We arrived in Bath and I brought the others to the same hostel Lewis and I had so enjoyed the previous time we were there, Bath Backpackers. After dropping our bags off I took the others for a stroll around the city, up along the canal, up the main street and then through the Circus and Royal Crescent then we stopped to let them rest in a small park next to a spire to Queen Victoria. After a short rest period and series of photographs of Jo posing in a tree we got back underway and headed back towards to hostel through the big park before I introduced Jo and Macky to the glory of La Baguette and its amazing, cheap pastries.
We then headed back into the hostel and chilled out watching crappy movies for a couple of hours before heading to a nearby Wetherspoons. Wetherspoons is a cheap, decent chain of pubs and do stuff like £7.50 steak and beer combos which aren't bad value. After this the others, being knackered from the couple of hour stroll, went to bed while I, keen to go out and have some fun, went for a wander and encountered vast numbers of students all heading in the same direction.
While exploring I was informed that I was "going the wrong way" by a group of them and discovered they were all going to a big uni pub and, as I was Australian, I was now required to go with them, which was totally not my plan at all. We queued for about 45 minutes to get into the destination pub, "The Earl", only to get to the front of the queue and be given a ticket and told to wait in the next door pub until our number was called as it was that full already (9pm). Fortunately the pub next door was reasonably cheap, 2 large cocktails for £5. Unfortunately it only sold cocktails and was so crowded I quickly became separated from the group I went in with and so I spent an hour or so making various new friends before heading out again to see if there was somewhere else to see.
From there I soon found a place called "The Huntsman" where a decent live band was playing for a cheeky last beer before calling it a night around 1.
The next morning Macky discovered that he had lost his phone and after a fruitless search we went and grabbed more pasty goodness from La Baguette before another attempt was made at finding Macky a new jacket. This time, after a couple of hours of comparing shops, we finally found him a satisfactory one and his happiness was fully restored. After that I sent the others to check out the baths while I went back to the hostel and sorted the majority of the rest of our UK tours hostels, flights and trains, made only slightly difficult by having to wait for Macky to agree on the hostels, which meant that he looked at the ones I had picked as the best at each location, then had to go through all the options himself in very precise detail only to find he agreed with every single decision I had made.
That evening we again hit up Wetherspoons as it was Tuesday cheap steak night, which really meant there was no other options available to us. We also made inquiries about Macky's phone but to no avail. After cheap steaks we grabbed some beers from the nearby Sainsbury's then went back to the hostel where we befriended an American girl called Lyndsey and spent the night drinking and playing Jenga and Shithead.
On awakening we found a guy from the hostel had found Macky's phone, which was a relief, and after yet more pastry deliciousness we jumped on a bus to Stone Henge which was pretty much as advertised. A hengeful of stones of reasonable size and impressiveness, a bunch of barrows and an interesting audio guide.
After that I took the others to the Beau Nash for dinner as a change from our La Baguette and Wetherspoons cycle which was good then, after stocking up on a few more beers we headed back to the hostel for pre drinks with Lyndsey and an aussie, Lachlan, before we crossed the road and I took them to my previously discovered favourite club in the UK, Discord, which is essentially English Blink.
On entry we learnt, by the vast see of bandanas, eye patches and cutlasses, that it was a pirate themed night, so Jo promptly stole a pirates hat, we had a few cheap shots and it was straight to the dance floor to finally get our metal club fix dealt with.
Ended up making another group of English friends, Beccie and her friends, after being slightly assaulted by a very young and... voluptuous... pirate girl who I finally gave the slip to.
Stayed there until close then walked back to the hostel where I found Jo and Lyndsey people watching from the common room window before I went to bed.
After another bad nights sleep, courtesy of the chavs in our room who would loudly get in every night around 2am then loudly snore before loudly waking up, talking and taking turns showering and changing from about 6-8am every morning (yeah, they were a little loud) while the entire rest of the room glared at them, we checked out, dropped off our bags and watched a Knight's Tale in semi-comatose states before jumping on another train for the 20 minute trip west to Bristol.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Days 116-119 (Sept 30-Oct 3) - London
Landed in London and made our way to our hostel near Paddington. Had a late lunch in a nearby pub and decent indian for dinner. The only other noteable event being my anger from Prague again boiling over at Macky and Jo, who can be a bit full on when one is not in the best of moods.
The next day we slept in and then around midday got the tube to Chalk Farm where we met up with our mate Greg from back home, who now lives in Camden, working on movie special effects on some pretty high profile films. We had a beer in a little pub then went up to Greg's flat to meet him roommates and have a look at the place, which was very nice, before going for a walk into Camden center.
Greg showed us the sights of Camden and then we had lunch in a pub where we discovered our first "freshers". Freshers is an English university tradition where for the first week of the year the first year students, or "freshers", are taken on a series of pub crawls, drinking adventures and hazing activities. We found them, at 2pm, at pub 10 of a 13 location pub crawl, all blind drunk and covered in plain white shirts, mostly customised, primarily by the girls whose seemed to mysteriously be lacking various parts, coated in obscene permanent marker graffiti and often with bunny ears, bunny tails or bowties.
After our run in with the freshers and very entertaining lunch we made our way back through the Camden markets, which are the biggest, most impressive markets I have seen, with every stall selling completely different merchandise, whole sections devoted to specific types of clothing and peaking at a shop in the middle called "Cyberdog", a 4 storey shop devoted to cyberpunk, industrial, rave and fetish clothing and accessories and hugely futuristically stylised.
After that we separated from Greg for a while as we went back to the hostel to change and clean ourselves before we met up again around 8 at a pub we were told had a metal club for Mackys birthday on in the evenings. After a couple of hours of pre drinks the club opened at 10:30 so we left our newly made Israeli friends to head downstairs into the club. After paying our entry we discovered that it was 1) empty and 2) indie night so we left and went for a wander to try and find something better which climaxed at a pub playing super heavy death metal, but with very few patrons. We asked one helpful soul whether there was a club that would play "stuff like System of a Down, Slipknot, Korn etcetera" and were told "oh, you want a gay club" so, giving up, we went back to the indie club which turned out to be ok, cheap drinks and the music was, at least, not shitty dance music.
The next day was primarily spent on and around Oxford street, trying to find Macky a new jacket and Jo some warm clothes, as she hadn't realised that maybe Scotland and England in late October might be slightly chilly. After a while Lewis and I left them to their shopping and settled ourselves in a pub to watch Chelsea dominate Bolton 5-1. Midway through the next game, Arsenal and somebody, the others rejoined us, having successfully bought... Jo a jacket.
We then headed back to the hostel before getting Thai for dinner then giving Macky his birthday cake. After cake Lewis and I watched The Lovely Bones with a bunch of people then Lewis went to bed and I played a couple of lazy drinking games before joining them.
The next morning Lewis once again left us to go up to Liverpool while Macky, Jo and I begun our UK tour by jumping on a train to Bath.
The next day we slept in and then around midday got the tube to Chalk Farm where we met up with our mate Greg from back home, who now lives in Camden, working on movie special effects on some pretty high profile films. We had a beer in a little pub then went up to Greg's flat to meet him roommates and have a look at the place, which was very nice, before going for a walk into Camden center.
Greg showed us the sights of Camden and then we had lunch in a pub where we discovered our first "freshers". Freshers is an English university tradition where for the first week of the year the first year students, or "freshers", are taken on a series of pub crawls, drinking adventures and hazing activities. We found them, at 2pm, at pub 10 of a 13 location pub crawl, all blind drunk and covered in plain white shirts, mostly customised, primarily by the girls whose seemed to mysteriously be lacking various parts, coated in obscene permanent marker graffiti and often with bunny ears, bunny tails or bowties.
After our run in with the freshers and very entertaining lunch we made our way back through the Camden markets, which are the biggest, most impressive markets I have seen, with every stall selling completely different merchandise, whole sections devoted to specific types of clothing and peaking at a shop in the middle called "Cyberdog", a 4 storey shop devoted to cyberpunk, industrial, rave and fetish clothing and accessories and hugely futuristically stylised.
After that we separated from Greg for a while as we went back to the hostel to change and clean ourselves before we met up again around 8 at a pub we were told had a metal club for Mackys birthday on in the evenings. After a couple of hours of pre drinks the club opened at 10:30 so we left our newly made Israeli friends to head downstairs into the club. After paying our entry we discovered that it was 1) empty and 2) indie night so we left and went for a wander to try and find something better which climaxed at a pub playing super heavy death metal, but with very few patrons. We asked one helpful soul whether there was a club that would play "stuff like System of a Down, Slipknot, Korn etcetera" and were told "oh, you want a gay club" so, giving up, we went back to the indie club which turned out to be ok, cheap drinks and the music was, at least, not shitty dance music.
The next day was primarily spent on and around Oxford street, trying to find Macky a new jacket and Jo some warm clothes, as she hadn't realised that maybe Scotland and England in late October might be slightly chilly. After a while Lewis and I left them to their shopping and settled ourselves in a pub to watch Chelsea dominate Bolton 5-1. Midway through the next game, Arsenal and somebody, the others rejoined us, having successfully bought... Jo a jacket.
We then headed back to the hostel before getting Thai for dinner then giving Macky his birthday cake. After cake Lewis and I watched The Lovely Bones with a bunch of people then Lewis went to bed and I played a couple of lazy drinking games before joining them.
The next morning Lewis once again left us to go up to Liverpool while Macky, Jo and I begun our UK tour by jumping on a train to Bath.
Days 113-116 (Sept 27-30) - Prague 2.0
We arrived in Prague and then, guided by Jo, who had spent several weeks there before meeting up with Macky for Paris, made our way to Jo's brother, Simon's, place where we were being put up with for 3 nights. After a quick trip to a decent, cheap pizza place we had an early night
The next day was spent doing very little, we did a large amount of washing, played a bit of xbox and watched a movie. Macky and Lewis went and did some shopping while Jo and I had lunch at a little cafe next to a park. Spag bol for dinner.
The following morning I awoke several hours before the others and spent the morning out on the balcony, reading, listening to music and stewing in frustration. The reason for the frustration was that the 3 nights we were spending in Prague would be our last 3 in mainland Europe and the others had rejected my suggestions of Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Krakow, Zurich, Helsinki and Kiev as they were "too expensive", "had nothing to do in them", "too far from London" or "too hard to get to" and then suggested we go back to Prague as we "wanted to spend more time there" but weren't doing anything and had nothing anyone wanted to do, not to mention that we all had enough money to justify seeing another awesome city especially having bypasses Scandinavia completely. It was to a degree my own fault as I conceded Prague, although I did so as they had rejected every idea I proposed, I was over trying to make plans and they claimed there was more to do. It felt horribly wasteful of 3 precious days and put me in a fairly angry mood for a couple of days.
That afternoon we spent walking around the city, seeing sights we had already seen, and then in the evening went back to a restaurant we found the first time and was good before checking out black light theatre. Black light theatre is a very strange sort of stage show, performed under black lights where only things at the very front of the stage or painted in florescent paint are visible. The quality wasn't amazing and the story a bit convoluted but it seemed to be a comedy about Dr Frankenstein travelling the world collecting body parts to create his monster and falling in love with a series of women and was worth seeing just to experience the style. The others were very unimpressed but at least it was something new.
The next morning we woke up early, said our goodbyes to Simon and made our way to the airport for our flight to London.
The next day was spent doing very little, we did a large amount of washing, played a bit of xbox and watched a movie. Macky and Lewis went and did some shopping while Jo and I had lunch at a little cafe next to a park. Spag bol for dinner.
The following morning I awoke several hours before the others and spent the morning out on the balcony, reading, listening to music and stewing in frustration. The reason for the frustration was that the 3 nights we were spending in Prague would be our last 3 in mainland Europe and the others had rejected my suggestions of Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Krakow, Zurich, Helsinki and Kiev as they were "too expensive", "had nothing to do in them", "too far from London" or "too hard to get to" and then suggested we go back to Prague as we "wanted to spend more time there" but weren't doing anything and had nothing anyone wanted to do, not to mention that we all had enough money to justify seeing another awesome city especially having bypasses Scandinavia completely. It was to a degree my own fault as I conceded Prague, although I did so as they had rejected every idea I proposed, I was over trying to make plans and they claimed there was more to do. It felt horribly wasteful of 3 precious days and put me in a fairly angry mood for a couple of days.
That afternoon we spent walking around the city, seeing sights we had already seen, and then in the evening went back to a restaurant we found the first time and was good before checking out black light theatre. Black light theatre is a very strange sort of stage show, performed under black lights where only things at the very front of the stage or painted in florescent paint are visible. The quality wasn't amazing and the story a bit convoluted but it seemed to be a comedy about Dr Frankenstein travelling the world collecting body parts to create his monster and falling in love with a series of women and was worth seeing just to experience the style. The others were very unimpressed but at least it was something new.
The next morning we woke up early, said our goodbyes to Simon and made our way to the airport for our flight to London.
Days 109-113 (Sept 23-27) - Oktoberfest, Munich
After our 8 hour train ride / sleep catchup Tim and I arrived in Munich around 6pm and walked the half hour stroll to the hotel we had booked about a year prior to our trip where we met up with Macky again and Jo. After a couple of hours of comparing tales (Tim and I totally won), we went to find food and got ourselves some kebabs and beer from a nearby kebab shop. The kebabs were awful, cold, tasteless and tiny, but the beers were Franziskaner; cold, delicious and large which made up for it. Over the course of the 4 nights and days of Oktoberfest we managed to cover just about every available surface of our hotel room with these bottles. Around 10-11pm Lewis rocked up and we were all together at last. I should note that it was a 4 person room, luckily Macky and Jo count as one single person for sleeping and drinking purposes.
The next day, being Tim's birthday, began as appropriately as it could have, a 7am beer alarm so we could shower, have breakfast and still make it into the Oktoberfest grounds by 9am.
Oktoberfest is something very hard to describe, it is like a larger, considerably more majestic Sydney Royal Easter Show, except tailored to beer drinking alcoholics (I'm not an alcoholic, alcoholics go to rehab and rehab is for quitters!) rather than farmers. It is a huge series of beer tents, each with its own outdoor beer garden and indoor band stage, broken by rides, roller coasters and food (roast ox rolls, 50cm long sausages etc) and merchandise (silly hats and souvenir steins) stalls. We spent about half an hour wandering, wide eyed with awe, before at 9:30 we stumbled on a girl passed out, being tended by ambos, and realised that we had some catching up to do so we headed into the first beer garden we didnt have to line up for (yup, that early) for steins, which are $10 each.
We were shortly after joined by Lance, Tim and I's mate who now lives in Brisbane, and his mate Nick, and then befriended by a group of girls based on the fact that it was one of their birthdays also. One of which was a ranga who proceeded to cry to Macky about how "there used to be 4 types of freshwater dolphins and now there's only 3 *waaaaaah*".
After a large period of drinking, during which Tim at one point had 3 steins on the go and I managed to cheers so enthusiastically that I broke my stein, we all got separated. Lewis and Tim had a fight, Lance and Nick disappeared andJo went back to the hotel room then got lost and scared before finally finding Macky. I ended up going in search of Tim but stumbled on Lance instead and after a frustrating hour of trying to meet up with others who were "by the huge statue" which we were unable to find we just headed into a beer tent and spent the rest of the evening dancing drunkenly on tables with the rest of the tent to the band playing.
On the drunk walk back to the hotel I discovered the huge statue. It was appropriately huge and remarkably obvious. Oops.
Once back at the hotel we all managed to regroup, the only noteable tale being that of Tim, who was drugged and came to about an hour from the festival grounds in the wrong direction, minus his previously bought hat and his shirt and completely sober, then much needed bed.
The next morning, after breakfast and feeling happily un-hungover, we spent relaxing in the hotel room, having a few quiet beers and playing Munchkin before crossing the road to a pub for huge schnitzels for lunch. After lunch and a couple more beers we headed into the festival in early evening to try and properly experience the tents at night, which only I had made the previous night. With dinners of ox burgers or pork steak sandwiches under our belts we headed into the Paulaner tent where we stayed, drinking and dancing on the tables and stools, until it closed.
On closing Macky discovered that he had lost his much loved jacket and then on leaving Jo was groped and harassed by some drunk idiot until I pushed him away and told him to fuck off. This resulted in a somewhat unhappy group walking back to the hotel and began the saga of Macky and his jacket.
The next morning we had a fantastic sleep in, just made the 11am free breakfast cutoff and then inquired how much the hotel was owed. This was the point where we paniced slightly, did the maths, trawled through our emails to find the booking made a year ago and verified that yes, we did infact agree to pay that much per night.
To distract ourselves from this awful detail we called Lance and headed back into Oktoberfest to meet up with him and Nick again. The others went to check for Macky's jacket at lost and found while Tim and I went and found Lance, Nick and their mates Brad and Andy. After about a steins length of time the others rejoined us, minus the jacket, and we got the day going properly.
At 3pm, when the majority of tables were booked out, we went outside where we were told we could only sit if we ordered food so, realising that this was a genious idea, we got a round of pork knuckles, which were huge and obscenely good. Nick also broke out his little box (which were sold all over the place) of snuff, which I sampled a little of and was just a bit of a minty feel but really wakes you up.
We then managed to somehow find Simon, who Tim and I hung out with in Bruges, who came and joined us for a while, but lost Macky and Jo who headed back to the hotel, Macky still unimpressed by the loss of his jacket. The rest of us headed back inside the tent around 6 where Tim proceeding to befriend a table of very gay men who he kept telling us were "really nice" but were quite clearly, at least to the rest of us, taking turns making plays for him. We were stood on the other side of a small wooden railing, refusing to join him, and spent a while talking with various people, including a canadian who kept dancing around and an English girl who worked as a lap dancer.
After a bunch more drinking and and table dancing all that remained was Lance, Nick, Brad and I and we left when the tents closed, my final moments in the glorious, debauched bonanza that is Oktoberfest.
We left together and then went our separate ways as we split off to our different destinations and I ended up joined by a bunch of germans for the walk back.
The next morning we said our farewells to Tim and then walked to the station to jump on our bus to Prague.
The next day, being Tim's birthday, began as appropriately as it could have, a 7am beer alarm so we could shower, have breakfast and still make it into the Oktoberfest grounds by 9am.
Oktoberfest is something very hard to describe, it is like a larger, considerably more majestic Sydney Royal Easter Show, except tailored to beer drinking alcoholics (I'm not an alcoholic, alcoholics go to rehab and rehab is for quitters!) rather than farmers. It is a huge series of beer tents, each with its own outdoor beer garden and indoor band stage, broken by rides, roller coasters and food (roast ox rolls, 50cm long sausages etc) and merchandise (silly hats and souvenir steins) stalls. We spent about half an hour wandering, wide eyed with awe, before at 9:30 we stumbled on a girl passed out, being tended by ambos, and realised that we had some catching up to do so we headed into the first beer garden we didnt have to line up for (yup, that early) for steins, which are $10 each.
We were shortly after joined by Lance, Tim and I's mate who now lives in Brisbane, and his mate Nick, and then befriended by a group of girls based on the fact that it was one of their birthdays also. One of which was a ranga who proceeded to cry to Macky about how "there used to be 4 types of freshwater dolphins and now there's only 3 *waaaaaah*".
After a large period of drinking, during which Tim at one point had 3 steins on the go and I managed to cheers so enthusiastically that I broke my stein, we all got separated. Lewis and Tim had a fight, Lance and Nick disappeared andJo went back to the hotel room then got lost and scared before finally finding Macky. I ended up going in search of Tim but stumbled on Lance instead and after a frustrating hour of trying to meet up with others who were "by the huge statue" which we were unable to find we just headed into a beer tent and spent the rest of the evening dancing drunkenly on tables with the rest of the tent to the band playing.
On the drunk walk back to the hotel I discovered the huge statue. It was appropriately huge and remarkably obvious. Oops.
Once back at the hotel we all managed to regroup, the only noteable tale being that of Tim, who was drugged and came to about an hour from the festival grounds in the wrong direction, minus his previously bought hat and his shirt and completely sober, then much needed bed.
The next morning, after breakfast and feeling happily un-hungover, we spent relaxing in the hotel room, having a few quiet beers and playing Munchkin before crossing the road to a pub for huge schnitzels for lunch. After lunch and a couple more beers we headed into the festival in early evening to try and properly experience the tents at night, which only I had made the previous night. With dinners of ox burgers or pork steak sandwiches under our belts we headed into the Paulaner tent where we stayed, drinking and dancing on the tables and stools, until it closed.
On closing Macky discovered that he had lost his much loved jacket and then on leaving Jo was groped and harassed by some drunk idiot until I pushed him away and told him to fuck off. This resulted in a somewhat unhappy group walking back to the hotel and began the saga of Macky and his jacket.
The next morning we had a fantastic sleep in, just made the 11am free breakfast cutoff and then inquired how much the hotel was owed. This was the point where we paniced slightly, did the maths, trawled through our emails to find the booking made a year ago and verified that yes, we did infact agree to pay that much per night.
To distract ourselves from this awful detail we called Lance and headed back into Oktoberfest to meet up with him and Nick again. The others went to check for Macky's jacket at lost and found while Tim and I went and found Lance, Nick and their mates Brad and Andy. After about a steins length of time the others rejoined us, minus the jacket, and we got the day going properly.
At 3pm, when the majority of tables were booked out, we went outside where we were told we could only sit if we ordered food so, realising that this was a genious idea, we got a round of pork knuckles, which were huge and obscenely good. Nick also broke out his little box (which were sold all over the place) of snuff, which I sampled a little of and was just a bit of a minty feel but really wakes you up.
We then managed to somehow find Simon, who Tim and I hung out with in Bruges, who came and joined us for a while, but lost Macky and Jo who headed back to the hotel, Macky still unimpressed by the loss of his jacket. The rest of us headed back inside the tent around 6 where Tim proceeding to befriend a table of very gay men who he kept telling us were "really nice" but were quite clearly, at least to the rest of us, taking turns making plays for him. We were stood on the other side of a small wooden railing, refusing to join him, and spent a while talking with various people, including a canadian who kept dancing around and an English girl who worked as a lap dancer.
After a bunch more drinking and and table dancing all that remained was Lance, Nick, Brad and I and we left when the tents closed, my final moments in the glorious, debauched bonanza that is Oktoberfest.
We left together and then went our separate ways as we split off to our different destinations and I ended up joined by a bunch of germans for the walk back.
The next morning we said our farewells to Tim and then walked to the station to jump on our bus to Prague.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Days 105-109 (Sept 19-23) - Amsterdam 2.0
Walked from Amsterdam Centraal Station to the "Globe Hostel", which wasn't an amazing hostel in terms of quality of facilities but had everything we needed; a bar with cheap beer and 2 happy hours (3-4 and 8-9), a smoking/pool room, beds. Checked in and went up to our rooms where we met 3 of our roommates, Julia and Maria from Germany and Christophe from France, who didn't speak any English but for some reason decided to hang out with us.
Joined by those 3 we went down to the bar, had a Heineken (seriously the only beer we drank in Amsterdam and now something I am trying to avoid as a result) and decided to go for a pub crawl around the red light district (our hostel was on the North East corner of it).
The first place we hit was a bit expensive so after a couple of beers and a lot of awkward glances at the couple at the table next to us who were essentially riding one another we moved to another, cheaper place. Here we randomly ran into Sarah and Lindsay from Bruges, who were in the midst of a rather messy looking paid pub crawl and Christophe, who hadn't really said much given his lack of communication options, bought us a round of jager bombs and then shortly after disappeared.
We then moved to a place in Rembrandtplein but the music it was playing was pretty awful so we grabbed pizza slices from one of the ten bazillion late night food places and chilled next to a canal before heading back to the hostel. On arrival, around 3am, I discovered a girl asleep in my bed and, in pitch black, managed to find the single empty bed in the room. Bed incident 2/3.
The next morning we discovered another great feature of our hostel; amazing, cheap food, so after an awesome full English breakfast Tim and I played some pool, had a few beers then went to look for an acceptable cafe to partake of some of Amsterdam's more infamous treats. The first few we found were all playing crappy dance music, which we felt was not the experience we desired, so we kept looking around until we found a place playing some Dub and grabbed a brownie each. After about 15 minutes, and feeling absolutely nothing, we asking a passing waitress how long they took to kick in ("about an hour") and whether 1 each was enough ("definitely"), then promptly bought another and headed back to the hostel to play some more pool and have a few more cheap beers.
After a while, probably about the hour predicted, I started to feel a bit high and then about half an hour after that we had to call it a day for pool as Tim was too high. Tim definitely got hit a lot harder by it than I did and we went back into the bar area where we were joined by Julia and Maria, who I talked to while Tim sat there, too out of it to converse with us.
Midnight rolled around, and we were by this point back to our stable point of just being quite drunk, and then shortly after began the most disturbing incident of our entire trip. A very drunk, as in very drunk compared to us, Welsh girl stumbled into the bar, ordered a beer and started loudly slur-yell-talking to a poor innocent guy standing at the bar for about 5 minutes before she started kissing him then abruptly stopped and came over and set next to us. After a couple of minutes of slur-yelling at us in an accent so thick we had no idea what she was saying she started getting a bit more focused and aggressive sounding to Julia (Maria having gone to bed) and the bartender came over and told us that "you 4 are making too much noise [while glaring at the Welsh girl] so I need you to all leave". We told him that we had no idea who she was or why she was talking to us, but subtly so she didn't notice because she seemed like a crazy person, and so he told her that she had to go. She apparently took this in as she nodded and stood up, so he walked off. She then, right in front of me and Julia and directly behind Tim, much to our horror (Tim picking up on it by our facial expressions and then the... sound effects), in one swift movement dropped her jeans and undies to her knees, squatted on the bar floor and commenced pissing like a firehose, just as the poor bartender walked behind her. The poor guy had to take a double take at a half naked girl squatting on the floor of the bar before bending down to see if she really was doing what he thought she was. I have never in my life seen a face say "fuck my life" as purely as his did. We took this as our cue to leave and hurriedly vacated the bar up to the safety of the staircase where we could check our shoes for... splashback... and spend another hour laughing and questioning what just happened. Ended up going to bed at 1:30 which seemed like the end of the matter.
At around 3am I awoke to someone shoving me and, from the stench of vomit and piss, loud, slurred voice and indecipherable accent realised that the drunk Welsh girl was not only somehow in our room or somehow pushing me but infact climbing into my bed. I told her, in quite simple, loud and possibly explicit terms, to get out of my bed but she tried to grab me then passed out so I escaped and went downstairs tp the reception where the old Scottish bloke working told me "that fooken betch, goo up thar, drag her oot of yur bed and throw her inta hers, its 302 [ours was 301] and if she causes anymore trooble I'm callin the fooken coppers". Armed with this information and threat I returned, woke her and, with surprisingly small difficulty, convinced her to get out my bed, although it was on the condition that I took her to her room, thankfully across the corridor. I got her into her room, a 20 bed dorm, and she commenced yelling about had anyone seen her friend and how she had lost her passport. She then turned to me and told me I had to hold her while she slept or she would come back to my bed. I managed to find her an empty bed and, thank god, she immediately passed out so I left, locked our door, and went to bed. 3/3.
Woke up, said our goodbyes to Julia and Maria and then befriended Alex from Melbourne, the girl who had taken my assigned bed, over tales of the previous nights... excitements and who had the unfortunate job, because I had definitely done enough, of taking the Welsh girls shoes and bag to her room. Had another awesome full cooked breakfast and a lazy morning sitting around the bar reading, playing pool and having a couple of lazy beers (at least until 3pm happy hour when it became more than a couple and less lazy), broken only by me deciding to be healthy and going to a supermarket for a couple of apples and some fruit juice.
At 4 Tim and I went to the "Heineken Experience", which was awesome. A very interesting tour of the brewing process, plus then a 10 minute brewing "ride" followed by a heineken tasting where we learnt the point of head (it keeps the beer cool and from going flat). At the tasting we befriended the bartender so after the rest of the group from the ride moved on we had a couple more free beers with him then we moved through the rest of the tour, which ended in a bar where we each got 2 free beers, counterbalanced by the loud, terrible music and floor so sticky that each step was a trial of keeping our shoes on.
We then went back to the hostel for more beer and pool and ended up hanging out with Alex and her friend David from Canada. Around midnight Alex, quite stoned, went to bed and Tim, David and I went for a drunk wander and found an amazing, cheap chicken burger joint.
Another morning passed with beers and fantastic breakfast then in the afternoon Tim and I went to check out the sex museum, which was very confronting, very interesting and quite obscene. A lot of ancient artistry and implements, a section dedicated to the Japanese, who are apparently quite the deviants and love to draw themselves with whale sized wangs, a somewhat scarily graphic room about fetishes and a lot of straight up porn.
We then went to see about going to the ice bar but it turned out you had to book and we didn't want to wait around for a couple of hours so we headed back to the hostel where we met David and his mate, a big Aussie bloke from Melbourne, had a couple more beers and decided we should check out the red light district and get some food. Ended up getting more chicken burgers and were back in the hostel, ready for an early night, by midnight.
Tim and I, fully aware of our lack of sleep and that we had to be up at 8:30 to checkout, decided to finish our beers and go to sleep. Of course, us being us, 2 minutes later 2 Pom girls, Yasmin and Kim, sat down across from us and starting talking to us. We then had 2 more beers each and ended up going out with them, accompanied by Yu, the 35 year old Chinese hostel manager the girls invited as a joke but actually said that he did want to come.
Yu first took us to a bar that was meant to be really good but was so crowded that we didn't bother so he took us on to a club called "Smokey", which definitely lived up to its name and had a dancing cage accessed by a staircase and hanging over the dance floor and 2 dancing poles, one on a raised platform and one on a bar, all used frequently. The club did 10 jager shots or 4 jager bombs for $15 so within half an hour we had each had 4 shots and a jager bomb and were quite happy. The club was filled with creepy guys, who for some reason kept trying to smell the girls hair and we ended up leaving at 3:30, getting bike rickshaws back to the hostel and then talking with some Irish on the staircase until 4:30. So much for a quiet night.
Woke up at 8:30, showered, checked out and walked to the station for our 8 hour train to Munich, which was excellent for catching up on sleep.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Days 101-105 (Sept 15-19) - Belgium
Arrive in Barcelona airport at about 3am, having had an hours sleep on the plane over, feeling somewhat tired and found the airport entirely deserted, which was very wierd, wandering an empty airport looking for the gate for my flight to Brussels. Managed to get 2 hours sleep by pulling a few chairs together to form a very uncomfortable bench bed then at 6am boarded the flight.
On arrival in Brussels, around 9am, I found Tim waiting outside baggage collection and we immediately headed to the airport bar for a quick drink and catch up. 2 hours later, with 4 empty pints in front of each of us, we left the airport and went for a wander around Brussels, theoretically to find the hostel but it ended up just being us, slightly drunk, aimlessly exploring a giant marble courthouse, a few awesome statues and a lookout over a bunch of the city before we gave up, got a cab and checked into the hostel about 2pm.
We left our luggage in the luggage room and went for a walk to find some more food and, having come across another bar on the way, eventually found a little Italian place that was really nice. Polished off a pizza and Tim's leftover half lasagna before we headed back to the hostel, grabbed our bags and had a "nap so we are good to go out tonight" at 5pm.
Woke up at 10am, having forgotten to set an alarm. Apparently we were tired. Went over to the supermarket for sandwiches and berries (us being the epitome of manliness) and then used the hostels computer, it lacking wifi, to check out hostels in Bruges. Found a nice looking place, St Christopher's Inn, but it didn't have space for both of us according to the websites so we decided to wing it. Walked over to Brussels station and jumped on the first train to Bruges.
Arrived in Bruges and Tim bought himself a can of beer while I grabbed a map and, after deciding we weren't in walking distance of the city center we got a quick cab to St Christopher's who had apparently got "loads of space". Got 2 beds in the back of a 10 bed dorm, dropped off our stuff and then went to check out the Hostel's bar.
At this point the time frames become a bit hesitant but we:
Woke up at 10am for the rugby game, had a terrible instant coffee for breakfast and went for a walk into Bruges center to find an Irish pub for the rugby game. In retrospect, given the Irish won convincingly, this was a mistake, however it did lead to us having a few beers and getting a little rivalry going.
Afterwards we went for an explore around Bruges, which is a really nice, picturesque little city, grabbed pizza for lunch and ended up back at the bar where we met Simon, from Melbourne, and Ashley from the shire, who was a little bit batshit insane. Left with them to go and play pool in another hostel, which was playing a lot of The Doors and had super cheap pool, which got a little odd with the lengths Ashley would go to put me and Simon off our shots but she eventually left, leaving us feeling slightly raped, and was never seen again.
After a significant amount of pool we left and went back to the bar for more drinks, where we were joined by Sarah and Lindsay from America. Tim passed out in a corner in the booth at around midnight and after being woken by the bar staff 3 times was asked to leave and went to bed. Not long after we headed to the hostel's nightclub, which was playing particularly bad dubstep and then went our separate ways.
Exhausted and not exactly sober by this point I got back to my bed, which was a top bunk and had a curtain along the edge to give sleepers privacy, pulled back the curtain and was confronted by a sleeping guy. I woke him up, told him he was in my bed and to get out. He looked at me, said "get in" and promptly rolled over and went to sleep again. Taken back by this and confused by what to do I went to reception, laughed about it with the Aussie guy on duty and was given a key to the "emergency room" which was completely empty and had way better beds. Victory.
Got to bed about 3, after what ended up being bed incident 1 of 3 of the Tim and Hugh awfuckolypse.
Woke up at 9:30 for checkout, had another nutritious breakfast of coffee and found Tim again. Grabbed our bags, went for an explore around the previously unexplored part of Bruges then got a bus to the train station. Grabbed a train to Antwerp.
We arrived in Antwerp with no idea where we were staying or where the hostels were so we first walked around until we found an Internet cafe where we got a vague photo of a map and 4 hostels to check. Walked to the first one, which took us about half an hour to get to but took us through the Jewish quarter which was very cool and a bit wierd seeing all the traditional Jewish clothing and hairstyle.
The first hostel was completely full so we moved on to the second. After another 20 minutes walking, and ending up back near the train station, we discovered the second hostel was either closed or hated us as we spent about 15 minutes knocking on the front door, various windows and the back door to no avail. Getting slightly frustrated by this point we walked a further 20 minutes to the third option, the "Kangaroo hostel", which now is actually a kebab place.
Our final option was left until last as it was the highest rated on hostelbookers.com and also in the very center of the city, thus making it a) the furthest away and b) the least likely to have beds, so it was a slightly concerned tram ride and 10 minute walk that took us there.
Miraculously they did infact have space for us so we checked in, dumped our stuff and then went to find a pub to watch the Chelsea vs Man Utd football game. The only place we found was called "The Old Trafford" and turned out to indeed by a Man Utd themed bar, complete with completely red painted interior, memorabilia and posters covering every available surface and a bartender/owner who was a Man Utd fan born in Chelsea. Very cautiously we sat down in a corner with our beers to watch the game. Going 3-0 down by half time made it at least safer, although I did get a lot of very angry looks and sworn at by a bartender when I cheered when Chelsea scored just after halftime but it ended 3-1. I still maintain Chelsea played better football and deserved to win.
Went for a wander to explore a bit of Antwerp, had dinner in a little restaurant near the river and actually got to bed at a reasonable time.
Woke up, had hostel breakfast, the first breakfast we successfully ate at, checked out, left our bags in the hostel and walked to the station. Found a cool church and went in for a quick look but ended up getting a free 30 minute tour by an old Belgian guy who worked there which was really interesting.
Found the bus station, jumped on a bus out to Westmalle and set off on our one planned venture of Belgium, visiting a Trappist monastery. Got off the bus in the middle of the countryside, with just a Westmalle Trappist beer cafe on one side and a paved track on the other. Walked up the track to the monastery, via a cool little building that appeared to be a war memorial chapel. The monastery looked very cool from the exterior but when we knocked on the giant door and asked the little old monk, who didn't really speak English, if they were open for visitors we were told no. Wandered around the monastery grounds a bit more then went back to the Trappist cafe where we sampled the amazing Trappist beer, had some very tasty pasta and then got a bus back to Antwerp.
Went for a walk around the north end of the city center via a crazy museum built in the middle of 2 docks the Napoleon had built and then down the river before collecting our bags, heading back to the train station and jumping on a train to Amsterdam.
On arrival in Brussels, around 9am, I found Tim waiting outside baggage collection and we immediately headed to the airport bar for a quick drink and catch up. 2 hours later, with 4 empty pints in front of each of us, we left the airport and went for a wander around Brussels, theoretically to find the hostel but it ended up just being us, slightly drunk, aimlessly exploring a giant marble courthouse, a few awesome statues and a lookout over a bunch of the city before we gave up, got a cab and checked into the hostel about 2pm.
We left our luggage in the luggage room and went for a walk to find some more food and, having come across another bar on the way, eventually found a little Italian place that was really nice. Polished off a pizza and Tim's leftover half lasagna before we headed back to the hostel, grabbed our bags and had a "nap so we are good to go out tonight" at 5pm.
Woke up at 10am, having forgotten to set an alarm. Apparently we were tired. Went over to the supermarket for sandwiches and berries (us being the epitome of manliness) and then used the hostels computer, it lacking wifi, to check out hostels in Bruges. Found a nice looking place, St Christopher's Inn, but it didn't have space for both of us according to the websites so we decided to wing it. Walked over to Brussels station and jumped on the first train to Bruges.
Arrived in Bruges and Tim bought himself a can of beer while I grabbed a map and, after deciding we weren't in walking distance of the city center we got a quick cab to St Christopher's who had apparently got "loads of space". Got 2 beds in the back of a 10 bed dorm, dropped off our stuff and then went to check out the Hostel's bar.
At this point the time frames become a bit hesitant but we:
- Got reasonably intoxicated on scotch, coke and Duvel
- Had awful kebabs for dinner at some point far past any civilised dinner time
- Hung out with a group of people from Melbourne and an Irish couple
- Talked a lot of crap with the Irish bartender's about the next mornings Australia vs Ireland rugby world cup match which ended up with me speaking in a fake Irish accent for the rest of the night (or Tim would "punish" me if I slipped up, which didn't happen) that I totally pulled off
- Went to the hostel's nightclub, which was small, dingy and playing crap music
- Left the nightclub and wandered around a bit
Woke up at 10am for the rugby game, had a terrible instant coffee for breakfast and went for a walk into Bruges center to find an Irish pub for the rugby game. In retrospect, given the Irish won convincingly, this was a mistake, however it did lead to us having a few beers and getting a little rivalry going.
Afterwards we went for an explore around Bruges, which is a really nice, picturesque little city, grabbed pizza for lunch and ended up back at the bar where we met Simon, from Melbourne, and Ashley from the shire, who was a little bit batshit insane. Left with them to go and play pool in another hostel, which was playing a lot of The Doors and had super cheap pool, which got a little odd with the lengths Ashley would go to put me and Simon off our shots but she eventually left, leaving us feeling slightly raped, and was never seen again.
After a significant amount of pool we left and went back to the bar for more drinks, where we were joined by Sarah and Lindsay from America. Tim passed out in a corner in the booth at around midnight and after being woken by the bar staff 3 times was asked to leave and went to bed. Not long after we headed to the hostel's nightclub, which was playing particularly bad dubstep and then went our separate ways.
Exhausted and not exactly sober by this point I got back to my bed, which was a top bunk and had a curtain along the edge to give sleepers privacy, pulled back the curtain and was confronted by a sleeping guy. I woke him up, told him he was in my bed and to get out. He looked at me, said "get in" and promptly rolled over and went to sleep again. Taken back by this and confused by what to do I went to reception, laughed about it with the Aussie guy on duty and was given a key to the "emergency room" which was completely empty and had way better beds. Victory.
Got to bed about 3, after what ended up being bed incident 1 of 3 of the Tim and Hugh awfuckolypse.
Woke up at 9:30 for checkout, had another nutritious breakfast of coffee and found Tim again. Grabbed our bags, went for an explore around the previously unexplored part of Bruges then got a bus to the train station. Grabbed a train to Antwerp.
We arrived in Antwerp with no idea where we were staying or where the hostels were so we first walked around until we found an Internet cafe where we got a vague photo of a map and 4 hostels to check. Walked to the first one, which took us about half an hour to get to but took us through the Jewish quarter which was very cool and a bit wierd seeing all the traditional Jewish clothing and hairstyle.
The first hostel was completely full so we moved on to the second. After another 20 minutes walking, and ending up back near the train station, we discovered the second hostel was either closed or hated us as we spent about 15 minutes knocking on the front door, various windows and the back door to no avail. Getting slightly frustrated by this point we walked a further 20 minutes to the third option, the "Kangaroo hostel", which now is actually a kebab place.
Our final option was left until last as it was the highest rated on hostelbookers.com and also in the very center of the city, thus making it a) the furthest away and b) the least likely to have beds, so it was a slightly concerned tram ride and 10 minute walk that took us there.
Miraculously they did infact have space for us so we checked in, dumped our stuff and then went to find a pub to watch the Chelsea vs Man Utd football game. The only place we found was called "The Old Trafford" and turned out to indeed by a Man Utd themed bar, complete with completely red painted interior, memorabilia and posters covering every available surface and a bartender/owner who was a Man Utd fan born in Chelsea. Very cautiously we sat down in a corner with our beers to watch the game. Going 3-0 down by half time made it at least safer, although I did get a lot of very angry looks and sworn at by a bartender when I cheered when Chelsea scored just after halftime but it ended 3-1. I still maintain Chelsea played better football and deserved to win.
Went for a wander to explore a bit of Antwerp, had dinner in a little restaurant near the river and actually got to bed at a reasonable time.
Woke up, had hostel breakfast, the first breakfast we successfully ate at, checked out, left our bags in the hostel and walked to the station. Found a cool church and went in for a quick look but ended up getting a free 30 minute tour by an old Belgian guy who worked there which was really interesting.
Found the bus station, jumped on a bus out to Westmalle and set off on our one planned venture of Belgium, visiting a Trappist monastery. Got off the bus in the middle of the countryside, with just a Westmalle Trappist beer cafe on one side and a paved track on the other. Walked up the track to the monastery, via a cool little building that appeared to be a war memorial chapel. The monastery looked very cool from the exterior but when we knocked on the giant door and asked the little old monk, who didn't really speak English, if they were open for visitors we were told no. Wandered around the monastery grounds a bit more then went back to the Trappist cafe where we sampled the amazing Trappist beer, had some very tasty pasta and then got a bus back to Antwerp.
Went for a walk around the north end of the city center via a crazy museum built in the middle of 2 docks the Napoleon had built and then down the river before collecting our bags, heading back to the train station and jumping on a train to Amsterdam.
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