Oh my, I've totally forgotten about blogging on this trip!!! Haha, no I actually have been meaning to do it on a few nights but I was either too tired or too busy. Anyway, there's a lot to catch up on so I shall dot point everything
AMSTERDAM
was a haze HAHAHAHHAHAHA
One word is use to describe Amsterdam is 'drugs'
I'm so sick of the smell of weed OMG haha
It's a very nice place.... To retire. It's green and everyone is super polite and English is very common. But there's no rush, it's a bit too tranquil if you know what I mean. We stayed in a suburb called Badhoevedorp which is the equivalent of like western Sydney in Amsterdam, so it took 40 mins via bus to the city centre or 30 mins by bike. We rode the bike and it was so fun!!! Anyway, I guess I'll just paragraph these cos I actually have so much to say haha.
OKAY, so badhoevedorp at times gave me chills up my spine because of how quiet everything was. Sort of like waking up to a dystopian 1984 or something where everything is orderly and everyone is polite and nothing goes wrong. It was TOO perfect, u know. Like something was up or something would go really wrong at night. But nothing did haha. It's not a very stimulating city, everyone is so chill. Ergo, I would only go there to retire haha. Coffee shops were very good! Space cake was actually a very nice, even if it didn't get me high (it did) I was still a very good chocolate cake haha. We spent a lot of nights staying in and watching TV cos we had cable and it took us just under an hour and over 20 euros for a round trip to the city haha.
Awakenings was good. It started off very slow and I was a bit ceeb cos I am not a fan of techno, but it's growing on me! We had so much to drink and by 5 pm the sun came out and everyone was really into it! We met this Spanish couple who were so amazed that we were from Australia haha. Everyone was nice! I don't regret it at all :) that night Clarence's mate Justin came to visit us! He was in Amsterdam too haha, I remember talking to him about meeting up but never thought it would happen. Very chill night, good convos with good company :)
Last point, it is so fucking hard getting around without a sim. We bought the Lyca mobile one but it doesn't work pretty much. Only thing that's worth it if you're travelling around heaps of countries is using your vodaphone plan from home, but even then it's 5$ a day for unlimited everything. 5$ x 60 days is a lot of money haha. Anyway, on the morning we were to leave Amsterdam, we had so much trouble calling and uber and a cab. We were cutting everything so short and I almost had a heart attack cos we had 30 mins before our check in closed and we weren't on our taxi yet. 10 mins later we finally hop into our taxi, who then proceeds to get us lost and does a loop around the 4 highways around the airport and we JUST make our check in. My heart has never been under so much strain LOL anyway, point of that was, we didn't have a sim or anything so we couldn't call a cab or uber so we had to download the cab app and finally found something that worked. Anyway,
MADRID
I FUCKING LOVE MADRID
Spain was such a dramatic change from the other cities cos it was HOTTTTTT. We arrived to 29 degrees (9 am) and it climbed to about 35 that day! Cos it's so hot, most people stay in during the middle of the day. We were super keen to roam but it was 11 am and nothing was open and no one was around haha. Anyway, I finally met up with HELLEN!!!!!! And Marcos :) we had dinner and I had my first taste of sangria and girl, I fell in love!
Spanish food is so carb-filled and salty. But I loved it! (3 cities later, I'm over it hahaha) Madrid was beautiful. I definitely want to go back! Such good night life, stores open super late and so much culture to soak in. things are generally pretty cheap too. We went to this roof top bar and had sangria until 2 am on a Monday night. In Sydney we'd be out of the bar by 10 pm hahaha.
I love jamon! Spanish ham :) Danny and I watched finding dory too and it was very good, made me miss home!
Anyway, on our final day we met up with Hellen again and she took us to all these markets with such
good food!!! it was so good seeing her and speaking English with people other than the ones I'm travelling with haha. I love Madrid :)
IBIZA
I had a love hate relationship with this place, but in retrospect it was pretty amazing! We arrived at night and went to a club right away. We didn't pre drink, that was a mistake haha. The club sold things using coupons so instead of paying with cash at the bar, you buy these drink coupons at a kiosk, but the weird thing was each drink had its own coupon, like u had to buy a vodka coupon or a tequila coupon, not just one for any alcohol. The second retarded thing was that vodka was 18 euros for 1 that's just under 30$ aud for 1 vodka. We thought it was 1 shot but it's 1 glass, so about 2-3 shots, but still exy as fuck. You also couldn't buy mixers, you had to buy the vodka coupon and then a coupon for red bull and mix it yourself like wtf?!! Anyway, the bar we went to was called 'Space' and a DJ named Carl Cox was playing one of his final shows there ever! The music was shite though and it sucked not being drunk :(
Morning after, we woke at around midday and tried finding breakfast, but found out that nothing actually opens til 3 pm. This messed with our sleep pattern a bit haha. Each morning we'd have heavy food like paella for breakfast at 3-4pm. The food was pretty cheap and super tasty! 10$ bowl of mussels was ace :)
I fucking love sangria! On the second night Em and I had more than 2 litres of sangria and were so happy drunk haha. We also spontaneously went to another club called Amnesia where Chris Leibig (saw him at awakenings lol) and pan pot were playing. This clubs vibe was 1000000x better than Space. They played techno too and I got into it so much more here than at Space. Anyway, we were dancing at the front near the DJs and this group of Asian guys comes up to dalz and asks her where she's from. Apparently they said 'we saw a bunch of Asians muzzing from afar and figured they must be from Sydney' lol we weren't even muzzing. They were nice though, and they're also from the Fairfield/ livo area! Haha, kinda went to holidays to get away from that tho tbh
We went to a beach on our last day and it was pretty shite. It's called Talamanca beach and it was more like a port/ bay with some gravel. I'm so sure Ibiza has more to offer than this, this just happened to be the closest one to us and we didn't wanna pay for a bus or taxi to a nicer one haha
Anyway, on one of the evenings Em and I went roaming and ended up at the top of this cathedral on top of a hill and we watched the sunset over the city and it was amazing. We had another one of those conversations that make you a lot closer. I'm so glad she's on this trip :) I think that's when I fell in love with Ibiza. It's actually so beautiful, it's not just about partying. But partying is very good haha.