Our Amsterdam Holidays

Day 1

So the second day of our holiday in Amsterdam started out early, with me and Vix waking up about 6am and heading out for some breakfast at around 8am. As the Di Ann hotel is on Raadhuisstraat, we had plenty of places to choose from.

The first port of call was to a small newsagents on Herengracht. The weather was crappy so we wanted to make sure we had something to soothe sore throats as we knew the wind and rain would soon start to cause a problem. After grabbing some throat lozenges and having a little chat with the nice woman behind the counter. Off we went in search of food.

So to Rene’s we went, i fancied a chocolate croissant and Vix had the same. Nice and warm breakfast on a cold miserable day. Perfect! Then back towards the Di Ann to find our friends.

After stealing them away from their breakfast, we decided on a plan of action for the day. One of our friends wanted to go and visit the Oude Kerk, and some museums that were in that part of town.

The day started for us all and weather was unforgiving. It rained hardcore for the whole morning and we spent most of our time hopping in and out of shops to dodge the rain. Most the shops were on Damstraat and were a combo of either souvenir shops or clothing shops.

We made a quick trip to the Bluebird and enjoyed a few vaporizers while there. The Bluebird sell pre weighed bags, so if you don’t like it pre weighed, don’t visit here. The one thing that was different from most the other coffeeshops, was that they had a smoke room for customers to roll with tobacco should they want to.

As they went off to museums and other places, we arranged that we’d meet back up in Abraxas in a couple of hours. Abraxas is a cool coffee shop and i’ve been there on previous visits to Amsterdam. It’s split over a couple of floors, but as we didn’t fancy our chances with the stairs after a smoke. We stuck to the downstairs seating area and sat close to the drinks bar.

We spent a few hours in Abraxas, trying out their Vaporizer which the guy was cool enough to show us how to use. The rest of that hour is a bit of a blur, but i do remember ordering and drinking several hot chocolates with whipped cream. I also remember smoking a gram of K2 and something else, Vix did the ordering so i can’t really remember. Finally our friends turned up and it was time to leave.

Next we all headed up towards Damrak. Once there we had to come up with a plan, do we go on a canal cruise now? or later? I opted for later and headed into Kadinsky’s just off of Damrak. Vix and Ade followed, while Jim went off to sort out the rest of his places to visit. We grabbed a couple of g of New York Diesel. Which to be honest lived up to its name of tasting a lot like diesel. Not my favourite smoke whilst we were there that’s for sure. As Kadinskys was small, we set off to find Jim and some food.

After all that walking around, we were hungry. Jim said he saw a steakhouse on Damstraat, so in search of the steakhouse we went. About 5 minutes into Damstraat we must of seen 20 Steakhouses that all looked the same to me. We chose one and hopped in to check out the menu.

They ordered the steak and chips for €11 whilst me n Vix grabbed the chicken and chips. What can i say, we just love chicken . The beer was refreshing too, Heineken tastes better in Amsterdam than it does anywhere else in the world.

Next stop the RLD!

Wandered round the various shops in the RLD and peered through a few windows. Vix kept checking out the girls in the window, which i had zero problem with. As it was dark, it was the perfect time to take some photos of the Oude Kerk. The RLD is a dodgy place, we had several people begging for change and trying to sell us cocaine and other hard drugs. Walking straight past the dealers is the easiest way to avoid them.

To avoid more dealers, we hopped into the Old Church coffee shop. This is directly behind the Oude Kerk and close to the prostitute information centre (PIC). This is another small coffeeshop and everything is pre weighed here. They also don’t allow you to smoke your own, so we picked up a bit of Amnesia Haze. The only thing i didn’t like about the Old Church was the pre weighed bags of weed. The Amnesia haze was an excellent smoke though, despite it being pre weighed.

As we were in the RLD area, i wanted to check out the Greenhouse on the other side of the canal. After this moment, the Greenhouse became one of my favourite coffeeshops.

The greenhouse has a great atmosphere and if you fancy a chat with a stranger, here’s the place to do it. It’s mostly dark in here and funky lighting is everywhere,including in the tables and the bar. It gives it the effect of almost looking like your inside a real Greenhouse! They had a vaporizer too (Most the coffeeshops seem to be getting them in). We picked up some cheese from here and it was amazing, so amazing we bought some more.

After the greenhouse we walked our friends back to the hotel, They decided an early night was in order, me and Vix felt differently. So after walking them back, it was back to the RLD!

Ok so we had already been round the RLD once that evening. But now we were alone as a couple and get a proper look at things. That is if we knew where we were going! We got lost down the alleyways and almost ended up in a strip show. This is at 11pm, we wouldn’t of minded if we had found the sex cinema instead of the strip show. But hey we were entitled to get lost.

After we got “unlost”, we headed back for the Greenhouse, we knew where it was and knew they were open until 1am . We stayed here until around 12:45 in the morning then headed back for the hotel. The next day was our final day. So we wanted to be awake to enjoy it.