Amsterdam - what's good?

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I'm going for a few days next week with my girlfriend. I've been before but only for day trips or to kill a few hours before waiting for a plane or train connection. Would love some recommendations for where to go/what to do/what to see. More on the cultural and food/drink side of things than mad heavy club nights, although music on the classic/experimental/jazz/folk etc. side of things would be good, if anyone knows of anything like that.

I think a lot of things might be either closed, or open but horribly rammed, on the Thursday as it's a national holiday.
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
check the websites of muziekgebouw/bimhuis, occii and ot301 for concerts. try and google where to find the best surinamese food, it's the best cuisine in the world. do one of those canal boat tours, it looks shit but i always think it's quite relaxing.

apart from that don't know that much. if you ask me that city is dead. completely overrun by tourists. nutella shops everywhere, stag party guys vomiting in front of your feet, camera's flashing constantly, selfie sticks poked in your face. i was thinking anyway it would be time to stop tourism, or somehow regulate it. i don't even like visiting other cities myself anymore as i feel like an intruder the moment i set foot in a foreign city. but maybe that should go in another thread.
 

luka

Well-known member
Smoking skunk in windowless basements surrounded by twitchy paranoid teenagers from deepest darkest Croydon.
 

luka

Well-known member
Tourism in some cities or some sites within some cities has reached some tipping point but equally can you say to the Chinese (and Indians and etc) we've travelled the world but now you have enough money to do it we're putting a stop to it!

Interesting conundrum in any case
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I lived in Amsterdam for a few months in 2000 I think it was (as you probably know). I hated it. Was mainly the job but also the fact it poured down with rain really really hard on every single day and the way the pavements were all being dug up so the whole place was just a muddy fucking swamp. And and it could also have been down to the fact that it was full of drunken idiot tourists traipsing round the coffee shops and red light district... or maybe the drug dealer who used to threaten me every time I left my house. Mainly it was the job and the fact that every single person I worked with (ok except Liam) was an utter utter cunt. Some of whom got busted later he he. There are some nice Indonesian restaurants and museums and stuff I guess.
Went back there a few years ago to DJ at a friend's art show thing - it was even worse than I remembered.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
What holiday is it? If it's Queen's Day that should be worth seeing in itself.

It's Ascension Week, although I think only Thursday an actual holiday.

Cheers for the recs, yyaldrin. I'll try not to contribute to the vomiting-tourists problem! Was looking forward to some good Indonesian food, of course, but will be sure to try out some Senegalese too.
 

martin

----
Go to Cafe De Klos, best scran ever. I don't eat anywhere else in Amsterdam. If you've any interest in spare ribs, you'd be mental to miss it. The surrounding area has decent pubs, mostly filled with friendly locals, unlike the tourist scuzzholes in the city centre.

Red light district's a pile of shit unless you're fascinated by bored Eastern European girls checking their mobiles under a red lightbulb while 50-year old Airdrie fans stagger around, pissing all over their chinos..BUT...there is a 'freak section' which is well worth checking out: 32-stone women, burns victims, paraplegics, etc, and the oddest person I've ever seen - a woman with the face of a lion.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
The vondelpark is really nice and chill. I went for the ADE once and apart from a few nice gigs really hated most of my time there
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Easy Times is a Jamaican run coffee shop that plays the best music in a coffee shop (not hard given most of them play appalling music).

The best weed I had out there was Skywalker OG Kush. Seek out previous cup winners. Don't go to Bulldog or anywhere resembling it. Get Hash if you're walking around cos Amsterdam hash is ace and it won't make you comatose.

Get some mushroom truffles and eat them in Vondelpark and hope a mad beggar/acid casualty doesn't approach and vomit on you.

Steer clear of red light district because it attracts the worst British people in Britain.

The ReijksMuseum is pretty great if you like art, as is the Van Gogh museum.

Food wise I once had a Chinese meal while tripping and I couldn't work out how to eat anymore.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
the absolute centre around the main train station is shit, but the area round the concentric canals (Prinsengracht, Kerkstraat etc) is pretty nice, good bars and pubs. There's a pub under a windmill if you're into that kind of thing.

Didn't you live in the Netherlands at one stage, Tea?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Didn't you live in the Netherlands at one stage, Tea?

I did indeed, but that was in Eindhoven, which is about 80 minutes by train from the 'Dam - sort of distance that you'd go to see or do a specific thing or to meet a friend, but probably not just for "I'm bored, might go to Amsterdam this afternoon" type trips.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
ah ok, yeah that's a bit of a schlep. On the plus side, isn't Eindhoven famous for producing literally industrial quantities of ecstasy?
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
Easy Times is a Jamaican run coffee shop that plays the best music in a coffee shop (not hard given most of them play appalling music).

The best weed I had out there was Skywalker OG Kush. Seek out previous cup winners. Don't go to Bulldog or anywhere resembling it. Get Hash if you're walking around cos Amsterdam hash is ace and it won't make you comatose.

Get some mushroom truffles and eat them in Vondelpark and hope a mad beggar/acid casualty doesn't approach and vomit on you.

Steer clear of red light district because it attracts the worst British people in Britain.

The ReijksMuseum is pretty great if you like art, as is the Van Gogh museum.

Food wise I once had a Chinese meal while tripping and I couldn't work out how to eat anymore.

second the hash thing. in fact, i never understood why people smoke weed instead of hash before finding out it's just not available outside of holland? weed kills me, i shut down, can't even talk anymore, can only look around, thoughts in my head unable to be expressed.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Hash is definitely better than weed. Luka only maintains that weed is better because he smokes it to make himself feel like one of those "gangster rapper" characters.
 

luka

Well-known member
I gave up all that horrible stuff years ago. I'll only smoke if I'm very very drunk.
 

comelately

Wild Horses
Been a few years ago now, but iirc Eindhoven had the bar you could smoke weed outside, basically on the town square. That was kinda nice. I got a ridiculously cheap rate on the Park Plaza Mandarin and absolutely murdered their buffet breakfast.

Once I went to a nice budtender in Seattle and she sorted me out with a beautiful Sativa ePen, I couldn't really look at the Netherlands the same way.
 
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