The time has come. Here is the story of two friends, travelling abroad across the vast continent of Europe, stopping in Paris, Barcelona, and Amsterdam. This is how shit went down, as told through words, videos, and pictures taken by both Charlotte and I.
Brighton to London to Paris
By the time I arrived at Charles De Gaulle Airport I was an exhausted mess. I came so close to getting on a horribly wrong train that would have brought me to the middle of nowhere France as opposed to downtown Paris, but after waiting at the wrong track for awhile I decided to double check where I was headed and noticed my mistake. As soon as I was on the train I had my first encounter with French people. A group of kids around my age came up to me after I sat down and were trying to ask me something in French and I didn't know a single word of what they were saying. I just kept saying "I don't understand, I don't speak French" but they kept trying to ask me something. So I eventually thought maybe for some weird reason they were asking for my seat so I got up and moved to another, to their laughter. Fuck those guys. Soon after there was another odd sight. We have all seen subway musicians of course, but in the subway station. Well, on this train a man just got on the train with his kid and started singing and playing a tambarine to a recording of some french music. I found this very strange and would grow to find it very annoying when I encountered this multiple times while in Paris. I was able to get some video of the guy, but I had to pretend I was taking pictures and could only capture him when he turned around to avoid awkwardness and having to give him money.
When I got off the subway near the hostel I had to blindly roam the streets for about an hour before I finally found it. During this time I was offered coke, a cheap place to stay, and was harassed for money by numerous homeless people. Something great did happen once I got to the hostel. I had booked the cheapest room which was a 4 or 6 person dorm or something, but for whatever reason we were given a private room for the same price, which was awesome. Before passing out for the afternoon waiting for Charlotte to arrive, I took a little video of our private pad.
Finally we somehow stumbled back to our hostel and ended the night smoking cigarettes on our balcony, screaming at people on the street below, and spitting on the cars below us. Paris undoubtedly loved us. I got called an asshole by someone after I called him an asshole for no reason. Great times.
Paris. Day 2.
After chilling around the tower for awhile and watching this massive group of Canadians play frisbee (they were all wearing jackets with the maple leaf on display) we wondered all around the area to random things that looked cool. That was the great thing about travelling with Charlotte; we seemed to have the exact same ideas on how to go about traveling. This idea was basically having no plans at all, walking everywhere, and randomly deciding to go wherever looked appealing at the moment. This way anything cool you find is an awesome surprise and there is very little stress caused by rushing about. Anyway, here are some pics from the rest of that night.
The stuffed dog above, as we discovered moments after this picture, was at the entrance of this little village of homeless people in cardboard homes, which was kind of uncomfortable to have stumbled upon.
Paris. Day 3.
To the Louvre, the biggest fucking museum I have ever seen in my life! We spent half a day here and probably didn't even see half of what it had to offer. So many cool sights to see, the least of which being the Mona Lisa. The only annoying thing was that barely anything in the museum had an English description, so I have no idea what most of the stuff was. I took tons of pics so I'll try to just highlight a few.
Finally, we reached Barcelona. What a beautiful city. Our hostel here was really cool as well and a great location only a few minutes from the shoreline and mountains. Charlotte and I did not take a single train or bus (except to and from the airport) while here. We walked EVERYWHERE. This was great, but it took a toll. My legs and feet are still recovering from our vacation.
Once we ate (some kind of mystery meat burger), got situated and took a little nap, we set out to conquer Barcelona the way we do: drunk. We explored the docks, board walks, and beach of the city with some beer and 40s (well, they were like 32oz, but in Europe you gotta improvise a bit!). When we bought the 40s I couldn't remember how to ask how much something was, so I just held it up and said "dinero?!?" which is like if I just went up to someone and was like "money?" We soon discovered that you can smoke indoors in Barcelona and that cigarettes were dirt cheap! This was amazing, as since I have been in Europe I have only been rolling my own cigs. Camels never tasted so good.
After food we ventured over to this park right next to a zoo. We were considering visiting the zoo, but decided it was too expensive once we got there and saw the prices. Thus, we just got stoned and walked around this beautiful park instead.
As you can see, we found a little sneak peak into the zoo. Take your 15 euros and shove it, cause we saw a gazelle fo' free!
I fucking love Sangria! A famous Spanish treat, it's wine mixed with some kind of liquer with a ton of fruit added in. This shit gets you fucked up and it tastes delicious. After we killed this jug at a backpackers bar (1 euro curry chicken was delicious) we bought a bottle of Sangria for 2 euros and killed that as well while walking the shoreline.
As you can see, we were all pretty damn wasted. This bar was pirate themed and called hook, so that might help explain the following pic.
Greatest smoking spot ever? I think so.
The above picture would be the last picture my camera took on this vacation. The battery died much sooner than I expected. Every picture from here on out is from Charlotte's camera (many of the pictures so far have also been from her camera).
Undoubtedly the best hike of my life. I wish we had more time to explore all the other mountains surrounding the city. Lily had a 10pm flight, so she left once we returned back to ground level. As for Charlotte and I, we proceeded to get drunk and roam around, as we did every night in Barcelona.
We took a weird route back to our hostel and ended up at a dead end on a big ass dock.
The Picasso museum was really cool and set up in an interesting manner. Basically each room progressed throughout Picasso's life, with the first room being his first works when he was just a teen. All his life and work descriptions also had an English translation, which was great. It was fascinating to see how his work progressed over the years. Here's a few pics from there.
Amsterdam. Barcelona. Day 8.
Amsterdam. Day 9.
Amsterdam. Day 10.
We had a bit of a plan today, which was to visit the Ann Frank house and then see where we were at and if we had time to visit another tourist attraction. Of course first we had to get high and grab some food. I ate an entire pizza for lunch every day we were in Amsterdam and let me tell you, these people know how to make a pie! All were delicious. I bought a fine strain of weed known as “Dark Star” this afternoon. Before we found the Ann Frank house we encountered an amazing street performer. Charlotte captured most of his performance on video for your enjoyment. His main act was juggling a flaming torch, a huge knife, and an apple, and then eating the apple while juggling. I found this man to be absolutly hilarious and I'm not sure if it comes across as funny on video as it did in person. It may have also helped that I was really stoned.
*note: During the end of the first video, Charlotte left the video running in her purse, so you can hear what's going on but can't see. What happened here was the performer was asking members of the audience for lighters to light the torch with. I threw him my lighter and after he got a few more lighters he took out a giant bag of lighters and just threw them all in, then put the bag back in his box, stealing all of them. I thought this was quite hilarious.
The crowed was really pissing me of as you can hear me mention in the video because they were so reluctant to do anything he said and didn't seem to apreciate his humor as much as I. Also the volunteer was so annoying. Anyway, seeing this man was a great way to start the day.
On our way to the Ann Frank house we encountered a shroom/head shop. Now, going into our vacation I was pretty positive I would not trip in Amsterdam as I did not believe I was in a good enough state of mind. However, seeing chocolate shroom truffles right there in front of me, complete with guides rating the various qualities of each kind of shrooms trip combined with the fact that I was high and in a great mood made it something I could not turn down at the moment. We took the shrooms that were rated highest for “euphoria” and “laughter” as opposed to “visual and audio hallucinations” since we would be tripping primarily in public. We ate a few of these disgusting tasting truffles on our way to the Ann Frank house and by the time we made it inside I was slightly tripping as well as pretty high. Luckily the laughing part of the trip didn't kick in here. The house was a very interesting, somber affair. Pretty damn depressing as you can imagine.
But after that, what better way to cheer up then take a bunch more shrooms and smoke a bunch of weed?!? We did just that and discovered my favorite coffee shop of the trip, known as the Greenhouse. This place was a coffee shop and a restaurant! And even better, it was the home of the 2008 and 2009 cannabis cup winning “Super Lemon Haze.”
Brighton to London to Paris
My flight from London Luton Airport to Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris left at 6am. The latest bus I could take from Brighton to the airport in order to be there by the 4am check in time arrived at the airport at around 10pm. So I had the luxury of spending about 8 hours in an airport all night! As you can imagine, this was a blast. I spent the first few hours at the bar drinking there one beer (Grolsch) and eating a ham and cheese crossient, which was quite delicious. Then I walked in circles around the barren airport for a while, smoked a bunch of cigarettes, then tried to join the miserable folks sleeping throughout the place. My computer died about an hour into my stay at the airport, so I had no source of entertainment besides this book of poetry Amanda gave me a while back called "I Love You is Back," which did provide some entertainment. Sleeping failed and I contined to pace around until the time came when I could finally board the tiny little easy jet plane. I arrived in Paris around 8am.
Paris. Day 1.
By the time I arrived at Charles De Gaulle Airport I was an exhausted mess. I came so close to getting on a horribly wrong train that would have brought me to the middle of nowhere France as opposed to downtown Paris, but after waiting at the wrong track for awhile I decided to double check where I was headed and noticed my mistake. As soon as I was on the train I had my first encounter with French people. A group of kids around my age came up to me after I sat down and were trying to ask me something in French and I didn't know a single word of what they were saying. I just kept saying "I don't understand, I don't speak French" but they kept trying to ask me something. So I eventually thought maybe for some weird reason they were asking for my seat so I got up and moved to another, to their laughter. Fuck those guys. Soon after there was another odd sight. We have all seen subway musicians of course, but in the subway station. Well, on this train a man just got on the train with his kid and started singing and playing a tambarine to a recording of some french music. I found this very strange and would grow to find it very annoying when I encountered this multiple times while in Paris. I was able to get some video of the guy, but I had to pretend I was taking pictures and could only capture him when he turned around to avoid awkwardness and having to give him money.
When I got off the subway near the hostel I had to blindly roam the streets for about an hour before I finally found it. During this time I was offered coke, a cheap place to stay, and was harassed for money by numerous homeless people. Something great did happen once I got to the hostel. I had booked the cheapest room which was a 4 or 6 person dorm or something, but for whatever reason we were given a private room for the same price, which was awesome. Before passing out for the afternoon waiting for Charlotte to arrive, I took a little video of our private pad.
I slept for a few hours until I finally received a call from Charlotte, who had been in the hostel lobby for about 2 hours confused about my whereabouts and wondering why she was told no one had a room booked under McNally. We got situated in our room and then it was time to get fucked up. We bought a few beers at a grocery store and wandered around the Red Light district and around our hostel for the night, stopping only for more beer or wine at stores and bars around the area.
While sitting on a bench we met our first extremely weird local. This guy asked if he could sit on the bench with us because he wanted to talk to us and practice his English, which was quite terrible. However, it would soon become obvious that this man had a very odd agenda. He told Charlotte that my hair was "beautiful" and then asked if he could lick my hair, while opening his mouth and wiggling his tongue around at us. I'm pretty sure I just violently shook my head no and Charlotte responded "That is not possible." He then went on to ask if we like to "ass fuck" because he had heard Americans love to do this when travelling or something. Our conversation ended soon after this comment. When leaving the bench, he kissed Charlotte on the top of her head and then groped my face as he walked away. I was in too much shock to actually respond to this. All in all it was a pretty hilarious encounter. We continued roaming around the streets until we finally found a somewhat reasonably priced bar. Here we met some really awesome French locals who were fun to talk to and they even bought us a beer! Charlotte was drunkenly practising her French, so I didn't really have any idea what was going on, but it was fun as hell to watch.
By the time we left this bar we were absolutely wasted, yet we continued to buy more alcohol. While sitting on another bench we had another odd encounter. Some creepy guy came and sat down next to Charlotte and I think he said something weird and creepy, so Charlotte called him a bitch. Then he nudged her in a not very friendly way, so I stood up and said something along the lines of "don't fucking touch her." He responded my spiting at me (he missed for the record) and then storming away. At this point we were just screaming at every person on the street making drunk asses of ourselves, and I was able to get a picture with some random dude that offered us corn nuts. We also took pictures on a random parked motorcycle. No point in showing my bike picture, because its a blurry mess having been taken by a very drunk and hilarious Charlotte.
While sitting on a bench we met our first extremely weird local. This guy asked if he could sit on the bench with us because he wanted to talk to us and practice his English, which was quite terrible. However, it would soon become obvious that this man had a very odd agenda. He told Charlotte that my hair was "beautiful" and then asked if he could lick my hair, while opening his mouth and wiggling his tongue around at us. I'm pretty sure I just violently shook my head no and Charlotte responded "That is not possible." He then went on to ask if we like to "ass fuck" because he had heard Americans love to do this when travelling or something. Our conversation ended soon after this comment. When leaving the bench, he kissed Charlotte on the top of her head and then groped my face as he walked away. I was in too much shock to actually respond to this. All in all it was a pretty hilarious encounter. We continued roaming around the streets until we finally found a somewhat reasonably priced bar. Here we met some really awesome French locals who were fun to talk to and they even bought us a beer! Charlotte was drunkenly practising her French, so I didn't really have any idea what was going on, but it was fun as hell to watch.
By the time we left this bar we were absolutely wasted, yet we continued to buy more alcohol. While sitting on another bench we had another odd encounter. Some creepy guy came and sat down next to Charlotte and I think he said something weird and creepy, so Charlotte called him a bitch. Then he nudged her in a not very friendly way, so I stood up and said something along the lines of "don't fucking touch her." He responded my spiting at me (he missed for the record) and then storming away. At this point we were just screaming at every person on the street making drunk asses of ourselves, and I was able to get a picture with some random dude that offered us corn nuts. We also took pictures on a random parked motorcycle. No point in showing my bike picture, because its a blurry mess having been taken by a very drunk and hilarious Charlotte.
Finally we somehow stumbled back to our hostel and ended the night smoking cigarettes on our balcony, screaming at people on the street below, and spitting on the cars below us. Paris undoubtedly loved us. I got called an asshole by someone after I called him an asshole for no reason. Great times.
Alright, I will try to make the subsequent descriptions of the trip shorter than that one. That first night just happened to be action packed. Overall this is probably going to be the longest blog entry in the history of the interweb. I woke up the next morning incredibly hung over and the nausea and headache would remain with me for the entire day. We set out on a journey that began at some famous Church I completely forget the name of. It was beautiful nonetheless, as was the whole area of little streets and shops around it. This day gave us the only glimpse of sun we saw in Paris and it was very pleasant.
The above picture is a hot dog in a baguette covered in cheese. This looks and sounds delicious, but it was not. It was disgusting as a matter of fact and made me want to vomit for the rest of the day. Most of it was fed to pigeons and sparrows, much to my amusement.
Eventually we ended up at the Dali museum, which was really cool. I was feeling so nauseas during our time here that I legitimately feared throwing up on his work. Now that would have been a great story to tell my grand children. After Dali, we headed back to our hostel for a much needed nap, which ended up just being laying in bed and talking for a few hours.
After some really shitty Chinese food, we were off to the Eiffel tower! It was a really nice night out and the tower is absolutely amazing at night. It's fucking huge. Every hour, the tower flashes with thousands of lights (a dangerous attraction for epileptics I would imagine). This happened right when we got close to it and neither Charlotte nor I had any idea it was going to do that, so it was pretty mind blowing. I think I was like "holy shit! holy shit look!" I got some video of the flashing as well as a million pics.
The above picture is a hot dog in a baguette covered in cheese. This looks and sounds delicious, but it was not. It was disgusting as a matter of fact and made me want to vomit for the rest of the day. Most of it was fed to pigeons and sparrows, much to my amusement.
Eventually we ended up at the Dali museum, which was really cool. I was feeling so nauseas during our time here that I legitimately feared throwing up on his work. Now that would have been a great story to tell my grand children. After Dali, we headed back to our hostel for a much needed nap, which ended up just being laying in bed and talking for a few hours.
After some really shitty Chinese food, we were off to the Eiffel tower! It was a really nice night out and the tower is absolutely amazing at night. It's fucking huge. Every hour, the tower flashes with thousands of lights (a dangerous attraction for epileptics I would imagine). This happened right when we got close to it and neither Charlotte nor I had any idea it was going to do that, so it was pretty mind blowing. I think I was like "holy shit! holy shit look!" I got some video of the flashing as well as a million pics.
After chilling around the tower for awhile and watching this massive group of Canadians play frisbee (they were all wearing jackets with the maple leaf on display) we wondered all around the area to random things that looked cool. That was the great thing about travelling with Charlotte; we seemed to have the exact same ideas on how to go about traveling. This idea was basically having no plans at all, walking everywhere, and randomly deciding to go wherever looked appealing at the moment. This way anything cool you find is an awesome surprise and there is very little stress caused by rushing about. Anyway, here are some pics from the rest of that night.
The stuffed dog above, as we discovered moments after this picture, was at the entrance of this little village of homeless people in cardboard homes, which was kind of uncomfortable to have stumbled upon.
Paris. Day 3.
To the Louvre, the biggest fucking museum I have ever seen in my life! We spent half a day here and probably didn't even see half of what it had to offer. So many cool sights to see, the least of which being the Mona Lisa. The only annoying thing was that barely anything in the museum had an English description, so I have no idea what most of the stuff was. I took tons of pics so I'll try to just highlight a few.
The second I saw this head above, I thought "that looks like Thom Yorke (singer of Radiohead)." Compare for yourselves with the picture below.
After the Louvre we walked to the Arc de Triomphe and around that area for awhile. Later that night we found an awesome spot to watch the Eiffel Tower light up from a distance, which is captured on video below.
After the Louvre we walked to the Arc de Triomphe and around that area for awhile. Later that night we found an awesome spot to watch the Eiffel Tower light up from a distance, which is captured on video below.
And that my friends, was Paris.
Barcelona. Day 4.
Our flight to Barcelona was somewhere around 8am. We got to the airport at about...8am. So we missed our flight. That really sucked, but lucklily we were able to purchase a half priced ticket to Barcelona a few hours later. This meant some more quality airport time, that looked something like this.
Finally, we reached Barcelona. What a beautiful city. Our hostel here was really cool as well and a great location only a few minutes from the shoreline and mountains. Charlotte and I did not take a single train or bus (except to and from the airport) while here. We walked EVERYWHERE. This was great, but it took a toll. My legs and feet are still recovering from our vacation.
Once we ate (some kind of mystery meat burger), got situated and took a little nap, we set out to conquer Barcelona the way we do: drunk. We explored the docks, board walks, and beach of the city with some beer and 40s (well, they were like 32oz, but in Europe you gotta improvise a bit!). When we bought the 40s I couldn't remember how to ask how much something was, so I just held it up and said "dinero?!?" which is like if I just went up to someone and was like "money?" We soon discovered that you can smoke indoors in Barcelona and that cigarettes were dirt cheap! This was amazing, as since I have been in Europe I have only been rolling my own cigs. Camels never tasted so good.
Towards the end of this night we were walking through some sketch alleys when a man asked if we wanted to buy weed. This frooze me in my tracks as I immediately asked how much. 20 euros? Nope, too much. 15? Nope. 10? You got yourself a deal! First he had to grab the weed from some other dude down the street. So Charlotte and I were just chillen at this street corner. In order to prepare for the upcoming transaction and make it as quick as possible, I took a 20 euro bill out of my wallet and placed it in my side hoodie pocket. This would end up being a huge mistake. While waiting we were approached by what we thought were club promoters. They came over to us and gave us an ad for the club and were asking if we liked to dance and started doing some weird dance move to me that involved him putting his leg in between mine. It's not abnormal at all for club promoters to come up to you and hand you an ad and I just figured he was drunk like I was so I didn't make much of it. Anyway he left and a few minutes later I followed our dealer to a sketchy alley. I reached into my pocket for the money and found nothing. I couldn't understand where it went and franticly searched all my pockets while this dealer was getting impatient. Then it hit me: that mother fucking "club promoter" pick pocketed me. I was sooooo angry at myself because I was positive going into this trip that I would know if someone was attempting to pick pocket me. Oh well. Charlotte ended up providing the money and we actually got some damn good weed that lasted us the entire time in Barcelona.
Barcelona. Day 5.
Warmth, how I missed you. It was an incredible day, 70+ (20+ celsius for you european folks) bright and sunny. First goal, find delicious cheap seafood near the water. After a beautiful walk through strange, crowded places, we accomplished that goal.
Barcelona. Day 5.
Warmth, how I missed you. It was an incredible day, 70+ (20+ celsius for you european folks) bright and sunny. First goal, find delicious cheap seafood near the water. After a beautiful walk through strange, crowded places, we accomplished that goal.
Delicious fried crab. mmmhhhmmmmm.
After food we ventured over to this park right next to a zoo. We were considering visiting the zoo, but decided it was too expensive once we got there and saw the prices. Thus, we just got stoned and walked around this beautiful park instead.
As you can see, we found a little sneak peak into the zoo. Take your 15 euros and shove it, cause we saw a gazelle fo' free!
These guys were a little tap dancing crew. I wish I had video of them, for although I never thought I would say this about someone tap dancing, they were pretty badass.
Charlotte was soooo pumped to find mountain dew, which doesn't exist in France.
After the park we hit up the beach and then got to meet up with Lily for a night of drunken fun!
I fucking love Sangria! A famous Spanish treat, it's wine mixed with some kind of liquer with a ton of fruit added in. This shit gets you fucked up and it tastes delicious. After we killed this jug at a backpackers bar (1 euro curry chicken was delicious) we bought a bottle of Sangria for 2 euros and killed that as well while walking the shoreline.
One of my favorite aspects of Barcelona was the "beer can man." Basically, at all hours of the night, people carry around cheap 6 packs of beer and sell individual cans for cheap. This is how society should be. Support your local businesses.
This my friends, is a dream come true. I thought it was just a mirage at first, but this is indeed a beer can vending machine.
As you can see, we were all pretty damn wasted. This bar was pirate themed and called hook, so that might help explain the following pic.
Barcelona. Day 6.
Time for a hike! I had overheard this random other American one day point to the mountain near our hostel on the outskirts of the city and say something like "that's where we are going." He sounded like he knew what he was talking about, so hiking up there became our plan for this day. Lily joined us on her last day in the city. This ended up being a great idea, as it was another sunny warm day and everything we saw was beautiful.
Greatest smoking spot ever? I think so.
These slides were so much fun.
Below was the view from my toilet seat as I took a dump in this old military fort. I had a lovely view of a couple on a bench, who could at any moment turn around and watch me take a shit.
Video view from the top of the fort:
The above picture would be the last picture my camera took on this vacation. The battery died much sooner than I expected. Every picture from here on out is from Charlotte's camera (many of the pictures so far have also been from her camera).
Undoubtedly the best hike of my life. I wish we had more time to explore all the other mountains surrounding the city. Lily had a 10pm flight, so she left once we returned back to ground level. As for Charlotte and I, we proceeded to get drunk and roam around, as we did every night in Barcelona.
This is a shit ton of little fish. There were bigger fish eating them which was fun to watch.
We took a weird route back to our hostel and ended up at a dead end on a big ass dock.
Barcelona. Day 7.
Today we had a pretty concrete plan which was to visit the Picasso museum.
Of course we smoked up in a little alley before entering the museum. Moments after taking the photo above, a local warned that I was sitting on a rock that apparently "everyone pisses on." As you can see from the picture below, it is indeed stained yellow. Sitting in piss is a great way to start the day, I highly recommend it.
The Picasso museum was really cool and set up in an interesting manner. Basically each room progressed throughout Picasso's life, with the first room being his first works when he was just a teen. All his life and work descriptions also had an English translation, which was great. It was fascinating to see how his work progressed over the years. Here's a few pics from there.
After the Picasso museum we headed off to the gothic district to check out the astonishing Sagrada Familia church.
After that, despite being pretty exhausted from walking numerous miles all over the city, we continued the tradition of getting wasted every night. This time we decided to hang out at that beautiful park you got to see earlier with individual bottles of cheap blush wine.
After that, despite being pretty exhausted from walking numerous miles all over the city, we continued the tradition of getting wasted every night. This time we decided to hang out at that beautiful park you got to see earlier with individual bottles of cheap blush wine.
We drunkly tap danced a lot and were being incredibly loud when a police officer came over and told us the park was closed and we needed to leave (at least thats what it seemed like he was saying in spanish). We actually were locked in the park but a friendly local showed us a little area we could squeeze through to escape.
Who is this 40 year old Pakistani man you ask? Why, let me tell you! He was walking home for work at what I think was a kebab shop he runs when he witnessed someone try to pickpocket me. I knew what was up and didn't take my hand off my wallet this while time, learning from earlier mistakes and knowing exactly what was going on. After the incident, this fine gentleman went on a little rant about pickpockets and Moroccans, who he certainly is not found of. He bought us a beer at his friends bar afterwords and then proceeded to escort us home. This was all in good intention, but a little weird since we didn't need an escort and were quite fine getting home on our own. We also weren't done drinking and wandering around for what we thought was our last night in Barcelona. However, as he escorted us to our hostel, he also ran into a beer can man that he knew and got us another free beer! Soon after this when we were close to our hostel, we finally were like "we appreciate your help, but we really don't need you to walk us home." So he left and we hit up the seafront and got more drunk. All in all a nice man and we each got 2 free beers out of it all. Also occurring on this night: the whole time we were here there were these incredibly annoying asians staying in our hostel dorm. They would get up really early every morning, which is fine, but they would be so obnoxiously and unnessesarily loud for at least an hour before they left the dorm each morning. They would talk incredibly loud, walk in and out of the room a million times letting the door slam behind them, open the window blinds over and over again for some reason and then leave them open when they left, etc. They were incredibly disrespectful and really pissed me off. So this last night in the hostel I was wasted and determined to give them a taste of their own medicine. I SLAMMED the door when we walked in at 4am-ish and was incredibly loud before I went to bed. I kept screaming SSSSSSHHHHHHSSSSS" at Charlotte mimicking something they constantly did and starting banging my closet door over and over again for no reason. One of the girls yelled at me in French but I didn't give a shit, I was glad to get confirmation that I had angered them.
We had our flight to Amsterdam sometime in the early afternoon. We did not learn from our previous mistake of waiting too long to head to the airport. This time, everything wasn't our fault. Well, actually, it kinda was...but anyway... We made a mad rush to make our flight on time and when we arrived at the train station we asked a man what train to take. He told us a track number and we hoped on the first train that was just about to leave thinking it was heading to the airport. Turns out different trains leave from the same track here. About an hour later, we realized we were in the middle of nowhere Spain and certainly not headed towards the airport. We wouldn't even come close to making our flight. We headed back and got to the airport as soon as we could to try and book another flight. We got to the airport and there was one more flight heading to Amsterdam, with check in ending in 5 minutes! We ran through the airport, ran up to check in, and explained that we needed to get on that plane. They told us to check with the ticket office for their airline across the hall. We ran there. It was closed. We ran back to check in. "Sorry, there is nothing we can do" FFFUUUCCCKKK!!! This was devastating. The slow walk back to the train to head back into downtown Barcelona was one of the slowest walks of my life. We felt very stupid, going 0-2 on our flights so far. Now we had to try to find a place to stay on a Friday night. The first two hostels were booked and both told us, as we already knew, that it was very unlikely we would find a place on such short notice. We had plans to get drunk and sleep in a park. But then, in a sketchy alley, was a shady looking little hotel. We entered and asked if there was anything available. The desk lady said she highly doubted it, but would check. After typing away for a minute, she informed us that there was one room free. This was incredible news. We rejoiced and the lady gave us a really weirded out look. We booked tickets for the next day and spent one more night in Barcelona, of course spent getting drunk on the beach. Not such a bad thing overall to spend an extra night in my favorite city of the trip. The thing I loved about Barcelona is that it was beautiful in so many different ways. It had the urban feel of a city, yet also had the beach and the mountains as a retreat from that when needed. I can't wait to get back there someday.
This was a huge wtf? Dunkin' Donuts in Barcelona?!? It was to my understanding that Dunkin Donuts didn't even exist throughout the entire U.S., being a New England phenomenon. A true shocker indeed, they even had Boston Creams! I just did a wiki search on Dunkin' Donuts and was even more shocked to find it exists in over 31 countries! Who woulda dunk?
During the entire time in Barcelona I could not get this song out of my head.
Amsterdam. Day 9.
Finally the time came. We made our first flight of the trip and we were in fucking Amsterdam.
Let's be honest, we went to Amsterdam for one reason and that reason was to smoke shit tons of weed. Amsterdam is a stoners dream come true and a life goal completed. Despite all the stories I still didn't know quite what to expect, but it was every bit as good as I could have imagined. Before coming we did a little research on what the best coffee shops (the places that sell and let you smoke weed in) were and we were able to find quite a few of them during our time here. Soon after dropping our stuff off at our hostel we set out to the famed red light district to get high and see some hookers. We roamed around a bit to find a cool looking coffee shop and soon happened to stumble upon one of the shops on our list, called Dolphins. We bought a gram of their house special “White Dolphin,” were handed a bong, and we were off! This coffee shop was pretty damn cool, the basement walls were covered in murals of some kind of combination of being underwater and space. So trippy mannn. They also had a television that showed fish swimming around a coral reef. That's about as exciting as it sounds. We got incredibly stoned and spent the rest of the night checking out a few more coffee shops and mixing in a few beers (which were very expensive). I believe the other weed we bought this day was called “oz kush” and "amnesia haze."
Let's be honest, we went to Amsterdam for one reason and that reason was to smoke shit tons of weed. Amsterdam is a stoners dream come true and a life goal completed. Despite all the stories I still didn't know quite what to expect, but it was every bit as good as I could have imagined. Before coming we did a little research on what the best coffee shops (the places that sell and let you smoke weed in) were and we were able to find quite a few of them during our time here. Soon after dropping our stuff off at our hostel we set out to the famed red light district to get high and see some hookers. We roamed around a bit to find a cool looking coffee shop and soon happened to stumble upon one of the shops on our list, called Dolphins. We bought a gram of their house special “White Dolphin,” were handed a bong, and we were off! This coffee shop was pretty damn cool, the basement walls were covered in murals of some kind of combination of being underwater and space. So trippy mannn. They also had a television that showed fish swimming around a coral reef. That's about as exciting as it sounds. We got incredibly stoned and spent the rest of the night checking out a few more coffee shops and mixing in a few beers (which were very expensive). I believe the other weed we bought this day was called “oz kush” and "amnesia haze."
Amsterdam. Day 10.
We had a bit of a plan today, which was to visit the Ann Frank house and then see where we were at and if we had time to visit another tourist attraction. Of course first we had to get high and grab some food. I ate an entire pizza for lunch every day we were in Amsterdam and let me tell you, these people know how to make a pie! All were delicious. I bought a fine strain of weed known as “Dark Star” this afternoon. Before we found the Ann Frank house we encountered an amazing street performer. Charlotte captured most of his performance on video for your enjoyment. His main act was juggling a flaming torch, a huge knife, and an apple, and then eating the apple while juggling. I found this man to be absolutly hilarious and I'm not sure if it comes across as funny on video as it did in person. It may have also helped that I was really stoned.
*note: During the end of the first video, Charlotte left the video running in her purse, so you can hear what's going on but can't see. What happened here was the performer was asking members of the audience for lighters to light the torch with. I threw him my lighter and after he got a few more lighters he took out a giant bag of lighters and just threw them all in, then put the bag back in his box, stealing all of them. I thought this was quite hilarious.
The crowed was really pissing me of as you can hear me mention in the video because they were so reluctant to do anything he said and didn't seem to apreciate his humor as much as I. Also the volunteer was so annoying. Anyway, seeing this man was a great way to start the day.
On our way to the Ann Frank house we encountered a shroom/head shop. Now, going into our vacation I was pretty positive I would not trip in Amsterdam as I did not believe I was in a good enough state of mind. However, seeing chocolate shroom truffles right there in front of me, complete with guides rating the various qualities of each kind of shrooms trip combined with the fact that I was high and in a great mood made it something I could not turn down at the moment. We took the shrooms that were rated highest for “euphoria” and “laughter” as opposed to “visual and audio hallucinations” since we would be tripping primarily in public. We ate a few of these disgusting tasting truffles on our way to the Ann Frank house and by the time we made it inside I was slightly tripping as well as pretty high. Luckily the laughing part of the trip didn't kick in here. The house was a very interesting, somber affair. Pretty damn depressing as you can imagine.
But after that, what better way to cheer up then take a bunch more shrooms and smoke a bunch of weed?!? We did just that and discovered my favorite coffee shop of the trip, known as the Greenhouse. This place was a coffee shop and a restaurant! And even better, it was the home of the 2008 and 2009 cannabis cup winning “Super Lemon Haze.”
While tripping, I had a lot of fun playing with my salad. I was trying to create a picture perfect salad that was ad worthy. If I had a high quality camera this would have been a perfectly aesthetic salad.
By the end of the night we found ourselves going to a dubstep night at a club that let you smoke inside (note, all coffee shops had to close by 1am, but certain bars that allowed you to smoke inside could be found despite not being legal). Before that we found another really cool coffee shop that had a bunch of tv screens to sit in front of that all showed really random ass weird things, for example eyes blinking, old Indian men staring at you, time lapses, nature scenes, and my personal favorite which was the clip of Reagan getting shot at over and over again.
Amsterdam. Day 12.
This was it, the last day in Amsterdam. How did we celebrate? Well, by smoking weed of course. Once again that was how we spent our entire day, also trying out some space cake.
And that was Amsterdam. If it wasn't so fucking cold and rainy, it could have been paradise.
London/Brighton. Day 13.
We fucking did it. We made a flight. I'll give you all a moment to clap in appreciation.....
So yeah, it was an early morning flight but we did it. We spent the day in London along the Thames River and at the Tate Modern until heading back to Brighton later on, where we proceeded to sleep for 15 hours.
Brighton. Day 14 + 15
Charlotte was in Brighton for 2 more nights. One of these nights we got really drunk and went to a good grime/dubstep club night. I also showed her the cow village behind my school. The last night we got really drunk again, bar hoping the whole night. We ended our last night with a long ass skype session, talking to Sarah, Rich, Carolyn, Liza, Jess, and Keenan, which was great.
Above is some bansky art that was preserved by the bar he painted it on. Below is the bowl I bought in Amsterdam, which is apparently "unbreakable," and the shop owner even droped it on the floor before I bought it to prove this. I can't wait to smoke it back in the states.
And that was the trip. Congratulations if you have actually read this far, your a real trooper! This trip was absolutely amazing. There could not have been a better travel partner than Charlotte. Now it's the home stretch, only 2 months until I am home. Can't wait. Hope everyone is doing swell.
Peace,
Matt
