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Students of the skies such as you and I, dear reader, are aware that celestial objects travel in an elliptical orbit. At certain points they become closer to their sun, before drifting off once more in the eternal waltz of the cosmos. It was in this fashion that we humble satellites sought to locate the home of heineken. Once found, we knew we could dash back there the next day for "heiners at niners", stopping only briefly to engage in infrequent scrums and rolling mauls. As long as hoolers could be distracted for more than 2 minutes from his skip pass obsession by my well developed routine of empty promises and my knapsack of shiny objects.
After an hour or so of chronic undulation, we came upon the Vondel Park. We had in our possession drugs. We also had a bounty of time. I cannot then nor now envisage any set of circumstances that could prevent us from entering the park. Merrily, we tangoed into its welcoming arms. It is a somewhat unusual place as parks go. It is comfortingly large in a city where space is a premium, but for those of us used to real land, its clearly manufactured nature is somewhat unsettling - or so this explorer found. Beneath the scraggy grass, there is a sandy earth, dotted with seashells and other formerly aquatic based objects - u-boats, pirates, and ferries to name but a few - emphasising that this was land stolen from the sea. In a few years time our very own Sealad may find himself unceremoniously dumped on the bumpy suface of Amsterdams largest public park. Terra infirma indeed.
I have to put in a disclaimer about the above paragraph. I don't know for sure that the vondel park is not real land. But it seemed that way to me at the time. So screw you all.
We were within its domain only a few minute when we came face to face with two terrifying beasts, the likes of which I had never seen in my long existence. Sleek, evil creatures, formed from some fiendish living rock, they were not of this world. They were instantly recognisable to all as hellhounds. Immaculately groomed by some pawn of satan, one could see a cruel, twisted parody of their own image in the reflection of their glossy coats. I stood frozen for a moment, unable to escape as one of the creatures locked me in its penetrating stare. Its face contorted in a malevolent grin as it toyed with my soul, before incredibly deciding to spare me. There was a dark beauty to the undiluted evil of these beasts, and as they passed us, both canine and human was left in no doubt as to who was supreme. Even in relating this tale I feel unsteady, and will not be surprised to be set upon by such a creature when, if ever, I next leave Galvin Towers.
When we had recovered from our ordeal, hoolers christened the beasts magma and lava. This was in reference to some dogs of which horgan had acquaintence, and fitted perfectly the brothers of cerberus who had so nonchalantly underlined our insignificance. Located reasonably centrally in the park is a cavernous type structure of indeterminable origin and purpose. Dominating its surroundings, it puzzled us so greatly we fled in renewed terror. Finding a park bench, we whipped out the pipe to calm our shattered nerves.
We spent another hour or so ambling through the park, before hearing the brewerys' siren call once more. Resuming our orbit after our infusion of nature, a further couple of hours later, dusk setting in, we finally arrived at the doorstep of the massive, near unmissable structure. It had been a full 8 hours since we set out to find it. It was of course closed, but by peering through the window we could see that the tour was no longer 2 guilders but in fact 15. I calculated the amount of drink we could consume versus the cost of entry and we both agreed to deem it not worth visiting. As a result our mammoth trek had been in many respects futile, however at this stage we were just relieved to have completed this seaerch. Perhaps, my dear children, the real journey was one of the soul. However, no. That is balls.
We retired to a bar like structure we had encountered on our travels. It offered glasses of sauce beer for small moneys. We consumed a brace of these delights and observed our surroundings. They were not unpleasant. The bardoll was more friendly than most of the slaves I had dealt with damside. Many of the local shop feens were filled with hatred upon eyeballing we braves. This made tears happen - I was heavily anti tears at the time so was less than pleased.
We eventually battled back to the hostel. It was my intention to watch a footy game in one of the many bars which are dotted throughout the city. However, upon viewing of the cost of pints, I became filled with mortal dread. Therefore, we found ourselves in the basement area of the pig, faced with watching albania vs england. This couldve been worse as the brave albanians tried hard and england looked poor. That said they ran out 2-0 winners. The most enjoyable aspect by far was the Bier beer. I was somewhat wary of it, but upon sampling it I found it to be joyful. It had the taste of good old solid royal dutch, but without the heavyness and aftertaste. It was light and happy, much like the gifted winger who was consuming it. Midway through the drinking of it, there was an incident.
I spoke earlier of my fretful nature with respect to the battle scarred smoking veterans which I felt populated the hostel. This was joint based, as I have detailed, therefore I felt somewhat more comfortable about what I had planned for that evening. I had upon my arrival within minutes noted the presence of a large communal bong in the downstairs area. I decied that this was to be used by the lads that evening for the purposes of getting mangled. My first bad bong buzz occured when I went to obtain it for the good of the brace. Approaching a gaggle of zonked americans, I asked to borrow the bong for a few minutes. I was of course fully aware of its communal nature, yet felt it would surely be remiss of me to swipe it from their table where it had clearly been used by those present. Thus I politely asked to borrow it, expecting perhaps a jokey refusal or something similarly benign. In fact my request was met with similarly polite acquiescence.
However, as I was leaving their area to return to our base, some silly american girl made a comment along the lines of "He does, like, know thats for everybody". It is important to point out that the tone of this statement was made with a derisive snort, as if to indicate to her friends that I was a complete dumbass unworthy of presence in the hostel let alone amsterdam. Made with in blatant earshot of honest eddie, it was clear that she felt I should be aware of my worm like status along with her friends. I had to draw on all my resources of mellowness not to turn around and bawl her out of it. The red haze prompted me to make a statement such as "Have you never heard of being polite you stupid bitch" but I took a deep breath and ignored it. I was comforted by the fact that her colleagues ignored this comment of hers, in fact it was met with deathly silence. It seemingly was intended as some form of humour, but suffice to say it did not set the flying pig on comedic fire. Silly cow.
I sat myself down with Dan, hoping he had borne witness to the dumb american. I alluded to her comment but his eyes took on a familiar glazed look and I let it pass. I was confident that a quick bong would dispel any residual levels of rage I may have had. I made a rapid appraisal of the device I had acquired and noted instantly that it lacked a gauze. I was briefly concerned but decided that some wise old smoking head had robbed the gazue for their own smoking pleasure. I was not upset by this, in fact I allowed myself a knowing smile at behaviour I would indulge in myself. I simply improvised by unscrewing the bowl and replacing it with the gauzed up bowl from my pipe which fitted perfectly. quietly pleased at the designers if both items had come to some sort of surely unofficial agreement on the size of bowls. These were the thought processes that I swam through as I set to work, filling the bowl with sweet sweet grass. I would have ideally used hash but grass I felt would do fine, if only to suss out the nature of this bong which was larger than I had used in my time. With patented lungs of steel, I inhaled from its blue goodness.
I immediately became concerned, as at 75% of inhaling power, I was dragging only small amounts of smoke through the chamber. I increased to all out inhalation, and managed to get a little more joy. Nonetheless it was a real disappointment, and naturally I felt I had somehow fucked it up. I passed the device onto hoolers and pondered how I had gone wrong. When dan make a similarly limited impact on the gear, I began to grind to a halt in my self-analysis. Could it be the bong, here in this place of professional tokers, a place where I was clueless, could it be the communal flying pig bong that was at fault??? It was a thought almost too distressing to deal with. Nevertheless I rapidly disassembled the bong into its constituent parts. The bowl and seal seemed in my estimation to be without fault. I opted to take a glance through the metal cylider which allowed smoke from the bowl to travel into the base of the bong; a metal equivalent of the many biros parts which had given me such joy in the past. It was almost completely clogged with oily hash, and I guessed it had been a build-up of, if not months, then at the very least weeks. Virtually no air could get through it. I sighed in disgust and produced my penknife. Shaking my head in solemn acceptance, I cleaned out the worst of the clogging, all the while thiking "These people, they are poorer than I hoped".
I reassembled the bong and had another hit which promptly blew my mind. I used the window before it hit home to try to persuade dan to have another go but for some reason he would not. I can only imagine it was either fear on his part that he would fuck it up, or some illfounded belief that galvin had screwed up the bong; whilst I was repairing it for the good of the community he appeared to lack any confidence whatsoever in my claims, even refusing to assess the cloggage situation when I pointed it out to him. Anything technical and this guy freaks I tells ya. For clarity, I wish to point out that I was FULLY correct in my assessment of the situation and feel imbued with a sense of worth that future residents in the pig will enjoy a superior smoking experience thanks to the common sense and desire to get mangled of your humble narrator.
Later we had a waterfall but I was utterly destroyed. Lacking tinfoil I bravely tried to improvise with cigarrette box innards and I think its fair to say dan managed to get a reasonable hit off it. I have an abiding memory of bursting out of the bog (for we had to go there to perform the deed as there was tappage therein) giggling like schoolgirls much to the surprise of some sober gent who wished only to use the facilities.
I remember nothing else of the evening and feel this is for the best. The next day, mescal was to arrive and we took to our beds strangely cheerful and unafraid at the prospect.
Return to part 1 of day 3.