Blur. Everything in Amsterdam comes back as a blur...of course.
I'm on my way to Lausanne, Switzerland right now. Buki and I took an overnight train last night from Amsterdam. It was probably one of the most pleasant traveling experiences I've ever had. Nobody harassed me at any point with any of that pesky “security” stuff. I was given a small bottle of sparkling wine upon entering and had the nicest Swiss stewardess in the world pretty much waiting on us. We got a ton of munchies to complement my space cake high and fell asleep watching the countryside pass by our windows while The Office reruns played on Buki's laptop.
I don't really recall most of my trip to Amsterdam in any coherent order, and my sense of time turned into sections simply labeled as “when I was high” and “when I was really high” and finally “when I was so fucking high I had no idea what was going on and I'm pretty sure I had a lengthy dialogue with a duck.”
Of course, I started with that terrible section known as “not high at all.”
I showed up in Amsterdam about five hours before Buki came into town. I booked the hotel last minute. It was weird, it was just a tall and narrow Dutch house. The front desk to the hotel was just the owner's apartment, left open for all to see. The guy was really nice to me, and gave me a map with all the information I needed.
I asked him at one point if the hotel website charged the card. He showed me a piece of paper and nodded. I asked for him to let Buki in later.
I went out and walked the complete wrong direction, and found what turned out to be the worst coffee shop I went to the entire time. It was still great, however. I just bought some pre-rolled joints and bullshitted with some Spanish girls, and had my coffee. I wanted to go grab my laptop and write there. I just felt so relaxed, in my groove, at my speed. This is way more me than hanging out at noisy ass brutish pubs.
I walked further into the city and found some rastafarian joint that was sick. A couple Indian guys owned it who were mad cool, hooked me up with some smooth hash. I got hungry then and had the bright idea to try a space cake.
I go up to the guy. “Yo how potent are these space cakes?”
“The best man. In thiirdy minutes you feel...” his head falls back with his eyes going into the back of his head, “rEEEAAAAL goood man.”
“Shit, I can't turn that down.” So I took the space cake, which later would land me on the moon. Tripping balls I walked around Amsterdam, soaking in the sights. It's just this hippie city, where small streets wind and turn through tall Dutch buildings that have been there for centuries. Canals intertwine, with small boats slowly drifting down them.
I met up with Buki back at the hotel, then had the wonderful experience of having a Dutch hotel owner scream at me “don't try and fuck me!” Apparently earlier when I went “did expedia charge my credit card?” and he pointed at a paper and nodded he didn't have a fucking clue as to what he said. He only could understand credit card, so he pointed at a sheet of paper saying I hadn't paid. Then I started going on about my friend Buki was coming later, could you let him in? He thought I was saying “wait till Buki gets here to get paid.”
So then we came home and his wife asked if we paid and I said, “yeah,” assuming my card had been charged. The guy then called me in my room and asked me to come downstairs to talk to him, saying there was a problem with the credit card. I was annoyed, and grabbed my computer with the receipt.
He just started screaming at me the second down there, “don't try and fuck me!” I, of course, couldn't figure any of this out because in my mind I already paid the guy. Eventually, after we'd established that he didn't like me (he pointed this out repeatedly), and that I was a lying stoner, we went back upstairs to get the money for the hotel...and I figured out what happened.
Pissed off a bit we left that hotel the next day and stayed in this nice hotel a taxi driver found for us. We got the rooms for really cheap, and then out of no where Mrbigqueso just showed up in Amsterdam for the weekend, so he came out with us on one of the days as we toured the city.
We got to see a bunch of the historical landmarks, hang out in a bunch of cool smokeshops, and just chill in a different world for a while. I got to try so many different types of weed. It was paradise.
I could see myself chilling here for a couple of months, having a cappuccino in the morning with two joints, writing for four or five hours. I dig the mixture of races in the smokeshops, the different cultures. Of course, love the stoner chicks. Freakier than the drunk girls. I love the music, the atmosphere.
I knew I'd dig Amsterdam. Probably why I told myself not to come. Amsterdam is not the kind of city you want to be in when your bankroll is at, “not enough to make my career work but just enough to blow on a bad weekend.”
I went to the Marijuana Museum, which was fascinating. Seeing how the Japanese and Ottoman empire interpreted canibis, reading medical profiles of the drug from 1850's American medical journals, by the Greeks, reading the different laws in different countries.
The only real parts I didn't like about Amsterdam was when we saw a taxi driver we used more than once essentially get gouged of 35 euros. The police said he could come down to the station and pay 165 euros or just pay them 35 euros in cash now, which had to be “bribe me now or I throw the book at you”. He scrapes together the 35 euros, then tells us they fuck with him all the time because he's Turkish. He had been a great driver every time we'd used him, he was always helpful, and always charged a fair price. It's sad to me people are granted their citizenship in a country but aren't allowed to live by the other people
At some point Buki and I got the idea to go to Switzerland so we went and booked the overnight train.
Which by the way, did I mention, had a shower on it? With hot water? So much better than an airplane.
