Notes from CUP 2000

or

I'd be OK if I could just remember what happened to my short term memory

I knew I was in trouble when I was awakened by scraping of a lighter just before six in the morning. It was Monday and I was wondering if this was such a good idea anyway; even though the Flu that had grabbed me Friday when I left the states was just now starting to taper off.

When my son woke me up on Friday morning to go to the airport I told him to leave without me. I had been up all night driving the porcelain bus and did not have the energy to dress, much less heft the 60 pound suitcase I had packed. My sons, God Bless them, would not be swayed, they grabbed my bag and carried me to the car.

My children were a great aid to me in this time. They shepherded me to the airport, carried my bag around and generally helped out. We managed to make it to the airport with 2 hours to spare but there were huge lines at the counters. When it looked like we might miss an important connecting flight, I managed to stumble over to a customer representative and show her our tickets, we were still ten people from the front of the line. Immediately she grabbed the four of us, pulled us to the front and ushered us to the next available agent. I had foreseen some problems as the kids had insisted on bringing scooters. Not the little fancy folding ones but some real American iron. No boxes, no packaging, just three scooters ready to ride. I made our way through the passports and other documentation too slowly for the ladies behind the counter, they wanted me to leave soon as possible before I died on their station.

There were two immediate problems. One was the cancellation of the flight we were scheduled to leave on and the substitution of our seats onto another flights that was boarding forty five minutes earlier. That is to say ,NOW. The other as I suspected, was the scooters. In desperation to get rid of us she grabbed a general liability release and had the kids fill out three; one for each scooter. Then she could only find 2 of the 3 confirmation tabs. By this time another agent had come along, called the gate, confirmed they could accept the scooters; unboxed, as long as the liability forms were completed and they had sent a baggage cart for the "oversize luggage" We were through, and Œdid I need a cart to get me to the gate?'. " No " I told them " the kids can carry me " and off we flew.

I had the shakes so bad on that flight one couple asked to be moved away from me because I was so obviously ill. As I had the row to myself I lay down and tried to rest. When we landed in St. Paul I had a nice blonde ask me in the airport if she should call a doctor or get me a candy bar for insulin shock. I explained it was most kind of her but I was merely ill and the although the tickets were refundable the festival only happens once a year so there was no point but to carry on.

As the four of us waited during the layover in the St. Paul airport we could recognize other people headed for the same tour. Many carried their documents in the same envelope we had received ours in. The obvious ones carried their belongings wadded up in a bundle or a back pack. The late fifties ponytailed Harley freak was an easy guess. Not so the mid forties couple from Las Vegas. They had planned to do the trip no matter what, but at the last moment they won some local jackpot and were ready to whoop it up when they got here.

If I hadn't had some monster fever I would have been much more concerned when: after mechanical problems with the previous flight that resulted in its cancellation, they announced they were having difficulties with this flight and we would "get a report in twenty minutes". Not in retrospect a reassuring message. However I was so completely out of it barely registered. After a couple more of those announcement they began boarding our flight. They got most of first class on and then the gangway had to be reconfigured for an incoming flight so it's passengers could be shuffled off to customs. Eventually we got on and got off the ground. I honestly was not aware of any of the delays. I ached in every muscle, I had no sleep the night before, between bouts of driving the porcelain bus, and shivering under 4 layers of blankets, I would have been an idiot to have left the house to go to the store; here I was three days later in a room in a hostel in Amsterdam, still sick as a dog, remembering how much I loved this city.

As one of the boys lit the hash pipe the other called out "Dad, it's the Superior Siberian, want a hit?"

The boys had long ago decided that they were not going to catch what ever it was that knocked Dad over so they felt they could pass the bowl along as they liked. I stretched out of the sweat soaked sheets and reached into the dark room. One of the boys placed the pipe in my hands and held the flame just above the bowl. A fine flavor filled my sore lungs. Even the rasping in my throat was eased by the almost fluid smoke. "Nice stuff" I muttered, "put it down for a 6 to 7"

The boys began to cough uncontrollably, I had been conservative in my hit, just breathing was painful enough. The hash had a nice aftertaste as well, slightly piney, an over hint of cinnamon, generally a fine grade A hashish. Then the swollen glands in my neck reacted to the saliva generated by the flavor and I was seized by excruciating pain as I involuntarily swallowed. I bit my tongue as I held back a small squeal. "Nice flavor " I hissed

The premise of the festival was simple enough. Visit 19 coffee shops and sample their submission for :flavor, appearance, effect and the like. Over four days. With late night parties and plenty of distractions. The problems were obvious, not enough time to sober up. Every product was a gonzo bud, high potency, with potential for serious brain damage. The one gram samples resulted in thumb sized joints, or special cone joints. Usually two to a sample. The four of us should be able to locate 19 coffee shops in several districts in Amsterdam, remember to have our little passports stamped and review the product. I can't tell whether it was the flu or the weed but I was really hard pressed to keep up.

I rolled out of bed that morning with the knowledge that I was three days behind and I had to cover at least cover at least 8 shops before I could crawl back in. As it was a challenge just to stand I knew this was going to be difficult. I threw on some clothes and dragged my self down to the breakfast room.

The glass of orange juice was excruciatingly painful. What ever open wounds had opened up in my throat was not helped by an application of citric acid. The juice was of course fresh squeezed and quite good

The place was an old but serviceable hostel, it had seen better days but the room had a private bath and only the four of us would be there.

When we arrived at the hostel the bus driver had been unable bring the full sized city bus down this windy ass little street, so he backed into a nearby parking lot and let us off; "just around the corner" he said "then bear left, it's on the right." Not the most concise of directions but I managed to find it. I had none of the confirmation paper work when I arrived and when my turn came I was hoping I had remembered what I had read correctly. He couldn't find my name at first, and when I joked I had gone to the wrong hotel he said no that he had seen those names on his lists and yes here they are. Here are your keys. Another miracle, some of the rooms were still occupied and people had been told the rooms would be available by 2pm as they were cleaned, I could go upstairs and crawl into a bed immediately. The kids came by about 15 minutes later. We had gotten separated at the bus from the airport to the hotel and I was unsure about my luggage was well as my survival. I was flat out when the kids came in, low on sleep but high on energy, they were ready to head right out and see what they could find, and they did.

I was not. I gave a croaked blessing and the room got a little quieter, Contrary to what the tour organizers suggested I slept the entire day and had no intention of moving. Between fits of heavy sweating and freezing in a 100 degree room I managed to survive the day. The kids checked in on me during the next two days but as I showed no change for the worse, and they would go about their business

Over the years I have developed a fondness for Royal Jelly and Ginseng. I find it most invigorating when I am tired or weak. Unfortunately it comes in these 10ml bottles that look for all the world like some kind of drug ampoule. By the 3rd day we had disassembled two of the beds and frames and stuck them in the corner. There were 10ml bottles and packages of herb everywhere. We were using the spare bed as a desk, with half smoked joints and small bags of hashish, as well as papers, pipes and lighters and the skull astray the kids had bought. My laptop was perched on a pile of towels outside of the bathroom.

The maids were disturbed. Many of the rooms were disorganized and messy but this room attracted their ire. As smoking in the rooms was forbidden per the posted signs they were concerned we would set fire to ourselves and burn them out of a job. While we were registering the management had told us it was "OK to smoke in your room. Please open the window and stuff a towel under the door". Unfortunately the management never relayed this information to the staff, who promptly marched down stairs for a closed door meeting.

By Tuesday I was able to keep up with the kids for most of the day. We would get up around 7 and head down stairs for the breakfast. After coffee and some food we would examine the list and see where we would be going today. Although the shops were scattered through old town sometimes there would be two or three in the same area. There are also many other shops not on the list , at times an entire block would have a friendly aroma.

As we got to a shop a decision usually had to be made at the door. We had established long ago we did not have to buy a sample each, instead we would; share the rounds, so to speak. So only one of us actually had to spend the 15-25 guilders (7.5-12.00 $US) for the sample and stand in line for the stamping of the little passports. If the shop was crowded the next person responsible for the round would take all the passports and the cash and head into the thick of the crowd. There was always a great haze inside most shops. The ventilation may not have been the best, upgrades are never easy in a four hundred year old building, but the crowd was doing its best to overwhelm a hurricane. The dreaded London pea soup fog has nothing on the crowded hash bar fog in Amsterdam.

If the shop had room and we had a few minutes to relax and look over the past few samples, we would head in if there was a table by the door or window. None of the shops would allow the scooters into the shop, too big they said. Chaining them was a serious consideration. But to what? In some of these little alleys the only thing available was a plastic garbage can, or someone else's motorcycle. Neither were positive choices. Little kids loved the scooters and when we watched them walk by they would point and pull daddies hand. Daddy of course would explain and the kids would head off beaming.

Usually we would try to pick up samples from several shops, and only stop at one or two for smoking. The streets are very small and never go straight for long, The streets were all named but because of the way they are set with canals it can be a challenge to get places occasionally, heavily stoned made it extremely entertaining. We would gather in our hostel room at various times during the day and then go out and try to gather more samples for the collection, visit the exhibits at the Pax house ( a former Police station), go to lectures, political awareness seminars, or visit the house Rembrandt lived in. There are the most amazing museums as well as art galleries, opera, music, all the distractions of a civilized city.

Scavenger hunt for killer bud That's what it's really like. You wander from shop to shop. Sometimes there are 2 or 3 along one stretch, but most of the time you stop at one place, sit down, buy a sample, mark it, evaluate it for appearance and aroma and check the shop over for general atmosphere, knowledge of the product, pop it into a bag and head off for the next one. With the boys and the scooters it should be faster but they can't resist playing on the curbs and cobbles. Sometimes we cover three or four miles on foot between shops. The sidewalks varied in quality. Some parts of town were vehicle free during the day which made getting around much easier, sometimes we had to squeeze ourselves down an alley and find this very friendly shop.

The map the organizers had supplied had all of the names and addresses as well as a map with those points marked as well as some other interesting things, The Cannabis College, The Hemp Museum. There are no marked paths although they also supply some busses to get you from the different hotels to the shops. If you took a short cut it might not really be so. And there were places in the red light district where the girls were working at any time day or night. Now working here takes a slightly different tone. The red light is on over the glass window of the cubicle. Bored and partially clothed she tries to entice you into through the full length glass door she is modeling in front of. When a customer enters, she pulls the curtains and "entertains" Sorry miss we are not interested, we are searching for the mighty "White Smurf" product of some coffee shop over that way.

The organizers did provide bus service between the shops and the hotels. It was always fun to watch these little fifteen passenger busses rolling through the tiny cobbled streets. Stopped at a coffee shop it was entertaining to watch them disgorge a line of mostly heavily overstoned individuals who then either wandered in the street or meandered into the coffee shop; or a combination of the two. As we were on our own schedule we tried to find the places when they were not busy and more representative of the true atmosphere of the shop. An additional few thousand tourists in for a few days tends to change the local environment.

My mothers twin sister married and moved to Amsterdam in 1951. It was in a little seventeenth century house that they raised the four children. When the youngest was still toddling the oil company moved Dad back to the USA and the family followed. And so it was that two groups of impressionable teenagers came together. It wasn't until we scared each other in the garden of my grandmothers Manhattan apartment that we realized the other group smoked. They may have suspected my brother and I were heads, the long hair in those years was a pretty obvious sign, but we didn't have a clue about them.

After that we got together regularly at family gatherings and discretely took off for a "walk along the beach". After that our attitudes and appetites were considerable improved. It was during those walks that I first heard about Dam Square. My cousins had left the Netherlands in late 1968 and the government had been reviewing its policies on crime priorities for several years. Increasing pressure on the government to use it's resources to the maximum benefit helped to make the decision to allow certain areas of exception for some activities. As my cousins described the various types and flavors of hashish and herbs available we knew it was a trip we must take together.

It was with my brother that I made the first trip to Amsterdam. On our way back from an extended bicycle tour of Germany in 1974 we made our way to Amsterdam on bicycles. In those years the streets were a little grimier and not quite as crowded. The Bulldog was not settled in yet but there were more than a few shops that were friendly and well stocked. We only had four days before we got on the bus to London and headed home.

When my sister moved to England in 1986 that made visits easier. A week with sis was just about all her husband could stand and then I could spend a week in Holland. It was great. I could never quite get the timing right for the cup. Thanksgiving I was always occupied with some family gathering for my younger children. It wasn't till the youngest turned fifteen and moved back in with her mother that I was able to actually plan such a trip. And then the financial times were tight. I wasn't quite sure I could pull it off.

Now I was here and having a great time as Amsterdam is the only city I know of that just gets better every time I visit.

There are so many wonderful fragments of memories. The Cannaboat tour from the Dolphins was great, the concerts at the Melkweg, the cafes around Dam square, a pair of bronze breasts set in the cobble stone sidewalk.

Getting to the Pax house for the voting was an immense challenge, after six days of bonzo bud there were times I was not sure of my own name. We had kept good records at every shop and we reviewed our notes to help us make our votes.

Afterwards we agreed that the "Water Hash" was the best hash. Although we liked the Vaportech more than the grinders. For the Sativa we were split between the Cali Mist and the Fast Spear. We all agreed on the Blueberry, yum yum! Hempire papers got our vote as well as the Greenhouse coffeshop.

Glass was hard for us as there are glass blowers in our family, but the Jerome Baker stuff was amazing. We liked Barney's Sweet tooth, but it wouldn't burn well in joints for us., and the White Smurf we labeled as "dangerous".

This year? The kids will be back and they are bringing my sons mother in law for the trip. I may not make it to the cup this year due to business obligations, but I will be back in Amsterdam; maybe early December. I need a little sanity to offset the madness of corporate life.