The Journey Henceforth - London, Friday 18th April 2003
Woke up kinda early and began packing. Walked to the station hurriedly in my boots carrying luggage, which immediately created a large blister on each heel. Got the tube okay and headed for Heathrow.
The flight to Amsterdam Schipol airport was smooth and kinda short. It's only a 30-40 minute flight, so as soon as you have reached altitude, you begin to descend. The choice was between mozzarella cheese & tomato and ham and cheese sandwich. Opted for the ham which was a nice baguette. Had the usual Bloody Mary and asked for a beer but were told we couldn't have a beer in case someone else wanted one. Okay, so no more flying British Midland. Our pilot spoke fluent Dutch. It always sounds to me like the Dutch have a mouthful of spit that they're trying to conceal when they talk and our pilot was no exception. He slurred and spat directions and weather reports at us over the PA system and finally landed the aircraft perfectly.
Burgers and Bullet Trains - Amsterdam, Friday 18th April 2003
Touched down at Schipol and once through customs hit the nearest Burger King for some Dutch Beef. There is a train every 10 mins to the city center and we boarded the next one. The trains are kewl; yellow and blue, double decker efforts. The interiors are a nice leather green. Very Kraftwerk! The journey lasted no more than between 15 and 20 mins and we were there in the heart of Hamsterdam. So almost under two hours door to door. Not bad!
Once at Central Station, we walked for about 10 mins to our Hotel, The Winston. The streets are quite narrow and there is a distinct lack of automobiles, which is very pleasant. The fact that so much of Holland is reclaimed land was at first not that apparent to me. I expected to see water everywhere, but it's quite nicely controlled in a practical canal system.
The Hotel was located in the heart of the red light district. May sound a little weird but it is actually a very visitable part of the city and a hot spot for tourists and travellers alike. The first thing to hit me was the pervading aroma filtering quaintly from the doorway of the hotel bar. Aah, the sweet smell of that precious green herb. We went upstairs to the fourth floor, room 410. Two beds, no toilet, 1 shower and 80 Yooro's a night. Hmmkay! Each ROOM is sort of themed. In large 3 dimensional white letters on our white wall stood the following phrase: "A WAY WITH WORDS". A quick trip to the toilet down the hall past the.. erm… 'naked chick exploring her crevices with her fingers' wallpaper, and we were on our way to explore the city.
The Green House
The weather was beautiful. The streets were busy but not jammed and we meandered around looking in at windows and making plans for the following 3 days. We visited a supermarket and found some water, stroop waffles and some other odds and ends and finally ended up at Rick's Café. We located a table in the sun, which streamed down on us from between green leaves as we watched people bob by on canal boats and assorted floatables. I walked inside to order drinks as we couldn't get the attention of the busy waitress buzzing like a bee from table to table, pollinating the visitors with sweet golden beer. As I entered Rick's a deep green cloud hit me square in the face and I felt like a naughty four year old in a pillow fight ambush. I cornered the busy, blonde waitress and ordered a small and a large white beer. "Eight Yooros please", she spittled and spat as the four year old landed another perfect hit, smack in the kisser. Whump! Maximum greenage. "That's a lot for a beer and a half", I thought. Back outside in the sun, sipping the sumptuous bevvy, I started to notice little green clouds sprouting up all around like newborn mushroom shoots on a cow pie.
Right next door to Rick's was the Smart Shop which specialises in papers, shrooms and paraphernalia to assist in the process of making oneself high. Right next to that is the Rock Planet, which in time became our favourite bar. We moved across the street to another table and soon enough the beers were done. Our new waitress from the Rock Planet was only too happy to serve us. The music at Rock Planet was good and the beer was okay and the music was good and there was sun and a nice place to sit outside, and the music was good. It was all really rather good.
I didn't want to get too drunk and we decided that after 3 reebs it was time to investigate the 'Green House' on the opposite side of the canal. The 'Green House' is a coffee shop, which sells among other things, coffee and makes very good food (for a coffee shop), or so legend has it. The other things they sell are of the green and brown narcotic variety.
Lighting Up The Sky
Once inside and after much deliberation I procured a baggy of weed called 'Northern Lights'. It smells wonderful inside, as do most coffee shops in Amsterdam. The entire place is filled with a pleasant mixture of purply-green smoke and coffee. I strolled over to the counter at the back of the bar and peered at the menu. You basically have a list of hash products and a list of weed products. Each has a small explanation about the kind of resulting high you can expect from your drug of choice. There were several varieties and after much deliberation as I said, I went with a gram of Northern Lights.
We couldn't find any place to sit and so we popped back across the road to the Rock Planet and sat inside in the darkness while Elke set about rolling me a joint. We asked our waitress if it was okay to smoke inside and her reply was: "Yeah they don't mind, in fact they positively encourage it." 'Positive encouragement' sounded like a good thing, especially because I had never heard those words associated or used in the same sentence as smoking pot. The joint thing didn't work out as the free papers from the The Green House were a little too thin, so I nipped next door to buy some cones (pre rolled joint papers). I wanted to be careful not to blow my mind on the first smoke and made a nice mix of Northern Lights and tobacco. It looked good, it was fat, and I promptly smoked it, disappearing in a cloud of green smoke as I did so. Moments later I re-emerged to watch the video screen which was playing some blues, some Stones and such; stuff which I would normally not watch, but which due to the large green cloud surrounding me, had my undivided attention. A blur of beers, music videos, and green smoke ensued, followed by a ravenous attack of the munchies.
"I must feed!! Immediately!", I said to Elke wild eyed. I dug about in the rucksack and ripped open a pack of stroop waffles. "Yum!!", I muttered as I proceeded to cram one after the other into my mouth. I couldn't stop.
We exited the Rock Planet and walked downtown to the funfair and the main strip. There were several restaurants and we found one we liked the look of and went inside. We ordered a couple of steaks, chips, salad and more beer. The food showed up and the guzzling began. My steak was so chewy, I thought I was going to blow bubbles with it at one stage, but I was so damn hungry I really didn't care too much.
The Red House
We finished eating at 8:30 and decided to head back to the hotel for a little lie down. We slept for a couple of hours and actually got up at 10pm and went out again. I noticed a little tattoo shop just around the corner, which I made mental plans to visit over the next few days and never really got around to it. Down the road, the red lights were in full force. The little doorways had become alive with the jiggly bits of scantily clad 'ladies of the night'. Drunken and sober males alike loomed and congregated around the doors leering eyeball poppingly at the sexy maidens within. We strolled up and down the main drag where the sex clubs and prostitutes reside, side by side and ventured into a bar where the music was good. It was here that I decided to roll another fat one. We sat and chatted and noticed the sign on the back of the door which had a list of things you couldn't do in the bar, one of which was drugs, I took this to mean that I should wait until I was outside to smoke the fat spliff I was rolling. Outside at the canal, I disappeared once again into a cloud of the green smoke as Elke waited patiently. With my marshmallow shoes firmly in place, I could no longer feel the hurt of my heels and we ventured down the road looking for a sex show. After much wandering, we stopped outside the Cassa Rosso. We paid 25 yooros each to get in and went inside. The theatre was alarmingly family friendly. Several rows of seats surrounded a main stage. The other customers were either drunk loners, couples or groups of stag night guys. The curtains closed, the curtains opened. The first show was a girl and a candle. She lit the candle, dripped candle wax all over her body and then inserted the candle into herself and did some pretty fantastic dancing lying on her back. The curtains closed, the curtains opened and next up was a big black Batman and his be-atch. They danced to the sounds of about three Prince songs from the Batman album, miming the lyrics and acting out the scenes. It was well choreographed for what it was and he gave his girl quite a bat-bonking. The curtains closed, the curtains opened and there upon the stage was an island girl. She needed three volunteers and walked into the audience to find them. She found three and in no time had them up on stage doing some silly island dance. Then they each had to eat some of her banana at which time a giant black gorilla with a pink plastic penis appeared and began masturbating on the side. The gorilla eventually got itself into a bit of a frenzy and squirted water (I hope) from the tip of it's plastic penis all over the audience. The curtains closed, the curtains opened: Presto, yet another couple who had long, slow sex on a revolving table. The curtains closed, the curtains opened and there appeared a metal chick in a long leather coat who pulled an astonishing number of green love balls on a string from her nether regions. The curtains closed, the curtains opened and then another couple with a sleepy looking girl who kept her eyes closed for almost the entire performance. The curtains closed, the curtains opened and the girl with the candle re-appeared. We'd seen enough, perhaps I was too high, but it didn't seem to bother me that we had just witnessed people actually having sex in front of us. It was nearly three a.m. and we decided it best to head for the hotel, which we did and promptly fell asleep.
We Wake In Order That We May Sleep. - Sat 19th April 2003
woke in a haze and followed the green smell down to the breakfast room at 9:30am to find a room full of unusually hungry travellers from all over the globe. Shared a table with some Germans and enjoyed a sumptuous breakfast of coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice, a boiled egg, garlic sausage, salami, cheese, freshly baked bread rolls, cereals and well you get the picture. Returned upstairs and went back to bed until 12:00 and then went out looking for plasters for my screaming blisters, but not before rolling a nice medicinal of the Northern Light variety, to be savoured later. We went for a walk to the funfair and then on to a coffee shop we'd found on the Internet by the name of Abraxas.
The Muffin That Kicked My Ass
There was a chill in the air and we sat down inside the green haze filled, but quaint coffee shop and ordered two large cappuccinos and a nice fat space muffin. Naturally there was a fantastic weed menu and I needed to investigate it. I took my time and finally decided upon some OrangeBud. Looked more like Orange Beard to me as the hairs on the bud were a nice orange colour. I sat down with Elke and sipped coffee whilst munching my way through an entire dope cookie. I looked at my watch. It was 3pm. I calculated that I would be in outer space by 3:45 at least. Time whizzed by and the next thing there I was in an invisible cloud of transparent green muffin smoke. The Cookie Buzz. It's like smoking but without the smoke. The cookie made my brain incredibly high and in no time a stark and fearful attack of the munchies had set in. We decided a walk would do much to bring me back to earth and went walking. We found the Sex Museum, which was on our list of visitables, and we went inside. The sex museum was interesting, but consisted largely of photographs and a history of pornography through the ages. It was however enjoyable and afterwards we resumed our walk around town until we were again inexplicably drawn to the Rock Planet where we asked for our beers and sat drinking quietly until all of a sudden, I disappeared in a cloud of green smoke. More beers, and notwithstanding the fact that I was being controlled by the contents of an extremely narcotic muffin, I indulged in more smoke and then we asked a barman what the Chinese restaurant across the way was like. It looked huge from where we were sitting. "Iss very good," he chortled. "I eat there myself all the time" I could see where he was coming from, the portly little bar keep. So across to the Golden Chopsticks we went and were soon waiting patiently in a small queue. I disappeared in a small cloud of green smoke just outside the restaurant and when our table was ready I hurriedly slipped inside. We went for a menu of corn and chilli soup, beef chow mein, chicken chop suey? All around us people were being served what looked like thin green eels on a plate. "What are those?" we questioned the waiter. He raised a knowing eyebrow and replied "Chinese Broccoli," as if he had just given away the secret achieving eternal inter galactic oneness. "Fine, we'll have a plate," we replied in unbridled hunger. And delicious they were, but cheap they were not. 9 yooros and 50 cents just for a plate of 'Chinese' broccoli???? The meal was very nice and superbly tasty. Sated, we made our way back to the hotel where we decided to sit in the bar for a bit before repairing to the safety of the hotel room for a short bit of shut eye, in the belief that we would actually get up again at 10pm and go out to explore some more. It was only 8:30 or 9 at the time and we did in fact wake up at 10pm only to go straight back to rainbow land for more peaceful and colourful dreams.
Van Gogh and The Easter Bunny - Sunday 20th April 2003
Good morning and Happy Easter. Woke up an a lovely green haze, looked in the mirror and did not recognise anyone. Decided it must have been me, so popped in some lenses and got dressed. Went down the passage passed the giant pictures of girls playing with themselves to visit the toilet. Breakfast was the same as the day before. Big deja vu! Cereal, meat, cheese and rolls, coffee and juice. The sun streamed in through the breakfast room window as we sat sleeping at the table. We hit the road at 10:30 to find the boat ride. We bought tickets and by 11am we were on our way. No smoking weed today. I promised to try and remain present for the days activities. The boat ride was mostly pleasant, relaxing and serene; I say mostly because of the American and his girlfriend perched opposite us on the large flat barge shaped tourist boat. From the moment we sat down he kept mumbling to those around him, i.e. his girlfriend and us. Each time we came across a boat it was "Check those party flautillas out! Every boat was a party flautilla. If he could catch site of other passengers it was "Check these cats out!" He gaped at the passengers on the other boat as they gaped back. I would love to have decked and checked him out just to shut him up. Anyway, we lost them at one of the stops on our way to the Van Gogh museum.
The museum was pretty interesting as museums go. If you have an interest in art and the life of the artist then the Vincent Van Gogh museum is the place for you. There were many pieces of work, but as is mostly the case with museums the majority of the famous pieces were privately owned and hence not present. The museum was however large with many floors and we trudged around lugubriously until we'd had enough. In the basement on our way out I paused to examine an etched piece. I was fascinated by the details and peered closer for a better eyeful. I noticed a small beeping noise which was vaguely audible, but so intent was my fascination that I didn't bother with it. I also noticed the approach of a uniform wearing security guard to my right but dismissed his presence as unimportant. The security guard approached and stood peering at me as I stood peering at the etching. After several moments had passed the security guard shape blurted at me "Don't you hear dat?" Sometimes when it doesn't sound like the Dutch have a mouthful of spittle, the Dutch accent instead sounds as though the person has a mouth full of ulcers and is finding it a bit of a trial to mouth the words. That's how this guy sounded. I straightened up from my bent over position and began to half regard the security figure. It continued staring at me threateningly. I listened…. "Beep, beep, beep…" …Ahh the beep. I looked up at the etching, there was a little red light from behind which the beep seemed to be emanating. An alarm of some sort I realised. By leaning in for a better look I had set off a stupid alarm. There was no sign to say don't lean in closer for a better look, just a silly infrared alarm, bleating like a frantic sheep at any passer by who got too close. I shot the security figure a 'fuck you' look and said, "Well now that you mention it … I do! Well excuse me!!" He returned my glance with a look of sustained irritation and mild surprise whilst sniggering nervously. I smiled and stepped back from the alarmed little alarm which continued to bleat relentlessly. Once back on the boat for a bit and then we hopped off at the Rembrandt corner for a delicious cheese and bacon pancake: (Pannakoeken met kaas en spek - 5.50 yooros), coffee and icy cold Hoegaarden (white beer).
Repent, for the end is at hand! - Monday 20th April 2003
Woke up feeling pretty damn hazy. Managed to lose a lense whilst preparing myself for the day which disabled my ability to distinguish depth of any kind and made the rest of the day into a bit of a trial. I tried closing one eye for a bit, but that didn't really happen. So I used them both, one in focus and one terribly out of focus. We devoured breakfast and decided to do the boat thingy again, as our tickets were valid for 24 hours or something. It was a nice breezy little trip and did much to lift the remaining brain cells from their green tinged slumber. Off the boat and into the shopping centre to find some last minute goodies and stroop waffles. Shopping with one eye can be a real pain. Then had a little meander about town one last time, stopped and took some pictures of the funfair, suffered a last drink and a smoke (the final joint), bought some videos and CD's then quickly back to the hotel where we packed, vacated the room and made our way to the train station and finally the airport.
