Amsterdam Centre

Just got back from 4 nights there. It was fucken cool, jack. Most of the people are friendly and helpful. The vibe is laid-back and the scenery is a welcomed change. It's quite pleasant seeing all the different canal boats and barges moving up and down the canals. And I don't recall seeing even one speed boat or fast moving vessel. It was all nice & leisurely.

But the bicyclists being everywhere, man, that shit will do your head in. Whether I was stoned or not I kept straying into the bike lanes ........BRRRINNNGG! BRRRINGG!..... PARDONE!.....
The pedestrian paths often have obstacles of one sort or another and so you can't help but gravitate to the bike paths because they are wider and clearer than the pedestrian paths...

The looks of the buildings & churches & houses are totally different than anything seen in the USA or UK. Many are quite attractive. Some lean into one another. You're definitely in a strange world. Perfect for getting high and walking about (once you learn to stay out of the way of the bikes, scooters, cars, trucks, and trams!!). The vibe is friendly & unthreatening (although there ARE dodgy, seedy areas where people hit you up for pocket change, but these are relatively small).

Come to think of it, the center of Amsterdam is like being in the best parts of the Haight district of San Francisco or the area around the UC Berkeley campus where the bookstores and used record shops and pizza places are. And I'm talking vibe, not scenery. There's just this...liberalness in the air. You feel like you could dress anyway you please and no one would look twice. In fact, I bought a hippie lookingpull-over with feminine frilly sleeves and put it on straightaway and walked about the rest of the day feeling at ease. Jimi Hendrix would've looked better in it, but, he's dead and I'm not.

I felt totally comfortable getting high in the coffeeshops and then walking the streets stoned. I can't say the same thing about where I live: Don't like to get high outside of the house nor be about in public stoned.

If you book a hotel room in the centre of Amsterdam, then you can walk the streets near your hotel and find a coffeeshop not more than 2 or 3 minutes away in any direction. We stayed at a hotel on Spuistraat, and Kadinsky Coffeeshop was just across the street. And the Tweede Kamer and Dutch Flowers were to the right, about 1 minute's walk away.

Tweede Kamer was my first coffeeshop experience. It was a bit busy so I just scanned the menu and ordered a gram of NYC Diesel and then took it back to the hotel and sparked the owl. It had a unique taste and seemed to affect my body far more than my mind. I liked it. And I liked the Tweede Kamer. I went there twice. Both times the dealers were friendly and helpful.

Out of all the pot & hash I bought from the different coffeeshops I visited, Jack Herrer kicked my ass the hardest. I bought a gram of it for 6 euros at Stix Coffeeshop. (Across the street is a cafe called Stacey's Pennywell and they served me the best mutherfucken pastrami sandwich I've ever had.) I smoked the Jack Herrer at the Arabica Lounge (after buying a gram of Silver Haze, first). I only took about 2 or 3 tokes...and then my dick went in the dirt. My wife wanted to leave but I was too stoned to move. So we chilled with the reggae for a few minutes.....and then we went a'walkin. And it was cool.

If you're American and you like to eat at proper restaurants then be prepared to wait a long fucken time during the intervals between your starter & main & dessert & coffee & bill. The restaurants are understaffed to save money. Some say it's the "European way of enjoying a meal", that is, taking 2 or 3 hours to eat your meal, but fuck that shit. It's being cheap & inconsiderate and that's all there is to it. There were usually no more than 2 or 3 servers for a roomful of 25 people or more. When I go out to eat I want to eat 1,2,3, and then leave. Spending hours in a noisy, hot-ass restaurant full of foreign tongues a'lip-lappin is not my idea of a good time. I wanna eat and then go hang out at a coffeeshop.

We did not find the food all that great. Grant it, we didn't eat meals that cost 300 euros or more, but our bill was usually between 60 - 100 euros. I've had far better meals at The Olive Garden or various pubs in East Sussex for roughy the same price. Was not impressed with their frites, either. But that pastrami sandwich at Stacey's Pennywell, holy fuck...whatta revelation.

As for getting lost: We were lost most of the time. Just didn't feel like trying to work out how the trams worked. So we walked. We had maps but they weren't much help...But no worries, we always found our way back to the hotel and never once asked anyone for directions.

Definitely look forward to going back.