So we bailed on the bar crawl. Jesse and Danny were committed but we got over it and walked around the red light district. It was really crazy looking at the girls because a lot of them were pretty cute- I don't know why they decided to slut themselves out like that. It was creepy to watch normal looking guys go up and talk to them and then enter the brothel. Gross. Of course there were the standard skeevy looking old men who you'd see walking out of the doors too but I guess we sort of expected that. It was cool to walk over all the canals at night whether they were lit up by red lights or Xmas decorations (Amsterdam already was decked out for the holidays- we loved it). We grabbed a couple drinks with which they served the juice mixer in a seperate glass bottle or freshly squeezed the oj. It was good juice haha. We went to bed early although we were woken up in our closet of a room by our 2 guy roommates who had moved in that night and although we were clearly all organized, unpacked and in bed, they asked if we wanted to change rooms to another down the hall. Melanie scoffed and I laughed while saying absolutely not. I don't think they even spoke English very well. They then arrived back home durin the night one at 230am and the other at 4am who walked into the trashcan and then some girl kept knocking on the door which they ignored. I was about to tell her to take a hint, but I doubted she spoke english either.
The next morning I slept in while mel did some laundry. We went shopping and met the boys for 'breakfast' ie breakfast food at 1. Danny was a struggle bus and declared himself unable to leave his bed until 3pm, so the other 3 of us ate. We shopped/walked around some more and met back up again later to grab dinner/drinks as it was our last night in Amsterdam. We were all over the coffee shop scene there although the air was potent enough in itself. Danny and Jesse did some good face reinactments of danny's euro kick off and explored a bookstore where mel got some good books to finish out the trip. We decided to all go on the pub crawl since it was our last night together. Mel and I had to powerwalk to change to make it back to the starting bar. We are impressive powerwalkers if I do say so myself. We got to the crawl which was absolute craziness though we got our souvenir tshirts which we really wanted. Danny found out that he had been kicked off the pub crawl the night before (the staff remembered him even though he didn't). Good times. We met up with some guys we had met in Berlin which was random and then by the last bar we decided it was time to head back since we wanted to get up early to go to Brussels and then figure out our Chunnel tickets.
Well we walked in on our new slovakian roommate naked under the sheets doing who knows what to himself- joy- and we grabbed amazing burgers and fell asleep. Unsuccessfully waking up in the morning we barely made it out of the room in time for 10am check out. Maybe the pub crawl wasn't the best planning for the night before haha. We got on our train to Brussels fairly easily and minus the giant pack of boy and girl scouts who took over our train it was uneventful. There was about 50 little kids and 2 troop leaders and the kids behind me got in a fist fight and Melanie got hit in the head by a tin foil ball. Luckily we were too tired to yell at the little buggers.
We had bought Chunnel tickets for our orginial date a week later and we tried to switch them even though they said non exchangable and non refundable on them. The lady told us there was nothing we could do but we could buy a new ticket that day instead. Oh wait, all there is left is full fare passes at 280€ each. heck no woman. We decided to head to the actual euro star desk to try our luck there. We walked up and mel spoke saying we had a family issue and had to change our tickets spontaneously. We asked the guy what our options were. He started grilling us, so I just starting talking about who knows what- something like a death in my family and Melanie couldn't travel alone, my mom was booking us flights out of London so we just had to get there somehow.... He asked us for proof, texts, emails and I though for sure we were going to hell. Or worse, Belgium prison. I top secretly texted Lauren to possibly pretend to be mom and gave her the quick details on what she may need to say to the eurostar man so we weren't arrested. He took our eurail passes that proved we had come from Amsterdam that morning and went to talk to his boss. My oh my how things had escalated quickly. He came back finally and said that he believed us and that he was going to put us on the next train leaving to London. But the tickets were sold out and all was left was first class so he waived the €75 fee each and personally signed off with his boss and gave us tickets. Well it was done, no going back, but we both really felt like someone had died at this point and played the somber travelers until we left so that we didn't catch ourselves up and make a mess.
While we waited we sat next to this man who was talking to his friend about his boyfriend's underwear fetish. I think an exact quote was, 'i don't know why he has this underwear fetish when he spends so much time out of them'. Haha love it.
We had to go through customs where again they intensely questioned us about where we were staying, why we were going, what airport we were flying out of. Again there was fibbing going on because customs was right next to the check in counter of the guy who helped us so the story had to continue. Melanie was on the ball with this one cause I about peed myself with nerves. I don't think I answered any of the questions haha. The trip was quick and easy and we took the tube to London bridge (4£!!) and checked into our hostel. We had all girls in our room who were from Greece and were very nice. We watched some Sunday football downstairs, listened to 80's music from a dj since it was a theme night, and then went to bed.
We got up this morning for the walking tour and one of the girls in our room pressed sleep on her phone alarm over 8 times. I almost stomped on it but was getting up anyway. The tour was good- we had a sunny day in London which was nice- and saw buckingh palace, prince charles's house, the horseback guards, big Ben and westminister abbey among other things. I loved the clock tower and westminister- the gothic architecture was gorgeous. I didn't feel well so mel went shopping and I went to rest. We plan on getting authentic fish and chips tonight :). We need to change our ticket for getting to Scotland tomorrow but I think we might just fly by the seat of our pants and deal with it tomorrow at the station because trying to figure it all out through an iPhone/itouch screen is just more of a hassel then it's worth. These tickets we at least know are transferable!
Home in less then 6 days...
Xoxox Karin
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