CC’s 420 2018 – in varying degrees of accuracy and detail

[CopenhagenCouple]

CC’s 420 2018 – in varying degrees of accuracy and detail

Last year we joined our first ACD 420 hookup. It turned into 8 days of madness, fun, incredible experiences and just enjoying wonderful Mokum with great friends (new and old).

It was almost beyond words, so the result (predictably considering the source) was a massive trip report with plenty of detail fresh from memory. Writing it was also helped by the many pictures we took last year. Although most of them weren’t TR material due to either bad quality, repetitive themes or sensitive content (i. e. faces or identifying features of us or forum members), they helped a lot in trying to figure out the order of events and jogging the memory when it was a little hazy from the week’s irresponsible levels of consumption. We still managed to miss half a days worth of activities, several shop visits and probably a lot more in the syruppy fogs of the week.

This year’s TR will be a bit different, for a number of reasons. One of these is that neither of us have had the time to do any notes nor even sort the very few pictures we took during this 420, due to massive work loads and a bunch of the other usual annoyances “back in the real world”.

Another reason is that this year’s 420 was a little different than last year’s. Even though we did manage to have some large gatherings at almost all the planned events, notably the birthday bash, Haarlem trip, boat ride, Baarsjes crawl and Het Ballonnetje meetup, the rest of the week had a lot of smaller groups going on all sorts of missions all over Amsterdam (in some cases even beyond). The forum live thread wasn’t as active this year neither, so having that and the chat archives as backup hasn’t been as useful this year.

Another contributing factor to the lack of detail and accuracy in what follows has to do with us. We were simply too tired and overworked going into the week to do proper preparations and have the energy to keep records of our activities and way, way, waaaaaayyyyy too fucking mashed out of our sculls more or less the whole week to have anything that resembles clear memories of the week’s antics.

With all those excuses over with, here is what we recall from our 420 trip 2018…


Day 1 – Saturday April 14th

It’s finally time! We have been looking forward to this trip ever since we left Amsterdam last August. It’s been by far the longest between trips we’ve gone since we “came back” to the city almost three years ago and we haven’t liked it one bit. Unfortunately a lot of shit we wont bore you with have stood in the way of us going sooner. But FTN, the wait is finally over, we are going back to Amsterdam and for 420 no less!

We’ve skipped our usual early bird flight and opted for the flight leaving late morning instead, which, even though it leaves 3 hours later than the early one let’s us get up 4,5 hours later due to the wonderful way the public transportation system works in the early hours of the day.

So, having slept longer than we’ve ever done before prior to an Amsterdam trip, we get up, smoke a big fatty with our morning latte, say high to the cat and get out the door in very calm fashion. The trip through the airport, check-in, security and super smelly tax free was fast and uneventful, and after another couple of lattes we off on an quick little hop to Ams Schiphol.

We touch down on one of the runways close to the terminals (yay, no 20 mins of painful slow taxing to the gate! ;D ) and as soon as they’ll let us, we’re off the plane and on the usual semi-run towards the trains.

We’re lucky with the timing and step right on to an intercity express going directly to Ams Centraal.

Good fortune is making up for a slight delay on the departure from CPH and we are soon emerging from Centraal. We pause for a moment and probably annoy the fuck out of people behind us, as we enjoy the view and that most wonderful of feelings; back in Amsterdam!

The weather is pretty decent so we decide to hoof it to Utopia for the first smoke. We arrive to find James at the bar. He gives us a warm welcome back, before showing us half the menu’s worth of weed and giving us his recommendations and honest opinion on them all, just from Mr. CC asking what was good. He’s always a nice guy to us and tells it straight with respect to their wares, this trip was no exception.

We settled on a g of Tangelo for the first smoke, because it fit the profile we were looking for effects-wise, looked very nicely finished, smelled good in the tub and, mostly, because we’re big suckers for those orangy, citrus flavors in anything Tangie, Tangerine etc.

We also got a fiver of the “house iso polm” for the “base stash” and a g of the Kashmir Dream for the second smoke. As has become tradition we grab a couple of strawberry loozas, which James refuses to take money for and settle in by the window seat to skin up that sweet first fatty.

The 1 g doob of Tangelo goes down pretty smooth, although the flavor is a little disappointing compared to the nose in the tub and when ground up, effects could also be better. Still, smoking a big fatty with nicely cured and flushed weed in the window of Utopia, as the sun is starting to peak through a light cloud covering on what looks to be a perfect day in Amsterdam, isn’t bad at all. In fact it’s damn close to perfect!

We are finishing the first fatty and skinning up another joint, this one of the Kashmir Dream, while the Mr. updates the forum and discovers that our main man in Amsterdam, DLN16, is trying to contact us. There’s some trouble getting texts through to our phones, but calling quickly fixed the problem and we are soon joined by our friend.

For the second joint we grab a couple of lattes, getting a joke from James about blowing up that damn coffee machine soon, or something along those lines, to go with the survival juice. Come to think of it, we might have found the reason why the new The Plug Utopia opened without a coffee machine, when the old utopia had a perfectly good one…

The Kashmir Dream was a much better smoke than the Tangelo, almost warranting the 20 € per g price tag (when compared to the prices and quality of other top hashes around the city, no hash should be that expensive). We made reviews of most of the first few days purchases in the live thread, so will not repeat most of it here, but it was a very nice example of a classic top grade Asian hash with very nice potency. Thanks for the recommendation Fat Old Dwarf, another review spot on.

After a nice time at Utopia we decide to continue on foot and make moves along the canal belt, across Koningsplein and down Kerkstraat to Mike’s Bikes. Finally properly equipped with steely steeds at a very reasonable price (averages out to about 7-8 € / day with full insurance IWRC) , we are off towards CS Noon. The going isn’t easy though, as Mr. CC, in a misguided attempt at being a gentleman and trying to carry both the carry-on suitcases on the handlebars, repeatedly drops the luggage and generally clowns about on his bike in almost Ricky-esque fashion. After a little rearranging (and finally taking some good advice from Nugs), we are quickly off again and soon make it to CS Noon.

We make a few purchases and have a seat for a quick smoke and a drink, before we are off again in the hunt for more supplies.

We drive by 1e Hulp for b&f of 3 of their new school hashes (SB, GG#4 and Cannalope haze) and 1 g of Blue Mataro (see reviews in live thread, her are the cliff’s notes: Hashes great, bitch to work with the two of ‘em. Blue Mataro was meeeh. Very, very meeeeh… :/ ).

On the way to Kashmir Lounge we hop by AH on Kinkerstraat for a few non-cannabis supplies. Snacks and other munchies, check. Juices and sodas, check. Bunch of Triple Karmeliets (Mr. CC’s fav. beer), a Westmalle Trippel, some white’s for Mrs. CC, an extra Ij Wit for Mr. CC and some Mikkeller beer’s that Nugs’ crafty eye spotted, check! Off to the lounge…

We get to the Lounge, grab a few of the delicious I Am Super Juice Mangosteen juicy drinks they have here and a few other places, and settle in the smoker’s room to have a quick smoke before we can check-in at the apartment, which happens to be right across the street.

It’s great to be back and things are off to a flying start already. It turns out the day had barely started though, because soon the dab train would depart from platform 710, which this time was located at a sweet ass roof terrace overlooking the old south of our favorite place in the whole world!

TBC

CC

[LLMReb]

Ahhh, I needed a good trip review! Muchas gracias!

[Pierre von Mondragon]

Y'all still have better recall than me when it comes to all the details, thankfully. Good start.

[choppermike]

Good read CC, for now all I'll say is I don't remember much after the Bottle of Syrup, on what ever day it was , think we last spoke outside Bluebird and I just decided to fk off to meet Stevie cos of the heat upstairs in BB and my head was very pressurised from the inside

[kalima]

Great read , amazing detail, how do you remember all that especially after the list of the smoke and dabs you had

[CopenhagenCouple]

Ahhh, I needed a good trip review! Muchas gracias!

Out pleasure Hope to see you in the not too far future dude, was very fun and pleasant last!

Y'all still have better recall than me when it comes to all the details, thankfully. Good start.

Thnx Sir PvM, you will feature in the next update, where you did a great job yourself!

Great read , amazing detail, how do you remember all that especially after the list of the smoke and dabs you had

Thanks dude, don't know how it sticks, just does

Good read CC, for now all I'll say is I don't remember much after the Bottle of Syrup, on what ever day it was , think we last spoke outside Bluebird and I just decided to fk off to meet Stevie cos of the heat upstairs in BB and my head was very pressurised from the inside

That's not the half of it, rarely have we met someone so mashed, yet still standing and somewhat coherent, but we'll get back to that later! It was a pleasure seeing you and Stevie again, although far too briefly!

CC

[CopenhagenCouple]

Day 1 – Saturday April 14th continued

Before we get back to the events of the day, please allow us to backtrack a bit. We need to give CS Noon some props, it is surely deserved and we jumped by that bit a little quickly in the previous update.

We only discovered CS Noon last August on a quite lengthy crawl / bike ride where we, inspired by OHMF and led by the fountain of local knowledge Nugs, visited a bunch of the less familiar coffeeshops of the West and South of Amsterdam. Tbh we might have visited CS Noon back in the day, but it being more than 10 years ago and us being stoners, we have forgotten again if we have…

The visit in August was only a b&f, but a hazy and vague memory suggests that we might have revisited on a late night stoned AF, back in August. This time we sat down for a smoke, and even if it was a rather short visit we did get a pretty good impression of the place.

The mood / feel of the place is decidedly different than the other shops in the area, maybe with the exception of Rookies. From the appearance of the staff and most of the clientele, as well as what we can remember of the soundtrack, the shop leans a lot more towards the rock / metal crowd, than the “hip-hop or EDM fan looking crowds” of e.g. Easy Times.

It isn’t a big shop, some would even call it a bit small, but it has some interesting and alternative seating arrangements on a couple of levels that kinda compensates for the small size. You could probably fit a small crowd in there without it feeling to claustrophobic. It also appears that most of the front (a large window) opens up, which would be really nice during times with good weather.

The products also appear to be of very decent quality, at least from the tubs we sniffed (which counting both the August and April visits must be at least 10) and stuff we bought from there. While nothing was at the very top level matching shops like Het Ballonnetje, Baba or Boerejoengens, everything looked and felt very nicely cured and flushed and had decent effects. Taste transfer was maybe the thing that lacked the most overall in the flowers we bought there. There were no complete letdowns on any of them, but most somehow left us feeling a bit disappointed, as the smell in the tub and bag was always very strong and rarely transfered well. The Shoreline we bought there was certainly overpriced, but a nice example of the strain which, IWRC, smoked and vaped well.

Most other things were more reasonably priced and considering the general price level of shops close by and the overall quality of CS Noon, we would definitely recommend it as a good alternative or supplement to other quality shops “near by” (which in our book is more or less limited to Easy Times and Boer Center, Rookies is a nice place to hang but never impressed us with their products).

But back to the events of the day and we’ve just left Nugs’ seated (or rather slouched over in the very comfy pillows) in the smoker’s room of the Kashmir Lounge, as we head across the street to check in to the AirBnB apartment we booked for the first four days.

The check-in fast and easy. The host turns out to be a super friendly, easy going and very attractive young woman who, after giving us a quick tour and a few tips, leaves us to enjoy the swanky apartment. We quickly call Nugs, who crosses the street to start the climb up the stairs of death.

Now we’ve seen some nasty stairs in Amsterdam , but these bastards take the medal. We will try to find a picture from our summer visit three years ago to give a little context (those were nasty, these in April so much worse), but that’ll probably be a little hard to dig out, so for now you’ll have to take our word for it when we say, that these were equal parts vertical ladder, spiral staircase of doom and straight up death machine.

Nugs got the worst of it (as we’re sure he’ll happily confirm), because we didn’t know that the timer that kept the light on when you flicked the switch at bottom of the four flights of stairs, was precisely calibrated to kill you. The timing was expertly calculated so the light disappeared and left you in pitch black dark, exactly when the staircase started spiraling and you still had three flights of verticale waanzin left. We’re both pretty sure that it was only Nugs’ mountain goat-like agility when going up stairs, probably earned from years of climbing deathly steps all over Amsterdam, and the weak light of his trusty smartphone, that saved him from several broken bones and a major concussion.

Luckily he made it safely up, although he was cursing quite a bit IWRC, but it’s Nugs, so that’s a given when he encounters stupidity, as was the case with the design of those stairs From that point on we made it a habit of clicking every damn light switch we passed going up or down that death trap, the both of us.

The call of the roof terrace almost immediately became deafening, and was combined with a distant choo-chooing that was rapidly picking up volume. So we soon find ourselves lounging on the sunlit southern side of the terrace, double-fisting snacks, great beers and joints, as we watch Nugs’ dig out the treats.

As he’s done ever since we got to know him, our friend gives us a proper welcome to Amsterdam by generously sharing the best he’s got in his stash. This time it’s dabs of 9lb Hammer shatter from GGTC and a noname ‘frisco diamond sauce.

We were still quite crispy from the joints smoked so far (we had been keeping the tempo up a bit rolling spliffs every stop / chance we had), but that turned out to be just warm up. The 9lb Hammer was super tasty, maybe not quite as powerful a taste as DC’s 24K shatter, but it’s up there and certainly rivals the best of both DC and Ambrosia. It also hits quite hard, very hard in fact, so well named (does what it says on the box, right? ).

The noname diamond sauce (that’s terp sauce with THCA crystals) is something else. It completely blows anything else we’ve ever tried out of the water with respect to flavor intensity. Yes, yes, it’s the terp sauce and we don’t really know for sure where that’s from and blah blah blah, fuck it! It’s sooooo good! Mad citrus and orange flavors that just explode in your face and lingers for ever and ever. Potent as a mofo also, we both agree with Nugs’ in his assessment that this might be the strongest stuff we’ve ever had. It delivers with a immediate and powerful, soaring high that is leaning to the euphoric side without being to racy. Think the effects of the DC 24K shatter mixed with a great big helping of the clean high you’ll get from a super high grade narrow leaf tropical indica (that’s right, we said it, we went there also). Choo-choo mofos, the dabtrain was rolling full speed!

The beers are going down way to smooth, as are the dabs and the big fatties, and we end up spending a couple of lovely hours enjoying the sunshine and getting entirely too mashed to safely navigate those damn stairs back down again.

There’s nothing to do about that though, because soon we need to make moves for some food and more hash shopping, if we are to have any chance of being only an hour or so late for the early arrivals party that Nugs’ have suggested (or in other words, we are keeping perfect stoner timing and punctuality).

We manage to safely navigate the plunge to Hades, despite our wavy status, jump the bikes and are quickly at CS Bij for b&f of Tangie Block and some Indica we totally forgot about again and smoked late one night without any clear recollection besides it being good. Next we drive by Millennium Coffeeshop for a b&f of two of their classic Moroccan hashes. We drive by 2e Kamer for some Laila and (IWRC) Tblisa / Twizla hash (reviews of most of it here) and end up heading for the RLD Cannibal Royal to eat some vegans.

Bellies stuffed we head for Batavia, say high to the staff, grab some beers and head downstairs for the batcave. Here we find Sir Pierre von Mondragon chatting to Comus and the party is soon on.

At some point after this Nugs breaks off to run an errand (cat sitting duties if we remember correctly) and shortly after Comus says something about popping out for some errand of his own, whereupon he disappears for the rest of the night.

Nugs joins us again and soon the suryp ladden beer is flowing, the globs are dropping on the hot nail and the joints are flying from Mrs. CC’s skilled hands. The details of the following four hours or so are admittedly very, very hazy, but we remember having a grand time with Nugs and PvM!

After probably a couple of hours we are joined at the table by an expat, let’s call him “N”, who apparently does a lot of travel to the far east. Nepal and India to be more exact, and he brought home some treats. Seeing our stash of various hashes out and spotting our tell-tale Danish habit of toasting the ciggies for our hash joints, we quickly get into a chat about the great hash places on earth and N, who’s apparently visited several times, agrees with us that Christiania in Copenhagen is up there with Amsterdam as hash head heaven. He also agrees with us that Asian hashes in Mokum have severely declined in quality, while prices for anything that’s even worth smoking have exploded.

Smiling N pulls out a good lump of very nice looking black hash, breaks off around 1,5 grams and hands it to us, saying something like “here’s a little taste of the good stuff from back east”. We roll one up right away and are not disappointed at all. The smell and taste was more or less exactly a combination of Baba’s Manali Cream and Utopia’s Kashmir Dream, with the sweet floral notes from Baba’s nicely balanced by the more classic flavors of Utopia’s Kashmir. Maybe it wasn’t as flavorful as Baba’s (which must have been fresher or something back then as FOD didn’t get much taste from it apparently), but effects were very impressive as it was very noticeable even though it was up against a large amount of other powerful products (syrup and diamond sauce dabs being the crown jewels). Very nice of N, who in general was very pleasant company.

After a long day battling a heavy hangover and doing his best to welcome us to the city, Nugs throws in the towel (around midnight IWRC) and we leave soon after. Honestly can’t remember if PvM took off with us or shortly after Nugs’, but when he was in the city, PvM stuck in there with the best of them and was consistently one of the last to leave.

In a very wobbly fashion we make our way on bikes towards the apartment, stopping by CS Amnesia for a half gram of Triple X (had to try it, was let down, especially by the insane price tag, would be a great, great hash at a third of the price) and maybe a g of caramello or shiraz or something, can’t remember the last one and we smoked it all the next morning without making any notes of it. Was nice whatever it was IWRC, but nothing stellar.

At the apartment we settle in to a late night sesh that last to around half past three, polishing off a few more of the beers we got from AH and a variety of great hash joints.

We crash, totally melted and with giant smiles on our faces, after a long and very successful first day in Amsterdam. Thanks for the great times guys!;)

[CopenhagenCouple]

Correction: We got the Sunrise from 2e the first day, not the Tblisa (just checked the live thread to see if we missed something), that was second or third day b&f maybe, but that's later...

[CopenhagenCouple]

We have actually remembered quite a lot of the first days, helped out by a high rate of posts in the live thread, but have managed to leave out a few things already and probably jumbled up a few others. Things are soon to become even more messy as more ACD’ers arrive, we get even deeper into the shenanigans and the updates to the forum become more and more sporadic… Anyways, here goes day 2.

Day 2 – Sunday April 15th

In typical fashion, I (Mr. CC) awake before 7 in the morning, having slept right around four hours. As with other ACD’ers, this always happens to me.

The stone-over is pretty heavy this morning, so there’s nothing for it and the kettle is quickly boiling away to supply hot water for the survival juice, as some hair-o-the-dog is being rolled. A nice fat Utopia Iso / House Polm joint to go with the first cup.

Both go down very nicely and my mind cheats me into thinking that the caffeine is working it’s magic making me fresher. Although I know that caffeine easily takes 30, if not 45 minutes, to have real physical effects, the psychosomatic effect gets me from the first sip more or less every time. I don’t mind at all, it helps a lot in getting out of bed in the morning and having a pick-me-up during the day. I actually wish a few more things that I know would be that easy for my body to “forget”...

Speaking of forgetting, the second joint was soon being rolled and I kinda forgot any reason in picking what to smoke. The day before we had visited Millennium and bought their two top classic Moroccans. We had sampled the least expensive one (the Tblisa), and were positively surprised with the quality of it (as the review in the live thread shows). So as I was writing up a few reviews of yesterday’s many nice purchases, I got the (in retrospect) silly idea to sample the other one we got there.

As the live thread attests, the Millenium Diamond was a proper land race dominant classic beldia type with a heavy stoney hit. I might have been a little eager also with the dosing, I remember a mighty oil ring on that particular joint and it hit like a mofo. The second coffee didn’t have as pronounced a psychosomatic effect, let’s say that much.

Also just noticed we forgot the b&f late night at Utopia Saturday in the TR. We got some more of the kashmir and some OG kush Ice if I am not mistaken. Second guessing the Kashmir (might have been something else from somewhere else), but remember rolling up some of their OG Kush ice mixed with Cannalope Haze hash from 1e somewhere in between the other joints I smoked that morning. It might have been the third, all I clearly remember was that it was delicious and that I had a super tasty Chocomel with it. Which reminds me that we also drove by Sterk on the way home the night before and got a shitload of Tony’s Chocolonely, some beverages (including the Chocomel), more random munchies and maybe one or two of Papi’s beers, details are vague.

After a couple of hours talking a bit to RoMo on the forum chat, making a few updates and smoking a selection of very nice hashes, I decide that it’s time to hop back to the bedroom and see how Mrs. CC is doing.

...

A good hour and a quick shower later We are making coffee and getting the W&B ready (well fifth or so for the Mr., but who’s counting). We decide on a big fatty with half’n’half of Kashmir Dream and Cannalope Haze hash and really enjoy the combination of the two.

Taking a page out of the heavy hitting playbook Mr. CC started the day with, the second joint for Mrs. CC contains the half g of Amnesia’s Triple X we got going home last night.

Now, don’t get us wrong, the Triple X is a very fine dark and tremendously oily Moroccan hash. The texture is really nice too, and the THC content is evident from it’s almost rosin like appearance, but it doesn’t become so sticky that you can’t roll with it unless you hold it in your hand too much. Putting it in the fridge for a few minutes is more than adequate to make it quite easy to handle, and other wise you would just have to take a little longer time and a bit more care and you could still easily roll with it.

The taste is also very nice, up there with the best tasting classic Moroccans we had that week, and the effects are strong too.

BUT, it’s 30 € / g. That’s right, T-H-I-R-T-Y fucking euros for one gram of “regular hash” (meaning not IWE, extracts or similar more refined products).

Unless the both of us completely missed a quick round of free bjs and pjs last night, someone is really taking the piss with that price. We were admittedly very much under the influence when we visited, so it’s not entirely off the table that a little extra service was rendered, just not enough to be memorable it appears. Whatever happened though, it’s clear that we did, in fact, get fucked that night at Amnesia, just not the good way… :/

Strangely enough Capt’n Macky reports that Barney’s version of Triple X (and they have the same owner IIRC) is one of the strongest hashes in the city. We have yet to experience him being off in such a judgment call, so trust he is right in this one too and consequently suspect that the batch we had from Amnesia was something else than Barney’s version.

Having smoked plenty of hash this morning we turned to the lovely flowers at our disposal and were soon enjoying a 1 g fatty of Noon’s Bruce Banner. We rated it almost as high as their Shoreline, which at the point was the best weed we’d so far had on the trip. Sitting in the early noon sunshine on the roof terrace wasn’t a bad setting for these lovely wares from some great shops, what a start to the day.

Mrs. CC had been experiencing what seemed like the start of a sore throat since arriving yesterday, which was almost too typical as she almost always comes down with something as soon as we hit Amsterdam. She was planning an attempt to kill it before it got too far, with a large helping of high quality, dark hashes (a tried and true method), washed down with fresh mint tea.

Getting hold of the drugs had been no problem at all, but the car and the tape recorder were not easy things to round up at 11.30 on a Sunday in Mokum… Wait a minute, that’s another story. Back to the other trip!

Hashes are very easier to get in Mokum, even for the quite novice a very nice piece of hash is never far away. Proper fresh mint tea, as strange as it sound, can be a little harder to get, at least if you want to drink your tea in a place where you can also enjoy some hashes with it.

We were contemplating where to procure said mint tea when Nugs, shows the first signs of life. He joins a bit later at the apartment and we spend a little time chillaxing in in the sun, smoking some hash and weed (among theses the Boer Tangie block which we thought tastewise was one of the best value for money hashes of the trip), before plunging down Beelzebub's stairway and floating on our bikes through Vondel and over to Katsu.

We get some mint tea for Mrs. CC, some other beverages for the rest of us, and some of their Triple Zero hash (10 € / 0,7 g), which the menu said was new in stock.

A little backstory here: We’ve been disappointed by our purchases the last many times we visited Katsu, which formerly was one of our favorite shops, especially for import hashes. The disappointments have run from purchases that were merely boring and below the standard we’ve come to expect from Katsu, to purchases that were down right bad for the money. Worst among the bad experiences must be a Hiya hash we bought there a few years ago that smoked really harshly, gave us a headache and tasted just wrong.

We decided to give Katsu another chance with the Triple Zero and boy did we not regret it. If you are looking for a classic Moroccan of the “heatpressed” / darker types with a traditional, full and slightly spicy taste profile, as well as high potency, this could be it. In our review we wrote that it reminded us a bit of the fabled Shoe Hash, which we have been so lucky to get our hands on some times now. That is high praise as that is one of our favorite dark Moroccan hashes in Amsterdam, ever. Of course it wasn’t the shoe, and to be honest it was left quite a bit behind by it when we are talking both flavor and power, but it’s still one of the best examples we’ve had of that particular type of Moroccan classics for a good while, which takes Katsu off of our naughty list and puts them right back on the nice list!

Side track a bit here boys and girls (and parental warning: explicit lyrics coming up, skip this next paragraph to avoid reading how Mr. CC can be a twat, as Smirks would have it):

That review was done on site at the CS as we smoked the product. We didn't just bother the BT by looking at some products without buying, before concluding that this drug den was too full of selfish looser druggies for our sensible tastes and fucking off. So were other reviews we did during the 420 week and most products we purchased during the first two-three days were reviewed in the live thread within hours of us buying them. Some of you might know by now where this is going, but the intended recipient has a very tentative grasp of such concepts as irony, subtlety and, well, sometimes the written English language in general, so let me (Mr. CC) be clear: This particular paragraph is me telling you, Jesscass, that you can fucking suck it with the BS about us only doing outdated reviews, this one's for you buddy!

Back in the twat-less zone, we rejoin the action with the fiets crew recon team having left Katsu and headed over to a shop that we’ve been waiting to revisit since we left it last in August; Het Ballonnetje. The staff is great as usual, they are clearly on familiar terms with quite a few of the clientele, greeting many of the b&f customers by name, which is always a good sign of loyal, local customers and, to us at least, a good sign in general.

We aren’t disappointed this time either as we sniff our way through a fine selection of very nicely finished weeds. We honestly struggle to name a place since maybe the great Nes where everything on the menu looks so nicely finished and taken care of. Heralded shops like Utopia and Voyagers may have been like this once, but we’ve never experienced that time for those two shops, or for others we’ve visited since our “return” and can quickly think of, besides maybe Baba and (on their best days) the “main branch parts of the Boer chain”. The balloon can, as any shop, of course have products that are poorly finished, maybe at the very bottom of their menu, but we’ve never seen them.

This time we decided to grab (IWRC) 20 € worth of the Tangie (couldn’t help ourselves), 1 g of Grateful Breath (came in nice “420 special” glass jar), 1g of a Cookies and Cream and 1 g of Papaya Haze.

As the review we did from the shop states we tested the C&C and Papaya Haze on site and were very impressed by the Papaya Haze (hazy and generic in the vape, not hazy at all when smoked, in fact one of the best tasting weeds of the whole trip and very potent too). Tastewise the C&C was a little underwhelming, but had a nice smooth smoke and a good hit to it. We got back to checking out the Tangie a little later in the day, but will include here that although it wasn’t as good as last year with respect to grow, finish or potency, it was still an awesome version of that strain with flavors that almost rivaled that legendary version from last year. Also see Kenshiro’s review of this year’s example somewhere around the forum (can’t be bothered searching), it was spot on.

We left the balloon after a very gezellig time and headed a bit further west to grab some excellent Roti Rol met kip from Roopram Roti, before we hide away at a secret location not far from Roopram Roti’s eastern location for a bit, enjoying the great surinaamse version of fast food and some cheeky dabs.

The weather has turned a bit on us and there are a few showers threatening our plans of a longer trip around the east. We were originally planning on a trip to the Stud and maybe hitting up Eastwood, Trefpunkt and Warda also, but as Nugs’ trusty Buienalarm looks a bit depressing for the next bit and Mrs. CC isn’t feeling tops, we decide to just b&f at Eastwood and head back west towards the apartment. We get a g of the Grape Sorbet and one of their hashes. The hash was good value for money going by what we wrote about it on the forum, but must not have stood out much in taste because we only have vague memories of putting what remained of the gram we bought in a big “mix’em up and kill the scraps” hash joint we did a few nights later and not when we actually smoked the hash separately. The Grape Sorbet was very tasty with a nice and strong fruity taste profile when both vaped and smoked. It came out the best in the Pax, but smoked well with good taste transfer. There were only smaller nugs in the tubs, but those that were looked super nice, with a good frosting of crystals and some funky purple hues to the pretty solid nugs. We only visited Eastwood that one time, but should have gone back to check more stuff from there considering how good that Grape Sorbet was.

We made quick moves for the apartment, driving by somewhere for supplies and 1e Hulp for more hash en route. Soon Mr. CC and Nugs were busy polishing off a few brewskies and burning the devil’s lettuce, as Mrs. CC had a wee rest.

Mrs. CC was soon up and about again, and we were woefully behind on the dab schedule, so choo-choo mofo’s the dab train was rolling again. We had been lucky enough to procure a g of that wickedly tasty and extremely potent diamond sauce, as well as some syrup, so the stash was finally “complete” with greens, hashes, concentrates and syrup!



One of the only pictures we got the first few days, a crappy quality shot of that magic diamond sauce.

Alas, the fun cannot continue as poor Nugs has to work the next day, so we say our good byes to him at around eight or half nine, or something like that. We grab some food somewhere and head for the center, looking for the Lemming that has reportedly made it to Mokum in spite of a slight delay.

Walking up to Batavia Mr. CC makes some comment along the lines of “So, we’ll probably see the dancing gopher anytime soon”, whereupon he also bumps into the Lemming himself, who’s struggling to operate the sliding doors going in to Batavia. We have fun awkwardly going in through the door while trying to convey greetings to our fearless leader, grab a few beers at the bar and head downstairs to set up camp in the Batcave for the Early Bird’s party proposed by Lem’s. We are soon joined by PvM and Comus and the syrup dosed beers flows, Lemming’s Vape takes a beating, the joints are flying and the pipes are burning.

If memory serves we had some company by some locals also that night, but we are both fucked if we can remember any clear details. The (syrup dosed) beer and dab session we had with Nugs at the apartment earlier made sure our collective memories of the night that followed at Batavia are very blurred together with the night before, so we’ll have to leave it with a big thanks to Lemming, PvM and Comus for the fun we had, what we remember was a blast!

Can’t say for sure when we finally got out of there, but think we may have been the last customers out of Batavia with Lemming and maybe PvM. Anyways, we hopped on to our trusty steeds and drove down to Sterk to pick up some beers (Browar Rockmill FTW!) and other random goodies and then straight to the apartment for a late night sesh.

We had yet another great day with great friends, good eats, lovely beers and wonderful cannabis products, and we were just getting started…

TBC

CC

Edited a few times to correct spelling, missing text and bad language (the song will do)

[CopenhagenCouple]

Day 3 – Monday April 16th

6.30 and Mr. CC is awake, again. Well, a quick joint of some heavy hash (with Chocomel, no coffee yet) means that another hour’s worth of snoozing with the missus was in order, so it actually turned in to more than 5 hours of sleep that night, almost a record.

Up again at a bit passed eight, quick joint on the sunlit balcony outside the bedroom and then waking Mrs. CC for the traditional lattes and Moroccan hash joints to start the day.

The sun is beaming and it’s already very hot on the roof terrace as we enjoy a good hour of coffee, joints and lovely views.

Mr. CC makes a quick expedition for a few essentials (we bought bread, eggs and bacon last night at Sterk so we could make breccy, but forgot butter and a few other things) as Mrs. CC takes a good long bath. Soon Major Lazer is playing and breccy is being cooked in the apartments great kitchen.

We have the breakfast on terrace and share a few more joints, before a shower for the Mr. plus a big fatty more in the sun and we are ready to get going on the day’s adventures.

We head to Utopia (IWRC by way of 2e for some Tbliza and Laila hash, smoked the last in the stash that morning and need some of that for breccy / coffee always ) to find Ingi on shift in a wonderful mood. We get our hugs and hellos in and settle in for a brief chat, coffee and smoke, before Mrs. CC hops over to Nieuwendijk for some shopping.

Mr. CC spends a good hour sitting in Utopia and chatting to Ingi (did Stan maybe pop by? Nah, probably too early), saying high to a few random, familiar locals, and blazing up a few from the nice selection in the stash, before discovering there’s a new hash on the menu, the Casablanca.

Getting a gram and smoking half of it in a big fatty just before Mrs. CC gets back convinces Mr. CC to get another g right away as it is a dark, very tasty, sweet and quite potent Moroccan hash of what both Ingi and we suspect are mixed genetics. At 12 € / g (IWRC) it was a very nice hash for the money, easily matching up with the higher priced stuff we had previously from e.g. Damkring (think a sweeter, less spicy, but not just as strong version of the Muchina when it was really good). Pretty sure Mr. CC also got some weed from Utopias menu that was quite potent, but didn’t smoke that smoothly and was a bit lacking in taste compared to the other great stuff we had so far.

We ofc roll up a big fatty more of the Casablanca so Mrs. CC can have some, and enjoy that with another of Ingi’s good lattes. We also find out Ingi and some friends will be out to celebrate in the evening and make plans to hook up later.

It’s soon time for the Baba meet up, so we make plans to do a b&f a CS the Spirit before heading north for Baba. At the Spirit we have a quick chat to the bt about what’s good on the hash menu, she mentions one of the as being a bit below what it usually is and that the others are good with the (IWRC) Caramello and another that we can’t remember the name as being the best value for money. They both look great so we get 20 €’s worth of each. We weren’t disappointed this either by The Spirits classic Moroccan selection and enjoyed both purchases over the next days, the Caramello being the best of the two with a very nice creamy texture, smooth smoke and great taste as well as value for money potency. The weed never impressed us at the Spirit, although nothing we’ve seen has looked really bad or anything, it’s just that nothing’s really stood out and the hash selection is so solid we rarely bother even looking at the green.

Arriving at Baba we might have been the first there, or Lemming might just have beat us to it, but whatever order we get there the four of us are soon gathered and we welcome Smirks to the city in proper fashion as he quickly gets comfortable behind one of Baba’s perfectly cleaned bongs.

It’s great to see Smirks again, and great to be back at Baba. Picking solely on the average quality of weed we’ve bought fro Amsterdam coffeeshops the last year and a half, Baba is only consistently beat by Het Ballonnetje. We know that others have great products on offer and will usually have at least one very good and nicely finished weed on the menu, sometimes a few, but very few other shops can match the quality of these two shops, and no other shops in our experiences the last few years as consistently as these two shops have always got something extremely nice on, if not a selection of beauties, and we mean always, every damn time. The big differences for us are the very nice grows and (probably most importantly) the consistently nice finishes the products have at both shops. The Stud and especially Boer (at least over the last many visits for us) have stood out with very nice cures and flushes on most, if not all products we’ve had from those shops, but they are nowhere near the “bullseye every damn time” level of Baba and Het Ballonetje when it comes to delivering super tasty and extremely nicely finished flowers.

This time we started by getting some of the Sunset Sherbert, some Golden Pineapple and 24K Gold Skuff.

The 24K Gold Skuff was quite potent, with a nice mixed hit from the linage coming through nicely in a hash that tasted very fresh, but maybe a little “green” and a bit lacking on the Tangie side of the flavor profile. Fair value hash, but would go for new school hashes or dutch skuff elsewhere.

The Sunset Sherbert looked wicked in the tub and glistened with crystals in the sunlight. Vaped in de Verdamper it had an interesting, quite funky taste and delivered a nice hit (although blowing big, fat and milky clouds from that lovely device might have helped increase the effects). Smoked it wasn’t much to write home about sadly, at least compared to many of the other great flowers we had from Baba and elsewhere during both this year’s 420 and earlier. There was two phenos in the tub, we picked a big fat bud of the Purple one and we suspect from what we gather from ACD’ers who got the other, that it, the greener pheno, smoked better, but never tried it.


The Sunset Sherbert from Baba, good looking and quite potent, but a little disappointing in the flavor transfer.

The Golden Pineapple was much, much better when it came to taste transfer. Beautiful, deep fruity flavors both smoked and vaped and one of the tastiest weeds of the whole trip, with a very nice bang for your buck also giving a nice, cerebral and energetic high. Extremely nice looking flowers with spotless flush and cure, top product again from Baba.

Inspired by the lovely GP and chatting to one of the bts we ended up taking a look at some more hash, because the bt said the Manali Cream was good. It was a dark, creamy Indian hash that looked amazing, albeit very difficult to handle. We bought half a g to check it and asked the bt to pop it in the fridge for a bit before we tried to roll it up. As the manali was cooling we rolled up a joint of the Maroc Supreme that the bt had also recommended and (after looking at the very nice looking hash for only 8 € / g) we’d gotten a g of. The Maroc Supreme was a surprisingly good hash for only 8 € / g, reminding us a lot of a “little brother” of the Massawa Superior. We also sniff the Blueberry OG and decide to come back for that as it looks awesome in the tub and reeks of dark blueberries, woody and kushy richness.

The Manali Cream was our favorite Asian hash of the trip (we immediately got another gram and went back for more twice, maybe more) and compared to the price range of other top hashes one of the best over all, even though it was practically impossible to work with after just a minute or two out of the fridge (several of the know techniques work, such as doing a long snake or the “flattening / rolling and flicking away bits”, but not well). Sweet and floral, the taste was just amazing, and it was complimented by a strong and very pleasant effect, uplifting and euphoric high, with a nice calming body buzz / stone below to anchor you a bit to the ground as you float along smiling among the clouds.

Lemming appoints Mr. CC as chief chronology officer and gives up controlling the time on his own fro m then on, but as we are in no rush we take it easy and also draw upon Smirks’ lovely work with his smartphone that assures us that it’s a short walk to the NDSM wharf ferry, and that they depart at regular and chronologically sound intervals.

The ACD marine expeditionary force is extremely crispy as we stroll from Baba towards the close by ferry landing and line up for a trip to Amsterdam North.

TBC with a very nice trip to Noord, a dash for a Pax 3 and a wild and lovely evening at Batavia, fading into an extremely hazy and drunken night of bad behavior and very vague memories…


CC

[RoMoney]

it was a little hazy from the week’s irresponsible levels of consumption

Great TR!

[LLMReb]

Excellent report, as usual! I need to check out Baba now.

[RoMoney]

Excellent report, as usual! I need to check out Baba now.

Agreed, I've yet to be to their new location, perhaps one for July

[LLMReb]

Excellent report, as usual! I need to check out Baba now.

Agreed, I've yet to be to their new location, perhaps one for July

I'm in. We can save the 70 Euros from the Cannabis Cup and throw some money around town instead!

[CopenhagenCouple]

Day 3 continued


Before we continue with the Noord expedition, we forgot yet another CS visit, this one to CS Kashmir (not the lounge, but their affiliated CS across the street). Marok21, who we consider to be the forum’s #1 hash reviewer in recent years , requested a testing / made a recommendation from friend and we got their King H. (at 16 € / g, not 26 as it said in the live thread) and half gram of an Asian hash. Check the reviews here and here. Summing up, the King H. was a good, classic Moroccan. Price was ok compared to many shops in the center (considering how hard it can be there to get really good old school), but way too high compared to a lot of the very good classics you can find right around the corner at e.g. Masssawa. The other one was horrible…

Back to the Noord expedition, and Lemming has already covered the trip over the water so well, so we’ll pick it up as we land on the NDSM side and we cruise lazily on our bikes from the ferry and towards CS Funny People.

The first bit, close to the ferry landing, is quite busy with a lot of people out enjoying the sunshine and talking strolls or visiting one of the funky bars and cafes of the area. The crowds soon thin however and we are cruising along a more or less empty road along an former industrial area, going slow and looping back around to keep up with the two ACD’ers on foot.

Lemming snaps a bunch of pictures of the intriguing environment and being a couple of selfish and lazy stoners, we figure we can persuade him to share some of his pictures with us later, and consequently only take three pictures along the way. One is the following picture of some nice street art on the corner of the same building where two artists where doing a nice piece in Lemmings picture:


Great street art in Amsterdam Noord, the area is full of it and other great sights, well worth a visit for that alone.

After a nice little walk / bike ride, we turn down the street we are 420 % sure is the one Funny People is one. This, of course, means not sure at all, but good enough to give it a go as we are too lazy to check google maps and trust the stoners on foot will tell us if we’re wrong. That’s about as accurate as two stoners on bikes (sharing a joint) can really be.

As we again loop back around to allow the cats on foot to catch up, we notice that there are now three cats following on foot. What’s more; the third cat looks right at home among the two other ACD’ers. We were quite confused by the newcomers ninjalike appearance out of nowhere (we swear he wasn’t there seconds before, it wasn’t us being stoned, really) and the fact that he appears to be another ACD’er going along on the crawl. We quickly learn, though, that the newcomer is JayBee420, who’ve been tracking progress on the forum and decided to catch up with the crawl on the NDSM side.

That’s one mystery solved, but we didn’t get an explanation to his ninja skills, which seemed to repeat as JB had a habit of showing up at the gatherings, seemingly just appearing at the side of at a table in Batavia or standing at the bud-counter of a CS. JB turned out to be a very pleasant and friendly guy, who attended more or less all the meetups and evenings at Batavia, always keeping his trusty Mighty vape hot and sampling wares from all over Amsterdam.

Going along the street towards Funny People we snapped another picture, this one of a nice sculpture thingy across the canal. It was made from what looked like 20 ‘ containers:




Arriving at CS Funny People we find something we’ve never seen before in Amsterdam, a row of completely free bike parking stands (whatever they’re called):



The (only!) two bikes parked here are our bikes, never have we felt such luxury in Amsterdam


The shop has one of those setups that apparently are gaining popularity, where the the front is a b&f area with a counter and a (buzzer locked) door to the seating and smoking areas in the back of the shop. The rear area is divided into a non-smoking (and non-vaping as we found out) area with the bar and a large table seating six to eight and a “fish-tank” smokers area that’ll comfortably seat probably six people. We squeezed in more with the three locals already seated.

The menu was rather small compared to some of the massive menus of shops in the center, but quite typical of the more local shops a bit further out with (IWRC) 4-5 regular weeds, a few specials and 3-4 hashes. We tried two of their hashes and really liked the “Cream”, which was 10 or 12 (probably wrote about it somewhere in the live thread or chat) per gram and one of the best priced dark moroccan classics we had all trip. We got 20 €’s worth of it right away just by the look and smell, and got another two gram when we left after having sampled it. We think that the weed was reasonably priced as well, smelled and looked good, but didn’t sample (think other ACD’ers did though). Considering that the ferry ride is free and there’s a lot to see on the 10-15 mins or so walk from the ferry, the shop is well worth a visit for the hash alone.

As we smoke our way through a few joints with the two hashes we bought and a few other goodies, we get back to a subject that we’ve been discussing for a while now; getting a Pax 3. Feeling impulsive, and reasoning that if we want to get a Pax we should get it sooner rather than later as we’ll save money on the higher efficiency as well as save our lungs ( ), we check when Azarius closes, do a little quick calculations and decide to go for it right away.

We say high to the crew, grab some more hash, and hop the bikes for the ferry. As it turns out, the ferry doesn’t leave for another 7 or so minutes, so we burn half a fatty we rolled at CS Funny People and look at the nice views of the area, as we wait for it to arrive.

The rest of the crew makes good time on foot and join us on the ferry ride to Centraal. From here we fly down to Azarius to get a Pax 3, before heading back north again. We might have gone by a shop for a b&f, got no idea where, but somehow ended up heading for Utopia.

Standing at the counter with a few Loozas and chatting to someone (James, Jes?) we hear a familiar voice and turn around to see Mr. and Mrs. Macky standing right next to us (Canadian ninjas?). We were thrilled to see them here, considering the scare we got when the great white north got a little too white in late April and had threatened to cancel our friends’ trip. The two are understandably bombed, but we spend a little time catching up and welcoming them to the city as we are joined by more of the ACD gang.

After a bit the party breaks up and people go different ways looking for food and / or a little rest. Our memories are a bit hazy, but we are pretty sure we went shopping for some random bits, before heading for Batavia to get some food and settle in for what we expected and planned to be a bit of a slow night, charging up for the shenanigans of the week to come. It didn’t quite turn out that way.

We are not at all sure what order people arrived in, or when the party really took off and got a bit wilder than we planned, but cut to later in the night at Batavia and we are there with Nugs, Lemming, JayBee420, Smirks and Ingi Blingi with group of friends, who are out celebrating.

We could make the excuse that it was the celebrations of Ingi and that group that spilled over and caused us to start getting a bit too deep into it, but we might have been as much at fault as anyone there.

However it happened, the night went as you might expect: Lot’s of dabs, vaping, joints and syrup beverages, turned into syrup beers and more dabs and… The result was that everyone got either very stoned, very high, very syrupped up or quite drunk. In most cases a combination of these.

Well, we think Nugs, JayBee420, Ingi and crew, as well as Smirks (probably not in that order) left the party at or around eleven to around midnight, with Lemming sticking it out as the last man on the ground, although being very much under the influence of the heavy dab treatment Nugs had been putting him under and the syrup someone (ok, Nugs and the two of us) happened to pour into his drinks.

The CCs got extremely wavy that night, might have spotted an owl, left the bikes at Batavia and generally were being delinquent, irresponsible people for a bit. It was a very late night and an early morning before we had a few precious hours of sleep.

CC