'Amsterstoned'

After almost six hours of running up and down stairs, getting my fingers jammed in mail boxes, and tripping over gnomes, bushes and whatever else people have in their gardens, I was off to Amsterdam (A'dam)!

Was I giddy as a little boy going on safari! I'd been really looking forward to this outing with my new friends from uni, and after getting out of my postman uniform I hopped into the shower and afterwards donned on a fashionably refreshing shirt, slick black jeans and my favourite fragrance.

My friends were already wandering around the city, keeping themselves amused with walks around the many canals, brewery tours and bar stops. But they saved the best for the last, said they just couldn't do it without me.

We met at a park famous for its gathering of hippies and Dutch literary circles. As you'll see, not without reason.

“What next?” I asked innocently.

“We need to get some water”, was the reply.

“Water?”, I asked again very innocently, “I thought you just came out of the brewery!”

“Yeah, but what we’re about to do we need lots of water.”
“And what is it that we’re about to do?”
“We wanted you to be there too.”
“Which is …?” I asked curiously.

“We bought joints already, and we just couldn’t go through it without you.”

(Museumplein...where we engaged in group ritual smoking)

So, within an hour of arriving in Amsterdam, we sat in a circle on Museumplein (Museum Square), crossed legged as if in preparation for a session of meditation, eyes all focused on the holy joint being rolled up before us. Our heads bowed in humble worship. That pungent smell of fine herbs wafted in the air. The sun was beaming, the skies clear and blue.

Technically, it’s illegal to smoke in ‘the public domain’, and being all lawyers-in-training and afraid what we’re going to do in the next few moments would tarnish the rest of our lives when we all eventually end up sitting on the bench at the International Court of Justice, we glanced around for lurking policemen. Luckily there was nobody around, except a bunch of cute guys playing football in the distance. They smiled at us when they realised what we were about to do. Four big bottles of mineral water, bags of chips, chocolate and baguettes, of cigarette filters and paper strewn all over the small circular space before us. Nothing could be more obvious. Well, like Clinton, a defence could always be that we ‘never inhaled’. We also discussed the defence of ‘non-consent’ ‘under duress’, ‘under (undue) influence’, and ‘peer pressure’. Before doing something ‘beyond the bounds of what is permissible’, lawyers think the fastest.

We passed the joint around, like an ancient Native American ritual of pipe smoking. We huffed and puffed, and liberated ourselves from the world, drifting into a state of bliss where everything seemed to be hilarious.

(Coffeeshops don't really sell coffee)

That sour, foul, parched aftertaste lingered in my mouth with each draw on the joint. My sense of smell immediate became overwhelmed by the smoke drifting and surrounding me, which would eventually slowly seep and cling onto my clothes for the rest of the night. I remembered again the reason I stopped smoking after a month in the ‘wild’ liberation months after turning 17. The bottles of water passed around the circle in vain attempts to extinguish rising hallucination effects, bouts of uncontrollable laughter and sudden feel of sleepiness.

Perhaps it was the fact we shared two joints amongst nine people, or that we bought the ‘low’ quality stuff (‘White Widow’) on the menu listing all the different types we could buy. But the effects weren’t as strong as we anticipated. Sure we felt giddy and light-headed, but soon after we all went a little quiet and just sat around looking at each other wondering what to say. One or two people lay down on their backs and napped. Through the exposed skin of my friend I could see the smooth, hairless and flat surface around his belly.

Afterwards the others who had never done this before in their lives said how a little disappointed they were. Maybe because everyone was exhausted after a whole day of wandering around. Perhaps all the hype and commotion around the actual deed made it all the less interesting and exciting when you actually come around to doing it. We sat around a bit more and decided the temperature had plummeted so much that it was probably time to get going. We had dinner, a couple more bar stops, and dinner before the ‘highlight’ for the night: the Red Light District.

We walked through the narrow streets crawling with tourists and junkies offering all sorts of services and drugs. Being righteous and sophisticated lawyers-in-training, we just carried on walking. Girls, in scantily dressed outfits, sometimes with a tit or so exposed, sat in small windows decorated with red fluorescent light (hence the name ‘Red Light District). Next to this toxic mix of pungent 'coffee' from the many coffeeshops, flashing neo-lights advertising 'real-live shows' and sex shops, gawking eyes, excited chatter from groups of horny men satisfied with their favourite kind of ‘window shopping’, the oldest church of Amsterdam stood. Crazy, chaotic, messy and sleazy is how I'd desribe it all.

(Herbs and mushrooms that may not be typical in home cooking)

That ended our tour of the great city of canals, the world's biggest (legal) red light district, coffeeshops. I guess it was fun to be out and about with friends, but as a local Amsterdam is somewhere I'd rather not go unless it's absolutely necessary.