AMSTERDAM
 

been a complete greener for about 10 years now, i am embarking on my very first trip to Amsterdam this weekend, Has anyone ever been? any recommended coffeeshops for me?

drugs are bad, m'kay.

heh.. i went there two years ago with some friends to catch an SY show and just generally chill for a few days... on the first day, first coffee shop, my friend smoked a huge joint and collapsed face first onto the pavement, chipping his tooth... we had to give him sugar pills and near enough carry him to the apartment... he wasn't 100% for the rest of the holiday and hardly smoked or drank at all... me, i was blazing up everyday...
i remember me and my friends standing in the paradiso with a cigarette packet full of joints... watching sonic youth make some demonic noise... thurston climbing up the balcony... seeing Lee in the audience during Afri rampo... the endless version of Expressway.... good times...

keep away from the bulldog coffee shops, they were full of tourist thuggy types when i went. I'd recommend...

rookies : one of the few i was in that sold beer as well as dope, it had good quality weed and pool tables

the grey area : run by american guys with their own unique strains of weed, the greyberry was good, they were also playing deerhoof and sonic youth when i was there. very small though

mellow yellow : further out that the others but definately the friendliest i was in, the owner sat at the table with me and my girlfriend for a while chatting, good mix of floyd, hendrix and pysch. they have pinball tables and good munchies

dampkrieg : seemed quite cool but quite strict, they asked us for id even though we were 20 at the time. It's popular cus they filmed a bit of oceans 12 there

other things : vondel park is great if it's sunny, good place for a smoke too

ajax's ground, the amsterdam arena for good football (need a tram to get there though)

the cobra museum (again a tramride away) for fantastic art

gigs at the paradiso

theres a tour round the heineken brewery and the liedsplein is good if you're stoned and want to gawp at firethrowers/breakdancers/magicians

Check out the Van Gogh museum.

thank god you didn't go last week. you would've ended up between all the hippies in this tourist trap:
http://www.jaminthedam.com/
they're coming from all over the world... it's both ridiculous and somehow fascinating.

try if you can spot one of the new signs. there are now a couple of places that have one of these:

(they get stolen a lot as souvenirs though)