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Published: August 7th 2007
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Coach
Our sexy, sexy blue coach Our Contiki tour has officially begun! I made my way over to the Royal National from the Imperial, checked in and had my bag weighed -way under the limit. Go me.- and dragged my suitcase out to the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by people who looked familiar from the meeting the night before. The driver, who hadn't yet introduced himself, told us to bring our bags around, so we did, he loaded them in and then we started piling into the coach. I had a window seat about 3 rows from the back. Rachel came and sat with me, and once everyone was settled, the driver picked up the microphone "Hello, my name is Viktor and I am from the Ukraine" he said with a thick accent. "How very international" I thought to myself, before he broke character and revealed that he was, in fact, not at all from the Ukraine. I'm always impressed when someone can do dialects well. His name was Damian and was to be our trusty driver for the next few weeks. He gave us a rundown of the coach and then handed the mic over to our tour manager, whose name was also Damien, but
Dover
The white (?) cliffs of Dover would from here on in, be known by his nickname, Pom Pom. How cute 😊 He remarked on how fast we'd been getting the coach loaded and told us to keep it up.
The coach pulled out from the Royal National and we were on our way! Pom Pom talked a lot on the way to Dover, telling us about Contiki and what we were in store for in the next few days and basically how the tour was going to work. Before we knew it we were at the White Cliffs of Dover...only...they weren't so white. It was a grey, cloudy day (surprise surprise), so the view left something to be desired. We had to hop off the coach and go through pasport control, and got my passport stamped by a French dude, causing me to use my first little bit of French on the trip. After waiting for about 20 minutes to board the ferry "The Pride of Calais", we drove on and made a mad dash for the food court. I had breakfast, and most importantly, coffee!!! Oh sweet caffeine. Matt and Jeff sat with me and I had to laugh at them as they tried
Breakfast
Breakfast on the Pride of Calais to eat the fried bread they'd gotten with their breakfasts. Yeah. Imagine a slice of white bread - deep fried. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly appetizing. Some things I will just never understand. Silly Brits :P But as Pom Pom and many other tour managers before him have engrained in the heads of their clients, "It's not wrong, it's just different". Well, as long as the difference doesn't give you clogged arteries!
An hour and a half later, we were reboarding the coach and were on our way. As we crossed the border from France into Belgium, Pom Pom played the theme song to Belgium's famous export, The Smurfs! Ha. I was so loving this trip so far, though I was starting to freak out (in a good way). We were so close to The Netherlands...which would be country number 4 that we'd been in that day. I was also getting a kick out of the foreign signage. I'm used to seeing English and French, but that's about it, so when we crossed the border again and came across a sign that read "Bob jij of Bob ik" I chuckled. shook my head and couldn't wipe the stupid
On the water
Ferrying from Dover to Calais grin off of my face. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
As we drove into our first service stop of the trip, Pom Pom introduced us to our wake up song - the song that he would play before stops to get everyone up and alert. None other than James Brown's Sex Machine. Woo! I was totally digging it. We stopped, and I wasn't terribly hungry, having just consumed a bunch of greasy food on the ferry, so I just hung out, had my first taste of paying to use the bathroom, and enjoyed the sun that had emerged from behind the clouds. This was when I got to talking with Pom Pom and Damian. Somehow the fact that I'd worked on the Trailer Park Boys movie came up, which sparked a conversation with Damian, who was a fan of the show. Walking back to the coach together, somehow that conversation turned to the fact that he'd never gone up the Eiffel Tower in all the times he's been to Paris. Don't ask me what the roadmap of that conversation was, but it sticks out in my memory.
We drove for another short while, and the next thing
Seatmate
Rachel and I hanging out on the coach I knew, we were pulling into our hotel, the Novotel in Amsterdam. Pom Pom had told us not to expect much from our hotels, but the Novotel was lovely. We were getting spoiled early on in the tour! Rachel and I were going to be rooming together, so we lugged our bags upstairs and went back down to the "Rembrandt room" to eat. There was a really nice buffet of lots of food, and by this time I was famished, so it totally hit the spot. After we ate it was time to get back on the coach to venture out into the city for our "cultural evening" in Amsterdam. We were dropped off on the Damrak and walked over to The Grasshopper. Pom Pom gave us a little time to explore the red light district -so interesting to see the girls sitting in the windows, and more interesting to see how many curtains were closed-, and then we met back to be walked to Casa Rosso, where we'd be treated to a multitude of *ahem* carnal couplings. That's right, folks. A live sex show. We were seated and a guy came over to take our drink orders. Since we
Service stop
Getting frisky with a Dutch Ronald McDonald were in Amsterdam? Had to do the Heineken. I have to admit, the first couple up were NOT good. They looked totally bored. The acts got better as time went on, and it was especially funny to see Jess, the birthday girl, up onstage looking at once terribly amused and horrified. All in all, the show wasn't arousing or shocking at all, but it WAS fun.
After the show, Pom Pom left us to our own devices. A bunch of us walked through the streets and thought it was hilarious when the guy who'd stripped for Jess at the sex show walked by as we were taking pictures on a bridge over a canal. Matt, Jeff, Sara and I went over to the sex museum and checked it out. Moving wax figures, photos galore, wooden...umm...sculptures and a very interesting vibrating chair. It was good, cheap fun. Of course, afterwards we headed back to the Grasshopper. We went upstairs to the bar, met up with some fellow tour mates and made our way down to the basement of the building. We indulged in some of the Grasshopper's offerings, and hung out there for quite a while. When we were all
Novotel
Our lovely hotel in Amsterdam sufficiently mellowed out, we walked down the street, got some delicious frites with sauce and mayo -seriously yummy- and jumped on the tram and got some help from a nice guy from Utrecht who told us when to get off.
It had been a whirlwind of a day, and I was ridiculously tired, so when I got back to the hotel room, I tried to stay up to talk to Rachel for a while. I needed my sleep though - I had a big day ahead. As my head hit the pillow, before I fell into dreamland, I couldn't help replaying the events of the day. It seemed too good to be real, that I was in The Netherlands having the time of my life with a bunch of strangers who were turning out to be so much fun to be around. And then I konked out.
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