Day 3 - Amsterdam

 

Breakfast @ Airport 960kr
Train tickets from Schiphol €12.80
Alfa Hotel (for 3) $100
Mexican food (for 2) €40
Crappy bar €12
Better bar €14
Coffee shop €6

 

Took the airplane from Iceland to Schiphol airport near Amsterdam, and took a train downtown. Found our hotel, which is actually well-located, though very small for three people. Had food at some bad touristy places, and finally we found a decent bar with Trappist beer and had our first good beer of the trip:

 

Westmalle Dubbel You can get this anywhere, but it was good here too!
Orval Pale w/Brett This was a young Orval, and wanted to age more.

 

Beer in bars is not marked up that much. These were under €4, and throughout the rest of the trip we never saw beer more expensive than that -- usually around €3 each.

We also discovered Blue Bird Cafe, a "Coffee Shop," which, in Amsterdam, has all the coffee stuff you would expect from one in the US, including lattes, smoothies and snacks. But in Amsterdam, coffee shops also sell, and let you smoke, marijuana -- it's legal there. So I had my first joint! It was a pleasant experience. I might do it again.

Psychedelic mushrooms are not legal (anymore) in Amsterdam, but apparently someone genetically spliced the psychedelic part into truffles, and they haven't got around to banning those yet. So Neil and Tim picked up some psychedelic truffles called "Philosopher's Stone" and had what sounded like a pretty intense trip. I was a bit too afraid to try it. Apparently the truffles were utterly disgusting to eat, but they did the job. I crashed while they were still tripping, and they reported not sleeping very well. I wonder why...

 

 

 

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