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Summer 2000, Amsterdam - I went into Coffeeshop Johnny on Johnny Jordaanplein once, while I was staying in a houseboat on Nieuwe Prinsengracht. I got a cup of tea, and the small cookie that comes with it.
I don't remember if I bought any cannabis or was just rolling from the goods I had purchased elsewhere. It doesn't matter in a Dutch coffeeshop. As long as you order something, you're cool. It's normal to buy only a cup of tea.
I fell into conversation with Dave, a 60-some year-old English guy who'd been in the Navy. He and I were the only ones in the shop besides Aartie, who was working — and the odd customer who came in, bought a little smoke, and left.
Dave had been in Amsterdam for about ten years, but he didn't want to talk about that. A jovial man, Dave smoked large amounts through a pottery chillum, which he frequently cleaned with a cone-rolled napkin.
"There's no such thing as a slow or a fast cup of tea," Dave said. We both had three or four cups over probably close to the same number of hours. Aartie, the mid-20's Dutch guy who worked at the counter, had some metal puzzles. He was good at them. Dave and I showed each other about the ones we'd cracked. I cracked one that Aartie had done before but couldn't do this time.
At a point, I had to pee. The toilet was upstairs, up the steep stairs, beyond a small balcony chained off and stocked with hospitality supplies.
While I was peeing, it seemed that the ground was somewhat elastic. No.... I know that this place is built on sand. Would there be any action that would cause a tiny fluid motion on the top floor of a building? ... That's not possible ... and I'm not that stoned.... It made no sense. Downstairs, I mentioned it. "I know it sounds stupid, but I had a strange sensation...."
"Do you know what that is?" Dave said. "You've got sea-legs." Dave hadn't thought about sea-legs for years.
In port after long periods on ship, sailors would notoriously piss all over and around the urinals, having become so accustomed to making target as the ship washed about.
I didn't miss the toilet — after all, I'd only been living (and peeing) in a houseboat on an Amsterdam canal. But it was an unmistakable sensation, however slight. It had made me wonder, that's for sure. The floor had gone elastic, only when I stood above the toilet.
Dave knew immediately what I was talking about.
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