A Flight to Remember

I write this on Monday following the biggest collection of firsts I’ve ever had in a single week. A week ago today, I drove on public roads for the first time. That went well. I’ve recently started learning to drive and bought my first car, a very cute Fiat 500e called Sandy the Pikachu.

This weekend past I flew with two friends to Amsterdam. Another first - my first flights, my first time leaving the UK since 2003, and my first time visiting the Netherlands.

The flight was really interesting! It was basically like riding in a bus with wings and a LOT of security. I got point one for annoying gender affirmation when I went through the Bristol airport scanner with bulky metal-strapped shoes on, the attendant shouted FEMALE and a lass checked my legs and feet for any illegal addons before scanning my shoes. All was fine.

We had some extremely bad-to-mid food in a Bristol Airport cafe (pictured - vegetable gyoza with soy chilli sauce), flew to Amsterdam Schiphol, then took a train into Amsterdam Centraal to arrive a stone’s throw from our hotel.

The Renaissance hotel was gorgeous. Huge, ornate, open lobby, with hotel room windows looking down into it. (I discovered this first-hand while pottering around my room unclothed on the Friday night and backed away fast!) So comfortable in there, but there wasn’t much time to rest.

The first coffeeshop beckoned. We went to the nearby Resin coffeeshop for the big reason we were there - legal partaking of cannabis! There’re a really nice pair of hexagonal benches just outside Resin that were our first smoking spot, and that became a firm favourite spot of mine later in the trip as well when the steps accumulated.

After Resin we went to The Green House (or Cookies, or Strain Hunters). We wanted to eat there, but they weren’t serving food that late (we were already at about 22:00 by then), so instead it was just a smoke and the first of many waters. Gorgeous place though: The Green House has a wall covered in big names that have visited in the past.

There was a lot of wandering and smoking. I will neither remember nor mention every single spot, for smoking or otherwise, just because some of them had no-photos policies I tried my best to notice (I was not sober at any point for the remainder of this trip. I get the feeling I’m still not).

Photos are mostly shown in order they were taken, including random shots I took while walking, although hotel ones are gonna be bundled up above.

We did a lot of wandering through Amsterdam at night, accumulating 10,702 steps by the time Friday ticked over to Saturday (in 23hr since midnight moved midway through the day), and then another 5,000 between midnight and 02:00 before finally retiring back to the hotel with a delicious cone of cheesy chips. In that wandering time, I did find one shop, Sweet Atelier, which used my font in its logo + signage (first photo below, all the text on the square red sign + on the little circular logo)! I saw maybe 5 of my fonts the entire trip, but that was the most significant one.

Saturday morning I woke up a little sore from walking, but with plenty of stamina for the day. Our first stop was The Green House again, but this time for food (and smoking). There, I got to try my first 10/10 food of the day: some gorgeous bitterballen with honey mustard dip. Just utterly delectable. I only discovered my love of hummus embarrassingly recently, and these were like someone took hummus and evolved it into fried batter form. I miss this food already so much.

We were first into the lower seating lounge of The Green House, which made for great photos, although it was absolutely packed by the time we finished our food and weed.

More exploration followed; we had plenty of time to kill leading up to our first scheduled event, a boat ride. We saw a pink bear, Emily bought 12 of the most delectable cookies I’ve ever had (from Van Stapele, filled with intense vanilla creme. I only had half of one and it was incredible), and later on, after some shopping - I got myself a gorgeous necklace for €35 - we hit up Stroopperie for a 10/10 stroopwafel so delicious I don’t think I can look mid stroopwafels the same ever again.

15:00 approached, so we headed (after a brief hotel return) to Those Dam Boat Guys for our appointment. We prebooked this, but I was in charge of finalising the booking - and there was option for €280 to buy out an empty slot. I took this.

The boat trip was special. Genuinely one of my favourite experiences of all time. The lass tasked with driving the boat was one of the funniest, most personable people ever, vibing with us all for 90 minutes as she pointed out a bunch of stuff at our request. (If you want an idea how good she was: at one point, I pointed out a funny building and exclaimed “Ooh, a spite house!”, to which she said, paraphrased, “That’s not a spite house! I’ll show you a spite house!!!” and 5 minutes later we got to see a spite house!).

4 joints/blunts/idk were smoked on the boat, and it was the highest I ever felt - but it was absolutely bliss. Emily and Sam ended up tipping an extra €30 for how good it was. Just… incredible all around. I’ll treasure the boat for the rest of my life.

We also had a dog on board for the trip. The dog sat on a TDBG-provided hot water bottle receiving pets for the entire trip.

Following the high of the board ride, we did some more exploration leading up to our meal appointment at 20:00. Not much to show picture-wise since it followed the basic Amsterdam formula we had down by now. I found my font on a few terrible products and had a couple of espresso martinis though. They were expectedly delicious.

At 20:00 on Saturday we had a reservation at Fondue & Fondue, the one fondue location we could find in a convenient range that had good choices of fondues with vegetarian-friendly cheeses. Emily did a great job with my makeup in the time we had left (forgive the photo, I did not have the time to fake being photogenic lmao), then we headed there by Uber. I chose a Mediterranean tomato soup starter, which was delicious, followed by the three of us sharing 2 fondues and a bunch of vegetables and bread to dip.

It turns out that I like mushrooms. And cornichons.

And fondue.

This food was stunning. The cheeses - we had 2 fondues with a bunch of different largely-Dutch cheese offerings - were absolutely mouth-watering. And they paired so well with all the dip options. Broccoli’s like a little cheese sponge and I more roundly understand why the two are paired so frequently. The mushrooms tasted borderline like meat. The cornichons added the little vinegary hit to every bite. And the bread was just a perfect vessel, trapping streaks of gouda in every little hole.

I’m really not a foodie - especially 50kg into a 100kg weight loss goal - but this was a treat day in the absolute best way possible.

Oh, and we had a chocolate fondue for dessert. Lots of strawberries and banana to dip in. Excellent sweet ender.

A long walk followed - the last long walk of the trip with my endurance being tested every step. But Amsterdam was so worth it - gorgeous city at night. We walked through a fairly large park in the rough direction of the hotel and nearby places, smoking and taking in the aesthetic of everything. We passed a Michael Jackson impersonator at one point. Also a duck.

We ended Saturday in the coffeeshop Lost in Amsterdam, which provided a perfect vibe to cap off the Saturday, one of my favourite single days of my life. There, I had a €25 Agwa mojito along with the customary smoking. This was maybe the peak of me realising that I find smoking indoors really unexpectedly nostalgic from being in pubs as a kid where people smoked cigarettes - I don’t miss that, but there really is something to the atmosphere of wisps of smoke meandering around the air you share. My body was definitely giving out at this point, but probably understandably so - as midnight struck, I had reached 22,865 steps on the Saturday alone. I believe this is an all-time record for me.

We got back to the hotel at about midnight sharp to recover, as best as we could, for the final day.

Sunday (yesterday, as little as it feels like it) made one thing clear to me: I was not particularly mobile any more. My body had not recovered well, and I needed breaks all through the day. We were all feeling it, quite a lot.

Which makes it ridiculous that I ended up doing 18,690 more steps yesterday.

We started the day by meeting up with a Netherlands-local friend, Falco, and going to Pancakes for a pancake. Always time for one more “best of a thing I’ve ever had”. I went for a goat’s cheese, spinach and pine nut pancake that was another world-beater. Absolutely delectable.

Together with Falco, we browsed some shops and had another (agonising but valuable!) walk around Amsterdam. I bought a few touristy items here and there, although at one point, with the other 3 going to the Tony’s shop, I could tell I needed to not walk, so I stayed at a picturesque spot on a bench, cross-legged, people-watching. Still a really chill experience. (The Sexmuseum was right behind me at that time, fun fact. Didn’t visit it.)

Falco left us at this point, but it was lovely to see him again (we met him at one of our in-person Blood on the Clocktower events mid-2025 but have known each other a few years from online BOTC). With our stamina not recovering much more, we hopped between light shopping and coffeeshops, including Prix D’Ami (to buy and smoke), Coffeeshop Amsterdam (to smoke), and finally, back to Resin and those lovely hexagonal benches (to smoke our last weed of the trip and procure an edible cake for the journey).

And that marked the end of my legs.

Which was a shame, because the travel back from there added a good 9,000 steps to Sunday. Ugh.

We took the train back from Amsterdam Centraal to Amsterdam Schiphol airport, sharing and eating the edible cake mid-journey as I sat cross-legged in the vestibule.

I was so immobile in the airport, I forwent finding nice food in favour of going to a nearby café for a croissant that tasted like drywall and felt like a brick, and a cheese roll that was honestly better than it should have been. (Random aside: I used the loo during this time, and there was a branded Tangle Teezer sitting on the sanitary bin in my cubicle. I did not touch it.)

I took the window seat of the flight this time, and it was the right move - I got to stare over Amsterdam one last time, far above it, lit up at night. Utterly breathtaking experience - Amsterdam was clear last night and I got to see it all, especially as the plane banked left and positioned the window directly over it.

This was juxtaposed by Bristol, which was foggier than I’ve personally witnessed a place be since living in Dundee. But it provided some gorgeous shots of distant aeroplanes cutting through its sheer density.

This was one of the best weekends of my life, but I’m so glad to be back as well. I am physically and emotionally exhausted, but in such a good way.

In three days, I managed 52,267 steps, comically far above my past endurance. I’m really proud, for pushing myself not only to do those steps, but also to leave the country for once, of my own/my friends’ accord, and have an unforgettable 3 days as a result of that.

My thank you to everyone that made it happen. Emily and Sam, I cherish you both. Those Dam Boat Guys for going above-and-beyond. Everyone behind the food I ate, the weed I smoked, and the cobbled streets I increasingly hobbled across.

Now it’s time to pay for it all, with however long it takes my body to remember my feet still exist.