adventures 1.0

New York was mega fun. Although I'd been before I really didn't remember much of it and most of the things I did have changed.

The trip was stupidly long (we had to get up at 4am, and arrived about 3pm US time, which includes a 5hour time difference =S). However, customs/immigration was a breeze.

Our first stop in NY (after food) was Times Square and the Toys 'R Us, which has a ferris wheel INSIDE it. Crazy. It was getting dark when we went in and when we came out it looked like daylight since they'd turned all the lights on. Crazy

The next day was crazy tourist day. We covered a lot of ground. Empire State Building. Macy's. Joe Strummer Memorial. Site of CBGBs. Brooklyn Bridge. World Trade Centre Site.

The trend continued the next day while waiting for the American Manchester kids as we hit Wall St (this guy has the friggin' largest gun ever) and took the Statten Island Ferry so we could go past the Statue of Liberty.
Then the true Shenanigans began. How can life be anything but nuts when Jon (upstate NY), Kevin (Boston) and Frenchy (South Dakota) hit NY? Firstly we all got Library Cards cos we could (out of control, I know). Well, Owen and I got them to get free internet while we waiting. I think the others were secretly (or not so secretly) jealous of us and demanded the same borrowing privileges that they would never actually use. We then hit some serious chocolate store, the M n Ms store and Hersey's store at Time Square and stayed too long at the virgin megastore which resulted in almost everyone buying stuff. *shakes fist at Richard Bransen*

For dinner I got the Thai that I had been craving for at least 2months.. mm... was ok.

Frenchy had decided to get us all Standup Comedy Tickets for that night. Sounded ok as they were only $5. The catch was you had to buy 2 drinks which were ridiculously priced (oh yeah, and many of the comedians seriously sucked) The most hilarious part of the night was on the Subway when a group of deaf peeps got on the train and were pole dancing. They wanted Jon to join in but he wouldn't cos he's a pansy =P
The next day ended up being a mega shopping day. One of my pairs of jeans has been seriously falling apart ever since I left so replacements were in order. And Marion (Jon's girl, who is pretty super cool and showed us around/looked after us all weekend. ta) took us to Canal st, which was insane. It was all these people trying to flog stuff at you as you walked down the street. All stolen no doubt. My favourite was all the little Asian ladies who would be all like "Lady, Lady. You want handbag?" "You want designer purse? Gucci? You want Gucci? Lady?" Haha... and all the giant black guys trying to flog watches and DVDs etc. We ALL bought shoes from an actual shop. I seriously didn't realise that clothes were so cheap over here. If I had luggage allowance over 200g then I probably would have bought more. That being said I got shoes, jeans, a beanie, 2CDs and a magazine. Whoops. That's a bit over 200g I'm guessing.

Since it was Australia Day we went to the Outback Steakhouse, which is an Australian themed restaurant. I'm told that compared to many this one was very tame decoration wise. Some can get pretty tacky. Which didn't stop the toilets being for Sheilas and Blokes etc. More tourism followed with the Rockerfeller Centre and the Apple store. We stumbled accross some disturbing art which confused us greatly. Had randoms in a hotel window dance at us. And eventually had to say goodbye to Frenchy who left early the next morning (Although, I'm told, not early enough. She missed her flight. Whoops.)

Next morning we waited for Kev, Jon and Marion to arrive so we could get Coldstone (like Coldrock) it was good, but they took ages to arrive. Then it was bye Kev (these goodbyes are starting to suck). Then the rest of us headed to the Museum of Modern Art. Lots of famous art there Van Gogh, Monet, Warhol, Picasso etc etc. Plus they have a Design section which is small but good. And some cool photography too, but by that stage I was boring everyone by still wanting to look at stuff so we went to get pizza instead. Then the goodbye continued as we farewelled Jon and Marion.

We had a day left to our own devices, which meant I want to check out some sweet design museums (sorry owen) on the way we wandered through Central Park where we saw frozen lakes and a pile of what looked like snow but was actually shavings from the ice-skating rink (it's all the same to us Australians though). Unfortunately we couldn't find the Centre of Photography, and the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum had just finished all their exhibitions so there was only one thing showing (on the upside it was free =) ) Oh well... we hit the MOMA shop cos Museum Shops are pretty much the best and indulged in some traditional NY food - Pretzels and the largest slice of cheesecake ever. awesome. To satisfy Owen's inner train geek we checked out Grand Central Station which was surprisingly grand. Some random guy also taking photographs started talking to us. I think only so he had the chance to give us his card (we checked him out later. he was average.. haha.)

The rest of the night was spent re-packing and trying to fit in all the new stuff that we'd bought. Crap. Oh well they let us on the plane to we should be right til next time.. Next stop is Salt Lake City, Utah. Where it will be snowing. Alot.

The rest of our time in London was spent doing random things that we kept forgetting to do, picking up things for people from various places and just chilling out etc.

It was Cam's birthday so we had dinners, beers, breakfasts and cakes to celebrate. Jess & Jimmy were still around so we hung out with them and were squished (albeit slightly less than before) into Rob & Cam's place. And all swapped stories about our adventures (they'd been to France and skiing in the Czech Republic)

We also got to head back to Manc which was sweet. I'd missed those kids and was awesome to hang out again. Miranda and I had our last bakedown, starring Dan with a record 4 eggs (well, 5 if you count the one that was smashed on the floor). I caught up with the uni peeps and managed to get all my uni work posted home at their expense (winnar=me)


After leaving more London shenanigans involved sorting out how to post our crap back to Australia. We seriously have a lot. Getting to NY i was 0.2kg under weight limit & just then when we got on our flight to SLC Owen was 3lbs over and my bag wasn't properly on the scales but weight about that too. hmm...

We arrived in Rotterdam and decided to hire bikes. Now, I haven't ridden a bike since I was about 10. A few days ago I tried it at Monique's and could kind of go straight but panicked/fell off when I had to turn a corner or when there were cars. This was going to be quite an adventure. ps. It was only 6euro to hire the bikes for the arvo. awesome.
The first hour was tense. Firstly I couldn't even get the random bit of metal that you lean the bike on up, then I couldn't get on it cos the seat was too high. I scraped the gutter, panicked an jumped off when I had to turn the first corner. I tried to go down a 10cm drop into a bike lane and went straight across it into the sloping barrier, scraped the bike and fell off (well not fell off fell off, but came off) Lots of people saw me doing stupid things. Then after about an hour it was fine and I was some sort of a super sweet bike riding champion. haha! I am a bike conquerer! It was a stack of fun and we got to see lots of the city and the crazy architecture which is what the city is known for.
We also went on an adventure out to the Dutch equivalent of reverse garbage. And we finally had the early night we'd been trying to have for a week.

Now we leave mainland Europe and head back to the UK for a few days (London and Manchester) the off to New York =)

We're now on the Eurostar! To get on here we got the 3rd degree from the passport woman. Apparently I should have had a copy of my ticket which said I was leaving England. (Uhh... sorry?) Did you know I can refuse you entry because you don't have it? (well.. technically I don't even have a ticket that I can carry. it's an e-ticket. I just turn up to the airport with my passport) Who are you traveling with? Why is he over there? So, you were a student in England? Was he a student there too? What date did he arrive? Who's address is this? How long are you in London? Where are you going? When? Who are you flying with? What date do you arrive back in Aust? Are you transiting in New York? How much money do you have? (umm...about 100euro and £30) Is that ALL the money you have? (uhh.. no?) Is it your own money? How did you get it? What do you do for work? etc. etc. etc. blergh.

We went to Den Haag, and Monique decided to come with us. Yay! We went to Madurodam, which is just miniature Holland. They have all the main buildings/landmarks etc at 1/25th the size. It was really cool! And really cold too, freakin' freezing day.After Monique left us we went down towards the beach and ate tasty pofferjes (sp???) and pancakes on the pier.That night we went to IMAX but it was a crazy IMAX with a curved room. We watched one about the Alps and some guy who wanted to climb some mountian cos his father had died climbing it when he was 8. All the music was by Queen. He was bungy jumping off a giant dam (to illustrate how hardcore he was. Clearly) and the music was 'Can't Stop Me Now'. Classic Cheese. It was an awesome combination of sweet mountain shots, tacky sentimental family moments, and cheesy music. Awesome.

We wandered back to our hostel in the rain via snack bar, internet and supermarket treats. A good day.

Next stop was Monique's place (one of my mates from Manchester). Also two other Manchester kiddies, Maarten and Linda, were going to come down too! Miranda sucked so wouldn't come =P We hung out and Monique showed us the sights (the main shopping strip and university). Owen asked her a million questions "What does that sign mean?" "Why is that like that?" "What does this do?" We also need to buy food so she hooked us up with some sweet dutch delicacies such as vla, hagelslag, some sort of cake/breakfast bread, crazy apple syrup spread stuff. They also told us we needed to get Snack bar foods, which we did later. Owen loved it (thanks Monique/Maarten)

We also went to a cool beer cafe which had a whole book of beers that you could pick from. I had some really awesome cheery beer and a nice dark beer...mmmToday we also discovered that ALL the American's from Manc (Kevin, Jon and Frenchy) are going to meet us in New York for the weekend over Australia day, which will be mega fun =) can't wait!!

When we arrived in Amsterdam it was a million times easier than Brussels already. We found a map and someone to tell us where our hostel was and the train and a ticket and it was all mega easy =)

We spent the rest of the day randomly wandering around looking at the city, all the houses are really skinny and there are lots of canals and A MILLION bikes everywhere. We almost died cos there were so many lanes to cross. There is the footpath, then bike lane, the car lane, the two tram lanes, the car lane the other way and then the bike lane for the other way, then FINALLY the footpath. Phew. That's not to mention that we're still looking the wrong way sometimes on account of everyone driving on the right. I almost walked out in front of a car and died. That would have been bad.

That night we found tasty cheap pasta and went wandering the city at night, we went through the infamous redlight district which was just bizzare. There are just woman standing in the windows trying to attract you attention. And large groups of young guys who are obviously with their mates who are horribly uncomfortable and trying to be all macho.

Then we found an Irish pub where we could drink cider (oh... tasted so good... mmm) and watch football. We deiced to come back the next night cos they had free internet.. haha. And our hostel was charging 5euro an hour.

The next day rain and was pretty miserable for doing stuff, which sucked cos it was our main time in Amsterdam. So in the end we didn't do much. Plus we were mega tired from doing stuff every single day. We went the the Van Gogh museum (mainly to get out of the rain) it was cool to see the hundreds of paintings by him but since I'm not a huge art person it wasn't amazing.

We had more pasta and then tried to find the pub. Got off the tram about where we thought it was. then saw a supermarket so went there. Then we walked in some random directions trying to find the place, we did fairly easily. hurrah! When we went to leave we discovered we were about 200m from where we got off the tram and we'd walked in some sort of mad circle to find the place.. haha... whoops. We're awesome at directions.

Dear Belgium,
To be fair, your food is good. But please get a better information design for your public transport and open things on Sunday. Only then will we consider coming back. Thanks.
Love
Esther & Owen.

Belgium, shall we say, was not our city. Essentially everything that could go wrong did, plus more. The only redeeming factor was the food (but then again Germany had mad food and it was also cheaper). We had decided that we were going to NOT stay in a hostel for one place, and that was Belgium. So it was nice not having to share a room with a million people or use lockers and shared bathrooms. The only problem was that it was a bit out of the city so traveling in was a bit of a hassle.

First day we went searching for a tourist info so we could get a map and find the comic book museum. It was just nuts, people tried to help us but we just walked around in circles. Now getting around in Germany was easy and we didn't speak that language, just the information design of the public transport was great. Belgium on the other hand where some of the signs are even in English was just terrible. Trying to work out where we were going just sucked. Bah...
We found a few cool things on our travels, some alright architecture, scouts, a couple people having a 'dread-off'The conversation went something like this..
Esther "haha... look at them! They're having a 'dread-off'"
Owen "haha... yeah, we should do that"
Esther "Ok. First one to get dreads loses!"
Owen "Ok.... GO!"
When we did find the comic book thing it was super cool! Lots of TinTin and a lot of sweet original comic drawings. Owen bought a snowy which he was happy about.
Then we ate pizza and drank beer and ate chocolate.. maybe Belgium won't be so bad after all, we thought.

The next day we got up and had breakfast and were ready for a day of doing things, we wanted to find some internets to print stuff for Holland and Eurostar, go pick up Eurostar tickets, go to the supermarket to get more beer and chocolate, see some super sweet fun stuff and generally be awed by Belgiums greatness.

We got into the city and it was deserted. Sunday. Bahh... Why do Europeans hate doing things/opening their shops on a Sunday? Ok, maybe we can still find an internet cafe. No. All shut. We walked in circles for a good hour. Found an English bookshop that was open. She told us somewhere. It was shut. Ok, well we can't get tickets. Let's go to this palace thing that we were told about yesterday. Went there. There was a park that we decided would be ok during summer, but it just looked deserted and dirty. Found palace. "The palace is open during the summer months for visitors". Bah. You'd think they'd have told us that at the information place.

2PM: This day sucks. Let's write it off. Let's go to the super huge supermarket that we were told about get chocolate and beer and some lunch then go back to the hotel room, eat that. The go have dinner at this place we found that was pretty good (Les P'tits Os... our english translation: Let's be tits O's). First stop supermarket. Hop on a train. Been on the train a while and haven't got there yet. Hm... 'Are you sure this is the right train? I didn't bother checking.' 'Yeah, it is' 'Are you sure? This is 1A, shouldn't we be on 1B?' 'CRAP'
We had to catch the train back about 5 stations and wait for the correct train this time. Correct station. Short Walk. We went there yesterday but it was shutting when we got there so we couldn't get much. It's technically outside of Brussels. We get there. SHUT!! Argh. It's a freakin' huge supermarket. Far out. Stupid Belgium's. FINE. We saw an open supermarket in the city. Back to there.

I'll give the Europeans something. Totally sweet food. Even their prepackaged food in the supermarket looks amazing. You could pick your own lobster from a tank in the supermarket. We bought all this.This is just our chocolate purchasing.

By the time that we were catching the Bus back to the hotel it was almost 6PM. Bah. Our whole day was wasted by nothing and annoying things. Still no internet. Fine we'll ask the hotel how much they charge. Owen asks. Free WiFi. BAH. Why didn't we ask earlier. Get the necessary codes. IT DOESN"T WORK. Owen spends a good hour on the phone to random people trying to get it to work. No success. Bollocks. Fine. Let's go to dinner. First stop 'Let's be tits O's'. Dinner is good. Go home. Drink beer. Watch topgear. eat chocolate. watch football highlights. pack. (it got a bit better towards the end)

Now we're on a train to Amsterdam. Not without another encounter with badluck Belgium style. We went to the ticket people and he told us to check the boards but trains usually go from platforms 18-20. Sweet. The board says 19. Go there. I went to get coffee. Owen starts talking to the train woman cos it doesn't look like the train goes to Amsterdam. She tells us that trains don't go from this station to Amsterdam and we'd have to go to the other side of town to the other main station. Bollocks. Oh well... we're on the train now. Still haven't found interwebs, so that's the first thing to do in Amsterdam so we know where on earth our hostel is. Fun times. Thanks Belgium.