Blogged lightly in between leaving London the first time and coming back (Amsterdam, Paris) but now that I have the time and resources I thought I'd go back a bit, fill in some blanks...from what I can remember anyway, my memory is a little spotty.
London:
Amsterdam:
Our flight was at seven in the morning and our taxi was coming at four so we just stayed up all night until we left! Brilliant idea (not) the next day's journey was kind of painful. Trekking through the streets of Amsterdam, exhausted, wandering around with all of our stuff...in the rain probably--it always seems to rain when we're lost, tired, and carrying everything we own. Finally found our hostel, de Hans Brinker Hostel. Roomed with some intense Spanish peeps and a perpetually high guy from New Zealand named Richard. It was my first experience with a shared room dormitory style hostel...kind of interesting. There were times where it was like, hmm, that New Zealand guy is sprawled naked on his bed, how hilarious. And we felt bad if we came home really late and everyone was sleeping. But I'd totally do it again. It's the cheapest option and it's not like we spent most of the time in the room anyway.
I think I blogged about most of what we did in Amsterdam? I was really high when I wrote most of those posts so I have no clue. Could go back and look through the posts but I can't be bothered (that's what they say here instead of I don't feel like it or I'm too lazy! Cool, huh?). I'll just give a few highlights to go along with the photos:
The first night was the night we tried to go on the "Ultimate Pub Crawl." After not sleeping and dragging all of our things around Amsterdam in search of our hostel, we thought it best to take a nap. It was ten in the morning when we checked in and the pub crawl was at eight... that would be more than enough time to have a nice little nap! Set our alarms but they never went off. Cut to us throwing on whatever we could find, no make-up, running towards where we thought the pub crawl was going to be (we still had no idea where we were). No running necessary! They were all just drinking inside a pub near the meeting place, hanging out.
We walked in and some guys with Ultimate Party! shirts immediately poured shots of vodka in our mouths and then gave us a token to get a beer from the bar. After that pub we were supposed to go to a few more, have as many vodka shots as we could take in thirty minutes, and drink as many glasses of beer as we could drink...sounds like fun but we felt groggy and disoriented from the weird long nap, disheveled from the running and basically not put together at all. The group was mostly men and a few of them started to hit on us awkwardly... We sat there for a little while, took the whole thing in...hmm, nope. We were over it. In Amsterdam and we hadn't even smoked yet.
So we left and went to the nearest coffee shop, Happy Feelings. Ahh, Happy Feelings. They sell most of their joints mixed with tobacco, but we bought a pure because we really wanted the full experience =). Riiiidddiiiicuuulous. We saw things, man.
We went on a cannabis walk the next day. The city is filled with beautiful artwork.
My mini van followed me there! I knew it loved me.
We had some time to kill before our bike tour so we decided to sit by a canal, smoke a joint, enjoy the scenery, and feed the ducks (who we named Borzo and Sacha). Right when we were about to light the joint we were approached by two French men "Excuse me, do you know where der is a good pub around ere?" Hmm, it was eleven thirty in the morning. "Oh yeah, there's one on Kerkstraat, right down there..." "Oh, cool. Do you have a lighterrree? We want to smoke but we don't ave one." OK! Ten minutes later we're all sharing joints, they obviously had a lighter because they brought it out mid-smoke. Aww, but they tried so hard! We taught them a little bit about American culture...
That's right, we're spreading it around the globe...BRO!
Everyone rides bikes in Amsterdam. Everyone. It's kind of intimidating when you're on the road with so many serious bike-riding pros. But we didn't fall once! It was really funny, we smoked with the French guys riiiight before we left for the bike shop so we were suuuper high for the bike tour. We kind of fell asleep on the couches while waiting for the tour guide and when he walked in he was like "Oh man, they're tired already!" Yep, and then we rode through a strange European town while high out of our minds. Talk about trippy, bro.
Herring is apparently super popular in the Netherlands, so we thought we'd partake in a little cultural immersion. You have to, food is such a big part of any culture. So we did. We tried the RAW HERRING WITH PICKLES AND ONIONS IN A HOT DOG BUN. Sorry if that intense capitalization shocked you, I just wanted to get the point across. And my point is that herring is disgusting. It might be delicious a little more pan fried, or in a light sauce even...but it was just raw herring. With pickles and onions. In a cold hot dog bun. Not OK, bro. Audrey can't even talk about the experience without gagging.
More points for Amsterdam, there were cats evvvreeywheeerrre. They love their cats. Oh, and they never euthanize animals for population control. Go Amsterdam.
The next day was the day we left for the train station, searched for the pot growing lesbians in the rain, missed the train... I told you all about that already? Good times.
Breakfast at the Hans Brinker Hostel. Mmm! Egg, cheese, and salt sandwich.
The shop once we finally found it.
The Erica Homeopathic shop where I bought the travel worries. Good thing! It totally worked for us.
The beautiful countryside
Missing Lana =(
Paris!:
When we arrived in Paris Audrey was already in full blown sick mode. I was on my way there. We were drugged up most of the time, delirious and weak from sickenss. It was a bit sad because we only had two days and wanted to make the most of them, but our bodies were super weak and ravaged by the illness so it was difficult to adventure with our usual vigor. We tried though, even did a four hour bike tour of the city!
Poor Parisan bunnies must get their paws stuck in metro doors a lot. Common enough to have a warning made just for them.
Cafe de Luna!
The Moulin Rouge was right down the street from where we were staying! We just kind of stumbled across it while looking for a pharmacy. Totally wanted to go see a show but it was around 85 Euro so we settled for some typical tourist pics! Then we decided that we should probably eat something so we walked around the area and found a nice little cafe on the corner. We must have been there for three hours--the French take their time eating--it was nice to sit and relax but it started to get late and our hostel had a 2 am cerfew so we asked for the check.
Our server was on is own with a million tables and we felt bad for him, but when he didn't bring the check for half and hour we were kind of like Ok, let's just go pay up front? So we did and it turned out that he was just stalling because when we got up there he was like "One second, dis is my friend, he wants to meet you!" His friend came out and spoke a little to us in Frenchy English, asked us where we were from blah blah blah.
We really wanted to smoke somewhere before we headed back, but decided it was a little too sketchy considering that the French police seemed to be everywhere. But talking to these locals seemed like perfect opportunity to find the best and safest smoking spots! We showed them the joint and communicated our intentions as best we could. The friend was like, "Oh yes, I get off in one hourerrr, sit sit. You want a drink? What do you want?" Sweet! We'll take a couple of beers, Merci. He brought us the beers, told us that the area was filled with cops but if we waited for an hour he would take us to his place in his car and we could drive around and smoke. To which Audrey replied "Sweet, I'm down!" And I was like um, Audrey do you feel like dying in Paris tonight? He was nice, though. He brought us the check for the beers "This is your bill. To my girlfriend and my future ex-girlfriend." And the check said Two Big Kiss. It's more hilarious if you imagine it being said with a super thick French accent.
The next day was the most Parisian day yet! We had croissonts for breakfast, baguettes for lunch and crepes for dinner. We were so gross with illness when it was time to leave for the bike tour that biking around for four hours was pretty much the last thing we wanted to do. Merde! But it was our last day in Paris, we had to. When we got there the girl in charge was super American! And super excited! Do you like Paris?! Paris is AMAZING, isn't it?! JUST WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE IT ON A BIKE!!! Aww crap, calm down chick. We weren't really prepared for the trek in the first place, trying to follow a super caffeniated person on bikes when we weren't really confident in our ability to stand didn't sound too appealing.
It ended up being totally fine, very informative and a lot of fun. Our tour guide wasn't that unnaturally hyper girl afterall, he was some really chilled out guy named Paul. It was waaay different from our bike tour in Amsterdam-- which consisted of the two of us and our tour guide-- The One in France had about twenty-five people, which made it a little more difficult to all travel together around the busy city. Difficult in a comical way. People were literally dodging us, it was quite hilarious.
The Louvre!
After the bike tour we thought it a good plan to go to some of the museums in the city and maybe explore a bit. On the way to the Musee d'Orsay we walked past the cutest little fresh fruit stand. I'm sick, I need this fruit! Me too. And for some reason watermelon sounded the most delicious choice. That was as far as that thought process went, though. That watermelon looks goood. Mmm, watermelon.
And suddenly we were walking alongside the Eiffel Tower with our faces and clothing stained and dripping with watermelon juice. Joggers ran past us Mmm, can I have some? Some guy walking by was like Eeeyy sexeee, that looks good. Hey! Watermelon is a really, really awkward fruit to eat when it's on the rind! After a few bites it just starts to get difficult--you have to turn it, it touches your face, it drips all over no matter what... By the time we were finished it was evvveeerywhere. And we still had a long walk ahead of us, only now we had to do it all sticky and stained. We were like really? Really? We didn't think ahead with this one. But we were so out of it that we didn't give a shit--Started laughing hysterically, watermelon juice was getting even more everywhere, we looked insane. People stared, parents seemed concerned for their chilren's safety, and some military guards with huge rifles started to surround us...Uh, in hindsight we might have been paranoid, they were probably just walking towards us. It was scary at the time. We were like, Crap! Did they see us throw the rinds on the ground? No laughing while eating watermelon, bro!
A chair from the Erotic Museum
Whew! Longest entry ever? Felt like it. I took a break somewhere in the middle of writing it and went out to get a bottle of wine with Audrey. Drank it! Watched some movies, ate some cheese. Drunk and a little high. You're pretty much caught up now. Remind me to write about how we smuggled pot across three international borders in the next post.
Audrey just fell on the couch and passed out on...sleep sounds amazing, I'm gonna copy her.
Goodnight!
E
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