Intro to Amsterdam

It started out with a plane taking off from Kastrup Airport in good ol' Copenhagen. I learned quickly that if I made swallowing motions with my facial muscles I could avoid a debilitating migraine caused by the pressure changing in the cabin. Jack, my travel companion either did not share the same physiology or the same learning curve, and spent half the plane-rides doubled over in an emo stupor of excruciating pain I knew too well from past flights to Florida with my dad.

Landing in Amsterdam, we learned just how far away the actual city is from the international airport. It's the same for all the airports in Europe. If we were in Lord of the Rings, the journey from the airport to downtown would last for six chapters. It was easy enough to hitch a ride on a bus on a route that lead us to a Hard Rock cafe only a few blocks from our hostel. I had no idea how useful tourist information could be until I arrived in a country only knowing the name of the place I was staying.

The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel markets itself as "The world's worst hotel." The reception desk is decorated with post cards and posters with images of customers cheery faces at check-in and gaunt, heroin starved masks at check out. All these for sail from the receptionist at .50 euro a pop. I nearly bought a poster depicting the hotel's policy of cutting out sections of the carpeting to get rid of cigarette burns.

Long exposure of the hostel

Despite the "hotel's" self-inflicted reputation and dubious reviews on Hostelbookers, it was actually an extremely pleasant place to live. Well, maybe scratch the "extremely." The walls were thin and apparently Dutch kids were having something like a prom night rented out rooms on several of the floors. I had trouble sleeping the first night either from my surging excitement at finally leaving Denmark or the incessant screaming I could hear coming from outside my door. But for the price, I couldn't complain. It was a hostel after all, and in a room with 6 beds a little screaming from outside is a whole lot better than a fat guy with sleep apnea. 

Amsterdam itself was amazing. Yes it was pretty. The flowers were blooming and the flower market was in full Spring. Even Venus Flytraps and other tropical plants were flourishing in the weather. The canals sparkled as they pulsed with images of the cityscapes that inspired Van Gogh's imagination. But what really charmed me was that it only took a 2 minute walk outside the hostel to find what the Dutch call coffee shops.

Not to be confused with "cafes" (I think you know where I'm going with this), coffee shops are dispensaries of high quality cannabis, hash, brownies (space cakes), and and overpriced juices you are obligated to purchase if you plan on smoking inside. I was privileged to have the ability to enter these shops, which the government will be banning tourists from in within the next year. Each shop had it's own identity, one was comic book themed, others electronic, some reggae. But they all got the job done.  They had weed-smoking down to a science. The environments and the drinks provided were the perfect supplements to extremely high doses of THC. The music where we went was loud and had a baseline that even the most vegetative stoner would find impossible to sleep to. And the organic juice had the body and hydrating potential to alleviate a cotton mouth I thought to be incurable.