This was our last day in Amsterdam, but as our flights weren’t until 9pm-ish, we had plenty of time to slowly get our stuff together and head on a bus back to town for the last time. I still had a wide variety of supplies to finish off, some herb crushing equipment that I’d not have time or energy to properly clean, and a bunch of pre-rolled empty cones that after experimenting with, I knew would find a better home with someone else. We grabbed a few stools at Voyagers, and got down to the serious business of finishing everything off. I grabbed a couple of space cakes (or they might have been left over from last night, I forgot to include our trip to Hunters when searching for a CS still open in Amsterdam that sold decent enough edibles. Anyway, Cisco and Gapie turned up, and HB was serving at one point. I’d remembered to take a few photos of the houseboat and the surrounding area, and I think there are some videos hiding somewhere that I need to upload to YouTube. I’ll try and get around to writing at least one proper post on some of the finer details of this trip – the houseboat, the GPS files and the shortlist of strains and CS I’d created/updated just prior to the trip.
Jan 16 2012
Amsterdam – 7th January
Saturday was the second meeting I had planned, except this time I was in the right country! ChrisB had had a pretty nasty car accident the week before in India, so decided a day in bed was a better idea for his back than traipsing round Haarlem. ChrisD was in default mode, reverting to beer and rugby, so that left Gapie (a local ACD member) and Cisco (a man as enthusiastic as I was to get to Haarlem), along with any of the other ACD members in town.
Eventually, and to no great surprise, it was decided that the trip would be delayed at least. No one had much energy, and to be frank just sitting down and chilling out in Voyagers seemed like a much better idea.
Once again, for photos with a more obvious Amsterdam theme to them, click the link below (or keep reading if you accessed this post directly)…
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Jan 15 2012
Amsterdam – 5th January
I’m going to write a few posts and include a few of the photos from last week’s Amsterdam trip. As this post is focused on the 1st day of the trip, it should have details of getting into the Netherlands at just past midday, a smooth journey into Central station, meeting ChrisB and checking into our houseboat, and meeting online friends in real life.
Unfortunately, the first flight was cancelled. This meant potentially hanging around Cardiff International Airport for six hours or so. Luckily, John came back to take me out for a pub lunch. Upon my return, I was once more ready to go with my hand luggage packed tight, tickets to hand etc. etc. Once again, it was not to be, as Schipol airport was still having weather problems, and not accepting any flights from Cardiff that day. This left me a little peeved off, and KLM put me into a taxi to get to Heathrow for their last flight to Amsterdam. Even with clear roads it would have been pushing it, but I was a little late arriving to Heathrow. However, as there were a lot of delayed flights, I didn’t end up missing it.
Finally I got into Amsterdam with most of Thursday gone, but at least I was there! Skipping the planned tram card and local SIM card sourcing, I dumped my bags at a locker in Central Station, and used TomTom to ensure I was wandering in the right direction for Nes – where I had arranged to meet ChrisB (and in fact where I had arranged to meet some friends from the Amsterdam Coffeeshop Directory a lot earlier in the day). Although Nes allows smoking in their bar, they don’t sell anything to smoke, just alcohol. ChrisB had been talking to a few people though, and one of them had gifted us a little something to tide us over until the morning. After a few beers and vodkas to sooth my frayed nerves, ChrisB pointed out the way to our houseboat, and a few hours later, we were both sleeping on a gently bobbing boat.
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