Disclaimer: If you are offended by drugs or any form of drug taking, this post may not be suitable for you. As it is my trip, my blog and my memories, I've decided to not hide my experiences, regardless of what they are. If something played a significant part in my trip, I will include it.
Amsterdam is one of the biggest bicycle friendly cities in the world. I remember walking off the bus and just seeing bicycles everywhere. More bicycles than cars. The bicycle lanes are 3 times as big as Australian bicycle lanes due to how many people use them. Some of the streets don’t even allow cars and are made strictly for bicycles. One of the biggest dangers in Amsterdam are the bicycle lanes though. Because most tourists aren’t expecting so many bicycles to be around, you don’t give a second thought to just walking across the street. Since birth, I’ve been taught to always watch for cars and trains. I almost died about 50 times just walking through a bicycle lane. Between 37 and 40% of the population of the city ride their bicycles daily. In my entire time in Amsterdam, the only overweight people I saw were American or Australian.
One word will stick in the mind of everyone who goes to Amsterdam. FEBO. FEBO was one of the coolest things I came across in Europe. Basically, there is a wall of tiny hamburger sized boxes each with a little coin hole. You walk up to a box of your choice, put in 1.50 Euro and you take out your burger. It’s kind of like a vending machine, but fresh (kind of). Behind the wall is a little Indian man who fills up the empty boxes. They taste surprisingly brilliant and it’s open 24 hours, perfect for a late night snack when you’ve got the munchies, especially in a place like Amsterdam. Tara gave us an hour free time to explore a little before she took us to a show, so I found some chums who wanted some FEBO and off we went. After a couple burgers it was decided that while in Amsterdam, we should try some of the local delicacies.
We walked into the thick of it all, the main city, the tourist spot. We walked past shops with pornography in the windows, sex toys in other windows and the words “Coffee shop” were spread throughout. In a café, you can order coffee, tea, biscuits, cake, hot chocolate etc. In a coffee shop, you can order hash brownies, space cakes, green cookies, joints traced with every kind of flavour of tobacco and strengths and most importantly to the Dutch themselves, natural, pure cannabis for their own rolling. Three of us decided to have a go at the hash brownies. Everything was categorised into strengths. In terms of food stuffs made with the plant, the brownies were second from the top. We were sure this would do the job. Because you have to process the food, the effects might not kick in until an hour and half after consumption, but can start to show signs after only 20 minutes. While we waited for the stuff to do it’s work, we all went to the pub to drink some of the countries local brew, Grolsh. About 30 minutes went by and I wasn’t really sure what to expect. While drinking our beer, I kept catching a glimpse of one of my dreadlocks and kept thinking it was some person, so needless to say I kept getting a fright and was jumping in my seat. Just before it was time to go, Anna ran back to get us some more brownies, in case this one didn’t work.
Tara took us through the red light district, and although I’d love to show you pictures, cameras are heavily frowned upon. Again, I didn’t know quite what to expect, but had a general idea. Walking through the streets, there were girls in windows, wearing not much at all, sometimes if anything, basically selling themselves. I didn’t see them at first when I was walking through the streets, and it scared the hell out of me when I caught a window out of the corner of my eye. I thought it was just a picture at first, and then she pointed at me and winked. I almost shat myself and I probably wouldn’t have reacted so much if I hadn’t had that brownie. After passing another 100 windows with girls of every colour, size, shape, we finally arrived at ‘the show’. Now I’m sure all of you have heard of the Amsterdam sex shows. To explain it, there are a few different kinds of show, but the general idea is basically people that have sex, on a stage. I was towards the front of the group, and therefore was put in the front row. Strewth, wasn’t that a bloody experience!
When we walked in, a couple was already gunning for it as we sat down. Their act finished after a couple minutes and Anna tapped me on the shoulder from behind. “Want your other brownie?” Before I answered I was munching away. The show included two free drinks, so I washed him down with some more Grolsh. Before long the red curtain opened and standing there was a middle-aged overweight woman dressed in a couple leather straps. It was pretty gross. She carried a whip and was walking around the stage whipping all over the joint. The chap beside me got slapped in the face and then she looked at me. I freaked out and didn’t want to be slapped, but then she pulled out a big shiny dildo. I freaked out double time and chugged down a heap of beer and then she walked away. Thank Christ. As she walked away, I felt a wave of relaxation go over me and I felt a little bit dizzy. The biggest reaction though was happiness. It’s hard to express, but it was as if happiness was made of liquid, and it was warm and then someone had put a hole in my head and tipped it in. The happiness seemed to spread throughout me and it was a bizarre feeling. Try as I may, I could not stop smiling. My attempt of trying to stop made it even worse!
On the other side of the stage in the audience was what looked like a family of Asians. The middle-aged dominatrix walked over to them and got on all fours, her vag in their faces. They all turned their face so they weren’t looking and their faces suggested that they were not at all enjoying themselves. Not once throughout the entire show did they crack a smile.
Every show was a different one, and included some audience participation at times (Eating a banana out of a girl‘s certain orifice), cigar smoking from places you didn’t know you could inhale and exhale from and plenty of general sex.
Outside of the show, something had triggered me to start laughing, and Dave found my laugh pretty hilarious. Our giggling didn’t stop for about 10 minutes, and never has my stomach hurt so much in my life. My eyes were weeping and I discovered that if I no longer looked at Dave, it stopped. I walked behind him but started laughing again when I saw his shoulders bouncing up and down from his laughing. That set him off again. I sounded like a school girl and must have looked completely helpless, pleading and begging Dave to stop laughing.
Our group set off back to the coffee shop as we were the only one’s on a high. Ben bought himself a medium strength joint and lit her up. Not that I needed it in the state I was already in, but I had a couple puffs to say I’d done it anyway. After sitting down with the rest of the very happy group I felt the second brownie set in and I couldn’t concentrate on anything except a girl on the other side of the room who was pulling faces at me. It was a repeat of my situation with Dave but even worse if you can believe it.
Our night progressed and the later it got, the heavier my tiredness became. We all needed to go home and jumped in a van taxi that held eight of us. Our taxi driver told us he’d take the short cut back to the camp, which involved driving very far into the woods where there were no lights, no civilisation and definitely no help. After asking us whether anyone would be waiting for us at the campsite, and whether our friends would be expecting us to turn up that evening, a couple of us got the spooks and started yelling at the taxi driver to pull over and let us. After remembering where we were, and that it would take five days to walk back to the city, we decided that we simply had to trust this creepy old man. After driving for at least an hour in complete silence, we arrived at the campsite scratch-free and with money intact. All was good! I pretty much slept-walked back to my tent and didn’t bother to pump the mattress or even get my sleeping back out. After lying down I fell asleep in about a second.
In the morning was yet another optional excursion that I think everyone had signed up for. For only 5 Euro, we were taken about 2 hours out of the city to a gorgeous little village known best for it’s cheese, Edam and were given a guided bicycle tour. Feeling in rather poor condition from the previous evening, riding a bike was about the last thing I had in mind for a good time, but these bicycles must have been made by the worlds top engineers, they rode beautifully and were gorgeously comfortable. Rather than pushing on the pedals, it felt like the bike was pulling me along. Edam is a stunning city and I’ll definitely return. The locals are just as beautiful and give real meaning to the words ‘laid back’. They all waved when we rode past and said something in Dutch that sounded pretty friendly. With more cobbled streets and a lovely little river flowing through the city, I felt like I was in paradise.
While visiting Edam, we also stopped by the ol’ clog house to see how clogs are made. Clogs are basically pieces of wood that have feet holes cut into them. They’re pretty bloody uncomfortable I thought, but the chap who was making them apparently wears them everyday with ease. At the same house, they made cheese, and we had the chance to eat a heap of the different kind of cheeses they made. They were bloody beautiful and everyone smelt like old feet for the duration of the day. Mmm…Cheese.
Heading back into the city, a group of us combined and marched toward the Heineken factory. On the way to the factory, Ben decided he wanted to have a dig at a space cake but wouldn‘t do it unless someone else did. For 5 Euro, why not! This coffee shop was a bit different as the cakes didn’t have strengths, and the packaging had a big fat warning label on it telling us what and what not to do. There was also this thing called a vaporiser, which what I believe involves exposing the cannabis to extreme temperatures, thus drawing out the THC (The chemical that everyone is after to make them have fun-fun happy times) in a much healthier form - gas. It pumps up a big plastic bag full of air and gas THC and you just inhale the contents of the bag. We didn’t try this, but munched down the cakes.
Heineken was originally made in Holland and is still made here, but usually for only their own consumption. Pretty much every country in the world makes their own Heineken now, which to me destroys anything that may have been special about it. It’s seen as an American company now, and even the little videos in the factory that told the history of the company were told by Americans. Can’t keep their bloody finger out of anything.
Walking through the factory, it was basically just a massive tourist trap with everything in the fancy colours. Despite this, it was still awesome. In one section, we were given hops and barley before the beer process. I wouldn’t eat them for a snack, but they weren’t awful. Continuing through the tour, we found ourselves on a beer simulation. We all stood on this big platform and watched a screen showing what happens to a little hops plant and the process it goes through to be turned into beer, squirted into a bottle, labled and finally arrive at our door. The simulation had heaters, water guns and the platform bounced around in the motion of what the beer was doing. It was brilliant, and to make things twice as exciting, my cake had set in as we were standing in the line to get into the ride. I would have loved to have seen my face throughout the entirety of the simulation, I don’t think I closed my mouth throughout the entire thing, I was in a complete state of awe.
A few free beers later and we were out the door on the way to our big finale dinner as a group as this was the last night of the tour. My little cake had started to take a turn for the worse though. Towards the end of the beer factory tour, I couldn’t focus on anything and I was starting to feel sick. The beer tasted awful, but everyone else seemed to be enjoying it. People were talking to me, and although I could hear and understand them, I just couldn’t be arsed to answer, so I simply stared at them. For the dinner, we went to a buffet Chinese restaurant, and the food looked sensational. Everyone was eating except me and the girl who sat next to me had eaten some of the famous Amsterdam truffles, better known as magic mushrooms. You start seeing psychedelic colours and things which shouldn’t normally move start running around or wobbling or squirming. She was trying to explain to me that it was raining inside and she was drenched. Throughout the entire dinner she was telling me all sorts of these things. Anna’s noodles turned into tentacles and were wiggling around trying to eat her face too. This is exactly what I did not need. After not too long, I became kind of depressed at the fact that I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and at the end of the night when most people went out, I went back to camp with the people with no money or those who didn’t drink. For the hour long drive back I still didn’t say a word to anyone and quietly retreated to the tent for a little lie down which before long turned into a long nightmare which seemed to just no go away. All in all, it was crappy experience and I don’t think I’ll ever eat a space cake again. Leaving the next day, we finally returned to London for a 30 minute shower and some severe scrubbing. Onwards now I travel alone as I depart my oldest and dearest friend Benjamin as he goes home back to Townsville. All will be told in the next chapter of my trip.
Ta-ta!
