Our love for the city and the fond memories from our trip may cause us to ramble on for a while on seemingly trivial points. The rather hefty consumption we indulged in have also left us remembering precious few details on others points such as product prices, so please excuse us in advance if we leave out the stuff you are looking to hear or if we chat endlessly about some random event. We also left out a few details and events here and there in the name of discretion.
Part I – Three happy days at the piggy
Monday august 1st
Getting up at ten past two in the night is normally something neither of us enjoy particularly much, and as it was close to midnight when Mr. CC finally got to bed with her just a little earlier, the batteries would also normally be quite drained.
This was, however, not a normal night and we were both quite fresh and very excited as we had a couple of quick lattes and a spliff we rolled up the night before. We were going back to Amsterdam for the first time in seven years and we were psyched beyond belief, eight days (at the time) of giving it our all awaited.
Saying bye bye to the cat we got on the bus a little to three with a bunch of bleary eyed partiers on their way home from a night of heavy boozing. The contrast to our excited state of mind was striking. Most of them were more than ready for bed, apparently already feeling the first stabs of what promised to be bad hangovers.
Check-in and security was smooth and fast, but arriving that early meant we had to wander around for a bit before we could get a couple of lattes, a small sandwich for her and a croissant for him. On a regular day it we would have been quite irritated that it is necessary to get to the airport more than two hours before departure. Mr. CC usually arrives just over 30 mins. before a flight, especially when flying dpmestic which happens very regularly because of the job, so two hours plus is a very long time looking at the inside of an airport. But nothing short of a delayed flight could dampens our mood this morning and we board high spirits.
The flight was announced by the pilot as only 1 hour 5 mins, but with fifteen to twenty minutes of taxying to the gate at Schipol, all in all very nice.
A short wait (that did feel like an eternity with the city so close) later we board the train to AMS Centraal.
Buying tickets for the train is super easy if you have a visa or another “pinned” credit or debit card, but they should have larger signs reminding you that you should check in and out your one way and one time only ticket (stupid system). We had a bit of noia sitting in the train waiting to be fined the 37 or something Euros they warn you in very tiny letters on the ticket will be the consequences if you do not check in and out.
Arriving at Centraal station and walking out the main entrance, whether it is after a six-seven hour drive from southern Denmark or a train from Schipol, is one of the best experiences in the world! It has a weird and wonderful ability to make us feel simultaneously relaxed and completely at peace, as well as super exited and pumped for the days and experiences ahead! Such a mixed and slightly weird, yet perfectly natural and awesome state of mind that in terms of therapeutic power can hardly be beat…
Snapping out of our mini-daze we set direction Haarlemmerstraat; it is past eight, we are “hungry” and a shop is bound to be open! We remember Barney’s to be open at seven “back in the day” and someone on the forum also wrote that they would be open early, so we aim for this shop with the option of tracking over to Green House for some breccy. These shops were only on the list because of their convenient location and early hours, and as it turns out they cannot even be trusted to keep to those. Barney’s as well as GH now both open at nine and as such are a complete waste of effort and time as there are plenty of good (way better) shops open by this time. We did very much enjoy the walk down Haarlemmerstraat though; it was way too long since we have meandered down this cozy and beautiful street. We also spotted Ibericus, Kaasland and a few other places we had picked out in advance, so the walk was indeed enjoyable, but lacking in one key thing: the first purchase of the trip.
Fortunately the finely tuned noses of both Mr. and Mrs. CC picked up a lovely scent a block or two back and we turn around to see if we can find our way back and make that first purchase. We pick up the scent again and spot CS Pablow Picasso at the beginning of Haarlemmerstraat.
In we go and Mrs. CC grabs the free seat at the large window while Mr. CC gets coffee, Chocomel and Looza. We both crowd the counter looking at the menu, but Mrs. CC quickly asserts that she is fine with whatever Mr. CC and / or the budtendres come up with, as long as it doesn’t take too long to decide!
The bt is a younger dutch woman who obviously know a lot of the customers popping by for a quick b&f, greeting many of them in Dutch (with them replying in kind). It seems to be quite a local’s shop, but very welcoming as soon as they spot that you are not a random first timer tourist just looking for “the cheapest weed”.
BT recommended two different strains out of the 6 to 8 ones on offer, OG Kush and something milder (a haze we thinks)- She commented that she (like we) doesn’t mind the heavy stuff early in the day and would personally pick the OG (also the top weed on sale, but did indeed see her smoke it so guess she was being honest). We bought a single g of the OG (12 € a g) as well as their top moroccan, called “Cream Maroc” (@ 10 € per g) and sat down to indulge, having a small laugh at the bt cutting the hash with a freaking machete (she joked that only women were tending so it was nice to have something around like that).
We rolled up the OG in a fatty and dove in. It was, however, quite a disappointment as we have described in our live report. It was well cured but the flush was criminally bad and we only finished half of the harsh joint. It was potent enough and the rather compact bud looked nice and frosty, but practically unsmokeable due to the bad flush.
A little discouraged and fearing the worst we rolled up half a g of the Maroc Cream, which looked to be a good Moroccan. It had a dark brown exterior and a creamy brown interior that was nicely layered. It b bubbled nicely when gently exposed to heat and as many khardella type morrocans were a little work to crumble out (btw: people that ignite their hash to see if it bubbles are wasting good product IOHO).
The flavor was fresh and classic khardella morrocan, creamy with notes of coffee and a little spice. The effects took over a bit from the muddy stoney feel from the OG and introduced a nice and mellow body stone and happy head high.
It was wonderful sitting in the window watching the shops open and the city awaken. We had our first (but certainly not last) encounter with several shocked and googly-eyed older tourists who spotted us smoking in the window as they walked by enjoying the quaint street only centimeters away. Their look was always one of surprised disgust and “dignified offense”, which in turn always yield a big laugh on our part when we take a big puff. Ah, the small joys in life!
We jump a tram at Centraal and head towards Leidseplein, spotting both Utopia and several other good sights along the way.
We get off at Leidse a little before ten and decide that we have plenty of time for a round trip to Easy Times before we check in at the piggy, as it is right around the corner on the canal.
It is our first visit to Easy Times, but we had it recommended by DeLeuksteNugs who gave us some great advice before the trip on how the city and C/S scene has changed since we last visited and it sounded like a good bet. We were not the least disappointed and ET was probably the C/S we went back to the most in our visit as we popped by several times going back and forth to something. The staff was really nice and welcoming, the shop is large and has a decent interior that looks to be renovated within the last few years or just well kept.
We were looking for a smooth and fruity sativa to wash away the bad memory of the OG at Pablow and the dealer showed us three or four different samples, mostly hazes that all looked good. The smell in the tub of the strawberry haze was the freshest and the buds looked nice and fresh also. Remember it as around 12 € / g.
We also bought the 24 K hash which was very lightly pressed and light brown in color. It smelled rich and terpy in the bag and left “skid marks” (as a friend likes to call it) all over the bag.
Sat down and smoked a big fatty of the strawberry haze canalside at Easy times with a few drinks. The haze was very nicely cured and flushed, super smooth smoke with a very nice taste, almost of wild strawberries and a hazey / flowery freshness. The high was quite potent having not had a full breccy yet and smoking most of a gram in a fat spliff. Big grins on our faces we scramble on down to the piggy for check-in, but not before Mr. CC grabs two more buys for the road, the details of which elude us but possibly a kush (Blueberry OG?) and a gram of the Primera hash.
After checking-in, stashing our luggage and sampling the two new purchases at the piggy it was off to get some bikes by Mike’s. We can only recommend this place as their prices are really fair and a good deal lower than say black bikes or Macbikes. Great service and comfortable bikes for cruising around the city, although they don’t exactly look like the classic omafiets, they did us very nicely!
So here we were, all practical things out of the way and ready for adventure, hungry for more than just the tastes we have had so far…
Boerjoengens Center was our next stop. We were met by a large doorman and a little que which gave us the time to take in this very new school shop, looking more the part of a dispensary than an old school shop. After a brief wait we bought a g of GSC block, a g of another block we can’t remember, a g of the Supermazing and a g of AllegraCookies.
Awesome shop found somewhere enroute to somewhere...
The weather was awesome and we were happy as pigs cycling off to AC Market for some food, walking around and smoking at Katsu. Our live report tells us we stopped somewhere enroute to AC market for a smoke and a buy, but we can’t figure out were it was being already quite smashed at this time.
We parked our bikes at the eastern end of the Albert Cuyp Market and had a beautiful stoned and zig-zaging stroll down the market in the lovely sunshine. We stopped for some freshly (deep)fried kibbeling with tartar sauce. Luckily we had a little sandwich on the plane, as we skipped having a full breakfast when we found that neither Barney’s nor GH on Haarlemmerstraat was open.
Otherwise we wouldn’t have made it all the way to this tasty treat. We would probably rather have whiteyed out still on our bikes and drove ourselves right into a canal somewhere after the mysterious place we smoked before reaching AC...
The very nicely done and fresh fish with yummy sauce did the trick and cleared our heads a bit, and we continued down the market. The smell of delicious, freshly made stroopwaffles reached our noses and as our bodies were screaming for some fast carbs to go with the fatty fried fish, it drew us in like moths to a flame. These waffels are soooo damn yummy, but super hard to handle when you are as almost as frehsly baked as they are. The kind advice of the guy cooking them to keep them perfectly level went unheeded after a few seconds and it was with quite sticky paws Mr. CC arrived at Katsu for a well-deserved after-munchie-smoke (one of the most important smokes mind you all!
). As written in the live report we bought white choko weed and AM Hiya hash, both of which when smoked later disappointed, although the white choko was just an average smoke the AM Hiya was practically unsmokeable and we left a good part of the spliff we rolled with it in the ash tray unfinished. Weirdly enough it pressed a very reasonable rosin later in the trip.
We hung at Katsu for a good while, having a few lattes, some organic Naturfrisk orange soda (DK product
) and sampled a good deal more of the day’s purchases. One of these were the GSC block from Boer, which was a top smoke. It was extremely fresh, flowery, sweet and IWRC had earthy and minty tones to it also when smoked. Powerful smoke also with a happy, clear high to it that had us giggling. We also sampled the other block we had from Boer and was very happy with that without remembering specifically what it was (chocolope x something maybe?). Both great value, with the GSC being a little more expensive (remember it around 12 and the other around 10). Also had some more weed, guessing the AllegraCookies to go with the GSC.
Now, this is where things get a little funky, because according to our live report (off by a few days, reported Wednesday in a major daze) we “went to some shop” and then hit voyagers / Batavia and we thought we only went out west tuesday. But photographic evidence points to a different tale. Apparently we had made very good time and a timestamped picture shows Mr. and Mrs. CC smiling their stoned and high faces off at Katsu at exactly eight past two in the afternoon. Next picture series, about an hour twenty later, clearly shows us on the way out west in hunt for Massawa, a trip we already Wednesday thought had happened Tuesday. Clearly the amount of product we consumed had already messed with our perception of the sequence of events, because lo! and behold, we find pictures of a very happy Mrs. CC holding a Mangosteen soda grinning all over her face at Massawa, timestamped more or less exactly two hours after the picture from Katsu.
Status: In Amsterdam, be feelin' like...
So here we are at Massawa, a great local shop in the western Baarsjes neighborhood of Amsterdam, having it recommended by Pengaldinho and DLN as maybe the top place in Amsterdam to get classic morrocan. The mission was on, we were going to buy top level morrocan from a local and proper morrocan shop and these two posters (none of whom we at the time had any particular familiarity with) had claimed that this was the place dammit! Time to put these two gents to the test and see just what is up, but first we have to deal with the extremely peculiar accent and helplessly limited (English) vocabulary of the otherwise very friendly and welcoming budtender.
We were very obviously dealing with a legitimate morrocan here, no fakery afoot so far. He indeed seemed very local also, so we had two checks already, looking good for the mission, but the final and most important parameter was yet to be fulfilled and here we were with a dude that hardly spoke a word of recognizable English. Now we only know a precious few things in Arabic, none of them neither polite nor seemingly appropriate for the situation, and we realized that even if we knew more it would probably be a waste of time as they don’t to our knowledge speak Arabic in morocco. It did, however, seem like the closest language to whatever it was the friendly but incomprehensible budtender was speaking, if you are not counting Klingon.
Not to be discouraged we tried our best Klingon/ Dutch / English / faux sign language combinations and finally succeeded in communicating something along the line of “Nothanktyoubutthanks, that weed does indeed look ‘waarrwwwyyy grhoooot rn stwroong’ and smells nice, but could we perhaps be so lucky and see some of your lekker marokaanse hash please?”
There was a big smile as he realized that we were there for the northern African gold and as he caught the words København (Danish for Copenhagen) and Christiania in our chatter he gave us a big thumbs up and a “grhoot hash irn danemark”, which in turn made us smile from ear to ear and return the thumbs up.
Out came the hashes and they looked every bit as lekker as the two gents had claimed. We went for two grams of the Royal and a fuckload of their funky sodas, including the superb and extremely addictive Mangosteen soda that we were rambling about elsewhere, and sat down in the smokers lounge to skin up and have at it.
Picture of Massawa Royal in the hands of Mr. CC, sitting at Massawa.
The Massawa Royal is indeed a top level classic morrocan of the khardella type, creamy and smooth with one of the cleanest classic morroc taste profiles we had on this trip. Chocolate and coffee flavors are strong in this one, as well quite strong notes of that classic morrocan spicy taste that we guess might be due to pinene, terpeniol or other terpenes but always reminds Mr. CC of roasting dark meats basted in strong herbs, green pepper and butter (funny we know, but there are some notes of the herbs interacting with the butter and maillard reactions of the meat that is dead on these notes). It is very smooth, did we mention that, and the power is more than satisfying for a 12 € per g hash that seems this clean and fresh. All in all a very recommendable buy for those who like a top level classic morrocan, cheers to Penga and DLN for their discoveries in the West!
We had a great time at Massawa, smoking a few spliffs of the Royal and a few other of the day’s purchases before we went back out in the sunshine and continued on our magic bike ride.
Picture of a wonderful sight on the way to Batavia / Voyagers!
Having rediscovered this little lost gem of our first day the timing makes a lot more sense now, because we do remember it being a little late in the afternoon when we arrived at Batavia after a very interesting and dreamlike ride in the perfect weather. We dropped by Voyagers before going in, grabbed the Kushdee at the recommendation of the bt and the Atlas so we had something to compare to the Royal and headed back out.
At Batavia we were greeted by a super friendly staff that happily provided us with a couple of beers (La Chouffe for him, Weihenstephaner for her) and directed us downstairs with the promise of pie on our plates promptly.
They kept to their word as we had barely finished rolling up and lighting our pre-dinner smoke before a voice, that sounded straight out of the PA at an older stadium, announced that there were two pies at the window, ready for a-munchin. Well, we might have added the last part in our minds, but we were quite hungry by this time.
The Beef and La Chouffe pie have many fans on this forum, and now we understand why, because it is just really freakin’ good at the price. The tender and flavorful filling, the nice crispy pastry, the good gravy and a well-dressed salad along with the mash is a fine way to quench the hunger our ride across half of Amsterdam has caused.
The La Chouffe in the glass goes down quickly as well for Mr. CC so he springs for a pint of Weihenstephaner and to lattes for the after dinner smoke. A few of these after dinner smokes later, we notice that the two guys sitting next to us are speaking Danish. We get to chatting with the one of them who claimed to be an Elite Cup / other high-level cups entry regular with his extracts (even claimed to have won several also). He had a medium sized smattering of really bombing looking and smelling sample of a Tangie BHO to show us as “evidence” and let us tell you guys and galls that it did indeed look top shelf, smelled the freaking bomb for an extract too. Sadly no nail was around so we couldn’t put it to the ultimate test. We don’t know if he was bullshitting, but DLN mentioned that he potentially knew who the guy was (and that the Ambrosia guys have them beat).
After a good sesh at Batavia and as the last rays of the sun kisses the beautiful city, we slowly and happily let our bikes take us to the piggy uptown where it is off to bed for Mrs. CC after a few hours of lazy tokin’ and shooting the shit with the other guest and the awesome and very amsterdammed crew. After saying goodnight to the missus Mr. CC sticks around in the smokers lounge at the bar till the wee hours of the night and finally crashes in his dorm bed at somewhere around three in the morning, a perfect start to a fun, amazingly inspiring, slightly mad and just downright awesome vacation in our beloved Amsterdam.
CopenhagenCouple
