I was there in 1985 when the dollar was the hero. I think we were cashing 3+ gilders for a dollar and you could tour the Heineken brewery for one gilder. We were backpacking on a 30 day Eurail and Holland was our last stop. Stayed at the youth hostel there for three nights, it was the bare minimum with about 20 metal framed bunk beds crammed into the room. We were almost out of cash when we got there so we ate sparingly and pinched Samson and Drum from the other hostelers.
We took the brewery tour each day in the afternoon because at the end, they would dim the lights and show a PR film on the history of Heineken. They brought out sampler trays of beer, cheese and crackers and we hit it hard. One day we walk out of the brewery and my buddy, who went to KU, sees some dude he knows from back at school. The guy is getting on a bus and we call his name, ?Small fckn world!? we say and then we borrowed 50 bucks and went right to the Bulldog. Back then the Bulldog was more of a bar upstairs than a coffeeshop; they did offer spacecakes for 5 gilders, but if you went downstairs there was a true hash den.
We go down there and there is a small chalkboard with the daily menu. Everything was 25 gilders but you got more or less depending on quality: Hawaiian 1 gram, Colombian 2 grams, or you could get a stick of black hashish that was the size of half a popsicle stick. I have a ton of dark stories from those three days. I will check my journal and see if there?s anything worthy when I get home.
I can?t tell you much about the culture or crime or employment opportunities as we walked around stoned eating those french fries with mayo. There were bikes everywhere, I mean everyone was riding a bike there. I never went to a museum or a diamond place. But there was a vibe there for sure in those days, over 20 years ago. It?s a place I think every young man should experience, along with Paris and Crete. Crete was the shit. Gotta go find a windjacket, playing in a scramble in Guymon, OK this morning. GL EX.
