Rochelle, Sukhey, Jas and I arrived in the city and set off for the shopping district. I had originally wanted to see Ann Frank's house, but we had heard the queues were a couple hours wait and we only had about 4 hours in the city, so we opted out of it. This is the only attraction in Europe that I missed out in during the entire trip that I regret. Clearly I will have to go back to the Netherlands. I was hoping to find an outfit to wear out on my last night of Contiki but no dice. I did find a great pair of shoes for 20 Euros, so cheap! The shopping was actually quite good, but I was trying to be careful with my money given I still had London and Ireland to get through. Jas and I grabbed some lunch at McD's and then I headed to Zara alone with the plan to meet up with the rest of the group within 20 minutes. I ended up spending heaps of time at Zara although I never bought anything. By the time I left everyone had moved on to other stores so I was left alone. No worries, I prefer shopping on my own anyways (with the exception of shopping with Sukhey who is my perfect shopping partner.)
I was left on my own which I didn't mind with the exception of the fact that I don't wear a watch and I didn't have my BB on me - I didn't have service anywhere in Europe, so my BB became a glorified alarm clock while on the trip. I wandered around and did a bit of shopping and then decided that I should probably head to the meeting place where the coach was picking us up. Apparently I should have paid more attention to Sian when she was instructing us on the meeting place because I was definitely waiting in the wrong place. After waiting there for about 10 minutes (and 4 guys circling me, making me thoroughly uncomfortable) Matty Ray thankfully walked by and I found I was indeed waiting for the coach in the wrong place. We soon ran into a few others and headed to the actual meeting place for the coach. Katia was running a bit late which was somewhat disappointing because it cut down on our time to get ready for our farewell dinner. We were finally picked up and we had about 45 minutes to get dressed up and get back on the coach for dinner.
The majority of the group got on the bus but Sian noticed that the Amigo's and Kristen were missing. I was apparently the last one to see them the night before, at first Sian was concerned that Kristen had never made it home the night before but I assured her that she had. We carried onto dinner without them. Dinner was mediocre, the appetizer and dessert were both amazing but my main course of steak closely resembled a piece off over-cooked meat with campbell's mushroom soup poured over it. Halfway through dinner Sian got a text from another tour manager - apparently the Amigo's and Kristen had gone to the wrong dinner! This is a bit of an aside but a pretty great story so I will include it. The boys and Kristen skipped the tour stuff of the day and decided to hit up some cafes to experience Amsterdam life. Apparently somewhere throughout their day they ended up reading the other tour's day sheet (for the non-contiki readers, a day sheet was our daily agenda that Sian posted each day somewhere in the lobby of each hotel). Even though the two sheets were clearly marked with each tour's details, including each tour manager's name, the next destination - our's was London and the other tour was Barcelona they somehow still ended up getting them mixed up. So they arrived at the other tour's dinner and discovered the mix-up and grabbed a cab to our dinner, which cost over 100 euros. By now the boys were quite high and Matt apparently started to freak out in the taxi, which according to Ben and Kristen was quite hilarious to watch. They eventually made it, I was the first one to see them walk in, the look on Matt's face was priceless - he looked a bit terrified. First thing he did was hug Sian as soon as he got to our restaurant. They grabbed a bit of dinner and then it was time to head out to our farewell canal cruise.
Our farewell cruise was also a booze cruise - all the beer or wine that we wanted in an hour and a half. I found the boat similar to our coach, but with tables and it was definitely hard to maneuver around in. I got tired of sitting so after a while I got up and tried to walk around but I really never made it very far - only to the next table where Jas and Tom decided to go beer for beer. Eventually I gave up trying to walk around and sat with Matty Ray and Naomi for the the reminder of the cruise - it was at least close to the bartender, didn't even have to get up for another drink! Near the end of the cruise I hopped over to see how Matt and Ben were doing, they seemed okay although somewhat out of it.
After booze cruise we tried to figure out where to spend our last night of the tour. We ended up back in the red light district but decided to head to the club we had originally wanted to go to the previous night before. It was still quite early so I suggested we head to Prime for pre-drinks and then go to the club later in the evening. Everyone agreed this was a good idea and we all grabbed cabs to our next destination. It took a while for everyone to make it Prime - a bunch of us were waiting outside for the rest of the group. Eventually we thought that possibly a group of us had already gone into the bar so the boys sent me in to take a look because I wouldn't be charged cover. I went in but no one was there and on my way out I was stopped by a group of guys who tried talking me up, not interested I pushed past them and some guy grabbed my arm with one hand and grabbed my chest with the other! I was absolutely livid, I seriously wanted to punch the guy but given I was currently alone in a bar I decided it was best for me to get the hell out of there. I did give him a pretty good shove though.
Eventually the majority of our group made it to Prime and we had some drinks and did a bit of dancing. After about an hour everyone was ready to head to the club across the street but Matty R and I had just bought drinks so we decided to meet everyone there. We finished our drinks and Matt needed to hit up an ATM, I directed him to the one I had gone to the evening before but told him I would wait for him outside the club. I should have gone with him, a girl standing alone outside a club garners heaps of unwanted attention, I seriously felt uncomfortable. I decided to head into the club on my own but Matt met up with me while I was waiting in line. Twice in one day that Matt came to the rescue, although unintentional on his part.
The club was great, had both lounge and dance areas and I tried to divide my time between both places. Kristen and the Amigo's finally caught up with the rest of the group but the Amigo's still seemed a bit off - Kristen had never smoked in the first place. Later in the night I ran into Alex who was quite drunk and he asked me to sit with him, after a few minutes I realized he was absolutely wasted and I asked if he wanted to go home and he said yes. We grabbed a cab, although this time I was smart enough to negotiate a flat rate before we got in, and then he proceeded to puke out the window the entire way back to the hotel. Once there I had to help him clean up as he was an absolute mess and then I decided to head to bed. It had been quite a night!
Amsterdam at night
Farewell Dinner
Canal Cruise
Booze cruise
More booze cruise
No comments:
Post a Comment