a propos de mes vacances.

i don't want to be back here. i want to be in france, drinking wine, eating baguette with roquefort, and lying in bed all day smoking hashish joints. or in amsterdam, smoking the best reefer in the world. in any case, i'm in an enumerative, listy kind of moode. thus: ala high fidelity, here's some trip-inspired top five lists.

the top five things about france

1. wine - less than two euros a bottle? jesus. little alcohol tax = fun! plus you can drink it anywhere. getting hammered on the way to the bar... love it.
2. ella ja aleksi - the best thing ever. you'll probably never find the songs, but, oh, you've never heard such catchy little finnish children. (what does this have to do with france, you ask? my friend there has a finnish roommate, who showed me these songs.)
3. baguette - 24-hour boulangerie. fresh baguette. ah. 3/4 of my meals consisted of baguette, roquefort, proscuitto, bottle of wine.
4. the neighbourhood - europe really drives home how shitty suburban sprawl is. you shop in your little neighbourhood, you walk everywhere, you support a community, instead of driving from big-box shop to big-box shop and getting fatter.
5. smoking - you can smoke in restaurants, bars, etc. etc. life is good. we smoked hash joints in the bar, too. love it! and a side note to this entry, there's a hookah parlour in vieux-nice, and i'm in love with smoking shisha.

the top five strains i tried in amsterdam (of approx. 25ish?)

1. super silver haze from rokerij - when you've been smoking amazing buds all day, you're burnt out as fuck, and a joint turns you into a giggly mess like when you first smoked in high school... that's when you know it's good. burned a little going down, but the buzz was worth it. 2004 cannabis cup, best coffeeshop.
2. bubblehash from hunters' bar - by far the strongest stuff i tried. not #1 for a few reasons - it costs about 40 bucks a gram, tastes like hell, and it's just too strong. a joint with much of this in it is a recipe for instant passout. the right amount, though, and ... chached-ness go!
3. rifman malika hash from de dampkring - i was a little generous with the hash in the first joint i rolled of this, and i was practically drooling afterwards. completely unable to stand up, and got lost on the way home. moroccan import, tasted delicious. 2004 cannabis cup, best imported hash.
4. white widow from greenhouse - this is on here cos it was the first strain i tried and i got so spectacularly high... really. whether it was the quality of the weed, or what, i'll never know. a couple tokes and my eyes were practically closed.
5. blueberry from blues brothers - won the cannabis cup in 99, best pot. sticky like icky, actually tasted like fruity. rolled a joint that burned for a week and then the cops came upstairs asking us pleasantly to leave while they did a "checkup" of the coffeeshop. having a cannon in my hand, talking to the cops... such a nice time.

top five things i didn't like about europe. cos i don't want to be all, oh europe is so much nicer blah blah pretentiousness. it IS, but let's think critically for a moment.

1. amsterdam crackheads - "hey friend. you think you need to know anything about amsterdam, you ask joey. you maybe need to know something special, you ask joey. huh? or maybe you need some gear? huh? what the fuck, you making fun of me now? what the fuck. i try to help you out, you insult me. what the fuck."
2. leaving - ha, ha. maybe this should have been number one. half cos i miss europe, half cos i miss the constant sex and the affection, i was really moped out on the way home.
3. the lack of customer service - hey, customer service is kind of annoying, and creepy at times. but i missed it in france, because it's an alien concept to them. really, people in stores are such dicks. it's like, we're doing you a favour by offering you these products, fuck you. it's not that annoying all the time, but when you need to actually get something done, it's fucking irritating. at least some people in customer service here are actually friendly and helpful.
4. no pot - amsterdam is the exception to the rule really; most places in europe, it's all hash. i think it'd be interesting to study the political economy behind the drug market, and why it's so much easier to get pot in n/america, but hash in europe. i figure it's cos there's little space to grow in europe, and it's much easier to smuggle hashish; lots more room in n/americ. but less easy to smuggle. border control within europe : often nonexistent.
5. the people - haha. there's lots of nice european people. honestly, they're just not very nice to look at. i don't care what anyone says about french girls, they're just not particularly good-looking. on average, of course. there's always exceptions. but less exceptions in france than back home. haha. that was a very superficial, assholey comment. but i'm often a superficial asshole, so i think it was fitting.

and on that note, the top five things about monogamy. (aka, "being in a relationship," which i really am not, but for the week was close enough to be indistinguishable from such. i like to think of it as a vacation from being so cynical and hateful.)
1. sex - haha. not to put too fine a point on it. but. well.... obviously! i'm sure there's long-term monogamous relationships that don't have much sex. in fact there's probably tons. that's why i'm not really in one. but for a week of kinda-not-a-relationship-or-something, oh, there was lots! plus you get to have sex when you're at your best. morning... after a shower. awake, clean, and preferably a bit stoned, if you're me. with someone that you know well enough, that you've had some practice with... mm. this is compared to what, hilariously drunken sloppy sex with a random, when you're dirty and sweaty and lazy after the bar, awkwardness, etc. etc.... not that it isn't lots of fun that way, it just gets kind of old sometimes.
2. affection - yeah, i like to cuddle and be cutesy and irritatingly couple-y sometimes (but never in public, that shit makes me want to hurl). fuck off, ok? maybe i'm a walking contradiction; maybe i wasn't held enough as a child or something. haha, that's enough about that.
3. company - just plain company is underrated. not conversation, not romance, not intellectual stimulation or discursive formation... it's just nice to have somebody around, especially if you're on the same sort of wavelength. if only to take turns breaking up the hash with. of course, i get sick of having people around me all the time, and i do miss my alone time when i don't have it.
4. ummmmmm... - funny story. see, i thought i was going to have more than enough things to write five things here. but then as i was working on number 2, i realized that basically all of them would have to do with sex, and i figured if they were all separate numbers, it would seem kinda creepy. so i decided to agglomerate them into one entry. as a result, the sex entry is overly bloated, possibly still seeming creepy. likely it should have been shorter, lest i seem sex-obsessed. but i often am, so i think it's fitting. in any case, i've now realized that i can't think of five things without most of them being about sex, proving at once that a) i am in fact, sex-obsessed, and b) being in a relationship pretty much blows, even though it's got its perks.

c'est tout.