Big Adventures, Little World

Now, after the Topdeck tour we didn’t have much rest as 2 days later my brother Mark, and my cousin Sam arrived for their own adventures. So the house was getting pretty full, with 6 of us there. I even went out and bought an air mattress so we had enough room for people to stay! A couple of days after that though Mark & Sam were off for 2 weeks to their Contiki tour, and Bel and I were flying off to Ireland, for 3 days in Dublin. Before Mark and Sam went off though, we went into central London for a New Europe Walking Tour. They are free tours in many cities throughout Europe (the same company as the one I did in Amsterdam) and if you like it at the end you just tip the tour guide (so technically not free, but worth it). It was really cool and the tour guides make it fun. They took us around London from Wellington Arch, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, The Houses of Parliament, 10 Downing Street, Big Ben and a number of other places with information and stories to go with them all. I’d recommend these tours to anyone in the cities they run them as they are really good and definitely worth it.

My Topdeck tour was just over 3 weeks longs and we visited a number of different countries in that time with a number of different stops along the way as you have probably read before this. What I have below is a map of everywhere we went and stopped during the tour.

Our tour was almost at an end and everyone was a bit sad as we would all be going our separate ways once we got back into London. Some going back to their home countries, or back to where they were living, or off on their next adventure. We all had breakfast together and packed the bus one last time, and then we were on our way for the long bus ride back to London. We had a lot of fun on the bus ride home, laughing and making jokes and making fun of our tour leaders and Bel read out the best or stupidest quotes that people had said during the tour which she had been keeping track of. It was quite a long bus ride, and we travelled through Belgium as well, though didn’t stop anywhere to see anything, as according to Dave all the have there is beer and chocolate. Though that does sound like an excellent reason to stop there. Eventually we made it back to Calais in France to catch the ferry back to Dover. We all said our goodbyes to Irish Mark and Dave and it was on the ferry back to the UK.

The ferry ride back was good, and we sat around talking and laughing and showing each other photos, getting contact details and discussing what everyone’s next plans and adventures were. We got back into Dover, and then it was onto a bus for the ride into London, where it was a chance for everyone to say their farewells and hugs all round. It was sad but we all went away knowing we had an amazing time and now had some great new friends too. Bel and I still had our trek home, which was another hour on the tube down to Wimbledon to stop at the pub and see Dung before heading home and dragging all of our stuff up the hill to the house, completed exhausted, and ready to sleep for the next week. Although, that wasn’t really an option as in a few days, we were continuing our travels to Ireland and Scotland.

We started the morning with a leisurely Bike Tour through the city of Amsterdam with a local guide. It was so much fun riding through the city as a big group and we got to see a lot of the city. Some of it is really beautiful, especially riding through a big park that they have. Bicycles own the road in Amsterdam, so you can even hit the pedestrians if they are on the bike lanes and that’s ok, because they were in the wrong. It was so much fun. I think I could have spent the entire day just riding around on the bike.

We wandered around after the bike tour and ended up in Dam square where there were groups of football fans singing and chanting and generally making a lot of noise. We also noticed that there was a free walking tour starting from there so Lucy and I joined onto that and went around for about an hour with the tour guide taking in the sights of Amsterdam. After spending about an hour on the walking tour though, we went back to the camp ground and chilled out for a while and so we could catch the bus into the restaurant where we would be having dinner that night as a group.

Dinner was at a Chinese restaurant called Sea Palace and we had a few big tables and had big plates of all kinds of Chinese dishes in the middle of each table and just helped ourselves to whatever we wanted. The food was quite good, but the service there was terrible. It didn’t stop us from having fun though. We sat around eating and chatting, all together for one last time before we would be leaving the next day. This was also the last time we would be spending with our trip leader Hottie, as he was catching the train early the next morning to start his next tour, and wouldn’t get to travel back with us to London which was unfortunate. So we all ate our food and then off we went for our canal cruise through Amsterdam. As we all were getting onto the boat, we said our goodbyes and gave hugs to Hottie and then waved goodbye from as we sailed off.

We didn’t really see too much on the canal cruise as we mostly just chatted and drank the free beer and wine. But it was a lot of fun, the funniest being when a few of the guys went through a tunnel and when we came out the other side they had all stripped down to their underwear and saying ‘mi scuzzi’ a la a scene from the movie ‘Eurotrip’. No one had any idea what was going on, especially the host and bartender of the cruise. No doubt it was hilarious though. After an hour or so we were done and then it was off into the city for the final time before heading back to camp.

As we were walking through the city there seemed to be a lot of noise and people around, as the football was on that night, and at one point we heard what we thought sounded like fireworks but turned out to be two shotgun shots. We also ran into another Topdeck tour group and their leader who also said that there was a fire in the city and that we should avoid that part of town. As we were walking through, our cook Mark who was with us told us to stay together and not do anything stupid, and we walked past a restaurant where the gunshots had been, and the windows had been shot out and the place was deserted and chairs and tables were everywhere and drinks smashed all over the ground. It was pretty full on. These football hooligans are crazy!

Back at the campsite we all sat around in the rain, huddling under and bit shade or trees we could find as we talked and told stories and reminisced about the tour. It was kind of a sad night, knowing that we were all going to be leaving each other the next day so we tried to prolong the night as long as we could before crawling into our tents for the last time and getting some sleep.

We didn’t get off to such a good start in the morning. The Aussie boys and me all turning off our alarms and going back to sleep before having the loudest knock at our door at 7.40AM, when the bus was supposed to be leaving at 7.30AM. We all jumped up and frantically packed our bags before me and Tim came running out to the bus, about a second before they were about to leave without us. Luckily we made it and were on our way to Amsterdam.

Before getting into Amsterdam we stopped at a little farm where cheese and clogs were made. It’s one of the things that has been done for hundreds of years in the Netherlands, but isn’t done so much traditionally anymore. Even here, they don’t do them traditionally, but still can if they want to and still have the knowledge of how to do this which is good as the old ways haven’t died with technology. We had a short informational talk of how the cheeses were made and go to try some as well. It was the best cheese I have ever tasted, and I really love cheese! The guy giving us the talk was crazy, but I think everyone that worked there was as well, because next we were given a demonstration of how the clogs were made, and the guy showing us this was just as crazy, maybe more so. It was really interesting to see how it was done, even though it wasn’t the traditional way, as that takes 5 hours, compared to 3 minutes in the machine. I don’t know about wearing wooden shoes though, apparently it is really comfortable.

After our short stop, it was off to the campsite to set up our tents as quickly as possible and then head into the city for our first night in Amsterdam. Just as we got everything off the bus and began setting up the tents, it started to rain. Thanks for the weather Amsterdam. Then just to rub it in, as we had all finished and were ready to get back on the bus, no more rain. I guess after all the sun we had had so far, it was about time we experienced some shitty weather. So we made our way into the city of Amsterdam and we were all sent off to find something quick to eat before again rushing back to see a live sex show. What an interesting show it was. I don’t think it is something I really need to describe to all of you (but if you want to know just ask me) but it’s not something that I would want to go to again, and don’t think it was really worth it at all. I found it funny more than anything, especially with audience participation and some of the guys from our tour getting up on stage. We had the rest of the night to check out some of the city before heading back to the campsite to get some rest, as by this stage, most people were pretty run down, and a lot had some form of cold or flu, so we needed our rest.