting the fair at Dam square and promising ourselves some Oliebollen and poffertjes later on We talked about J's quick visit the month before and how he'd never have been able to find Amnesia by himself, and that I was surprised he even found 420 on his own. He led me there this time though, so his navigation must be getting a bit better 420 Cafe was also packed, so we bought a gram of 420 haze [E13/g] from the budtender, and hoped for some seats to become vacant while we bought our bud. When they didn't we went back outside, and decided to head back up to the apartment and stock up on juices and munchies from the Albert Heijn nearby. We bought a couple of big bottles of the fresh orange juice - I was looking for orange and banana, like I had the last time, but they were out of stock! We got some cheese and meats and crisps also, and the supermarket was only 5 doors down from the apartment so we got all our shopping upstairs quickly and collapsed on the couch next to each other. We had a big hug and a big sigh, felt like we lay there for about 20 minutes but it was probably only 2 or 3.

Then I jumped up, "we're on Holiday!", and threw my bag (with all the bud and spliff-making stuff in it) over to J and started unpacking the food into the fridge. I poured two big glasses of fresh orange and sat back down next to him.



J grabbed the bag of cheese from GA, so I took the silver bubble, and we skinned up a joint each.

Exodus Cheese - Grey Area

These were lovely dense little nugs, quite a pungent cheesy smell, but didn't taste as cheesy as the Big Buddha Cheese we got here a few years back. We didn't find any cheese this time that was as good as our 2008 trip, still a good smoke though, 8/10.

Silver Bubble - Grey Area

I think this was SSHaze x Bubblegum, I've never actually tried a "bubblegum" strain before, but I could definitely taste the SSH flavour. Another couple of really tight, dense nugs, full of crystals this one was, a really tasty smoke, another 8/10.

We smoked while surveying our new apartment properly for the first time, and realised our host was a jazz fan, he also had a ton of old and obscure books (1979 Almanac of all facts, good for a flick through lol). He had a lot of artwork of naked ladies on the wall, can't remember the artists' name, although I've definitely seen some of the pictures before. We decided to rearrange the apartment a little, so moved the couch, table and armchair around a bit. We really liked the big windows along the front of the apartment, great for people watching on the tight little pedestrian street below, with all the coffee-shops/smart-shops/head-shops around.



We unpacked a bit and it started to get a little dark outside, we realised we were hungry again and Burger Bar was on our minds! We took the quick 5 minute walk back down the Nieuwendijk and cut in to BB, which was surprisingly quiet for the evening. We ordered up two black angus burgers (smaller one for me and the larger for J), two fries and sauce. We saw the orders coming out in front of us and I was salivating, the burgers looked tasty as fuck and the chips cooked perfectly. We went outside to wait and J made a great call, to go to the cake shop opposite 420 and get some brownies! We cut over and bought 2 gooey tasty brownies, got them wrapped up, and went back to BB, where we saw them wrapping up our burgers in shiny takeaway boxes. These are new! My main complaint with takeaway before was the paper wrappers, the bottom bun got so greasy before. This helps massively, and our burgers were in a great condition by the time we got them home.



10/10! This burger bar was as good as the first one we ever got, lived up to the magic haha. Also not an ounce of fat or grease on the chips, crispy and yummy! We tuned into some TV while we ate, surfing the dutch adverts searching for ".nl" - "Pund nl", I was convinced they'd stopped doing it because it took about 8 adverts for it to show up. Then I cheered when it came on I hate scrubs, but every time we turned on comedy central that fucking programme was on TV. It must have been scrubs weekend or something >< Same with nickelodeon, it was ALWAYS spongebob squarepants. Weird.

Stuffed from BB, I rolled up the rest of the cheese and J rolled the silver bubble this time, and we smoked and got really comfy on the couch, snuggling Feeling stoned again, and our stomachs settled, we tucked in to some yummy brownies... thick and chocolatey, these are great A must-have when we visit!



They didn't last long!


Our faces stuffed with chocolate, we poured two more big OJ's and decided to tuck into the 420 Haze.



We ground it all up and made a big spliff each, this is one of our favourite smokes each time we come, and the flavour is as good as usual! I love the smell of this stuff, sherbety hazey goodness We were contemplating going back out for a walk about and pick up some more smoke somewhere, but after this it was night time for us! We were already an hour ahead, and J confessed to staying up late playing games on his PC and not going to bed until 4am, so he was knackered We decided to have an early night, and get up nice and early the next day to walk around and explore.

[Paddy]

Great reports ! thanks Nepenthe I agree with you, it's difficult to find good cheese for a long time.