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Thread: Been to the Dam!

  1. #1

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    Default Been to the Dam!

    So, yeah, I got back today.

    Um, very odd place. Was nice to skin up legally in a coffeeshop, although quite a few are very dingy!

    Possibly may have been fortunate and unfortunate in equal measures, but it was a good trip.

    To paraphrase;

    _I stayed in a truly terrifying hostel.

    _Bicycles - no-one warned me about them - or dickheads on mopeds in the cycle lanes without crash helmets doing 50mph or about...

    _Trams - Instant harbingers of pedestrian doom!

    _Crossing the road - see the above but add in two lanes of cars on the opposite side of the road to that which I'm used to, and the Dutch equivalent of the pelican crossing - a real time, real life game of Russian Roulette with wheeled transport instead of guns and bullets!

    _Weed - available in coffeshops - certainly more than I could smoke! Didn't like most of the small coffeeshops I went to, most felt like being locked in a gas chamber. But a strangely happy gas chamber...

    _Smoke report - Smokey's Palace had sold out of White Window and White Rhino. Had Blueberry, was fruity. Went out skool and had some Sweet Skunk. That was stronger. Had some Afghan and some Zero Zero hash. My travelling companion rolled an embarrassingly bad spliff with the hash - it burned like a malfunctioning mariners rocket and reduced vision in the aforementioned gas chamber to near dangerous levels for all the clientèle.

    Observation - those tiny coffeeshops don't appear to really do fire exits - surely at some point there is going to be a nasty situation...

    _Had a few beers in some interesting bars, did like the 'Doors/Jim Morrison' themed bar.

    _The red light district. I'm not a moral authority - but I didn't go to partake. It's a regulated industry, and a visual tourist spectacle - but I found it a bit macabre. I did see one of the girls object to a very dumb tourist trying to take her photo. She literally came storming out of her booth and tried to beat him to death with a giant black dildo. He looked very afraid, and rightly so!

    _Crime - sadly, I saw a bit of it;

    As with any big city, especially with a regular supply of tourist trade, there will be crime. Who is doing it is more complicated to get into, both socially and politically - that's a whole other situation and I won't go into it here, but I witnessed what I think was a mugging in the middle of the Damrak. There was a guy being fleeced by two guys pretending to be police. This I've read is quite a common scam on tourists. As I was stood more or less behind the victim I think it's only because he had more expensive trainers on that they went for him and not me. I have to confess that I carried on walking and I could hear the guy protesting very loudly for quite a while. I was reluctant to stick around to see what the outcome was, I was still slightly shaken by the events of the previous morning;

    While myself and my travelling companion were walking into town from our hostel, a guy on a bicycle swerved toward me on the pavement. He swerved back out at the last moment, just enough for him to brush past me. I briefly apologised, assuming it was my fault (and I was already nervous about the bicycles!) but he started to take umbridge and began cursing me in multiple languages. We continued walking - and he began to give pursuit on his bike. Naturally he caught up so we both turned back around. He gestures to me angrily and waves this crackpipe at me, and announces he's just spent his last 10 euros on some crack and I caused him to spill it. Hence, he is claiming I now owe him 10 euros. Then he makes a threatening gesture toward the very heavy bike chain on his shoulder. My travelling companion is something of a scholar of self defence and exotic martial arts, I did wonder if he'd suddenly spring some kind of crazy batshit ninja move on him, but instead he calmly said, "He's a crack-head, mate, run.' And so we legged it. He did briefly give chase on his bike, but thankfully, despite being on drugs he was no Lance Armstrong and gave it up when he realised we weren't slowing down! I give much Kudos to my calm and quick thinking friend. He said he'd considered taking drastic action but he held true to the mantra that in a fight the best place to be, if at all possible, is somewhere else!

    Both things - could have ended quite badly for me, but that really is how life goes sometimes. You get action in a city like that. I was fortunate in both cases.

    I do wonder, though, how many stoners wonder out of the happy gas chambers and stumble right into the path of the bikes, mopeds and trams. Statistically, it must happen a bit I reckon.

    So - yeah, it was pretty full on!

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  3. #2

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    Question is, would you go back?

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  5. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dirty_badger View Post
    Question is, would you go back?
    Good question. Not in the very near future, and if I did I'd stay in a hotel nearer the centre of town. And I'd research the coffeeshops better. And I'd try and get better at navigating around the city centre, not getting run over and not being the near victim of crime!

    Don't get me wrong, though, it was a bit of a blast!

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    The bicycles are a bloody nightmare... even more so after a spliff, but you do actually soon get used to it

    In my time in the Dam I've never actually seen any crime but have seen the aftermath of it a couple of times.... I live in the Black Country & would seen a higher level of crime in Bilston on a Friday night, so I'll accept the fact that their is a lot of crime in the Dam

    But, on the whole, it sounds like you had a good time
    It's Not What You Know, It's What You Can Prove

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    Damn straight!

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  11. #6
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    Hostel - a noob mistake. The worst of it is you could have sayed in a reasonably nice place for not much if you'd have done your online bookings research.

    Bicycles - would have been warned if you had read the threads or ANY article on Amsterdam.

    Tram - they run on tram lines. Unlike the bikes they cant even swerve at you.

    Roads - you really need to use the pedestrian crossing. It's actually the law.

    Coffeeshops - the more research you do the happier you will be.

    Street crime - I'm more than a tourist, I've lived in the Netherlands, as such I'm always tooled-up: not with anything explicitly illegal, traditionally something dual-use (steel pencil, etc.). Making a LOUD noise as you're taking and they tend to wither, if they don't - fuck them up and don't even think twice about it.

  12. #7

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    Thanks stonewolf

    The hostel, it's reviews are somewhat over-flattering but I actually had no trouble there, it just felt like it might be waiting for me around every corner!

    Wheeled Vehicles of Doom - have read about them before, I knew the Dutch were fond of bikes but I hadn't quite realised how interwoven into the fabric of everyday life they are. Kudos to the young lady riding a bike, very fast, whilst managing to somehow also hold an umbrella and look at her phone at the same time. I had to give her some respect, especially as I was diving out of her path at the time! But yes, I agree, over time of course you get more used to it.

    Coffeeshops - found 2 good ones I'd love to go back to at some point, and 3 not so good ones where I felt the likelihood of a death inferno on the premises was too high for liking!

    Crime, while I hate the idea of carrying offensive weapons, I do take your point. I guess you call it as you see it, if you're carrying then you also have the responsibility for what happens as a result if you find yourself in a situation, it's a balance between feeling reassured that you're not a soft target, but not overestimating yourself - either getting yourself in trouble or underestimating your assailant. The fellow who tried it on with us was a crack head, depending on how long he'd lived that way, and it looked like a while, I believe he didn't have what it would have taken in a serious punch up, but hard drug addicts are desperate people, and desperate people do the most unpredictable stuff.

    I did have a great time, as I said, just glad I went now instead of when I was in my late teens or early twenties, I think I'd have come a serious cropper back then!

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    Lol it's a crazy fucking place bro hit first and hit hard

    Up the irons

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  16. #9
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    Hostels are hostels, you can do better if you shop around. You can definitely get an okay hotel or B&B room, especially this time of year.

    It's always better to leg-it, if you can. I have a disabled partner... that helps keep some trouble away vs being a single guy or mates etc. so anyone who steps up gets dealt with as if they're being Serious.

  17. #10

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    Totally agree... hostels are not for me... I like my creature comforts!

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