Amsterdam trip report 15th-18th sept

[pud]

Hey!

first post and its a pretty big one lol

i made a trip report for another forum so i may aswell share it with you lot too (im in the middle of it so bear with me )

Day 0 (14th of September)

Ahh it was finally here! My first day off from work in a while and I was going on an epic much need holiday tomorrow! Well the day consisted of packing and getting everything I needed together for the trip. My mate turned up at about 4pm after a 3 hour drive from Newcastle , so first thing first was to get hold of a bit of the local bud….after a good few smokes and a takeaway we tidied up we headed off to bed for a good kip before the 3am wake up call for the flight from Manchester at 7am.

Day 1 (15th September)

Yaaaay finally here! Got up at about half 3 after a surprisingly good sleep (was like a little boy on Christmas eve when I went to bed)

We got to the airport about an hour before check in, all good. Through security and into departure and what felt like a day sat there looking at the screen, the gate was finally open, and in no time at all we were on the plane. It was a pretty un eventful 45 minute flight, as we both probably had a good 20 minute kip. We landed at about 9am and had that huge taxi over about 3 motorways to the airport, looking out of the window it looked basically the same as Manchester lol. Since we only had our hand luggage we were out of the airport in no time and on that double decker train into central station, looking back now its amazing how different it is out of the city, looked a lot like home. We got into central station and some how we managed to work out the lockers to store out bags, good job we had our cards with us otherwise we would have been traipsing round till 2pm with our bags.

May I say at this point, that this is my first (of many) trips to Amsterdam. We headed aimlessly into what looked like the centre and found a nice little headshop to grab a little plastic grinder, skins and a lighter, 12 euros for lot not bad. We headed towards harlemstraat?? (im not going to attempt any road names, we managed to get around purely on the ACD map and orientating ourselves with the coffeeshops we saw) which was in the general direction of the Quentin arrive where we were staying. So….time to break my coffeeshop virginity, we settled on coffeeshop freeworld just next to double reggae. The budtender was a pretty cool bloke and suggested northern lights for a first smoke, we had a sniff and it was pretty nice, we asked to see the big buddah cheese and that smelt awesome really pungent so grabbed a gram of that at 13 euros. Im no weed guru so my smoke reports will not be that great. We were just about to roll one up when I realised id left the tobacco in the bag, doh! I wandered back to the bud counter to ask if he’d got any mix for us to use, he kindly gave me that fag that was behind his ear. We skinned up 2 average sized spliffs and had our first smoke in Amsterdam . Well the weed in Amsterdam certainly lives upto its name, after a couple of drags I could feel it all ready. The big buddah was a real nice smoke, so smooth, nothing like the harsh, wet stuff you get back home, visually it was covered in crystals and was perfectly dried and crispy. An awesome first smoke!


We wandered out happily backed and had a mooch around town then to train station to pick up our bags,

At 2pm we headed back towards the hotel and checked in. after battling the calf crunch stairs we got to our room, opened the door to find a pretty big room, 3 beds and a balcony, happy days! We rolled up a spliff of the little remaining bud and had it on the balcony then had a good 3 hour kip.

The hotel location could not have been better, popeyes, dampkring 2, greenhouse, and barneys right outside. After the kip we headed out to the greenhouse coffeeshop to pick up for another smoke, having a look at the huge menu I asked for the NYC diesel, smelt pretty nice so grabbed a gram of that at 10 euro and couple of cokes. We sat at the back just up the stairs on them awesome tables with the seeds under the glass. Unfortunately I cannot for the life of me remember how the nyc diesel smoked, which probably means it was pretty decent or nothing to shout about.

After another mooch around town we popped to McDonalds for some tea and headed back towards the hotel, my mate said the last time he came barneys did the best smoke he had so we walked up to there. We popped in and headed to the bud counter, the guy was a real salesmen and a bit cocky but seemed ok, I asked about the white widow, and he mutted under his breath “you don’t come to barneys to smoke white widow” he suggested the g13 haze and joked to his friends “you reckon these guys can handle it” by this time I was getting a bit pissed off but when he showed us the bud, wow the smell was something else and it looked awesome, after yet more salesmen type showing off he finally weighed it up and handed us the bag, I think it was about 14-15euros we grabbed a couple of coffees. As much as I didn’t like the wholes salesmen type attitude, he was right in what he said about the bud, about all the crystals tucked in every orifice, and he made sure what ever weight he had to take off was as little bud as possible and even got some scissors and snipped quite abit of hidden stalk off the bud. We rolled a fat one each and sparked it up. Wow this was an awesome smoke and had a distinct lemony/citrusy taste to it and a pretty uplifting high. We sat, smoked and listened to the man that served us explain the difference between hash and weed to a woman that came in, and tbh I think our half of the shop were all listening lol.

So after getting pretty stoned off the haze we retired to our room for another smoke of what we had left of the diesel and the haze and some much needed sleep, those cobbled roads really do make walking a lot more tiring.

[pud]

Day 2

We woke up at around 9 and was out back on the streets of Amsterdam. Both me and my mate agreed that as much as we loved the coffeeshops we had to do some touristy stuff so today we were going to go on one of them canal tours. Before that we had a wander up the canal behind our hotel in search of amnesia. However I had left the map in the room, so after a coin flip it was me that had to climb that mountain of stairs to go n get the map which was basically our bible of the holiday.

After a pretty nice walk up the canal we found amnesia sitting there  id heard so much about this place, so we wandered in, after the usual ID check the menu was turned over. After a quick look through I asked to have a look at the pinapple haze, it looked really good but didn’t smell that much. After a look at another I settled for the pineapple at 12 euro a gram. We grabbed 2 coffees skinned one up and sat out side for a smoke, which is really weird when ryour used to smoking discreetly. It smoked really nice, and had that hint of fruit, all be it it was smoked in a grape rip. the high was mellow and a little light headed, which was a nice way to pass the morning. While we were sitting there one of the boat tours passed and some cheeky asian woman got a nice shot of both of us smoking away. She gave us a nice little wave afterwards to. After that we headed up past grey area and over to dam square and contemplated madame tussaudes but after looking at the prices we decided to do something else.

I had promised my next door neighbour id bring him something back with me (nothing of great value as we were on a budget anyway) so from what id heard I could pick up something from the waterpoolian flea market, was a bit of a trek but we found it in the end. Ended up getting a little minnow pipe for him and after a little bartering got him down to 5 euros  the bloke on the stall also got his little black book out and offered us some weed. They were pretty good deals but he didn’t look one to trust.

My mate suggested we back head down to that harbour type thing near the station where all the tour boats are. We made a detour passed 420 café and had a joint in there with a coffee, nice cosy little place for a chill. When we got down there we had a wander down to the Thomson boat company to have a look at the prices, 17.50 for an hour and half, then we spottod that other one over the other side, 7.50! happy days, little less time, but an hour of canals is surely enough? So the boat set off and we took in the sights while listening to the tour tape in 3 different languages lol.

We had a wander back towards the hotel and stopped in freeworld again, we wanted to use the internet to find where we could rent one of the canal bikes, turned out the nearest was near anne franks  another long walk for us then! We also bought some superpolm hash, so had a pipe of that while we surfed the web for a bit. Its been a good few years since ive smoked hash (im only 19 now lol) but it was the drug of choice back when I was 15, I say hash…what I really mean is blackend soap bar with fook knows how much bad stuff is in it. The superpolm had that hashy taste that brought back a lot of memorys!

On the way up to the canal bike we had a wonder up to find home grown fantasy as we both wanted to try the cheese everyone raved about, after grabbing some of the cheese we grabbed 2 coffees and sat down, there was an American lad next us with 2 pretty big buds tearing them up, I offered him my grinder as he looked like he was struggling, well he ground up both buds and rolled them into a big fat cone. He passed me back the grinder and said “cheers for that, ive left a little in there for you” and sparked up his monster of a joint. Back to the cheese, it was awesome, the smell of it was incredible and the taste was different to any weed id ever had before, I couldn’t taste cheese (was I supposed too?) but it was a mighty fine smoke.

So after the trek up to the canal bike, we set sail on the high seas! Now im one of those people that trys to be goo at everything so I took the rudder and headed towards the left tunnel of one of the bridges, my god them things are hard to drive! I got stuck in the tunnel and it was stuck stuck, it was basically the same situation Austin powers was in when he got that buggy thing stuck. We were in stiches. Also we managed to crash into a couple of house one with a “say no to canal bikes” sticker in the window oooops

We headed back to the hotel to give our feet a bit of a rest, we stopped in popeyes for a smoke before we challenged the Everest staircase. Popeyes is now one of my favourite shops for a smoke, we greeted by a greek man? With long hair and asked us how our day had been ect which was really nice as some of the budtenders don’t seem that arsed to talk to you. I got a gram of mango haze and my mate got a gram of northern lights, we even got to have a toke on the hookah filled with popeyes mix  a nice little gesture, then I realised half of the customers that have come in here will have had their mouth round it…lovely. We sat up at the top and skinned up. The mango haze was really nice, not that crystly but had a nice fruity smell to hit and a nice heady high.

After that we spent the rest of the night smoking and watching the football in the room. Yet another amazing day in the dam,

more to come when i get chance to write the rest!

[the big cheese]

Well i must say i do like a good story. And that is what you have given me. bit gutted that no one else has replied. i do hope more people have taken the time to read it but just not posted back

I would be very happy to hear more of your epic trip

[spliffing]

Good going pud - I'm with cheese on this. It's great to read a good diary - looking forward to the rest.

[doobya]

Pud, I thought I would tell you I am enjoying what you have written, keep it up if you can.

[pud]

Sorry for the massive delay, ivejust not got round to posting it up, below is the rest of it!

Day 3

I woke up about 8am! Feeling pretty awake so I rolled a spliff out of the superpolm and sat on the balcony smoking away while my mate was still fast on, first spliff id had with hash in since I was about 15, and it tasted awesome! After that I climed back into bed, only to be woke up by my mate getting out of the shower, looked at my watch and it was 12pm that space cake and the spliff knocked me out and I got a good 12 hours sleep! My mate went to roll a J out of the northern light he had bought and couldn’t find it any where, we made the assumption that when hed got his wallet out to pay for the food last night, he must have dragged the baggie out 2 

After a shower and getting everything ready we popped down to popeys for a breakfast and to buy some more bud, I decided on white widow and my mate had a gram of jack herrer, I must say a spliff and a full English is a really good way to start the day! Again my mate got done by getting short changed by the bloke behind the counter, another fail for him lol. The plan today was to pop over to the zoo, which we though wouldn’t be too far a walk :\ well a good hour later and we managed to find it! Again navigating by the amount of canals we crossed.

It’s the first time ive been to a proper zoo other than when I was a kid, and I cant remember that. Our legs were killing already from the walk there but we soldiered on, first thing you see are howmany herons flying about every where, there must have been one in virtually every enclosure, one heron was chasing a little group of penguins round their little pool lol, was awesome. We had a go at feeding some kind of monkey some leaves, tried with one of the camels and it had a go for my fingers! Highlight has to be one of the little baboons just picking sh1t out of anothers arse, one of the more disturbing sights ive seen in my life, looked like they both enjoyed it too 

I contemplated rolling a J in a quiet spot but it probably wasn’t the most sensible ideas. After leaving the zoo I don’t think we could hack the walk back so jumped on a tram back towards central station with the intension of getting off where dampkring was, we missed that stop so got off just before dam square and had a wonder around. Stopped in one of the head souvenir shops to get a blunt wrap then headed back towards dam square.

We popped into coffeeshop ben which was off one of the alleys near blues brother coffee shop. Nice little place and had a chat to the budtender who had friends from Sheffield! I bought a gram of northern lights extreme? For 10 euros and sat in the little glass room, there was only us and a couple in there, the comfy seats in there were really nice and gave us both the chance to put our feet up and have a smoke. Cant remember much of the northern lights, proberbly one of the mediocre weeds I tried on the trip.

We headed back to the hotel to roll and smoke a blunt and have a little rest till later. The blunt was awesome, we rolled it with a mix of the northern lights I bought and the jack herer my mate got from popeyes, this put us on our arse for a good hour and half and we just watched a bit of tele for a bit.

Since we got here we had only survived on mcdonalds. Burger king and a few of them pizza things. So we headed out get something proper to eat, when I say out I mean across the road from the hotel lol, there was a Mexican restaurant that had steak and chips for 8.50 so we headed in there. We were the only ones in there, so cant have been the best place in town but it must have been better than burger and chips. They must charge for everything in Amsterdam as they charged us for the bread, garlic butter and some Mexican sauce I had with the steak, we washed all that down with a bottle of amstel gold, 7%! Wasn’t very nice like, but it was needed!

It was about 9 now so we popped into popeyes for another smoke, I love this place, had a real friendly vibe to it. We split a gram of popeyes cream between us both and sat down for a spliff and a couple of coffees.

We were both knacked so went back up to the room for a couple of bongs of the hash and some much needed kip as we had to be up at 9 to check out for 11.

[pud]

Day 4

Our final day here boo hoo, we woke up at 9 to get every thing ready for our 11am kick out time, we both got showered, packed our stuff and sat on the balcony and had a j of some of the hash we had left.

My mate thought it would be nice to build a spliff for the cleaner, sohe set about rolling an average spliff and I wrote “thanks for the stay” on a piece of paper and left them both on the chair while we headed down the Everest stairs to give back the key. We headed straight for the train station and popped our bags in the lockers so we didn’t have to lug everything about.

We then headed over to an internet place to print off our boarding passes, and then strolled into coffeeshop anyday for our morning smoke, I bought a gram of chocolope and my mate bought a gram of shiva. The shop was pretty small and was advertised as the home of the vapouriser, it had got all these different types of glassbong vapourisers, they looked class, we would have to make sure that next time we come over to stop in and try one out. We sat outside with the smallest coffees ever and smoked away, I cant remember what the chocolope was like as im writing this pretty long after the holiday. We sat and watched the street cleaners clean up the streets with their home made twig brooms, while some fat prositiute literally next to the coffeeshop kept banging on the window at us!

After our morning smoke, we headed up to one of the local pastry shops for something to eat, our plan was today was to head up to the Heineken museum for a taste of the fine stuff.

We headed up the main street towards one of the tram stops and stopped in the grasshopper for another smoke, we went up to the bar and asked for a coffee, I wanted a large one but he said that wasn’t possible yet there were large cups available :\ he was a bit of a dick about everything really. We sat down in their little galss conservatory with a few other people and sparked up, soon to realise there wasn’t an ashtray, so I went up and askd, and he was adamant that there was one there. After a big hissifit from him he brought us one down chuntering. And we were able to finish our smoke. Ive gotta say I wont be going there again, coffee was expensive, shit attitude, and just not a very nice place in general.

We jumped on the tram up to the Heineken museum, we got there after a bit of asking and arguing about directions lol.

Wristbands at the ready and ready for our Heineken brainwashing, we joined in on the tour group that must have just got in. The tour its self wasn’t that good, all a big marketing ploy (cant blame them) but we got through it and got to the elusive tasting bar, I struggled to grasp the whole tasting concept and drank mine as soon as he gave me the glass lol, it was awesome, he gave me another and told me not to drink it just yet (winner! Extra glass for me!) still the whole sniffing thing didn’t do it, so I pretended like most people and just nodded at everything he said.

We wandered through the rest of the tour and got our free beers from the last bar, I must say I have not had a nicer beer since coming back from Amsterdam, it was just so crisp and right, you could tell it was really fresh.


After wandering out full of the good stuff we got the tram back towards dam square then ventured back over to amnesia for another smoke, I bought a gram of amnesia haze and my mate just finished what he had left, we sat down with 2 hot chocolates and rolled up. The amnesia haze was really nice from what I can remember, after that, I decided to roll up what I had left in a big fat spliff for later and we got talking to 2 blokes from London that had been here a couple of days, after the usual whats the best coffeeshop you have been discussion we did the good Samaritan and handed over the bible (acd map) grinder, and a few packs of papers, as they were there for a few days longer. They promiced they would do the same on their last day : ). We headed down towards central as it was getting near the time we were due on the train back to the airport. Our last stop to smoke our fat one was rasta baby, weird place this and sempt a little sketchy but the woman behind the counter was sound with us and started making us 2 big coffees, she told us to take a seat and she would bring them out to us. We sat outside and sparked up the last fat joint of the holiday : (. Just after our coffees came, some reggae singer came out and started having a chat with us, Neville valentine was his name and he was out and about promoting his album, we bought one off him and passed round the spliff a couple of times, he wandered off and we left to finish our last smoke lol.

After that we got our bags and boarded the train, which looked full of unhappy stoners leaving stoner city, we were the same.

All in all, a truly awesome trip, im already planning another for February

[MickeyShine]

Good post, thank you!

[Broon_Troot]

nice detailed story pud! a good read.
would like to do a post like that myself but to be honest i just cant be arsed!
shocking eh?

[The Lost Soul]

I wish i could go to Amsterdam for the first time again. Good job mate. Brings back memories.

[URAFEVER]

Great read! I am hopefully going in March and it sounds amazing! I am not even a heavy toker don't smoke much weed mainly soft black and pollen, but obviously would be trying out different types of weed in Amsterdam!