Back from the 'dam

[pete21]

Had a fantastic time. I'll have much to say about my many experiences while there, but am backed up with work for probably the next two days, so details will have to wait a bit.

HOWEVER, I had an experience that I must share now. My last full day there I did some Golden Teacher mushrooms and since it was raining decided to hit the Rijksmuseum and groove on the colors there out of the rain. But the line was huge and I didn't want to trip standing in line in the rain, so I headed back to the hotel, which took me past the park and so I took a short-cut through the park which took me past, if you were in this same park on 4/21, a friend of yours who insisted I take this photo and pass along kindest regards...

Actually, he didn't say shit to me :rolleyes:, but did stand still for the photo.

[esse.b]

:eek:

The 420 heron! :D:D

Nice 1 Pete.

[larz133]

Waiting for the return of the Dopestock Crew no doubt. Thanks for this pete.

[max_freakout]

hehe the trippy heron!!! :) Such a mysterious face....

[Oldbay]

So how was your trip pete (pun intended).

Favorite strains/shop this time around?

[pete21]

So how was your trip pete (pun intended).

Favorite strains/shop this time around?

Still working, shouldn't even be here. My favorite strains were NY Diesel which is my favorite daytime weed (for the stoner on the go!) The new strains I liked were the Kushanator (or something like that) from Betty Boop, very trippy weed, really gets the thoughts going, good conversational weed. Also, Lemon Skunk from the Grey Area. 15 Euros a gram, but great taste and smell and very intense high. Good stuff.

Shops I hit: The Dolphins, Rookies (maybe my favorite place, great staff and music) Mellow Yellow, Rusland (good prices), Amnesia, Grey Area, Betty Boop, 420 Cafe, Resin Coffeeshop, and Barney's (also a very nice place). Plus the Bulldog at Leidsplein, which I also like.

More later, promise!

[Oldbay]

Sounds good man, looking forward to it.

[pete21]

First some photos...

http://photobucket.com/amsterdampete

I had started reading "Spirit Matters" by Matthew J. Pallamary priopr to the trip, but was only about halfway in. I finished it on the plane going over. I picked it up based on recommendations here and it certainly did not disappoint! The last half of the book, chronicling his jungle experiences, it quite an amazing story. I'm not quite sure what to think or believe about it, but as I've aged I've made the realization that I don't have to have an opinion about everything all the time. Especially with new information, I've learned to simply take it in and not have to decide what it means or how I feel about it. "Wait and see" seems a more sage approach the older I get.

But the book put me into an extremely interesting frame of mind for this trip. The question that was in my mind every time I had pot or shrooms was, "what is this plant trying to tell me?" From the book I took the notion that this communication would not be in the form of words, but through more physical and visual methods. So I thought I'd try to tune into that.

I brought a second book with me since I knew I'd finish "Spirit Matters." I grabbed it at the last second, because it was a hefty paperback and the Winston Churchill book looked really heavy. It was a Christmas gift, not sure from whom. I think I requested it, but not sure.

The book is titled

*(picture of earth)

*A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson

Turns out to be both a book about science and a history of who discovered what when and what we still do and do not know.

It was very interesting to read these two books back-to-back. Matthew speaks of the message that he received from the plants in the jungle which speaks of his (and our) place in the world and the universe, and how everything is much bigger and more interconnected than we realize. I'm not presuming to speak for him, but that is, in very general terms, what I took from the book.

So now I immediately go to the Short History, and it is filled with detailed explanations of the universe, atoms and sort of everything in-between. Let me quote from page 134.

"(Atoms) are very abundant and fantastically durable. Because they are so long lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms -- up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested--probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name. So we are all reincarnations--though short-lived ones. When we die our atoms will dissemble and move off to new uses elsewhere--as part of a leaf or another human being or a drop of dew. Atoms go on practically forever."

Now if I had paid more attention in school than I probably would know all this already, but the way he put it, especially after what I took from Spirit Matters, put me into a very interesting frame of mind (I still am). Plus all the other fun facts. Ever feel like a god? You're more like a universe. You have more microbes living in you than stars in the heaven. Your eyelashes are a world to some creatures. Your pillow and your head coming to rest on it each night is all millions of organisms think about and live for.

All this seems to be of a same piece, to me. I can't say I know what it all means, but both ideas seem inter-connected to me.

From the weed I think I received two messages. The first is the way the plant makes me feel that that is love. Weed loves me, it's been saying it for years. Just a big hug, a warm embrace, acceptance, affirmation, pleasure.

The other thing that the weed (and my lungs) said to me is not to smoke. It disrespects the weed and disrespects my body. I smoked more in the dam last week than I have all year prior, and I'm really feeling it. I did vape weed several times and that was very nice. But it takes longer and you don't go through the weed very fast so when I smoked because it was faster, more convenient and I went through it faster so I could try more kinds of weed. So it made a certain stoner logic, but I understand that it is sorta wrong to burn it when I can vape and eat it.

I saved the vaped herb in a small baggie. It is great weed to start and I'm not vaping it as thoroughly. Anyway, being on the road I couldn't do any kind of cooking, so I stumbled upon the following, and it worked GREAT:

I'd pinch either a pat of butter or serving of cream cheese. My hotel is one of those European ones that include a free breakfast of soft-boiled eggs, bread, cold cuts, etc. So they have pre-wrapped single-serving containers of butter or cream cheese. Anyway, that goes back with me to the room. With the cream cheese, I'd eat maybe a third of it to free up a bit of room, and mixed maybe a teaspoon of the vaped herb. Grinding it between my fingers, then just mix the herb and cheese together. It looks like herb butter and doesn't really smell of put, since it has been vaped.

Anyway, I take that down to breakfast the next day (it will keep overnight without spoiling if the room isn't hot) and spread the cream cheese on my little cold-cut sandwich and eat that with breakfast. I can modulate how hard it will come on and how long it will last whether I eat it first, last, or scattered through the rest of breakfast. It was stronger than any space cake I've ever had in the dam. And it was free and I knew just what was in it.

I suspect it worked so well because the pot had been vaped. I'm not willing to waste fresh herb to find out, but I suspect that in cool butter or cream cheese, unvaped herb might not give up its THC as well as vaped herb.

I also don't know that it is necessary to let it sit, from how it tastes and looks when you mix it, I think the fat extracts out the THC and other stuff it is going to pretty fast, especially if it is well mixed.

This is going to be long, I should probably break it into topics. So I'll pretend this was one (Plants talk to Pete?).

[pete21]

Places I went, what I smoked

The Dolphins "White Dolphins".
Nice place but I just stopped in and grabbed the White Dolphins to go. Good weed but didn't rock my world.

Rookies
I really like this place, about a block and a half off Leidsplein, which is near my hotel. Great staff, I really like the fresh peppermint tea (when they have it) and they have a vape, sometimes they want a 10 euro deposit to use it, but they had the solid and easy valve. The easy valves, because of overuse at the shops I suppose, the weed blows up into the baggie so you have to spit it out occasionally and it wastes weed. They also have this amazing sink designed just for washing glasses. A real marvel of design (of course I stared at it being used for several days) but still. I should have taken a picture. (Obviously I haven't worked in a bar). Their weed was fine but I mostly went there and smoked other weed that I bought at places like thew Grey Area that have great weed but aren't very nice to hang out in.

Mellow Yellow
Very nice place. Played a bunch of pool with a friend in their basement. He taught me 9-ball, a very cool game. Tried the bubblegum, it was nice.

My friend stood me up twice one day. At the Mellow Yellow at 10am and at Betty Boop at noon. If you are going to stand me up twice, please, do it at coffeeshops. I was worried that he was dead (we've all been there before, right? :eek:), but you can't say that you went to a coffeeshop "for no good reason" or that you "wasted my time" there. If anywhere in the universe it is really "all good" it's in a coffeeshop!

Rusland
Interesting place. Great prices on weed, especially for being still pretty much in the Centrum. Interesting decor. I like how each place tries to achieve its own look. The guy said I couldn't roll my pure weed joint at the bar but had to go into the smoking area, which seemed kinda dumb (especially as it was 10am and I was the only person there). While I was in the room, a white cat came in through the window, walked in a circle around the room and then left. I decided at the time that probably meant something, but left it at that. :p

De Dampkring
Didn't stay as they do not have vaporizors, despite what it says online. "Maybe we'll get one after the Cup" the dealer told me.

Grey Area
I do think they have the best weed in town. They also make you pay for it. The Chocolope was very good, LA Confidential was also really good but I was really taken with the Lemon Skunk which smelled and tasted fantastic and just gave me a very pleasing (and strong) high. Refreshing.

Betty Boop
Nice place for intown. The girl who works there days is cool. Staff is so important in these places. Especially when you are getting high, you (I anyway) just don't want to be around unpleasant people. I went for the OG Kush but they now have something called the Kushinator or somesuch and it was very groovy. The trippiest weed, really got me and my friend going into some wild conversations. For example, the current financial crisis, says my friend, is really the fault of Microsoft, specifically Excel. He says it is such a powerful tool to aid in creating things like the complicated financial products like the direvitives that we could have never invented such things without it. You know, the usual stoner, hippie talk. :rolleyes:

420 Cafe
Me no likey. Terrible vape policy. You give him your weed, he grinds it up (maybe) and puts it in a chamber and over-vapes a 4 ft bag and then claims he no longer has your weed and that's all it makes anyway. Ug.

Barney's
Since the Pink Floyd closed, this is probably my favorite place on Haarlemstrasse (a street with several good shops, including Popeyes which I also really like, great music and decor). Were very mellow about letting me use the vape, nice staff. Heard a great story from the dealer who is an American. For those who want to live here, this might help. He says the Dutch invented the concept of bureaucracy. He moves into an apartment and wants internet. Calls the company, tells them where he is. "We show that Bob Rembrandt lives there." they say. "That must be whoever lived here before me." "Well, he didn't close his account. So you need to find him and tell him to contact us before we can open another account at that address."

I tried the G-13 Haze there and it is really good at what it does but I want a more full-spectrum high. This was too a specialized high.

Also went to Bulldog's at Leidsplein. I must say, I find the staff to be very nice and they do the weed a kind of interesting way, most of it is 12 euros and you got between 1 and 1.4 grams of it. The drinks are not very good and are not served with the nice finishing touches of other places. I especially miss the lack of a cookie with a hot drink, like you usually get. In fact, I believe more transactions should include a cookie.

They had my NY Diesel when several other places did not. One did and informed me that Italians really love NY Diesel.

I was rolling up my last couple of joints on my way out of town at the Bulldog and the dealer says to me

"Did you roll one up for the airport?"

The airport?!?

"Oh yes, after I check my bags there is a smoking area outside. I like to be refreshed for the flight."

I did not do that, since I didn't want to reek so bad during the security thing or on the plane, but did burn one at Central Station, also a proud tradition.

I ended up smoking while walking a few times and I must admit I've never smoked on the go like that, it gave the buzz a unique quality.

[esse.b]

:eek::eek: you went to mellow yellow and didn't try the blueberry???? schoolboy error Pete :D hee hee

[pete21]

:eek::eek: you went to mellow yellow and didn't try the blueberry???? schoolboy error Pete :D hee hee

So much weed, so little time. I also smoked several strains my friend bought but not sure what all that included.