August Adventures in Amsterdam (also feat. Bath)

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After an empty June post Croatia and a dry July of nothing planned (although I did finally get to see the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play in mid-June that I’d bought tickets for a year prior when I first arrived in London) and eagerly awaiting the planned trips of September and October to come by, August saw me with two little trips booked to make up for having not organised anything after Croatia.

For my birthday, my wonderful friend Elijah had purchased me a voucher to the Thermae Bath Spa in Bath and so we made a mini holiday out of it on the first weekend with about 6 of us. We had managed to book cheap train tickets and a nice air bnb, which included breakfast at the café next door as it was owned by the people renting out the house. We left on the Thursday and came home on the Saturday and it was such a nice little getaway with a group of great people. Upon arriving in Bath, we spent the afternoon at a local bar playing Uno and drinking delicious ciders. After a delicious dinner of pizza and more ciders, we headed to another bar and played our games before hiring out one of the karaoke rooms and having a ridiculous amount of tequila shots (round for round with 6 people in a short period of time can get pretty crazy really quickly). After having a casualty of my phone falling out of my back pocket into the toilet, we went home and my phone spent the rest of the weekend in rice once I had purchased some the following morning. After breakfast, we got ready and headed down to the spas for 2 hours of absolute bliss and relaxation. There are a couple of heated pools, one inside with a little whirlpool and one on the roof, as well as saunas. We started in the inside pool before making our way to the rooftop, where we spent the majority of the time. Once our time was up, we made our way back to the changing rooms to get changed and leave however, as we were walking down the stairs, I managed to slip and bust the thongs they gave us to wear and ended up falling the rest of the way down the stairs, scratching up my foot pretty badly (even to this day, I feel I’ve ruined the tattoo I got before leaving as it’s ended up slightly scarred due to the fall). After being tended to by first aid and having my foot wrapped up, I then spent the rest of the day limping around. The rest of the weekend was spent eating, drinking and playing games – and my phone ended up living to see another day! Despite the injury and me worrying that I was putting a damper on everyone else’s weekend, it was still such a fun weekend spent with friends that I’m so very thankful for.

My 2^nd trip for the month was a last minute, spontaneous booking that saw me going to Amsterdam on a weekend off because my Friday and Monday shifts just worked. So after work on Friday 18^th August, I left work with my backpack on my back and headed to Victoria coach station to take the overnight coach to Amsterdam – at such late notice, this was my cheapest option. Surprisingly, I slept pretty well on the bus however, was a bit weirded out at having to take the Euro shuttle train (as the bus and cars are loaded onto the carriages and it just feels quite strange sitting a bus that’s sitting on a train) to get across the English Channel and continue from France to the Netherlands. Arriving at a random train station just outside of Amsterdam in the very early hours of the morning, it was raining and the ticket machine wouldn’t change to English so I thought I had bought the correct ticket and hopped on the next train into the city. Whilst trying to get out of Centraal station, it turns out I did not buy the correct train ticket and after a stern talking to from a good looking Dutch man who opened the gates for me, I headed to the closest Starbucks for breakfast and to charge my phone as I wasn’t able to check in to the hostel until 1pm. By the time I was finished at Starbucks, it was still before 8am so I took the opportunity of quiet streets and walked to the other side of the city to the Amsterdam side to get a photo without the massive crowds. There were a a couple of people already there but not near as much as it can get – I did go back later on in the day the following day and there was people everywhere so I’m glad I was able to get a photo of only the sign rather than bodies clambering over the sign. I spent the morning just wandering through the canals, with no real destination in mind. During my wander, I found a Primark so naturally went in and was able to add an Amsterdam travel mug to my collection which is now up to 3 (London, Amsterdam and Berlin). I was also able to find the elusive Chip mug that had sold out instantly in London stores. When it got close to 1pm, I made my way to the hostel I was staying at however, when I tried checking in I was informed that although the confirmation email states 1pm as the heck in time, it is wrong and check in was actually 2pm. I was staying at the Hans Brinker hostel, which is used for Topdeck tours stopping in Amsterdam and despite advertising themselves as the ‘worst hostel in Amsterdam, it wasn’t too bad although the check in times mess-up was more annoying than anything. So with an hour to kill, I went and grabbed some snacks from Febo (fast food restaurant that has a vending machine on the wall to get fried snack food) for lunch as I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Once I was finally checked in to the hostel, I freshened up with a shower and got ready to go out for the evening. Heading back toward the city centre, I stopped by a floating flower market so stopped by for a look and bought a fresh stroopwafel – yum! I then headed towards the red light district and went to a coffeeshop to try the local culture and chill for a while after spending the night on a coach and a day full of walking. Afterwards, I went to the Museum of Prostitution, which gave an interesting insight into the sex workers in the windows that line the streets of the red light district. Housed in an old brothel, it goes through the history of prostitution in the Netherlands as well as shows a behind the scenes look at what’s behind those red lit windows with anecdotes from women who work in the industry. There’s actually a window looking out to the street as a mock up so naturally, thinking I was hilarious in my current state, stood waving out the window to the passers-by – until I got some slightly creepy reactions back so continued on with my tour of the museum. Afterwards, I headed back to the hostel to wait until it got later so I could go back to the shots bar we were taken to on the Contiki tour as it was not far from the hostel however, it started pouring with rain on the way back so when I got back to the hostel, I changed out of my wet clothes and ended up falling asleep so there was no shots bar for me, which is probably a good thing.

The next day, I checked out of the hostel by mid-morning and headed to Vondelpark for a nice morning walk. To get to Vondelpark, I had to go past the Amsterdam sign which was already packed with people so am very glad I had stopped by the morning before. After a stroll around the park, I then walked back down near Centraal Station and took the free ferry across the river to the A’Dam Lookout, which I went up and also added the swing on to the ticket for a bit of fun. It was pretty cool to see the city from above and swinging over the edge of the building was pretty cool too. After spending quite a bit of time up there, I then spent the afternoon wandering around and doing a bit of gift shopping, taking it all in and thinking how lucky I was to be able to quickly nip over to another country for a short weekend visit. When it was time to head back to the random train station just outside the city, I got the correct train ticket this time and left to catch the overnight coach back to London. Again, I surprisingly slept alright again on the way back except this time as we were catching the ferry back to Dover, we had to disembark the bus and go up on the decks. Arriving back in London just after 5am, I got on the tube and went home, back to bed for a few more hours of sleep before heading into work later that day for the late shift.

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Photos

The one & only photo I took in Bath
Until I broke my phone...and almost broke myself

I amsterdam Sign
Early morning = no tourists