I know, last summer right? I had account problems that were finally
resolved when I registered a new account on here. This is a take
on Amsterdam after visiting twice last summer on a backpacking
trip through Europe.
We landed in the dam and my dutch friend from the area
picked us up to show us around. I was very appreciative of his
offering to guide us, and after a lengthy plane ride I was ready to get
down to business in the place known worldwide for its weed.
Our first stop was Barney's coffee shop, where we purchased
G13 X Haze and some of their Caramello Hash.
We then walked across
the street to Barney's dining cafe to enjoy our goods. What came up
next I was not ready for. We broke into a bag of perfumey G13Haze and
started breaking it up when all of a sudden - my dutch friend started
pulling tobacco from one of his cigarettes.
Ugh, tobacco - So I told him I would like to smoke it pure.
His response? "The weed is so powerful here man, that if you don't use tobacco, you get TOO high"
He was also trying
to show us how to roll a correct european spliff which, (according to him)
requires tobacco in order to burn right. That was fun to learn,
you basically have a really long joint paper and use the mouthpiece
(they sell paper mouthpieces everywhere) to cradle the material into a cone shape.
Good stuff, but boo on tobacco.
Ok, so we lit up a partially enjoyable spliff of G13Haze to start the day.
Not too bad. The staff at Barney's restaurant was relatively
snobby compared to what you deal with in an american diner.
I casually put my foot up on the chair across from me which is a
European no-no
oops, and the same bar-maid who had just been
rifling through her nose, very nonchalant, came to tell me I was in the wrong.
We ate an overpriced breakfast and continued the quest.
we eventually had to part ways from my dutch friend.
My throat was fried after our first day of only smoking weed mixed with tobacco
and I HATE TOBACCO. It gets me sick, the only good form of tobacco in my
eyes is a blunt.
Here is my take on the coffee shops we visited and strains they offered.
Amnesia - This was a nice little coffee shop that has undergone
construction since I was there, but when we went it was a little square
room with a few vaporizers and a bud counter. We got some Amnesia
Haze and Pink Kush here. Pink Kush through the volcano there tasted like strawberries and put me in a euphoric daze. I LOVED
PINK KUSH, where can I find the seeds?
Abraxas - a spacious coffee shop with outside seating down a small side-street. The hash cakes were excellent.
The bud-tender there was a bit full of himself, but a real character. He was a dutch guy in glasses maybe in his 20's.
He was very high on himself shouting he would show this and that, some of the best buds we would see in our lives.
I don't remember purchasing a particular strain here, but the atmosphere was pretty good.
Abraxas Too - Great Hash cakes, we bought some juicy fruit here that rocked.
Taste and stone were phenomenal, 2 or 3 of their space cakes will get you baked for long train rides.
I liked their Hawaiian Haze (or was it hawaiian snow?)
Barney's - We met some cool people from around the world at this cafe while smoking blue cheese through one of their volcano vaporizers.
They had some good smoke to offer, including some very expensive hash! Barney Rubble, Ice-o-lator Violator and Helter Skelter
are all hashes priced to break your wallet, We opted to pass on this hash in order to save money to try other strains.
We tried a lot of strains here, I will try to sum up what I can remember.
Amnesia Haze - Some of the frostiest, prettiest, stoniest stuff I've seen,
we saw amnesia haze at Barney's (pretty sure) and Amnesia's cafe, this is prime time smoke and worth a try.
Blue Cheese - This made me a believer, I smoke partly because I love the taste of cannabis and this brought
blueberry to my tongue in no way any other smoke has to this date.
Crimea Blue - They also sold this as a blueberry tasting hybrid, it was decent but didn't match up to the blue cheese.
G13 X Haze - Their cannabis cup winner. This perfumey, high thc mostly sativa smoke was described
to us by the tender as an intense, trippy high thats fine for the day. We enjoyed this strain and it
definitely had unique characteristics that would set it apart from other, more generic weeds, but
I still liked blue cheese better!
Honey Bee - This was a nice sativa, very smooth and sweet smoke, reminded me of the hawaiian strains that were uplifting and being sold
around in other coffee shops
Willie Nelson - What were they doing selling this stringy looking
ditch-weed to customers? It had some sort of cannabis cup trophy from
a long time ago and the bud-tender told me it was a good sativa smoke
for the daytime, but it barely looked like it could pass as beasters to me.
It sounded more like the strain was put in place to grab in the
American tourists who could go home and say they smoked the Willie Nelson.
In my opinion this strain not a good homage to the man himself, I hope someone here can shed a more positive light.
White Widow - True to the name, this strain was the cheapest strain
we could get from Barney's in bulk so we got 5 g's - This stuff makes
you CHOKE! It was full of crystals and did have a narcotic high, not
too much smell but potency and choke factors were definitely in effect.
couch-lock city.
Nepali Temple Ball - A dark, smokey tasting hash that had won some kind
of award and really tasted like sour smoking bark. It might not sound good, but it was.
Caramello - A goldish blond hash that was sweet and smooth tasting on the exhale.
This hash was smooth to play with and AWESOME smoke. Good
paired up with some flavorful weed in a joint. (try Grey Area's chocolope
with it).
The Greenhouse Co. - A nice place with an open atmosphere, lots
of various 'Arjan's Haze' varieties, some impressive, some not so much.
They had bongs to borrow and TV's going on. Fishes swim below your feet in the
middle of the lounge in an enclosed tank built into the floor. I'm fuzzy on EVERYTHING
we tried, this list might get some updates.
Arjan's haze #1 - This was good, it had a tangy citrus taste, we smoked
it through a bong there and it was an expansive tasty smoke which hit you
up high rather than down low (does that make sense?)
Arjan's Haze #2 - I could be mixing 1 and 2 up, but I believe this was the version of Arjan's haze
that I didn't care much for, it seemed watered down.
Arjan's Strawberry Haze - well like I was disappointed with the last haze, this one was a total let down.
I searched all throughout the little 1 g nugget we had gotten for a strawberry sweetness, nothing at all!
Fairly lame smoke, too. A let down, don't advertise strawberry in it and get my hopes up like that
- it was as disappointing as our experience with Dutch Passion's strawberry cough strain! Where has the real strawberry cough gone?
Cheese - at first look of this strain on the menu, I passed by it. Eventually on one visit I asked to see and smell the cheese.
Needless to say I immediately bought a gram. Right after my first toke of this awesome bud, I realized..... This was what
put the cheese in the Blue Cheese!!! Great smoke.true nice smell, ours was like skunk pine-lemon almost like berries as well.
Super Silver Haze - This made up for a lot of the mistakes the other hazes had made. This was almost a lemon haze taste,
really spunky and out there. It was like some stuff I had tried before claiming to be the same strain but better grown.
The taste of this was great and would overcome most other tastes in a mixed joint.
Hawaiian Snow - We tried the hawaiian strain here and it almost made me want to invest to test the genetics myself.
This was a nice sativa high,terrific smoke for the morning if you're just setting out in the dam on a day of sampling!
They had a few others we tried - to be added later.
Grasshopper - there are a few different versions of this place, the one we went to was in Centrum I believe. We tried the Jack Herrer, which I had
been interested in because I had tried female seed's cinnamon, which claims to have a Jack Herrer lineage. Jack Herrer was dense and one of
the better buds we had there. We didn't stay too long, just browsing.
GREY AREA - This place was small and had a few tables with rickety
steel chairs that would squeal everytime you moved them, the bongs were dirty from the thousands of hits passed through them, but the quality
of herb and hash made up for any minor drawbacks. The tender seemed like an American dude with a fondness for his work.
Grey Berry - A really enjoyable frosted berry tasting nug. The taste rivaled barney's blue cheese and the choke was similar to the white widow,
very nice.
Silver Bubble - It was a bubblegum cross of some sort. It smelled sweet like cotton candy and had really frosty nugs,
in general, the nugs at grey area were dense and packed with crystals, but this smoke was sweet going in and made me choke on the exhale.
Grey Diesel - SO much talk about Sour Diesel lately had me dying to try the real diesel variety they offered at the shop.
You break into a nug and the smell truely is skunky fuel, really stinky and it seemed to match up to the bag appeal all the others did.
Completely worth it if you're looking for a diesel.
Grey Crystal (nederhash) - They sold basically unpressed kif by the gram and called it the Grey Crystal,
it was one of the best things we had tried there. Getting Kif by the gram is a pleasure not to be ignored, I mean - come on. Try it.
I hear L.A. Confidential and ReCON are also great from here.
Rokerij - This place was nice and dark, almost gothic seeming. They sold plenty of gear and were friendly.
There was a paper/blunt dispenser across from the bud bar and we purchased a crazy triple layer blunt (only used 1 layer)
and smoked some of their bio canna sutra. It was such a blast to us that we could smoke a blunt of some nice bud or hash
right in the store we bought it in. We enjoyed exercising our freedom to inhale!
Dampkring - This shop had good stock, a tall cabinet with rows of square plastic drawers sits behind the
bar and tenders can slide out these plastic trays to show the customer different strains. They had quality
bud such as diesel, power plant, a good hash selection and plenty of room, but the bald-headed tender
who catered to us was a prick. I was scanning through the menu, appreciating how they list which strains are sativa, indica, or mixed.
I noticed that power plant was listed as an indica and I was curious so I started asking
(Dutch Passion's Power Plant is a sativa smoke I've had before and great for going to work or starting the day).
The budtender treated me with a sarcastic attitude, started trying to test whether I could understand the difference
from one bud he showed me to the other. When I said I noticed a difference, he stated sarcastically, "you must be a true cannabis connaseur then."
Whatever, you gotta have a thick skin. We bought power plant and King's hash and moved on! Big downs on customer friendliness though. Try the John Sinclaire.
Dolphins - this was a nice place with a couple floors that had good white widdow and hash, both named after the coffeeshop.
The drinks were good, we got a mango looza and smoked upstairs. The vibe was good, the girl behind the counter could barely give a damn.
Other Honorable Mention
The Doors
Homegrown Fantasy
Baba - They were giving away free pipes - metal, but still free.
Route66
Picasso
I also heard good things about Kadinsky, but do not recall visiting.
Seed shops are plentiful. You won't find a better selection on a better website in a better area for better prices than you will see in some of these shops.
We stopped in on a few and had a long conversation with one of the girls working there who said she was working on a crop of her own at the moment.
Also if you're interested in psychadelics, there are a few "smart shops" at almost every main street that sell varying levels of mushrooms.
Be careful who you trip with though! Our dutch friend tripped with us and had an "evil" trip!
My major Disappointment with the trip?
LACK of kush strains. The one kush strain I got to try from Amnesia blew me away. Amsterdam seemed
to be all about the hazes when I was there, which were all pretty prime in taste look and effect I guess.
But you'd think there would be more shops offering kush!
Bike Traffic - Be weary WHENEVER you cross the street. We saw a British tourist walk right in front of a single biker
who crashed into him and caused a 4-bike pile up with a moped crashing into the whole pile at the end.
Don't piss off the Dutch, and just pay attention, there are 2 lanes of traffic now - bike and car. Respect the culture!
After the Smoking Ban - We were there June of last summer and revisited in early july just as the smoking ban had been put in place.
The smoking ban did not impact any shop's marijuana sales as it seemed. Tobacco was banned though (YES!)
and the guys from Baba told us the Dutch were generally pissed that they couldn't smoke
a spliff (tobacco X cannabis joint) in their shops. They offered this herbal substitute for tobacco
that looked like tea at tables in Barney's and other places. This was when Amnesia was under construction
so we couldn't snag anymore pink kush, but I would love to find the seeds somewhere.
The Music - Be prepared for techno if you get interested in the club or music scene around there,
I wasn't! My Dutch friend came over with a laptop full of techno music
for us to trip to at the bed and breakfast we were renting. I wasn't a big fan so I said no thanks,
but he insisted that "everyone has a certain house music," and he racked his playlist
trying to find something I would like. Eventually he found some ATB techno I used to listen to back in the day
which was nostalgic to me so I eventually gave in to the techno fever.
Red Light District - Yes, its there, and yes, they really are that lax about sex.
My girlfriend and I stayed in a hostel across from a 3 story 'brothel' even.
A bunch of horny british kids walked by us asking where the red light district was
- we pointed them in the right direction and they were ZOOM, gone. I'm not advising anyone to check it out,
but its amazing to see prosititution accepted in any culture. My dutch friend stated the regular fee for a
suck and fuck from any girl there was 70 euro. Single lonely batchelors - have at em!
About Hostels - many of you will probably be staying in hostels, although a B&B can be as cheap
if you book ahead of time! You must obey hostel rules or they will exercise their rights to impose
a fine on you or kick you out! We had a TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE AT THE STAYOKAY VONDELPARK HOSTEL.
Why? The StayOkay hostels employ budget security guards for night watch who are not affiliated with the hostel at all!!!
We had a security guard named Omar bust in on our room while we were sleeping. He claimed he smelled smoke
and confiscated 2 MEGA joints I had spent a long time rolling with many of the strains I mentioned in it.
He also confiscated our hash cakes, but we had been sleeping for a few HOURS by then! Oh wow was
I pissed at this man who BUSTED into our room and started making accusations! Anyway, we got it taken
care of the next day. The people who worked there said the fire alarm would have gone off if we were smoking
and the security guard had no right to break in. They gave me my 2 joints back, the hash cakes and a
free T-shirt for my troubles of literally staying up ALL NIGHT. They should have refunded me for the night's sleep.
DO NOT STAY AT THE STAYOKAY HOSTELS, YOU WILL NOT BE OKAY!
Hope this helps some people who haven't been yet, its a really fun experience, staying in the dam is expensive!
The prices there for hostels are extravagant and nevermind the 2-4 star hotels! You'll have payed for a used car
by the time you've spent a week in one of those.
We have a lot of pictures and more strains to mention later, but this is what I can remember from the summer.
There were coffeeshops to stay away from, run down rasta looking shops or the bulldog were places we didn't even bother with.
There really is a mix of the quality, but I'd say on the whole we sampled some great strains.
resolved when I registered a new account on here. This is a take
on Amsterdam after visiting twice last summer on a backpacking
trip through Europe.
We landed in the dam and my dutch friend from the area
picked us up to show us around. I was very appreciative of his
offering to guide us, and after a lengthy plane ride I was ready to get
down to business in the place known worldwide for its weed.
Our first stop was Barney's coffee shop, where we purchased
G13 X Haze and some of their Caramello Hash.
We then walked across
the street to Barney's dining cafe to enjoy our goods. What came up
next I was not ready for. We broke into a bag of perfumey G13Haze and
started breaking it up when all of a sudden - my dutch friend started
pulling tobacco from one of his cigarettes.
Ugh, tobacco - So I told him I would like to smoke it pure.
His response? "The weed is so powerful here man, that if you don't use tobacco, you get TOO high"
He was also tryingto show us how to roll a correct european spliff which, (according to him)
requires tobacco in order to burn right. That was fun to learn,
you basically have a really long joint paper and use the mouthpiece
(they sell paper mouthpieces everywhere) to cradle the material into a cone shape.
Good stuff, but boo on tobacco.
Ok, so we lit up a partially enjoyable spliff of G13Haze to start the day.
Not too bad. The staff at Barney's restaurant was relatively
snobby compared to what you deal with in an american diner.
I casually put my foot up on the chair across from me which is a
European no-no
oops, and the same bar-maid who had just beenrifling through her nose, very nonchalant, came to tell me I was in the wrong.
We ate an overpriced breakfast and continued the quest.
we eventually had to part ways from my dutch friend.
My throat was fried after our first day of only smoking weed mixed with tobacco
and I HATE TOBACCO. It gets me sick, the only good form of tobacco in my
eyes is a blunt.
Here is my take on the coffee shops we visited and strains they offered.
Amnesia - This was a nice little coffee shop that has undergone
construction since I was there, but when we went it was a little square
room with a few vaporizers and a bud counter. We got some Amnesia
Haze and Pink Kush here. Pink Kush through the volcano there tasted like strawberries and put me in a euphoric daze. I LOVED
PINK KUSH, where can I find the seeds?
Abraxas - a spacious coffee shop with outside seating down a small side-street. The hash cakes were excellent.
The bud-tender there was a bit full of himself, but a real character. He was a dutch guy in glasses maybe in his 20's.
He was very high on himself shouting he would show this and that, some of the best buds we would see in our lives.
I don't remember purchasing a particular strain here, but the atmosphere was pretty good.
Abraxas Too - Great Hash cakes, we bought some juicy fruit here that rocked.
Taste and stone were phenomenal, 2 or 3 of their space cakes will get you baked for long train rides.
I liked their Hawaiian Haze (or was it hawaiian snow?)
Barney's - We met some cool people from around the world at this cafe while smoking blue cheese through one of their volcano vaporizers.
They had some good smoke to offer, including some very expensive hash! Barney Rubble, Ice-o-lator Violator and Helter Skelter
are all hashes priced to break your wallet, We opted to pass on this hash in order to save money to try other strains.
We tried a lot of strains here, I will try to sum up what I can remember.
Amnesia Haze - Some of the frostiest, prettiest, stoniest stuff I've seen,
we saw amnesia haze at Barney's (pretty sure) and Amnesia's cafe, this is prime time smoke and worth a try.
Blue Cheese - This made me a believer, I smoke partly because I love the taste of cannabis and this brought
blueberry to my tongue in no way any other smoke has to this date.
Crimea Blue - They also sold this as a blueberry tasting hybrid, it was decent but didn't match up to the blue cheese.
G13 X Haze - Their cannabis cup winner. This perfumey, high thc mostly sativa smoke was described
to us by the tender as an intense, trippy high thats fine for the day. We enjoyed this strain and it
definitely had unique characteristics that would set it apart from other, more generic weeds, but
I still liked blue cheese better!
Honey Bee - This was a nice sativa, very smooth and sweet smoke, reminded me of the hawaiian strains that were uplifting and being sold
around in other coffee shops
Willie Nelson - What were they doing selling this stringy looking
ditch-weed to customers? It had some sort of cannabis cup trophy from
a long time ago and the bud-tender told me it was a good sativa smoke
for the daytime, but it barely looked like it could pass as beasters to me.
It sounded more like the strain was put in place to grab in the
American tourists who could go home and say they smoked the Willie Nelson.
In my opinion this strain not a good homage to the man himself, I hope someone here can shed a more positive light.
White Widow - True to the name, this strain was the cheapest strain
we could get from Barney's in bulk so we got 5 g's - This stuff makes
you CHOKE! It was full of crystals and did have a narcotic high, not
too much smell but potency and choke factors were definitely in effect.
couch-lock city.
Nepali Temple Ball - A dark, smokey tasting hash that had won some kind
of award and really tasted like sour smoking bark. It might not sound good, but it was.
Caramello - A goldish blond hash that was sweet and smooth tasting on the exhale.
This hash was smooth to play with and AWESOME smoke. Good
paired up with some flavorful weed in a joint. (try Grey Area's chocolope
with it).
The Greenhouse Co. - A nice place with an open atmosphere, lots
of various 'Arjan's Haze' varieties, some impressive, some not so much.
They had bongs to borrow and TV's going on. Fishes swim below your feet in the
middle of the lounge in an enclosed tank built into the floor. I'm fuzzy on EVERYTHING
we tried, this list might get some updates.
Arjan's haze #1 - This was good, it had a tangy citrus taste, we smoked
it through a bong there and it was an expansive tasty smoke which hit you
up high rather than down low (does that make sense?)
Arjan's Haze #2 - I could be mixing 1 and 2 up, but I believe this was the version of Arjan's haze
that I didn't care much for, it seemed watered down.
Arjan's Strawberry Haze - well like I was disappointed with the last haze, this one was a total let down.
I searched all throughout the little 1 g nugget we had gotten for a strawberry sweetness, nothing at all!
Fairly lame smoke, too. A let down, don't advertise strawberry in it and get my hopes up like that
- it was as disappointing as our experience with Dutch Passion's strawberry cough strain! Where has the real strawberry cough gone?
Cheese - at first look of this strain on the menu, I passed by it. Eventually on one visit I asked to see and smell the cheese.
Needless to say I immediately bought a gram. Right after my first toke of this awesome bud, I realized..... This was what
put the cheese in the Blue Cheese!!! Great smoke.true nice smell, ours was like skunk pine-lemon almost like berries as well.
Super Silver Haze - This made up for a lot of the mistakes the other hazes had made. This was almost a lemon haze taste,
really spunky and out there. It was like some stuff I had tried before claiming to be the same strain but better grown.
The taste of this was great and would overcome most other tastes in a mixed joint.
Hawaiian Snow - We tried the hawaiian strain here and it almost made me want to invest to test the genetics myself.
This was a nice sativa high,terrific smoke for the morning if you're just setting out in the dam on a day of sampling!
They had a few others we tried - to be added later.
Grasshopper - there are a few different versions of this place, the one we went to was in Centrum I believe. We tried the Jack Herrer, which I had
been interested in because I had tried female seed's cinnamon, which claims to have a Jack Herrer lineage. Jack Herrer was dense and one of
the better buds we had there. We didn't stay too long, just browsing.
GREY AREA - This place was small and had a few tables with rickety
steel chairs that would squeal everytime you moved them, the bongs were dirty from the thousands of hits passed through them, but the quality
of herb and hash made up for any minor drawbacks. The tender seemed like an American dude with a fondness for his work.
Grey Berry - A really enjoyable frosted berry tasting nug. The taste rivaled barney's blue cheese and the choke was similar to the white widow,
very nice.
Silver Bubble - It was a bubblegum cross of some sort. It smelled sweet like cotton candy and had really frosty nugs,
in general, the nugs at grey area were dense and packed with crystals, but this smoke was sweet going in and made me choke on the exhale.
Grey Diesel - SO much talk about Sour Diesel lately had me dying to try the real diesel variety they offered at the shop.
You break into a nug and the smell truely is skunky fuel, really stinky and it seemed to match up to the bag appeal all the others did.
Completely worth it if you're looking for a diesel.
Grey Crystal (nederhash) - They sold basically unpressed kif by the gram and called it the Grey Crystal,
it was one of the best things we had tried there. Getting Kif by the gram is a pleasure not to be ignored, I mean - come on. Try it.
I hear L.A. Confidential and ReCON are also great from here.
Rokerij - This place was nice and dark, almost gothic seeming. They sold plenty of gear and were friendly.
There was a paper/blunt dispenser across from the bud bar and we purchased a crazy triple layer blunt (only used 1 layer)
and smoked some of their bio canna sutra. It was such a blast to us that we could smoke a blunt of some nice bud or hash
right in the store we bought it in. We enjoyed exercising our freedom to inhale!
Dampkring - This shop had good stock, a tall cabinet with rows of square plastic drawers sits behind the
bar and tenders can slide out these plastic trays to show the customer different strains. They had quality
bud such as diesel, power plant, a good hash selection and plenty of room, but the bald-headed tender
who catered to us was a prick. I was scanning through the menu, appreciating how they list which strains are sativa, indica, or mixed.
I noticed that power plant was listed as an indica and I was curious so I started asking
(Dutch Passion's Power Plant is a sativa smoke I've had before and great for going to work or starting the day).
The budtender treated me with a sarcastic attitude, started trying to test whether I could understand the difference
from one bud he showed me to the other. When I said I noticed a difference, he stated sarcastically, "you must be a true cannabis connaseur then."
Whatever, you gotta have a thick skin. We bought power plant and King's hash and moved on! Big downs on customer friendliness though. Try the John Sinclaire.
Dolphins - this was a nice place with a couple floors that had good white widdow and hash, both named after the coffeeshop.
The drinks were good, we got a mango looza and smoked upstairs. The vibe was good, the girl behind the counter could barely give a damn.
Other Honorable Mention
The Doors
Homegrown Fantasy
Baba - They were giving away free pipes - metal, but still free.
Route66
Picasso
I also heard good things about Kadinsky, but do not recall visiting.
Seed shops are plentiful. You won't find a better selection on a better website in a better area for better prices than you will see in some of these shops.
We stopped in on a few and had a long conversation with one of the girls working there who said she was working on a crop of her own at the moment.
Also if you're interested in psychadelics, there are a few "smart shops" at almost every main street that sell varying levels of mushrooms.
Be careful who you trip with though! Our dutch friend tripped with us and had an "evil" trip!
My major Disappointment with the trip?
LACK of kush strains. The one kush strain I got to try from Amnesia blew me away. Amsterdam seemed
to be all about the hazes when I was there, which were all pretty prime in taste look and effect I guess.
But you'd think there would be more shops offering kush!
Bike Traffic - Be weary WHENEVER you cross the street. We saw a British tourist walk right in front of a single biker
who crashed into him and caused a 4-bike pile up with a moped crashing into the whole pile at the end.
Don't piss off the Dutch, and just pay attention, there are 2 lanes of traffic now - bike and car. Respect the culture!
After the Smoking Ban - We were there June of last summer and revisited in early july just as the smoking ban had been put in place.
The smoking ban did not impact any shop's marijuana sales as it seemed. Tobacco was banned though (YES!)
and the guys from Baba told us the Dutch were generally pissed that they couldn't smoke
a spliff (tobacco X cannabis joint) in their shops. They offered this herbal substitute for tobacco
that looked like tea at tables in Barney's and other places. This was when Amnesia was under construction
so we couldn't snag anymore pink kush, but I would love to find the seeds somewhere.
The Music - Be prepared for techno if you get interested in the club or music scene around there,
I wasn't! My Dutch friend came over with a laptop full of techno music
for us to trip to at the bed and breakfast we were renting. I wasn't a big fan so I said no thanks,
but he insisted that "everyone has a certain house music," and he racked his playlist
trying to find something I would like. Eventually he found some ATB techno I used to listen to back in the day
which was nostalgic to me so I eventually gave in to the techno fever.
Red Light District - Yes, its there, and yes, they really are that lax about sex.
My girlfriend and I stayed in a hostel across from a 3 story 'brothel' even.
A bunch of horny british kids walked by us asking where the red light district was
- we pointed them in the right direction and they were ZOOM, gone. I'm not advising anyone to check it out,
but its amazing to see prosititution accepted in any culture. My dutch friend stated the regular fee for a
suck and fuck from any girl there was 70 euro. Single lonely batchelors - have at em!
About Hostels - many of you will probably be staying in hostels, although a B&B can be as cheap
if you book ahead of time! You must obey hostel rules or they will exercise their rights to impose
a fine on you or kick you out! We had a TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE AT THE STAYOKAY VONDELPARK HOSTEL.
Why? The StayOkay hostels employ budget security guards for night watch who are not affiliated with the hostel at all!!!
We had a security guard named Omar bust in on our room while we were sleeping. He claimed he smelled smoke
and confiscated 2 MEGA joints I had spent a long time rolling with many of the strains I mentioned in it.
He also confiscated our hash cakes, but we had been sleeping for a few HOURS by then! Oh wow was
I pissed at this man who BUSTED into our room and started making accusations! Anyway, we got it taken
care of the next day. The people who worked there said the fire alarm would have gone off if we were smoking
and the security guard had no right to break in. They gave me my 2 joints back, the hash cakes and a
free T-shirt for my troubles of literally staying up ALL NIGHT. They should have refunded me for the night's sleep.
DO NOT STAY AT THE STAYOKAY HOSTELS, YOU WILL NOT BE OKAY!
Hope this helps some people who haven't been yet, its a really fun experience, staying in the dam is expensive!
The prices there for hostels are extravagant and nevermind the 2-4 star hotels! You'll have payed for a used car
by the time you've spent a week in one of those.
We have a lot of pictures and more strains to mention later, but this is what I can remember from the summer.
There were coffeeshops to stay away from, run down rasta looking shops or the bulldog were places we didn't even bother with.
There really is a mix of the quality, but I'd say on the whole we sampled some great strains.
