Thursday, the last day of the cannabis cup... and you'd know it too. Hoards of judges flew around the stands buying everything in sight. The concept of course being that these nasty Euro things needed to be spent before the flight back! Space and I were still giving out the freebies; however we were beginning to notice that the faces attached to the outstretched hands were very familiar.
I spent a bit of time wandering around the stands again, taking more photographs for the website. Speaking to Soma at the Soma Seeds stand, I found that he was actually selling some of his weed on the stall! Unfortunately, there was no more NYC Diesel; however I managed to purchase some 'Santa Maria', which was very nice, but still not as wonderful as the NYC. By the time it came to pack up the stall, we were all way too stoned to really attack the problem with any conviction. The van was loaded up slowly and carefully, and gradually all evidence of our presence in the Arena Hotel was removed.
As Mark was still laid up in bed, and neither Space nor I are able to drive, Jacqui (Kali) drove us back to the hotel with all our stuff. Driving in Amsterdam is a lot different to driving in the UK however, and navigating the very short distance back to our hotel proved a challenge.

Space and I left to make our way to the Dolphins bar, stopping for a burger on the way. Purchasing a bit of 'Royal Dolphin' hash and smoking for a while, we made our way to the Melkweg to catch the awards ceremony.
The plan was simple... I go and take photographs of the winners, and space writes them down for the site.
After about an hour of a reggae set on the main stage, the awards began with a short film introduced by the Cannabis Cup founder, Steve Hagar.
The film showed close-ups of the cup entries, and spoke a while about the meaning of the cup's theme, 'Conspiracy'. There was a little cannabis cup trivia, as well as a tribute to a man called John Cliver, aka 'Waldo'; who died on the 3rd of October. I'd never heard of him; however he looked familiar as a face I had seen at previous cups.
The camera however, was almost completely unusable. Zooming in and out simply wasn't happening, and the mechanism for moving the part often needed me to physically give it a hand. All that zooming in and out was wasting the battery too!
I resolved to save the remaining battery life for the group shot at the end, and found space in the other bar, watching the awards on a big screen.

As Space was by now, completely out of it, I made notes on the winners myself. After the Sativa Cup, being completely out of it myself, I believed that the next award would be the last. So handing the notes over to Space, I went to resume my position in the main hall with the intention of taking photographs of all the winners. Unfortunately, there were at least another six cups to go, and after about four test photographs, the camera gave up the ghost entirely and simply died.
I went back to the other hall to find that while the awards were still showing on the screen, the sound had now been cut and loud music was playing instead. Meaning I had no photographs... and no results!!!

I went back to the main hall to find out the winners of the overall best strain, and then frantically went around random tables in the Melkweg asking people for the results I'd missed.

After a further two hours of smoking and drinking, Space and I hailed a cab, and ensured that he knew the way without running into closed off roads and back alleys.

The next morning we packed up and left. Jacqui was flying back, and so Mark, still completely overtaken by harsh flu, had to drive the van back from Amsterdam.... to my house.

I was sitting in the front as we left the car park, and a distinctly ill-looking Mark explained to me that he was still very sick, and that he was sweating, he was drowsy, his vision was blurry and he was having difficulty in focusing on what was around him. So if there were any problems with his driving, he warned, I should tell him immediately.
While Mark was explaining this to me, he was pulling left out of the car park, and into oncoming traffic!!!
I remained extremely vigilant for the next couple of hours as we attempted to drive to the ferry. Eventually, lost, and absolutely fucking petrified, we paid a cab driver to allow us to follow him out of Amsterdam and onto the highway, bound for the ferry.
We survived. Just. Slept on the ferry, and arrived back at my house that evening.

Having not quite managed to do so the entire week... I went to the pub, and got mindlessly drunk.