FridayWe got the early morning flight from the UK (8:30) so arrived in Centraal Station in Amsterdam at about midday. We jumped into
Centraal Coffeeshop in order to procure our first smoke of the trip, picked up some
L.A. Confidential (
1.4g @ E12.50 ). Our hotel was the Victoria right across the road from Centraal Station, so we got checked in and up to the room for a smoke. Two joints of the L.A. later, and we were sprawled out on the beds with big smiles on our faces. Our "Amsterdam tolerance" hadn't quite kicked in either.
We went out for a walk to scout out some coffeeshops, and found
Cafe 420 just off one of the main shopping streets, the Nieuwendjik. A really chilled out place, with dark wood interior, a big screen TV which showed Planet Earth DVDs, and some volcano vapourisers and a microscope at the back. Music was good too, mostly old rock. We bought a gram of
Super Silver Haze (
1g @ E12). Notes say
"Super potent weed, really crystally and smells great. Legs wrecked. Knocks you on your arse". After a joint of this we were mashed, so we went outside for a walk and ended up back at the hotel. James (my boyfriend) rolled up another SSH joint, smoked some, said
"Lets not smoke any of this if we plan to do anything" then fell asleep for 3 hours
.
When he woke up we decided to venture into the Red Light District, we had a good time in Baba before and also wanted to check out some smart shops. Baba on Warmoesstraat was packed, so we went into
Route 66 just down the road. It had a seperate smoking area at the back, and the bar and budtender at the front of the shop. We bought
1.8g of
White Widow for
E15, as we're growing some at home and wanted to smoke some. This was the most disappointing purchase of the trip. The weed smelled a bit damp, looked a bit limp and didn't have any real taste to it. We stayed for a drink, as it had a smoking area and we weren't too sure about the rules about tobacco in joints. Cafe 420 didn't seem too bothered, as long as you didn't leave fags on the table (and the budtender was smoking a cigarette one day we went in), but Centraal Coffeeshop had no smoking signs on every table, and everyone was smoking spliffs outside.
We walked around the corner to the Oude Kirk, which is a really pretty church in the middle of the red light district. There are a few coffeeshops in the street that circles it, along with a few red light windows. we went into the
Old Church Coffeeshop, but their weed menu didn't look too appealing so we just ordered some drinks. We sat down but they had rules on the table, stating that we couldn't smoke tobacco in our joints. They also said we could only smoke weed we had purchased there! This was the only place we noticed this, on our whole trip. We rolled a joint inside, then went outside to smoke on the picnic tables outside, and watch the passers-by. The place only had 1 or 2 other customers, so they didn't come and complain to us about smoking our own weed - just as well!
After a joint we walked around the corner and down the canal street Oudezidjes Voorbungal, coffeeshop spotting and looking for smart shops. We spotted one down a lane (which we've now read in a guide is called "Filth Alley" because of all the prostitutes there and the narrowness of the alley. Luckily it was still dusk so not too intimidating... until we got halfway down the alley and 3 big guys just in front of us flew to the side, into the wall, and started fighting with each other. They were kicking each other into the wall and shouting loudly in a foreign language (not English or Dutch or German). So we decided to give that smartshop a miss, and come back later
We wandered back through Dam square and up Niewezijds Voorbungwal, laughing at signs, "Slagroom", and Niewe Niewe Street (New new street?). We spotted
Homegrown Fantasy on the corner and stopped in for a coffee and also picked up some
Cheese Dust (
1g @ E20). These guys do excellent coffee, and they don't mind you smoking tobacco inside in your joints either. Although we weren't sure on our first visit so we sat outside, it was a nice warm evening. Homegrown Fantasy is a really relaxed place, nice atmosphere, and a cool bathroom
The cheese dust came in a little test tube (can get pics at the weekend of most of the stuff we bought). It was really fluffy and light green/yellow. Really stinks up your fingers. We used the cheese dust to brighten up a white widow joint, the taste off the cheese dust was much nicer. This stuff lasted ages, we smoked it on it's own or to beef up joints when we only had a little of something left.
We cut back up past Betty Boop and Ben, back to
Cafe 420, their weed was the nicest we'd had so far, and we wanted to try some more. We bought
N.Y.C. Diesel (
1g @ E11), which tasted really nice, not as sweet as the SSH but looked just as crystally. We had a few joints and were entertained by the cat, Maxi, who is super cool. He just sits there, stoned, on a bar stool, and gets attention from everyone. He loves it, he's so friendly. The staff in this place were friendly as well, the guy gave us 1.1g as well, after we commented how much we enjoyed the haze earlier.
The bakery across the street from Cafe 420 does the best brownies ever. And their other cakes aren't bad either. But get the brownies, they're awesome.
SaturdayBreakfast at the hotel sucked. Bacon all fat and no meat, and crappy little sausages. Oh yeah and the coffee was grainy. Back to the hotel room for a joint or two to cheer ourselves up, and then we were off on a mission to find some mushrooms. We found a smart shop just behind the hotel (a few doors down from Prix Dami) called
Elements of Nature. The girl in there was really helpful and friendly, and showed us some truffles (sclerotia) she had. She didn't have the strongest ones in stock until the evening, but recommended the 2nd strongest on the list
"Golden Teacher", which she said a lot of people reported as enjoying more than the stronger ones. We bought 2 boxes of
15g @E17.50 each. We were advised to take them on an empty stomach so we needed to kill an hour or so, while breakfast settled.
We pottered down the street to 420 and had a joint and a coffee, and a peek at our truffles, they looked disgusting. I had tried philosophers stones on our last trip to Amsterdam and didn't enjoy eating them very much, and didn't get much of a trip off them. These ones were stronger though. We headed back to the hotel, after stocking up on drinks, chocolate and orange juice. We ate the mushrooms at noon and they tasted nutty and crunchy, I guess a bit like nuts
I'm not a fan of nuts though, but I managed to chew them down with some water. Tidied up a bit and by the time I had sat down and rolled a joint, I felt stuff starting to take effect, I was finding things on the TV funny and sitting on the bed swaying about like I was drunk
The advice given to us was that chocolate and weed brings you up, and sugary drinks and orange juice bring you back down, so I sat at the window and smoked my spliff, soon after I noticed things getting blurry, and colours getting brighter, or more noticeable. We watched Animal Planet for about 2 hours, Shark Month! Intense and hilarious at the same time. We caught ourselves looking out the window at the clouds and the church steeples and Amsterdam skyline, and pretty rooftops. The clouds swirled and moved like magic eye pictures and the rooftops looked like an MC Escher picture. We spent the afternoon in our hotel room with the door locked - we got a bit paranoid when the phone rang to ask if we wanted maid service as we had a DND sign on the doorknob. We watched Cool Runnings and some more shark stuff, and smoked the rest of our weed.
About 5pm the effects of the mushrooms started to wear off and pretty soon we just felt stoned and hungry - we hadn't eaten since breakfast (the chocolate was awful). We got a McDonalds as it was right outside our hotel, then headed down to
Cafe420 to buy some more smoke. We went for
Nevilles Haze this time, a 100% sativa, the most expensive on the menu at
E13 per gram. Worth it though, we needed a nice fresh smoke and it perked us right up. It was really crystally and tasted similar to the SSH, although the stone was more high and less baked, we could still walk around afterwards.
We decided to go for a walk and get some fresh air, after being cooped up all afternoon, and stopped at
Siberie to pick up some hash for the trip. We bought some
Casablanca (
1g @ E9), which was a soft light hash. I only heated it slightly with the lighter once, then it just crumbled away. We had a spliff of it in their little smoking areas (not sure if I like these, it feels a bit cooped up and it gets smokier, faster), and I rolled another for the walk. Casablanca is a good daytime smoke, good for a bit of a change from the skunk taste, but tbh we don't get a lot of good weed around here so it was hard to look past the Weed menus to look at hash and iceolator, etc.
We walked all the way down the canals in what seemed to be the nicer part of town, a lot of beautiful buildings and some clearly expensive renovated apartment buildings, with flashy cars and massive TVs. We saw a lot of people out on boats, and realised why, when we got to the south of the canals and there was a canal festival. The whole of the canal was packed full with boats, big and small, full of people enjoying themselves, having a drink. The bridges and pavements around about the canals were also packed with people having a good time and celebrating, it was pretty cool. It was also really busy and the traffic was bustling, so we had a quick look and then headed back towards town. I'd been trying to scout out Grey Area, but without any success so far. We finally spotted it, but it was closed. We crossed over the road and noticed Abraxas too, but it was tiny and full of people so we passed by.
We walked up and spotted the
Bulldog Lounge, which only had a few people sitting outside, so we went in for a look. Ordered
Amnesia Haze (
1.1g @ E12), and two fresh orange juice. It's fresh made in front of you, just the way I like it. We asked if we had to sit outside to smoke tobacco in our joints, as the only people there were sat outside, but he said, "as long as it doesn't look like a cigarette, it's ok". The place was pretty nice inside, all done in dark wood like an english bar. Pics up of some famous people or other, having a smoke. Amnesia Haze was a pretty decent smoke as well, the bud we got was really sticky to the touch, and smelled good.
SundayWe headed back round to
Baba, hoping most places would be less busy on Sunday/Monday because a lot of tourists would be heading home already. It was quieter, and we picked up some
Jack Herer (
1g @ E7.50). We were trying to avoid cheaper smokes as we thought they would be sub-par, but even though this was one of the cheapest bags we'd bought, it was still a fairly good smoke. Better than the white widow, and got us real stoned, it just didn't have a special taste, like a lot of the haze's we had smoked. Baba's interior is great, they have water bongs on all the tables, and big jars of "herbal smoking mix" as an alternative to tobacco, on the tables as well. Although they didn't mind us using tobacco.
We walked down Oudezidjes Voorbungal again, headed for the
Cannabis College. They have a garden in the basement, with plants in all different stages of growth. It was really interesting, and the girl working down there was friendly and immediately offered to answer any questions we had. We talked to her a bit about our grow and she gave us some advice. It was great to see someone else's working garden, and be able to talk face to face with someone who knew what they were doing. A great way to kill half an hour.
We took a walk through Dam square again and along towards
Grey Area. I almost got lost again and had to check my map, and as I looked on the map I realised it was just outside my field of view! We jumped in and the place was pretty busy (it's only small, a few tables and a couple of stools along the wall with a shelf). Their menu looked great, we picked up
Big Buddha Cheese (
1g @E13) and
L.A. Confidential (
1g @E12). We sat up on the stools and made a joint of Big Buddha Cheese, then walked along to the canal outside and smoked it on the bridge. What can I say, we were baked
It definitely had the distinctive cheesey taste and smell, and my eyelids felt heavy after just a few tokes. By this point we were hungry so we headed up towards dampkring / barneys e.t.c. to get some food. Most places were busy, and dampkring had a queue out the door for weed! A few doors down was a cafe called La Grotte ( I think?), where we stopped for some toasties, coffee and O.J. Pretty good food and cheap too. They also let you smoke weed there
So I rolled up a joint of L.A. Confidential, the stuff we'd had from Centraal station earlier was pretty nice, but this stuff was in another league. The bud was rock hard and I had to really twist some off. Covered in crystals, and one of the best tasting smokes we had. We walked back along Haarlemmerstraat, looking at smart shops, and ended up back in the place we'd bought truffles the day earlier. The same girl was working there and we said we really enjoyed the trip! She had stock of the stronger ones in, but advised us to take half, and then take the other half about 45mins later. They were Cosmic Connections, 2 boxes for the same price as before.
We went to 420 for a smoke and a drink, then back to the hotel to enjoy some mushrooms again! We watched Catch Me If You Can (great film!) and got really baked on Grey Area weed and some other bits and bobs. The second lot of mushrooms were quite good (laughing for 20mins cause I dropped a spoon in the bin, proper belly laughs, was awesome), but taking them in two halves seriously reduced the potency and they seemed much weaker than the first lot we tried.
MondayWe had pretty much smoked all our weed the night before, in the hotel, so we headed down to Cafe 420 for another gram of Super Silver Haze to set us up for the day. We remembered we walked past
Abraxas Too, and decided to go find the bigger one. Found it without any problems, just south of Dam square.
The menu was disappointing, they had a few things blacked out, and the only things on the menu were things we'd already tried, nothing stood out. So we just ordered two big hot chocolates with cream and smoked some of our own. The decor on the walls and stuff was pretty cool, but the place in general seemed a bit scabby and run down. The toilets in the bathroom were leaking and the floor had a big puddle in it.
We went for a stroll and literally stumbled upon
Amnesia, so went in for a look at their menu. They had a lot of choice, I wish I had found the place earlier, we got a
gram of
Amnesia Lemon for
E13, and some fruit juice. This place looks like it has recently been done up, nice new seats, wallpaper, e.t.c. They also have a few vapourisers on a shelf on the wall next to the budtender, and board games. The amnesia bud didn't smell too lemony, but when you ground it up in the grinder, it seemed to release the lemon smell and it was pungent. A really fresh smoke, enjoyed this a lot. The guy in front of us bought 5g so got free rolling papers, which he didn't want, so we got free rizlas.
We walked up to
Dampkring and it was a lot quieter, sat upstairs for a coffee and a smoke, really nice interior in here. Didn't buy any weed though, counter was busy when we went in and left.
Back to the hotel for a bit and some lunch.
We walked down the Nieuwezidjs Voorbungal and stopped in the
Greenhouse for a drink and a joint. We had to sit outside in their smoking area, which was literally as hot as a greenhouse (we should have sat in the inside smoking glass room instead).
We had been walking around checking out some seedbanks for some inspiration for our next grow, and we visited Homegrown Fantaseeds. The guy there was really helpful, we talked to him about growing cheese, and he said if we wanted to try it, their coffeeshop was around the corner. We told him we already got some cheese dust that we enjoyed, but we went around the corner on the way out and ended up stopping in anyway for a gram of Cheese (
1g @E13). We sat inside this time to smoke, and had another great coffee. As for the cheese, this stuff was stinky. Easily the strongest smelling stuff we bought, it stunk my bag out. We would have loved to have brought some home but I was really afraid for the smell of it. A really different smoke, distinctive cheesey taste, and really stoned. We like cheese
We went for dinner and then had to find somewhere to watch the Liverpool Vs Aston Villa Game (boyfriend is a liverpool supporter). First we checked out
Prix Dami, since it was just behind our hotel, but it was a bit scabby and there were three girls in the room shouting and screaming, it was pretty distracting. The game didn't start for 15mins so we finished our drinks and walked around to the Oude Kirk in the red light district, I remembered seeing
Stone's Cafe there, which advertised showing football matches in the window. They were showing the match
And they were a pub, they sold beer, the coffeeshop was around the corner. So James even got to have a few pints and spliffs and watch the footie, shame his team got humped
This place is pretty decent, nice atmosphere, friendly staff, music is alright as well.
By the end of the game we had smoked ourselves dry, so we walked back to
Cafe 420 on the way back to the hotel. We picked up a gram of their
Kush (
1g @ 12E), stayed for a joint and a drink, then headed back to the hotel for another wee smoke and bed. The Kush was a pretty nice smoke as well, (I haven't written down any notes on it and we smoked it pretty quickly, can't remember much about it, but nothing bad, which is good). I do remember falling asleep pretty damn fast and sleeping really soundly though, which is exactly what we were looking for.
The next morning we jumped down to 420 and picked up 5g of SSH to bring home, and made a couple of joints with the last of our Kush, to smoke at the airport and stuff.
We had an awesome holiday, I really miss Amsterdam already, although I'm happy not to be spending so much money every day It was wicked, hopefully we'll be able to make it a yearly occurrence.
maybe next month. . Before the cup . . . Before the americans arrive 
Time to roll up some more SSH, I love this stuff!
Now he only has to do half the skinning up!
). Philosophers stones are one example, but they're weaker than the types that we tried. Apparently you can still get your hands on the illegal ones by asking around, but we obviously didn't look like the type, we asked a few places, but we were pretty happy with the ones we tried.