So, I’m walking down the sreet and I pass a sex museum, a marijuana and hashish museum. Anything goes in this place. The aroma of high-octane weed is everywhere. Imagine the best pot ever and then multiply by three. If you are a lover of all things reefer – then Amsterdam will blow your mind. And the coffee shops are everywhere, not just in the red light district.
The coffee shop is an establishment where you can smoke & buy marijuana and Hashish without persecution or harassment by the law or your mama. They are usually decorated with some psychedelic theme, smell of incense, and very mellow… aw can you hear the reggae music? There was one right by my hotel called Double Reggae.
There was another next to it called Freeworld Coffee Shop, there was one across from that one call “One Love coffee shop” next to that was the Sensi /seeds store,
then the head shop next to it… well, you get the picture right?
I was trying to compare the frequency of coffee shops in Amsterdam to a retail occurrence in the USA. The only thing that compares is the number of nail salons that frequent Manhattan. Except you will find a coffee shop on even the most quiet of streets. You see the signs everywhere you go – “coffee shop” and they have a city sticker posted in the window so you don’t confuse the place for a Starbucks. Ha!
Then there’s the smell, and the red eyed people stumbling out of them and the chilled out people sitting inside…
You go in, ask to see the menu and there it is: in living color. The selection… Hashish anyone?
Some of the coffee shops owners are serious growers. It is an art form like growing orchids or gourmet cooking – ya dig? They can trace their various strains of bud to the mother plant. (The first seed germinated to produce line) They cross breed and engineer their bud. They compete in the annual “Cannabis Cup” every year in November. He Cannabis Cup is a citywide competition in which all of the growers nominate their best harvest that year and we/you/everyone can be the judge for a small fee. Then you just go from shop to shop testing the entries. Puff, Puff, Give muthafucka!
The contenders pride themselves on their sticky, green fuzzy buds bursting with crystals and red & brown hairs. You can get high just from smelling the buds or your fingers after handling the shit.. Take a minute, rub your “northern lights” or “AK47” now run your fingertips together and inhale them… breathe in… yea baby!! That’s what I’m talking bout!!
It’s a culture – a sub culture but a real world of its very own. And it exists right there with the 17th century architecture and wonderful restaurants and shops and canal houses and the occasional Herring shop. Herring is a popular treat in Amsterdam – yech!
NEXT: Big night in Rotterdam at Club off_courso. The Universal Language is: HOUSE MUSIC!!!
