I am AMESTERdam

Goedenavond!!

I am Amester in Amsterdam

Country one of the trip draws to a close tomorrow so thought I should probably spend the evening updating my blog :) Soo where to start... I have a red face (my nose resembles Rudolph), thanks to the sun on Kings day! My shoulders hurt after about 4 hours of carrying my 8.5kg bag on the first day,and i'm fed up of having to pay to use a toilet!! But other than that I can't complain - free WiFi is super easy to get hold of over here :)

Accommodation's basic but nice - good old bunk beds! Well the top bunk doesn't actually have a side barrier and is rather narrow so my mattress is staying on the floor. It minimises the risk of accident prone Amy rolling over in her sleep and dropping a metre or two! Also for a couple of nights on a trott, drunks have mistaken our door for their's, thank god for locks I'm telling you! Its like being in student halls again in a way.

We visited the Anne Frank house museum on Sunday! We queued for two hours in cold wind but I'm glad we did. If i'm honest I couldn't really remember the story, all I could remember was the bookcase door. Nonetheless I found this experience interesting and definitely thought provoking.

Sunday evening and Monday 27th saw Kings night/day celebrations! Kings day is the kings birthday, with massive celebrations and people wearing orange!  I bought anm orange top andca funky headband to wear :) From what I could gather its a chance for a massive p@#s up and party! Obviously I had to join in so I had a hot chocolate and chips!! In the morning we visited vondekpark where the place was heaving with children selling; old toys, food, drink (non alcoholic), making pancakes, fresh orange juice, performing; circus skills, playing musical instruments, singing, etc. Its quite a sight to see! We listened to a live samba band then sat along the canal for hours watching the hundreds of boats go by blaring music from on board sound systems/DJs.

Big bike advertising the tour de France 201

Traditional Dutch windmill

Today we hopped on a train to the town of Utrecht. Utrecht is the starting point of the tour de France 2015. Here we walked along more canals and saw a tradiational Dutch windmill. The evening has been spent writing our travel journals and updating our blogs. Head over to Jens new blog post here.

Amsterdam's transport system is nuts!! To me it had no logic and its beyond me how I didn't see a crash. It was near impossible to differentiate between what was cycle lanes, pedestrian lanes, car lanes, bus lanes and tram lanes. It appears that trams and cars just fight for the same space.Bikes and motorbikes use the same lane at speed with neither vehicle willing to move out the way. Also I'm pretty sure most roads didn't have designated pedestrian walking areas. It seemed we just had to dodge the bikes and motorbikes. Also when crossing on a green man, it appears vehicles will still use the road regardless. So that's also risky! (This paragraph reminds me of my 3rd year transport assignment on the Brussels transport system, haa)

Enjoy reading!

Goede Nacht

Amester x

I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when i'll be back

So in 9 hours i'll be somewhere in the clouds in an aeroplane!!! En route to Amsterdam! Me and Jen have finally packed (always last minute us), my bags heavy, and I look like a purple bug, but that's fine, I enjoy bugging people ;) (I like puns i'm afraid) Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything major (must check passport)!

This week I've been rather nervous and anxious more so than excited. Most likely due to the realisation that we haven't got a great deal physically booked. I know in a past post, I stated ideally everything would be booked up before going, but hey, this is me and Jen you are talking about!! As much as we hate it we do leave things to the last minute! Sorry mum and dad for the last minute stresses :p Anyhow, we have our 2 interrail tickets, our flight out and accommodation for the first week booked up so at least that's something :) For the remainder we have a rough plan of action and i'm sure we will be fine, either way its going to be an adventure :) 

Mum was singing annoying songs earlier when she came out with the song with lyrics 'i'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when i'll be back'. The realisation that I will be leaving England without a set return date became all to real (we know what week we are returning but not what day).

I have to be up at 2:45am, I am trying to decide if it is worth trying to get to sleep or not. You see, i'm normally still awake at 1am, although in bed, I just surf social medias and YouTube on my phone until I drift off to sleep. Hopefully I can manage to fall asleep before the turn of midnight!

Nanight

Amester x

Anonymity

Just under 11 months ago I started this blog. Something new to try out to run in parallel with the new chapter my life was starting. For the entirety of this time only 3 people have known about this blog – My mum, dad and sister. Ok so a few times I have accidently let slip to friends about it, but I have never once revealed the blog name, therefore its location was unknown and still anonymous among those I know. The exception to this was last week I woke to a WhatsApp message of my blog link shared with family members, my mum and her big mouth! I've never jumped out of bed so quick to tell mum off (she didn’t realise I wasn’t revealing it yet). I also had views from Australia, I put two and two together and realised she had shared it to family further afield! But other than that, no one knows. Basically I have been talking to myself (isn’t the first time that’s happened  :p).

I have enjoyed having this ‘secret project’ as I like to call it. It is something I have been doing just for myself, where I had no commitment, could post as and when I wanted, about whatever the hell I wished, without any expectations and judgement. I have never been one for writing, it isn’t my strong point, I expect my grammar and spelling isn’t fantastic on here, but who cares! I quit English after GCSE’s for a reason! This blog has helped me to keep my academic brain functioning occasionally, and I feel it is a good way to keep my writing skills relatively ok (for my ability anyways).

However with my big 6 week European adventure starting in 5 days (eeekk!!), my blog anonymity is going to disappear this week. I am going to tell family, friends, work friends and whoever else I bump into about my blog. Like I mentioned in my first ever blog post, I enjoy documenting my life. This is where I am going to document my travels. Providing I gain decent Wi-Fi while away, I plan to blog on the tracks (choo choo). Whether any of my friends and family actually read what I have to write is up to them, I will not be offended either way, but it would be nice to share my adventure with those closest to me.

So hi family, friends, oh and any strangers if you happen to come across this blog. I hope you enjoy what I have to blog about, at times I expect it will be random rubbish, partial to some moans (apparently I moan a lot) but I also hope it will be informative and fun to enjoy!! Also feel free to share it with people who I may not know but you feel will be interested. 

I am sharing this trip with my sister Jen. She will also be blogging on her blog. Although we will be experiencing the same thing, and both blogging, I’m sure both of our accounts will be varied. I may talk about something Jen doesn’t, and vice versus. She may decide to talk about an embarrassing story (if any happen) which included me which I would happily not include on mine :p You can find Jens blog by clicking here

On the left side panel you can click through to my other social medias. Alterrnativerly click here to follow my blog twitter for on the go tweets. Click here to follow my instagram for my photos, and click here to follow my YouTube, as upon return I plan to make a mini series of my travels.

Amester x

European Travels - Where im heading :)

17 days to go!! I’m sooooooo excited!!

As stated in my previous blog post, in 17 days I will be embarking on a 6 week European adventure. Despite having not physically booked much up at this point, we have a clear idea of where and when we will be heading during this time.

The current plan of action is:

• Fly out to The Netherlands on 25^th April spending 4 nights in Amsterdam, with one day trip to Utrecht. While in Amsterdam we will experience the Kings Day celebrations.
• From the Netherlands we will Head for the cities of Brussels and Brugge in Belgium
• Next we will spend around a week in France, we will definitely be experiencing Paris, with current plans to head to Tours and Toulouse
• Then it will be a whistle stop tour of 2 days in each of Switzerland, Germany, Prague in the Czech Republic and Austria.
• Before finally heading for Italy where we will be spending 2/2.5 weeks touring this country

As you can see some places we plan to spend longer in than others. Italy is somewhere me and my sister have wanted to travel to for a long time, so we feel 2 weeks here will give us the best chance of exploring as many areas of the country as possible. Whereas there are places such as Switzerland and Germany where we only plan on spending two days. This is because we can see ourselves visiting these countries at a later date, whether that’s just another short weekend visit or longer.

Our current situation is; we have booked our flights out to Amsterdam, purchased our first interrail pass (10 travel days in 22 days), and we have booked our Amsterdam accommodation. We are in the process of working out the logistics for Italy to work out which ‘one country interrail pass’ would be beneficial to purchase for this leg of the trip. We will then book further accommodation for the rest of the adventure and reserve our trains. Ideally this will all be complete by the 25^th – wish us luck!

Amester x