Rotterdam swallowed me, twisted me, and then spat me out, exhausted but alive. As soon as I got out of the hitched car, a guy holding a sheet of paper approached me. It read something along the lines of: “I’m mute and deaf, help me please.” Even though I was young and naive, I didn’t fall for this one. A few years later, I saw another guy with an identical piece of paper in France and then in Morocco.
I stopped for what was likely the best falafel I’ve had to this day, recommended from the lady who kindly offered me a bed to sleep in, and I did well in listening to her. Weird choice of toppings, I have to say. I certainly didn’t expect sauerkraut, but oddly enough, it was a good fit. Chewing on the bun filled with chickpea goodness, an explosion of taste, I contemplated my next steps. My host suggested visiting a big library, but first, I wanted to do something else.
I connected to a nearby free wifi (weird days without cheap data available throughout Europe), and located the place I was looking for. I got lost on my way there (a foreshadowing of some sort?), but I finally found it after about half an hour. Reluctantly, I entered.
For some reason, I was scared. Coming from a country where this sort of thing easily lands you in jail for more years than a murder, I felt exposed. When the bouncer approached me and asked for an ID, I feared I was going to get kicked out, at best. Of course, I was already of age, so he just checked it and let me in – with a smile. What a weird thing.
I’d never seen so much pot in one place before; different strains, different qualities. Huge flowers with trichomes peeking from the surface like big glowy eyes, a crystalline icing on top of a donut, just begging to be consumed. My 18-year-old self was in heaven, living in a dream he never thought possible. I didn’t buy much. I was on a budget, and not being used to prices higher than 10 euros per gram, so I got myself a few grams of a cheaper strain, and a few papers. I went out and rolled a spliff. Still paranoid, I couldn’t believe it was okay to smoke this in public. I went to a park, and tried to find a secluded place. I lit up, inhaled, exhaled, and felt the rush coming to my head. This was something different from what I had back home.
After the deed, I quickly abandoned the library idea, as the place seemed overwhelming, and I set out to explore the city instead. Even though I didn’t buy the best weed they had, it was already hitting me hard. No wonder; these were different genetics from what I was used to back home. I walked around the city and soaked up the views. Rotterdam was bombed to the ground during the Second World War, and the Dutch decided to build it anew instead of restoring it to its former state. It is a proper modern city, with tall buildings rising to the sky, and streets full of concrete, cars, and chaos. That’s how I remember it.
I went towards the river and the Erasmus bridge, which I crossed. I had no specific goal in mind. I was getting further away from the center, into the residential areas with less rush. The weed worked its way on me, and I was getting more into my head by the minute. A paper map of the city that I borrowed from my host was the only way of finding my way.
Needless to say, I got lost. My feet wandered in the streets and my mind wandered its nooks and twists. I’m a daydreamer even when I’m sober, but when I’m stoned, I can evaporate into thin air within minutes. This is what happened the deeper I went into the streets filled with same-looking apartments. The unchanging surroundings, compared with the busy, overstimulating center, allowed me to turn my perception inwards. I was thinking about life, about how I lived it, and what it had in store for me. The more my feet moved, the deeper I pondered.
I don’t know how long it took me to wake up from my reverie. It was likely tens of minutes, maybe an hour. I found myself in a small side street that did not resemble the city I was in just a few moments ago. I was alone, and I didn’t see a street sign or any other point which could help me find myself.
“Fuck,” I said to myself, as I assessed the situation. This wasn’t the first time in my life I was lost. When I was a kid, I often found myself alone in the middle of supermarkets or other open spaces. I always panicked and cried at first, but then I usually went to the security desk, explained my situation, and eventually found my parents. This time, though, there was no security desk, nor were there any parents. I panicked and cried; my stoned head was already imagining the worst possible scenarios. After a moment, I got myself together. A guy came out of one of the houses, so I approached him.
“Hi, sorry to bother you. Can you please show me where we are, on this map?” I asked, trying to look as calm as possible.
He thoughtfully took the map, looked at it for a long moment, built the suspense, and then he proclaimed: “I don’t know.”
With those wise words, he disappeared and left me confused. The anxiety kicked in again. My mental state wasn’t helped by the weed I smoked earlier, and to be honest, I didn’t trust myself to find a way back. I was already getting tired; my feet hurt, and I was hungry. I was moments from breaking down and crying on the sidewalk.
Somehow I managed to calm down again, and I headed back to where I thought I came from. With every new street sign, I checked the name on my map, and eventually, I found myself.
When the city of Rotterdam was rebuilt in the years following the war, the Dutch decided to keep only a very small part of the original canals. I found myself on its banks, so I made a little picnic to refresh my tired body and mind. I ate the raw, dry oatmeal that I brought from Slovakia (it seemed like a good and cheap source of nutrition, that’s why I brought two bags) with dried pineapple. I drank some water, an energy drink I bought in a nearby shop, and rolled a second spliff of the day. After I restored my energy, there was no point in remaining in this part of the city, and it was already getting late anyway. I made my way back to the center, this time without getting lost, and then I headed straight to Nieuwerkerk, where I was staying. When I came there, my host made fun of me. I must’ve looked pretty destroyed and exhausted. I bet she also saw how stoned I was. I have to say a big thank you to this woman. I found her on Trustroots (a website similar to Couchsurfing, which helped me to sleep with a roof above my head in the Netherlands and elsewhere), and she agreed to offer me a bed for two nights. She gave me some good tips for my adventures and even shared food with me. She was a well-versed traveler and, despite her age, she was still very energetic. After a quick dinner, I excused myself for the bed. I had another long day in front of me and I needed to regain every bit of energy that I could.
A quick early morning coffee, maybe not even that. I packed up, got in the car, and about an hour later, my host dropped me off under a highway bridge. When I climbed it, I found myself on a petrol station that was supposed to be the best starting point for hitchhiking. This was, once again, a recommendation by my host. Back in her days, she hitched a fair amount of cars, and she knew her spots well. Anyway, I didn’t stay in Rotterdam for too long, just one day, actually. My adventures from the previous day were just a trial, a mere test of my abilities. Since I passed, I was now heading towards the original European city of sin.
Immediately, I went towards the exit to the highway. I wrote “AMSTERDAM” with a thick black marker on a piece of old cardboard, I found a good spot, and I stood there, with my thumb stuck out. Cars passed me by, some of the drivers waving, some of them smiling, some of them completely ignoring me. By now, I felt comfortable in my position. It’s always the first ten cars until the confidence kicks in. Afterwards, my inner monologue gets going along the lines of, “Come on, you’re going there anyway.” Then I proudly hold my thumb out, and I smile like a sunshine, so that the drivers don’t think I’m a threat. As I’m thinking about it now, maybe the smiling actually makes me scary. I don’t know. I picked up hitchhikers twice or three times in my life. Not because of smiles or anything. I was compelled to do it by my obligation to this craft. You have to give back what you once received.
Thirty minutes in, a small car parked near me. The driver, an older Asian man, got out and started checking something under the hood. Boy, how I was wishing I knew something, anything, about cars at that point. I could walk up to him with confidence, start a little chit chat about the problem, look at the motor with a thoughtful expression, and provide a solution. Or at least assess the situation. After that, we’d talk some more, and he’d feel obliged to take me to Amsterdam, and we might even become friends… Unfortunately, I know nothing about cars. Except that they have four wheels to drive, one wheel to steer, and countless other small wheels that make the whole thing move, using the power of millions of years old combusted organisms. And I’m pretty sure that bit of information wouldn’t help him at all.
So I stood there, with my thumb up, smile on, look harmless routine for who knows how long, when the Asian guy closed the hood, looked around, and then called out to me.
“Hey, come here. We’re going to Amsterdam. We’ll take you. Sit in the back, next to my daughter. I’ll buy a coffee and we’ll get going.”
Unexpected. Obviously I didn’t wait until he changed his mind, and I got in. His family was nice, although a little bit reserved. I’m not surprised. We chatted a little along the way, and after about an hour, they dropped me off somewhere in the center of Amsterdam.
Now, my mission in Amsterdam was not different at all from what I did in Rotterdam. I raided the first coffee shop I found. Despite the experiences of my previous day, I still felt insecure about the whole thing. I guess the years of conditioning worked. I found a little side street, rolled a spliff, and lit up. Mind you, I was extremely paranoid, and when I noticed two cops walking towards me, I closed the shop and nervously went the other way. The cops called on me, and my heart sank.
“Fuck, I’m going to spend my life in a Dutch prison…”
I tried ignoring their menacing calls. Their voices intensified, so I turned around, and I was finally able to hear what they were saying.
“Sir, you forgot something here! Sir! This is yours!”
Indeed, they were holding something in their hands. I returned to the scene of the crime, to see them with my sleeping bag. It must’ve fallen out of the backpack.
“Beware of your possessions sir. Although it’s pretty safe here, you never know. Do you need any help? You look scared.” said one of the officers. The good cop I guess.
“N- no, thank you sir. I’ll take better care of my belongings. Have a nice day officer.” I mumbled and got on my way.
To this day, I still laugh when I remember this situation. A young and naive Slovak boy, scared shitless because a cop is addressing him. Maybe if the police didn’t mean trouble and punishment in this goddamned country, I wouldn’t be scared elsewhere…
Besides this little encounter, there’s not too much to be said about my visit to Amsterdam, without repeating what you’ve already read above. I smoked more weed, visited different coffee shops, got lost a few times. I sat and relaxed by the canals and in parks, I missed my lunch to be able to buy more weed, I walked around the city, got lost, took the ferry to Amsterdam-Noord. That’s probably the best memory from that day. I’m also pretty fond of sitting around a column-monument in one of the bigger squares (don’t ask me to remember the name) with other travelers. It felt good.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find any hosts in Amsterdam, so I had to go to Leiderdorp in the afternoon. I managed to get there pretty quickly. Hitchhiking in the Netherlands is good, from what I remember. The country is small, and there’s a lot of highways. The Dutch also have a somehow significant history of hitchhiking. In a few cities, there were still official spots for hitchhiking to certain directions. Even outside of them, it’s easy to catch a ride to get from one end of the country to the other quickly.
I enjoyed my day in Amsterdam more than the previous one in Rotterdam. It was a beautiful summer day, ideal for doing nothing important, and just chilling. Before coming to the Netherlands, everybody warned me about the weather. They said it’s going to be cold. I managed to be there during the hottest days that year, with temperatures rising to the lower thirties.
When I returned to the country a few years later, it was the same thing all over again, both with the weather and the stupid amount of weed that I smoked. I wonder if I’ll ever see Amsterdam in rain or sober. I hope I will. Smoking weed and exploring the city dead stoned was fun when I was 18. I thought I was doing something groundbreaking, and I thought it would add to my experience or whatever. Looking back, I think it was stupid. At best, it didn’t make the experience worse than if I were sober. But I highly doubt that. Amsterdam means chaos during the summer, and you not being 100% present makes things way worse. Either way, it’s not possible to change the past; I can only learn from it. And I hope I did. And maybe you did as well, reading my story. Coffee shops are overrated anyway.