Preface:
Although joining the forum (under a different name) in 2006 and having more than a decade’s worth of traveling to the city of our dreams, we have never previously had the pleasure of joining the gang for the 420 celebrations. That was about to change in a big way during the weekend of April 15th-16th, as we made our final preparations for the flight Sunday morning. The CopenhagenCouple were FINALLY doing 420 in Amsterdam!
What follows is a recount of our experiences during that wonderful week, based on our admittedly hazy recollection and the few scraps we could gather from the live thread, the chat archive and some hastily written reviews posted while on the ground (and just that as we made no further notes). The story is mostly told from the perspective of Mr. CC as it makes reading and writing it quite a lot easier, but is based on our collective experiences and Mrs. CC has made many contributions to the content (so go ahead and blame her as well
). As you are soon to discover, we were quite under the influence from shortly after making it to the city, and more or less all the way up till departure (and a bit after that as well). The week was also packed with all sorts of merry action and we met a bunch of (fantastic) people, with whom we consumed some of the finest products imaginable. Actually more than just some, but we’ll get to that…
Consequently, the story that follows is bound to be wildly inaccurate at points and dreadfully lacking in details with respect to such things as whom we met where. It may also contain pieces that are heavily subjective and just an expression of the twisted way these two weird Danes view the world, a view that some may find mildly offensive at times. Luckily we don’t mind you being offended, if getting offended over a couple of stoners’ random musings is your thing, be our guest.
To the rest of you: We hope you take some pleasure in reading about our week in paradise, please excuse any omissions, long random rants and other, possibly, abrasive bits.
Sunday April 16th – We are back baby, and we need to stock up!
I awake before the first (of many) alarms, we set to make sure we got up, went off.
The early dawn is creeping up and there is a brief moment of panic. A bit of a stone over, from the several heavy joints and doobs we smoked to put our giddy asses to sleep last night, fucks with my memory and I think we have slept in and missed our flight, a thing I have yet to do, despite having flown for business and leisure many, many times.
We usually take off at 6 a.m. to make it early to Amsterdam and get a full day in, which means getting up at the ungodly hour of ten to two, earlier than my average holiday bedtime. This time, however, we had moved the arrival date forward two days to have extra time… Arww, fuck it, might as well admit (before she reads this and makes me correct it anyways) that it was me, the Mr., that moved the date forward, a little bit without clearing it her first and as she had been working the day before I thought I would give her “a break” and make it a “late departure”. See what a nice guy I really am at times? Anyways, back to the story.
I realize that it is not November (our latest trip) and with the flashback stoner panic over and a big smile on my face I lean over and kiss the missus, whispering, “guess where We are going today?” She smiles, makes cute noises and crawls a bit further into the warm comfort of the big mess of pillows and comforters she per ush has gathered to her throughout the night. As I get out of bed, she mumbles the traditional “five more minutes, please baby” and I smile, knowing that soon will be one of those very rare occasions where she will actually enjoy getting up early on a day off.
We had a surprisingly chill and easy morning with a few nice lattes, a couple of nice Moroccan hash joints and amble time to say goodbye to our cat. After a smooth trip to the airport, easy check-in and security, we have yet another latte each, these accompanied by a couple of croissants, as I check the forum for the latest buzz. I have to keep reminding myself that we are still not on holy grounds yet, so gotta be careful what you randomly spurt out when it comes to the cannatopics, there might be sneaky little spies around. I still can’t keep from having a crooked grin permanently plastered to my face, and looking to the love of my life I see that she is as smitten with the moment as I am, we are finally on our way, plane get here faster!
The flight is quick and quite uneventful, except for the arrival, where we are reminded that the world is full of people just put here to get in our way and keep us from the danky goodness that awaits just out of reach. We are seated at the window and middle seats and at the aisle seat is a younger woman around my own age. I rejoice seeing her gathering up her few belongings as we taxi to the gate, finally someone who knows how to get their ass out of a plane with the “first wave” and not sit around waiting for everyone to leave before getting up!
I make a quick comment to my better half about grabbing the few items we have in the overhead storage and passing them to me as soon as she has the chance, we should be ready to fly out of this plane as soon as the door opens and the first people have begun to move. My joy is short-lived however as the woman mockingly sits around while one gap in the line of people moving out the plane after the other moves by her. At this point I am 100 % convinced she overheard my comment to the missus and is intentionally blocking us in. I am steaming and can only just keep myself from muttering a few curses as she gets up in the last gap before the “babies and old people” crowd in perfect unison get up and block our path to freedom.
When we finally exit the plane I have to almost physically restrain myself not to break into a right jog and I manage to keep it to a brisk walk which suits Mrs. CC better. We are still much faster than the majority of the people on the rolling walkways, but luckily, most of them are wise enough to keep to their right so they don’t get steamrolled by the next pot-hungry weed-tourist flying through Schipol on the final leg of their journey.
That is, all but one.
Her again.
That cannablocking bi*** must have been lying in wait somewhere along Pier C, knowing that we would be right around the corner, ready to pounce, because there she is, reading her little book and blocking the way, feigning with mastery yet again to be completely oblivious to her surroundings. At one of the breaks in the rolling walkway we escape her evil spells of delay and rush through customs, pick up tickets at one of the machines and fly down to the platform.
Gawdm*****f****ingdammitalltothebloodydepthsofhell, she has won, the IntercityExpress naar Amsterdam Centraal left one minute ago and our plans for a smoke before noon at Utopia are out the window. As we waited for the next train to arrive I knew she was lurking somewhere around in the crowd, watching, smiling, having achieved her pitiful goal.
A little more than half an hour later and we are in a packed train approaching AMS Centraal. The day started out grey, but now seems to be clearing up and beside intermittent spouts of “Dutch drizzle” it appears to stay mostly dry. Seeing the familiar landscape as we make the final approach to Centraal sends our spirits soring and we practically skip out the train, through the tunnel and out the main entrance into our true home.
We enter a completely stuffed tram with no chance of moving an inch, let alone get close to the ticket booth. The ride to Neiwezeijds Kolk is so short anyways, so, whatever, free tram ride.
We are greeted at Utopia by J, who quickly serves us up a couple of Strawberry Delight Loozas, 20 € of the Citral, 1 g of Kandy Kush Ice (18 € IIRC) and 0.5 of the 24K Gold full melt ice at 25 €.
We sit, quickly skin up both a big fat pure Citral doob and, as that is lit, a Kandy Kush Ice joint.
The Citral is good, not great by any means but ok solid. It doesn’t burn the smoothest, but neither does a lot of other CS weed and the flush seemed ok, could have been a bit better I guess. Smell in the tub, bag and especially grinder was good with a big punch of lemon. Some of the lemon and some soury sweetness did translate through in taste, but it was a far cry from some of the top weed of the trip with respect to loud flavors, smoothness or complexity. All in all above average, but not much, fair at the price compared to what goes elsewhere for more. BTW: Not a Hindu Kush in any way, neither genetically or flavor-wise, a rare miss for the otherwise so knowledgeable Mr. OHMF, who usually is a master at such things.
The Kandy Kush Ice was much better. Very hard to work with, which was its only downfall; we would have smoked a lot more of this if it was easier to get into a joint. Smoked on its own in a joint the KK ice is sweet and rich, with really nice liquorish and spicy notes in the flavor. It has a very decent kick to it also, especially considering the price.
Some of our local friends bash these “maroc ices” and their like a bit, and in many cases we agree, especially if you, as they are, compare these to proper high-grade dutch made IWE. These are at a very different price range in coffeeshops though, even in the “off-coffeeshops scene”. The “maroc ices” are, to us, a different experience than the hardcore Dutch IWE products or BHO, comparable more to the top end block hashes and traditional Moroccan and Asian than the sharper profiles of the IWEs (w.r.t potency, flavor etc.).
Having sampled the KK Ice and procured ourselves some more survival juice from the helpful Mr. J, we roll a small, but loaded joint of the 24K Gold ice. This is an entirely different animal altogether, very loud and distinctly “24K” in flavor, balanced nicely between the Kosher and Tangie, leaning a bit to the Tangie side without losing the danky funk of the Kosher, just as we like it. Very smooth, yet very potent. This baby will let you know that it is there, it hit us with a high that cut right through the two previous smokes and left us floaty and a bit “grinny”, saying hi(gh) to Mr. J and walking out the door for the tram.
Another free tram ride later, this time courtesy of the nice ticket-fella being out of one-hour passes and just a nice guy, we arrive at Leidseplein and hoof it to The Piggy Uptown where we are staying the first four nights.
It is great to be back at the Piggy, a place we cannot recommend enough for a bunch of reasons, not the least being their 24/7 smokers lounge (w. pool table) and their kick-ass, extremely 420-friendly staff. We quickly check-in and get our luggage stuffed away in the lockers in our rooms. We strike out with the stairs, three long flights up from the basement where the bar, reception and smokers lounge is, but get lucky with the view. We are treated to a big French balcony opening up to Vondel and the buildings on the other side of park beneath a partly sunny sky, an amazing view.
We bounce downstairs, get a couple of drinks and roll up a quick one in the lounge before hoofing it to Mike’s Bikes, smoking the joint along the way. Here we retrieve the steely stallions that will be our trusty companions for the whole week and take us far afield, flying through the city on our sometime manic and often semi-depraved adventures.
We had originally planned to do a B&F at Boer Center for AK Choco Kush block and WCB, but as the AKCKB was reportedly out we decided to make for Het Ballonnetje instead. We had wanted to visit this shop even before the invite appeared on the forum, having it recommended to us by two of our most trusted cannaseurs in the city. We had also looked at their recent menus on the forum and FBN’s site with interest and figured they would probably have us covered in the “new school” hash department, at least for the next few hours.
It was almost indescribably good cycling through the city again, a high in itself we have been craving since we last left. Yes, yes, we know that OHMF, Nugs and we do tend to push this point quite a bit, but it is fooking fantastic!!! It is also the only reasonable way to get around the city, save for the situation were you are physically or otherwise unable to do so, and it is an immediate threat to the health and wellbeing of you or those around you, that you do so (looking at you a bit here Ricky, just saying...).
At Het Ballonetje we are greeted by a very young looking female budtendress, I would put here in her early twenties, tops. She is very welcoming and happily shows us their Champagne, Amnesia Block and GSC Block hashes. We settle on Amnesia and the Champagne, both priced around 10 / 11€ / g IIRC (think I made a review, maybe, possibly, check if you like, I’m not gonna).
We are buzzed through the door to the smoking area, climb the typical Ams CS stairs and take a seat in the upstairs “baccy friendly” area with a couple of lattes, two strawberry loozas and our purchases. We are accompanied by a mixed group of five French tourist who seem to be rather new to the whole experience and give off the typical vibe. The place is very nice in general and we are glad to have it as a venue for our first big meet up.
At Het Ballonnetje: Mrs. CC doodling a bit whilst sampling the Champagne hash.
The Champagne hash is a bit of a let down, seemed too dry (maybe problems in storage, have experienced that a lot back home) and lacked a bit in flavor. We discussed if we may have put too little in the joint and quickly agree to make amends by making a big fat fucker out of the Ams block we bought. Might have been a bit silly and rolled up most, if not all of it, in one.
As we roll and light it up I am back on the forum a bit, among other things having a funny conversation with Lemming who seems to be speaking in tongues. As we smoke through the first bit of the big Ams block hash joint I realize I have been posting on the forum via my new phone, which I got before leaving this time around. Our contact to a certain canal side location is on Mrs. CC’s phone, so I ask her for it as we have made loose arrangements to spend a little time along side that particular canal this afternoon.
The phone turns out to be on airplane mode and as it is brought back to life two messages from the canal slush in, bidding us a merry welcome to the shores of this wonderful city and informing us that it had plans later to slush about in the center. We quickly gather our things and head out in the direction of our hook up.
The joint was quite a kicker and was only half finished when we left the balloon, so it took a while, going along happily smoking on the bike, for me to notice that things were getting a bit too “gangster”. By this I mean that my bike, which is one of those really nice floaty ones with large, upright handlebars and a big seat, was slowly dropping the saddle and I was getting into a position where the upright handlebars had begun to be more like ape hangers on a Harley and I was doing a stoners impression of a fat Jax Teller on a bike. Fun at first, it quickly became a very hard workout having absolutely no leverage and bending my almost two meter frame to fit onto a saddle position better suited a ten year old girl. So we pulled over and did our best stoner repair of that thingy, before flying along a few beautiful waterways to our destination along the canal side.
At the canal side we found an awesome selection of weed, hash, concentrates and other goodies, all of an unrivaled price for the quality and everything beating out stuff we bought at coffeeshops, except for a few stand out stars here and there.
For our weed stash we settled for 2-4 grams each of Amnesia Skunk (very interesting and powerful lady this), Cheese (not the best offering of cheese we found along the canalside, but very well priced), Silver Bubble (a canal side favorite) and Critical CBD (smelled like strawberry cream candy in the tub and bag).
For our hash stash we settled for 3-5 grams each of:
Mango block - fruity and nice but also has classic Moroccan “beldia” qualities to it, light color but plenty of oils in this baby. Bubbles very nice when liked by flame, but still crumbles quite easily.
Soft pressed Cheese hash - a DLN16 fav for sprinkling on top of bowls and similar. Powerful and tasty stuff, wonderful texture. Played around with this stuff all week, left in the bag most of it crubmles and puffs up to almost keif-like consistency, but pressed a bit it instantly sticks together to for a nice solid piece of hash. Breaking it apart, it is like wet, sticky sand, awesome stuff.
DamGoodHash – tied with the Shoe hash as our favorite hash of the week. Dark brown, sticky stuff on the outside, with a lighter brown interior that quickly turns darker hues of brown once exposed to oxygen. Taste was a perfect classic Marrocan symphony of yumminess: chocolate, caramel, coffee and a sprinkle of exotic spices in a big flavorful mouthful on the inhale was complemented by beautiful woody notes on the exhale. Truly wonderful stuff.
Also got 1 g of 24k shatter and 1 g of GG#4 ice, both of which we will get back to.
We headed back to the center, the canal side always close, said out goodbyes for now and soon found ourselves close to Batavia. After saying hello to a bit of the familiar faces we ordered a couple of pies, an Ijwit for me and soft drink for Mrs. CC and quickly got settled at the window table in the bat cave.
First evening @ Batavia: Most of the stash after the first day...
The bat cave would, predictably as it is the favorite “non CS hang out” for us and many of our ACD brethren, become home base for the next week and we spend some of the best “smoking” times of our lives on this and previous trips in this place.
We just had time to roll up when the chef was at tableside giving us a taste of dutch customer service and a bit of an earful for not picking up the food we ordered as it was getting cold. Mind you the bat cave was packed with noisy footie nutters, the number display was out and he had only shouted once for us from the window, but it’s part of the charm, aint it?
After a nice, and very needed, munching we spent a couple of hours sampling most of our new wares, except the shatter, GG#4 ice and critical CBD I think we sampled most, all to our delight.
Very crispy, and quite sick of the noisy hooligans that seemed to have taken up temporary occupancy in our beloved bat cave, we gather our many baggies, paper and other smoking paraphernalia and jumped on our bikes heading for Utopia.
We gathered from the forum that a bunch of the cats would be here, but as stoner luck has it we had just missed them at Batavia (probably walked right by them on the street not knowing who this particular group looked like), they arrived just after we left.
At Utopia we found Stan hanging out with Jess on shit. We got some more of the KK Ice IIRC, but otherwise just got drinks and hung out and smoked with Stan for an hour or two. Stan shared a few joints of his “Nice Satavia” he apparently gets from a friend who grows it. Not a particularly exciting, nor memorable smoke, just regular and a bit generic sativa, but as Stan said “just a nice sativa to smokey smoke, yes”.
The evening was getting on and we felt the lack of a bit of classic Moroccan to finish up our base stash and have something of that kind, besides the DGH from canal side, for the late evening and early morning. So we said our goodbyes for now and headed for 2e Kammer for a B&F, but not before half a gram more of the 24K full melt ice accidentally fell into my pocket, whilst 25 E simultaneously and just as inexplicably fell out of my wallet and into the hand of Jess behind the counter. It was good that it did, because I had happily bring sprinkling the stuff into a few joints a long the day and predicted that I might keep doing so, and as I had promised Mr. Nugs a peak at the stuff before it ran out, well, you know “better safe, than sorry”. At tweede we got King Hassan and Laila (6 and 10 E / g respectively). Arrived back at the piggy just after ten and settled into the smokers lounge for a late night sesh to end a fantastic first day.
King Hasan was solid at 6 e / g, one of the darker versions as the apparently vary a lot. Taste and texture was classic Moroccan with some coffee and dark chocolate notes, hints of spice, a bit rough and not that smooth of a smoke though. Good mellow body stone, but surprisingly mild head high that hit us a we smoked this back at the piggy as our first joint smoked in the smokers lounge, despite being up quite early and having been traveling and biking all over the city all day.
Dug into the Laila afterwards, it turned out to be one of our favorite CS hashes of the trip. Dark brown with slightly lighter interior with some nice redish hues in it. Taste and smoke is super smooth, yet rich in dark caramel, creamy chocolate and coffee, which velvety undertones of exotic woods, maybe some rosemary and other strong herbs. Beautiful at 10 e /g compared to many other CS hashes, and just a great hash.
Afterwards we rolled up a joint of 24K ice from Utopia and GG#4 from canal side (this was a creation that the canal had made all by it self and you could tell it had done a mighty fine job of it as it was both very tasty and had a very potent kick to it that quite an ACD’er got to feel in the coming days). As a topper we smeared a tiny bit of the 24K shatter we got from canal side of the top of the joint. Lemme tell ya partner, that there was a tasty number with the two 24K battling the GG#4 for supremacy in an all-out flavor and effect smack down. Very interesting joint that stunk up the whole smoking lounge, despite many other patrons in unison doing their best to stink up the place with their many wares.
We spent a few more hours in a happy daze, smoking our way through a lot of the many great products we had purchased during the day and Mrs. CC finally called it quits at around half past one. I rolled up and smoked another couple of fatties, befor I made my “get up without waking the whole fucking room in the morning” preparations. This is a.k.a. packing a morning stash and other essentials in something I can easily take with me in the possible pitch darkness I may awaken to in the room.
I stumble up the many, many stairs before sneaking in to my bed, laying for a few moments in the darkness and just enjoying the almighty buzz I have amassed and the fact that we are back and have a spectacular week planned with long missed friends, as well of the prospect of finally meeting a bunch of great ACD brethren.
A perfect first day concluded I fall into a night of blissful slumber with a giant smile on my face...
Roll on 420!
