We arrived in Amsterdam
at 5:30 pm
without a reservation."It'll be no problem!", we had been told, " Just go to the VVV and they will set you up, they have all the hotels at their fingertips."
Uh-huh, riiiiiight....
As we joined the lineup of fifty or so people, a cadavorous character, tall and gloomy, approached Reg and I and offered us a room for $140. for the night. He said it was close by but he had no business card or brochure and we nervously declined. He went on his way without asking anyone else and a young fellow from Oman commented on the possible danger of going with that guy, so we spent the next 45 minutes making up awful fantasies of what was really on offer here.
A room with video cameras hidden to expose us naked and shamed on the internet? A murder in the night?
An innocent offer from a shy man?
Amsterdam was full.
With NO hotels available in the centre, we ended up paying $300. Canadian for a room in the SAS Radison, way and gone out there, not my idea of a good location. In those expensive and charmless hotels, the windows don't open, and they don't offer a breakfast. How come the little Mom and Pop operations can afford to lay on a breakfast spread but the big chains can't spring for a croissant and a coffee?
The fellow from Oman
had been trying to find lodgings closer in to town so that he could take in the night life and believe it or not ours was closer that his. He hinted a bit, I thought, about us inviting him to share a room but caution stopped me. I sort of regret it, but who knows who he was either? Probably a fascinating and great person, we probably missed out by not getting to know him. He gave us with his Amsterdam Hotel yellow pages, to phone and reserve a hotel in advance next time.
We had to go to a "Coffee Shop".
We picked "Stones Cafe" because we thought with a name like that we probably weren't picking wrong. We walked into the tiny bartype establishment through clouds of stinky smoke, past guys smoking fat thick cigarettes. We sat at the bar and ordered beer. Nervously looked about and whispered at each other. Finally summoned our courage and beckoned to the barkeep. "Um, do you, um, sell joints here?" "Sure!" and he flung down the menu that is pictured on the left.
A plastic package of five thick cone shaped joints, each in its own hard plastic tube, cost $12. Canadian. (At that time.) The ones we ended up with were rolled with tobacco but the menu offers more exotic and pure fare.
