I arrived in Amsterdam at 7:30am, and boarded the train from Schiphol Airport to Centraal. The first thing that struck me about Amsterdam was how different it was from England, despite being less than an hour’s plane journey away. I sat upstairs on the train – would you believe it?

Needless to say at this point that I was a little overexcited… We went to drop our bags off at the hotel (if it had been just me I would have smoked first but I had two sleepy companions to think about). We then made our way to The Greenhouse for some amazing weed…and breakfast.

Greenhouse’s entry to the 2011 cannabis cup was Hawaiian Snow. This was some seriously tasty weed, and gave me a mellow high. The Greenhouse dealer said it was a good smoke for the morning, and I definitely agree. Throughout the trip we found that Hawaiian Snow had the ability to lift us from a stoned stupor, and even if we had smoked a considerable amount of high grade ganja, we were still able to navigate the streets of Amsterdam, albeit usually to a McDonalds or Burger King.

We walked in a stoned daze to Da Krone, a coffeeshop that I had visited last year. I bought some Amnesia Haze (I asked for Amnesia Cheese but it was sold out). And we lit a spliff, enjoying the lemony taste and slightly-confused high that this strain induced. There was a strange cat wandering about, and I remember thinking about how high it must be all the time. Once when I looked over it was sat on the counter, taking a long drink out of someone’s coffee!

Our next stop was Dampkring, where we bought their 2011 entry into the cannabis cup -Ginger Ale. This spicy-tasting strain was aptly described as getting you sky high, and after two spliffs of it I felt baked. Ginger Ale was one of the stronger strains that we smoked on the trip, and definitely one of my favourites.

Of course at some point we stopped off at McDonalds. I forgot just how good it tastes when you’re high as a kite on the best weed in the world. Their large is also the same as our supersize Burger King (UK McDonalds for some reason doesn’t offer supersize, but maybe that’s a good thing as lots of people in Britain would probably be fatter if they did). I also noted when high that their Big Mac tastes exactly the same as ones in England.

Next we went to Barneys to sample my favourite strain from my last visit – Tangerine Dream. We went to smoke in Barneys Farm where my friends came to join us. What followed is a bit of a blur, as we lit joints of Tangerine Dream, G13 Haze, Hawaiian Snow and Liberty Haze simultaneously. Before leaving we all shared a vapouriser bag of Tangerine Dream, making for a very stoned walk back to the hotel. I passed out around 9pm, and slept for 12 hours. It must have been the extra fat bedtime spliff of Tangerine Dream that I rolled…12 hours of solid smoking was a great way to spend my first day!

When we woke up this morning we went to a Coffeeshop called Free world, where I bought some Northern Lights. The gram cost me 12 euros, and was easily the best looking bud that I had bought so far. I had a spliff of that, followed by a spliff of Ginger Ale. Needless to say, I was rather high for 10 o’clock in the morning. We had more fast food for breakfast.

We then walked to Abraxis, where I bought a cup of tea and we smoked the remainder of the Hawaiian Snow. After that we wandered down to the Waterlooplein Market, where I managed to procure a standard UK eighth of Charas for 12 Euros from a nice Dutch lady at a head stall. We found our way to a coffeeshop called Blue Bird where I purchased a cold drink and smoked a fat spliff of the Charas – it was delicious.

After a stop back at the hotel room, we went to a coffeeshop called Resin and met up with our friends. My friend bought Desert Eagle, the strongest strain that the coffeeshop had to offer. Again, this was very tasty, but that is to be expected in the Dam! This strain was also as powerful as its name suggests. Resin was a good place to chill, and was a lot larger on the inside than it looked from outside! We made our way upstairs, and lit up a couple more spliffs. One of my friends also brought a bong upstairs, and they proceeded to hit it a few times. It was at this point that three of my friends took some truffles. Two of them shared a box, and the third, feeling braver munched a whole box to himself. Half an hour later, someone had the idea of going to Burger King for some food. We made our way there, but as we queued, the ‘brave’ friend that had munched a box of powerful truffles to himself started tripping balls. I turned around and saw him swaying with legs like jelly – so I took him upstairs. When a few of us had eaten, and he felt a bit better we made our way towards the Red Light District to find a new coffeeshop.

All of the coffeeshops were packed, and there were no seats available in the first two we went into. It was at this point that it became apparent that my friends who had taken truffles were finding the experience of the busy evening Red Light District a little too intense. They retired to their room for a rest.

After a few spliffs by the canal outside our hotel, we rested, and then got ready for Innovation. For those of you that don’t know, Innovation in The Dam is a massive drum and bass festival that happens every year across a few clubs in/just outside of Amsterdam. One good thing about these massive clubs is that you can smoke weed in them. There was a designated smoking room, but from the time we got there people were rolling fatties and lighting them up right on the dance floor. It was a brilliant night!

After Innovation we got a taxi back to my friend’s hotel – it was only 14 euros, which is surprisingly cheap for a 20 minute taxi journey as a tourist in a foreign country, between four of us. We rolled a couple of fat spliffs and smoked them outside the hotel. I rolled a couple more, and two of us left to go back to our hotel.

We woke up feeling slightly rubbish from the raving the night before. We made our way to 420 café and bought 420 haze, then smoked a large joint of it. I then bought a gram of 420 kush, and did exactly the same as we had with the haze. We then smoked another fat joint of each – we didn’t feel so rubbish after the strong Indica effect of the kush kicked in!

Went back to Freeworld and bought some White Shark, already suitably baked by this point (around midday). In the Freeworld I photographed all the weed I had collected so far, and you can see the pictures in all their glory after the article.

The next place we went to was The Grasshopper, and we smoked some of my Charas while we waited for our friends to arise. After we met them we walked to another coffeeshop to smoke. For the rest of the day we did a tour of coffeeshops including Barneys & Barney’s Farm, The Greenhouse and Dampkring. I was getting pretty skint on my day’s euro allowance by this point, so I smoked what I had left of the weed I had already bought.

The next day we were celebrating a birthday, so we went straight to The Greenhouse after breakfast in the Hotel. We smoked the rest of the White Shark and then the last bit of the Tangerine Dream, then met a couple of Canadians who had been in Amsterdam for the last 11 days for the Cannabis Cup. They were going straight from the Coffeeshop to the Airport via a taxi, so they were doing their best to smoke everything they had left. They rolled one of the fattest blunts that I had ever seen, with at least four types of skunk and a gram of hash in it (and not just any hash – Exodus Cream Cheese – the winner of the 2011 Hash Cup). They shared the spliff with us, and we all got really, really high. Half-way through, they realised they hadn’t smoked a big ball of Barney’s winner to the 2011 Ice Hash Cup – Liberty Resin. This stuff costs 58 euros a gram, and they didn’t want to waste it. One of them plonked the ball of hash right on the cherry of the blunt, and we all inhaled the smoke – apparently it’s called a “torch”. It was delicious. Needless to say my eyes were red at this point.

We went to meet the rest of our friends after finishing the massive blunt in The Greenhouse. The Canadian guys also left us with several free gifts that they didn’t want to take home – a Greenhouse Bag with two posters in it that they had bought for The Cup, some Exodus Cream Cheese, a spliff’s worth of Liberty Resin, two crazy looking energy drinks and two boxes of the strongest Amsterdam truffles. Wanting to enjoy being stoned in Amsterdam to the fullest extent possible, I passed on the truffles to my friends that had eaten them a couple of days before!

We had a couple of spliffs in The Grasshopper and met the rest of our friends, then walked down to Waterlooplein market to try and find the head stall that had sold me the Charas. I don’t know whether it was because I was so baked when I had found it the first time, but we couldn’t find it anywhere. Come to think of it, it could have been a facebook comment about Waterlooplein market that made me think it was there – as I think there is another market nearby, and when we went on Monday we couldn’t find a single head stall, yet a couple of days before (wherever we were) there had been loads!

We went into “Reggae Bar” and my friends bought some High Power and some Ketamahash. The dealer advised my friend that the hash wasn’t very strong, and it was 1.6g for 14 euros. It still tasted lovely, and grated up really well for some fat spliffs.

After this some of my friends wanted to go to The Heineken experience, but not being drinkers, two of us declined. We went back to The Freeworld (loved that place) and then on to Barneys where we bought some Pineapple Chunk and sat at a table. This stuff was seriously tasty, and its genetics were Pineapple X Cheese X Skunk. I could really taste the cheese. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it!

We moved to Barney’s farm, where there are more comfortable seats, and proceeded to get really stoned with all the weed that we had left. The rest of our friends turned up at this point, and as it was a birthday, we got the largest cone a head shop had to offer, and filled it with Blue Cheese, Vanilla Kush, Pineapple Chunk, Ketama Hash, Tangerine Dream, High Power and Super Silver Haze. It was at the point of sparking this that the lady behind the bar told us that they were closing in 10 minutes, so we had to smoke it pretty fast! In a stoned daze (we were all wrecked), we stumbled to Picassos, sadly the last coffeeshop of my visit! We rolled up everything we could and smoked it in the 45 minutes we had left before we needed to get a train back to the airport.

I was sad to leave, and within 35 minutes of the plane taking off we were back in England, and back to normality. I will never forget this trip, and plan to go back to The Dam as soon as possible! I hope that the laws surrounding cannabis don’t change, although if they do I would seriously consider moving out there so that I could have a weed pass. Amsterdam is my favourite place in the world.