London – We flew into Heathrow and the plan was to catch a train to Jamies grandmothers house in Oxford but her house was flooded.  So we got a tube to Camden & met up with Jamies cousin David who agreed to let us stay for a few days.  The first night in London we met up with some of Jamie’s friends.   We didn’t really want to do any of the touristy stuff in London, but we did go the National Gallery and Trafalger Sqaure. The exchange rate for pounds to Canadian dollars was pretty brutal so we didn’t spend much.  We caught up with a friend from school, Nicole who was in Kensington.  We walked past Hyde Park but we didn’t go check out the Princesss Diana memorial, so I didn’t get the chance to pee in it.  If London wasn’t so ridiculously expensive I would love to live there, going to the pub for a pint is a great way to spend an evening.

Amsterdam – I knew this would be the highlight of the trip, I’d heard a lot of stories about what we should do and where to go in Amsterdam.   To be fair there is a lot of cool stuff to do if sex drugs aren’t your thing …. we did go visit Anne Franks house, and the Rijksmuseum which has about 1000 Van Gogh and Rembrandt paintings.  But my favorite museum was the Heineken Experience which lovingly tells the story of Hollands favorite beer with interactive displays.  As you make your way through the “museum” there are 3 different pubs where you get to sample the beer.  
The nightlife in Amsterdam is amazing, we went to Boom Chicago which is an improv comedy club.  I was surprised how everyone in Holland spoke English, and the Dutch have no accent.  It sounds a bit American and a bit English, but I would have a hard time spotting a Dutchman.
I wanted to check out a coffee house in Amsterdam, but I was not planning on trying any drugs.  We went into a coffee house on the first night & they had a menu of what you could buy – they had cookies and brownies and doughnuts, and hashie milkshakes.   I tried a brownie, it was supposed to be the equivalent of 2 joints.  I think I was more influenced from the jug of beer we had at boom Chicago.   On our second night in Amsterdam we decided to get a gram of marijuana.  I’m not an expert but it was good stuff.  Amsterdam has to be one of the most interesting places, the people dress like Vogue models.  The red light district was not as sleazy as I expected, it seemed pretty touristy actually.   I was surprised when Jamie suggested we go see a live sex show, I was happy to try anything & everything we could on our trip. It was just regular sex, a guy & a girl, 2 lesbians and then a jungle woman with triple-D boobs having sex with a guy in a gorilla suit.  It was something fun to do as a one-off, but I don’t think it would be something you would do every week, like instead of going to the movies you would catch a sex show.
On our last night in Amsterdam we met up with the rest of our Contiki group.  There were 50 people in our group, mostly Australians & New Zealanders and some South Africans, Canadians, Americans.  There were a couple of Brazilians and Tawainese too, so it was a good mix of people.

Munich – we were all pretty hung over when we left Amsterdam at 6am to drive to Munich, Germany.  Our tour guide was Rachel, a cool chick from New Zealand, she basically talked to us like a school teacher & told us we would have to stay with the group & leave when she told us or they’d leave without us.  We arrived in Munich at about 4PM, just in time to go see the Glockinspeil.  Rachel told us it was the highlight of Munich … basically it’s a huge cuckoo clock. It went for 10 minutes, and there were literally 1000s of people watching.  When the clock finally stopped chiming we went for a tour of Munchen.  In the middle of the city is a park where office workers go & sit and eat their lunch and take their clothes off … it was a nudist park!  We went to a beer hall in Munich for dinner, the very one where Hitler used to go to give some of his famous speeches.   German food is pretty good, the main course was literally just a pork leg … no vegetables, no side dish, just meat!  I had 2 steins with my dinner so I don’t remember miuch else happening in Munich, except back at the hotel half the group went to bed & half the group went to the bar for another drink.  Jamie and I met a local Munchen man who offered to buy us a drink, cos he enjoyed speaking English and just wanted to talk to us …. ahh ok we went to bed pretty quickly then.   We drove to Switzerland the next morning, but we did make a stop at the Dacchau concentration camp, they turned the original buildings into a museum. I have to respect Germany for not trying to cover up their darkest chapter in history.

Geneva / Lucerne / Zurich – the trip itinerary was very full, we spent a lot of time each day on the bus traveling to our next destination.  We arrived in Zurich at lunch time, it’s the one city in Europe that looked exactly how I expected & was looking forward to explore it.  Too bad Rachel gave us 30 minutes to see the city & have lunch …. just enough time to grab a McSwiss burger.  The Swiss Alps were beautiful and I definitely want to go back with my snowboard.  It was funny seeing the Australians and South Africans get excited about seeing snow for the first time.  In Lucerne we saw a yodeling demonstration and had a traditional Swiss dinner.  But the highlight of Lucerne was the hotel, which was basically overtaken by our group.  It’s where the group really bonded, and I leant heaps of new drinking games.

Cannes / Nice / Monaco – it was a long drive from Lucerne to Cannes, with a short stop in Zurich.  When Rachel gave the group the choice of having a quiet night at the camping grounds or going to Monaco we unanimously voted for Monaco.  Jamie & I were dressed up to hit the Grand Royale casino …. I wanted to order a vodka martini, Jamie wanted to bet 10∍ on black.  There was a 20∍ cover charge to enter the Grand Royale, so we hit the mini-casino next door.  Jamie was insistent that he was going to gamble in Monaco so he put 10∍ in the giant slot machine … and won 950∍! Back in Antibes we got a bottle of vodka to celebrate.  The funniest moment of the trip was in Monaco when Rachel pointed out Prinicess Stephanie’s palace to us, and Aussie Dave yelled out ‘jeez its bloody nice hey, I thought my house was nice but this is bloody beautiful!’.  We got to spend the next day in Cannes, you feel like a schmuck seeing all the sports cars and huge yachts and villas.  The only other interesting thing that happened in Cannes was a guy in our group nearly got arrested for taking photos of topless women on the beach.  There was a circus with lots of carnival rides next to the campgrounds where we were staying.  After a few beers a bunch of us went on the giant drop, it wasn’t until we got to the top when Derrick reminded everyone about the 13 year old girl who lost her feet on the same ride.  But we survived and went back to the huts for more beer and card games.

Barcelona  -  Spain was the last stop on our contiki trip.  I’ve always thought that Italy has the worlds most beautiful women, but Spain is a serious challenger to the title.  The architecture in Spain was amazing.   It was the groups last night & we went to a flamenco demonstration & to a nightclub which was I was looking forward to doing for the whole trip.  I tried Sangria in Barcelona, which was pretty smooth so I drank more and more.  Maybe it was the alcohol but everybody was pretty emotional about it being our last night, a bunch of us are planning on reuniting for another contiki trip next year.

Paris – Jamie & I flew to Paris the next morning .  Air travel in Europe is realy cheap, our tickets were $30, the same that it costs me to get a train to Toronto!  I’d been to Paris twice before & Jamie had been a bunch of times before too. We had 3 nights in Paris and Jamiie said he wanted to blow his 950 winnings from Monaco on a fancy hotel, but we eventually decided to stay at a hostel.  We got a room at the Woodstock, a pretty famous hotel near the Sacre de Couer.  We’d planned on doing a lot in Paris,, but we were both pretty knackered, so we ended up going to the Louvre and Les Invalides.  We met a Scottish guy at the Woodstock who spoke fluent French and he & Jamie explored the Latin Quarter.  I thought the Parisiens were pretty rude, but I would have been disappointed if they weren’t.  We got kicked out of out hotel room at 10:30 (they have a rule you’re not allowed in your room between 10:30 and 5), and our room got flooded from the sun roof that was left open.   Our last night in Paris was the best night of the trip, we were planning on a having a few quiet beers at the Woodstock, but the bar was full of tourists participating in a drinking Olympics.  

Tags:europe
Published by O-Henry: 2:06 PM
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