Learn about London & Amsterdam: rated PG

• London round 2
• London Round 2, Day 2
• To Amsterdam
• Amsterdam day 2
• Amsterdam day 3
  • Ajax Stadium Tour
  • Canal Cruise

London round 2

Do you like long walks on the beach? Well, if you answered yes, can I get you to keep the word “long” and then make the rest a bus ride, let’s say a 6-hour one, in fact? This was from Liverpool to London, where we departed Liverpool at 10:50 am and arrived in London close to 5 pm. And guess what? It was a very wet walk from the hostel to the bus station, so the jackets and bags got put to the test, which thankfully they passed. The bus also decided to arrive very on time, if not before it was supposed to, so it was a good thing we had hurried our way to the bus stop.

This bus ride, unlike the others we had been on, was packed to the brim, with every seat occupied. We had the privilege of making eye contact to ensure that every person who came out of the toilet washed their hands.

Since the bus ride took up most of the day, there’s not much to say about it apart from one person using the toilet a suspicious amount of times. The timing of their visits made it impossible for any actual business to be completed.

I also had a couple of thoughts about England: Why is the back plate on cars yellow and the front one white? Someone, please enlighten me. My other bus thought was about the cars in England. You don’t see any “shit box” cars. What I mean by this is, in NZ, you’ll see heaps of cars that make you question how they’re still roadworthy. However, looking around England, I must say I didn’t see one car with a scratch or older than 10 years that wasn’t extremely well looked after.

My conclusion about the cars: Because public transport is so readily available, does this mean cars are considered more luxury items and therefore only people who can truly afford them buy them? Or is it a simple case of laws being tighter surrounding vehicles? Anyway, those were my bus thoughts along the way.

Well, we made it to London… surprise! We then navigated ourselves and our bags through the underground and out to Brixton. It was a pleasant change to have no rain, especially since we had a 20-minute walk to our friend Will’s flat.

Here, we would be staying for the next two nights, thanks to the kindness of Will and his flatmates. After these two nights, myself, Matt, and Will would be flying out to Amsterdam.

Having a good old catch-up with Will and sharing a bag of kale and some celery sticks (yes, both on their own) is a great way to spend a couple of hours. Your health certainly increases after consuming these things (maybe not the conversations), and as Will informed us, he had a rough weekend so needed to have a health boost, hence the aggressive eating method. This, however, gave us all a clear conscience as we decided on a cheeky Nando’s for dinner, and let me tell you, they were cheeky indeed.

After I was spluttering like a backfiring car along the streets towards Nando’s, we eventually made it. The place was packed, so we had to wait for around 20 minutes before a table was cleared for us. Scanning the barcode and ordering online, it seemed we were all going for the same butterfly chicken dish, with me being the last to order. However, whose order arrived first? Mine. Whose arrived second? The table next to us, and the table next to that, but not Will’s nor Matt’s. After some time of me teasing everyone about my meal being out, Matt checked to realise his order had been declined for some reason, and now the butterfly chicken was sold out, so he ordered something else. More minutes passed before Will eventually went to the front desk to ask what was going on, to which they had completely missed his order. The funny thing was they couldn’t have been sold out of butterfly chicken because next thing, his butterfly chicken arrives, and so does Matt’s meal. Anyway, that was the story of Nando’s.

After Nando’s being cheeky, it was time to leave, and we hit up a supermarket on the way back for some supplies, which consisted of an Easter egg thrown in there for good measure because after all, what is Easter without one? So, it was an essential item.

Back at Will’s, we blew up the air mattress (not with explosives, now be sensible) and then chilled for a little, devouring some, keyword “some,” of our Easter eggs (undoing all that kale) before hitting the hay for the night to see what morning would bring.

London Round 2, Day 2

Now have you wrapped your head around that title? Cause if not I don’t make the rules on titles so don’t complain (jokes I do).

Day 2 back in London started relatively chill with a delightful morning yarn with Wilson and Kaitlynn, a great way to kick off the day with a cheeky catch-up. This was followed up by some writing for my blog and downing a Lemsip, which is definitely an acquired taste…

A yarn with Will’s flatmate followed this, who I must say was very nice and extremely accommodating, which begs the question, why did she let Will flat with them? Can’t dwell on that one for too long or I’ll end up down a rabbit hole.

After doing some washing (thank you, Will) and hanging it out to dry in the thing called sun which had appeared that day, we decided to venture out. Since it was now lunchtime, food was on the mind as we headed back to the indoor market we had visited previously in Brixton. We ended up at the same burger place because let’s be honest, if it’s a good place and you’re feeling it, why change?

We decided to utilise the rest of our afternoon by visiting the places we missed last time we were in London. Jumping on the underground like a couple of pros, first up was St. Paul’s Cathedral, and I must say, wow. The outside of this Cathedral certainly says “hi, hello, I am here to stay, and you will look at me.” It was a masterpiece on the outside; the detail and sheer size of the Cathedral were truly breathtaking, from giant doors that made me feel like a hobbit to massive columns supporting the whole structure. (St Paul’s Cathedral below)

Next up, we made our way to The Barbican Centre. This building was recommended by a Scottish guy in our Bristol hostel, and upon closer inspection, I’m sure we studied it briefly in architecture. If you haven’t heard of it before, you may recognise it in some of the pictures. The Barbican Centre is a series of buildings that feel almost like a utopia, with fountains, bodies of water, and plants intertwined around the large concrete buildings, each with its own purpose. If you’re in London, I highly recommend visiting this complex because, although like us, once inside, it’s hard to find the exit (I’m writing this from there as I couldn’t find my way out), it’s something very different and, in my opinion, well worth the time to take in the masterpiece. (see slideshow and video below)

This all took up a bit of time, so when we returned, we retreated to Will’s room to avoid interrupting his flatmate’s dinner party she was hosting. Here we waited for Will to come back from work.

The three of us back together, we left to grab some drinks, and of course, starting with a Guinness, we made our way around to a pub that had the Premier League on, so we could sit back and watch some games. This was interrupted by an insistent man with a bag of coins requesting one of us to play him in pool. After some convincing, Will obliged, and after not much time, he was back at our table. Did he win or did he lose? To this day, who knows…

To Amsterdam

Sleep acquired, we packed our belongings ready for our flight later in the day from Gatwick Airport. But first, a big old brunch to set the day in motion. A feed of bagels stuffed with hash browns, eggs, and bacon seemed a fitting start for the journey ahead.

Hi, welcome to the journey ahead. We made our way through Brixton and boarded the train to Gatwick Airport. In a cheeky move as we boarded the train and saw that the cattle class was filling up, we turned to be greeted by some glass first-class doors with nobody inside this section. So what did we do? Not enter, of course… Just kidding, we totally took advantage of this and pretended to own it, shifting our bags and ourselves into this section of the train. The doors closed, and so did the noise from the rest of the train, with faces occasionally peering in. We owned it though, three dudes hanging out in first class, what could go wrong… Well, hate to break it to you for all those wishing, but nothing went wrong. We had a rather pleasant journey to Gatwick Airport.

Just imagine a picture of first class here. I didn’t take one because I was so relaxed about being there, so definitely totally forgot…

So with a bunch of time to spare and bags checked in, we decided to make our way to Wetherspoons to have a seat and a drink to fill in some time. Now, have you heard of the Wetherspoons game before? The answer, much like myself, is probably no, so let me explain. There is a Facebook page called the Wetherspoons game. Here you can upload a picture of yourselves, complete with table number and the Wetherspoons at which you are dining. Now, this is where the good times are supposed to begin as people will buy drinks online for your table. As the posts minutes before were proving, people were buying drinks for the tables. So Matt decided to upload one for us, with the background story of we were going on a stag do and our flight had been delayed. Not a complete lie as our flight had been delayed 1.5 hours to be exact, so yeah, fun times. After uploading the picture, we waited and waited and waited and waited and waited. Reading all that was how it felt watching the other posts get free drinks and food, meanwhile we got nothing. As time neared to board our plane, we ended our Wetherspoons experience with a total of zero free drinks, so let’s just say we lost that game.

After sitting in the front row of seats on the plane (new experience unlocked) we arrived in Amsterdam as darkness closed in.

Now this is where the fun truly began as we waited an age (45ish minutes) for our bags to come out onto the conveyor along with the rest of our plane. Plot twist inbound: the airport had stuffed up on the computer system, and they had come out on the opposite side of the baggage claim room probably 20 or more minutes ago. A great start as we made our way over after someone finally had some initiative to tell our flight.

After clearing customs, we had a bit of a walk through the bicycles that were whizzing around in the lit-up streets to our hostel. Making it here successfully, exhausted from all the delays, we decided to soldier on as we checked into our 14-bed hostel and had showers to wash away the failure of the Wetherspoons game.

Clean and refreshed, it was time to find the people Will had been calling out in the Hostelworld chat for some drinks and a get-to-know. Walking to the Irish pub, we walked past these very strange red lights shining down… weird… Arriving was great, first off because on the screens were some Premier League football games and second off because we had made it. After a couple of drinks and meeting people from other hostels—some interesting people and some ‘interesting’ people—we had a strategy: that we had only just met Will and Matt and myself had known each other beforehand just so we didn’t have overwhelming numbers in this group. Seemed to work well as we pretended to know nothing about Will. As the night carried on, so did this act and so too did the conversations, which are always interesting when talking to people from different countries. But bedtime was beckoning as we arrived back for a good old snooze.

Amsterdam day 2

The morning started with our usual hunt for breakfast (images below from walk) since the hostel didn’t have a kitchen. Breakfast consisted of a juice and a couple of pastries—super healthy, I know… We came back and decided to install our UK SIM cards we had been given upon receiving our UK visa. This was because the current Europe E-SIM had been playing up ever since arriving in England, with the data working less and less over the course of our trip. SIM cards installed, we could then access roaming around Europe for a very cheap price. Or so we would have been able to, had we activated them in the UK as the fine print stated (to this day trying to find that fine print). Now having useless SIM cards, we used Airalo, another E-SIM app, which worked perfectly. As you can imagine, this took some time sorting out with messages back and forth between the physical SIM card company before they finally revealed it had to be activated in the UK.

After all this, we decided to try out the jugs (jugs filled with ‘jungle juice’) that Will had enjoyed on a previous Amsterdam trip. Making our way all the way down the stairs to the pub—a huge 1m away from the hostel. This pub was great, as we had discounted drinks from our hostel, and the jugs of cocktails (sorry, jungle juice) you could purchase for a decent price. As a bonus, each jug was a different color with its own funky name.

After this, we decided to visit the Prostitution Museum (this is a museum about flower and roses). We had been recommended this, and well, with not much else planned, why not? I’ll tell you, it was eye-opening stuff, and honestly, it filled in some time and taught us the background to those red lights that covered the place.

After all this, it was time to get some food for an early dinner. We ended up wandering for a while, finding a place Matt had seen on TikTok famous for their fries, cheese, and truffle sauce. We did finally locate this place, and yes, the fries were good. But in this process, I have come to the conclusion that Amsterdam is a very confusing place. I mean, with all the canals and buildings, everything looks the same—not helpful on the old brain, so a phone map is definitely needed.

Bellies full and Will’s nap complete, we went back to the bar and waited with another jug between us for some of the people we had met the night before and new ones, all through the power of Hostelworld (an app for booking hostels, which creates group chats for people in the area). With people showing up, we all became engaged in some good old yarns with people from all different backgrounds and cultures. Including an American fella who gained the name Gigachad after his Chad like appearance and personality an absolute legend. I must not forget, with this going on, the big screen was showing Liverpool playing and guess what? They won! The night just got better. With more people to help with the jugs, we managed to complete our jungle juice mission, and now it was time to move to another location.

On the walk with our newfound friends, we strolled under those red lights where monsters and mermaids lay behind glass, clawing at it trying to get to you—thank goodness for the glass. At the next location, a brief game of pool followed where myself and an English lass played Matt and a German lass (yes, I did say lass). The thrilling pool game dragged out because we were enjoying it so much, not because we all sucked, but hey. I won’t mention the outcome of that, but what I will mention is the next place we went… Karaoke bar. This was great entertainment, not only because they were playing some golden oldies but also for the English lads up front who could barely stand belting them out. This signaled the end of the night for myself and Matt as Will carried on elsewhere… we headed back to the hostel. As a side note, we were approached by about five different taxis that pulled up beside us asking us to get in, but we have legs for a reason and it wasn’t far. Head hitting the pillow, that was the end of day 2.

Amsterdam day 3

From the previous night it was inevitable we would be rising late. So our lunch was a brunch as we devoured some food and planned for what was left of our last day.

We decided:

• Ajax stadium tour
• Canal Cruise

Ajax Stadium Tour

Ajax stadium tour was a very cool experience. Myself and Matt wearing our Northern football shirts proudly and Will leading the way we set off. One train journey later and we were standing outside Ajax football stadium.

This stadium tour was self-guided, which was nice in a way as we could spend time in the areas we wanted. These included the Tunnel where the players walked out, the pitch and dugout, the player of the match area, the players’ locker room, and of course, it wouldn’t be complete without the press conference room. The press conference room held a certain significance as myself and Matt signed a deal wearing Northern shirts for Will, our “manager”, so the truth is who knows what that actually means considering we were in Ajax stadium. The outcome, however, was a great stadium tour with lots of memories made. Please lay your eyes on the slideshow of images below featuring the important handshakes.

Canal Cruise

Fast forward to the evening, and with our crew we had met through Hostelworld the night before, we decided to book a night canal cruise. This cruise also had wine and beers supplied and was one of the best ideas of the day. With our crew taking up one end of the boat, we had a great time seeing the city from the water, lit up as we had some great yarns and wines (maybe too many), topped off with laughter (also maybe too many). It was a perfect combo, bonding over wines and views with people from all different cultures. We certainly got our money’s worth.

But this night was not over. We had said it would be an early one with a 6 am train to Munich the next morning, but it is Amsterdam after all. So, after the cruise, we decided to head out to some pubs and see some more sights. Walking past the scary monsters trapped behind glass under the blood moon lights, we found a great little spot. Here, we continued to chat, and the yarns spilled across to another table as two Danish lasses (at this point, I’m using this word to annoy you) plugged into my phone heaps of places to go see in Denmark and foods to try. All in all, I would say it was a great night, ending with some bonus information for future travels.

Heading back to the hostel at the hour of what must have been 2:30am (shit). We knew in a couple or so hours we were waking up. This was going to be so much fun…

Will decided to plead the fifth (no comment) when it came to sharing his thoughts on the Amsterdam trip!