Amsterdam Meet-up 2008

Well I wasn’t going to write a blog for this (mainly because I can’t remember half the stuff that happened!), but seeing as though most people have made an effort (some as soon as the meet-up was over i.e. Lauro and Hanie!), I thought it only fair if I documented my side of the story…:S

I think the whole trip started off on a bad note, so something (or everything in this case), was bound to go wrong! The palaver started on Wednesday evening I think, when I got a call from Wayne.

Wayne – “I’ve just had a nightmare!”

Me – “You had a nightmare? Bless.

Wayne trying to find that steak house

Wayne – “No duck, I’m HAVING a nightmare of a time!”

Me – “Oh sorry duck! Whats happened?

Wayne – “I don’t have a passport”

Me – “WTF?!??!!?!?!?!!??!?!?!”

I won’t go into the rest of the conversation as it just involved Wayne blaming everyone but himself for the stupid mistake. Basically (if you haven’t heard this story already…), Wayne is off the SE Asia next month, so he sent off his passport to the Vietnamese Embassy in London for a visa (which Lauro kept reminding him he didn’t need on his passport). Stupidly he had forgotten that we were off to Amsterdam and he needed his passport back.

Some other bar

Luckily it was only Wednesday evening, and we weren’t flying out till Saturday morning so we had a bit of time to sort it out (pretty tight though, I must add!). Wayne would call up the Embassy tomorrow, and find out the whereabouts of his passport.

Thursday came and I reminded him to call. It went to voicemail. He called again. No one would pick up! We hoped when he’d get home after work, it would have already arrived. Nope. So next idea, go to the Embassy and sort it out in person. Whose job was that eh?

Stupidly the Embassy only opens between 9.30am – 12.30pm, and as it’s an hour on the train from my house, I had to miss university and work and get up at 7am (I am nocturnal) in order to get his passport. So being an absolutely amazing friend, I got up at half 7 (Wayne was my alarm, mind you), and went down to Kensington. When I got there they’d told me they had already sent it, so now it was up to us to trace it through royal mail.

Our drinks...mine is not just a coke

During that time however, while I was waiting, we were contemplating what would happen if his passport hadn’t arrived in time. Wayne wanted me to go regardless, but I have never been on a plane by myself, and so I was really scared. But, lovely_lori88 agreed to take Wayne’s place, if he didn’t get his passport. Bless her.

However, as soon as I left the Embassy, Wayne called and told me the good/ (bad) news. The postman had arrived with his passport. He was ecstatic. I guess pulling a sickie that day was worthwhile, unlike the hour of my life I lost for nothing. And Lori was a bit upset! Bless her again…lol

So palaver over, Wayne came down that evening, with his passport safely placed in the inside of his jacket. His train came in late evening, and because all my friends had decided they’d abandon me, we weren’t getting a lift to Stansted airport, so we had to wake up extra early in order the catch the Stansted Express instead.

Wayne the alcoholic

Wayne and I decide there was no point sleeping, as we’d have to get up at 4am, but after a few beers (drank by Wayne not me) and shisha, we were pretty tired and thought it wise to get some sleep. It was about 1am, and we didn’t have to get up till 4am. 3 hours would be ok. Although I think we lost 1 hour because I was annoying Wayne. Makes up for the 1 hour I lost going to Kensington!

So alarm set, we still managed to get up late. Ok, well I kind of overslept a bit. But we were out of the house by about 10 to five. The Stansted Express was leaving at 5.25 from Liverpool Street station. The station was about 5 minutes bus ride plus a 10 minute walk away, so we were doing ok for time seeing as though we had 35 minutes. That was until the bastarding bus decided to take 15 minutes arriving. Ok 20 minutes we’ll have to run, instead of walk.

And then the next slip up.

Bondy and Wayne

So we had to run even faster to try and get to the station, but my little legs were already killing me, so we managed to get a taxi. Got to the station for 5.35 am, and the next train was at 5.40. Managed to get our tickets and get on the train.

We got to Stansted for 6.20, so we had about 25 minutes to get through security (we didn’t have to check in luckily). We were in one queue when one of the guards told us to walk further along because there was a shorter queue ahead of us, so we took his advice and ended up in an even longer queue! The security checks took ages, so we had to sprint to the gate. Luckily we were like a minute late of something, so we managed to get on just as they were boarding everyone.

We were so happy to finally be on that plane!

The flight only took 40 minutes, so it was pretty quick.

MARK!!!!!

So we arrived at Amsterdam airport. Now to find mark. Our plane was a bit delayed so we were a bit late and couldn’t see him at the arrivals lounge. We then decided to call him, which kept going to voicemail, and costing us like billions of quid! We then did a tannoy (we didn’t know his second name so had to call out mark travbuddy…lol), and after running around shouting “mark, travelman727, travbuddy” over and over again, we decided to just catch a train into central station.

It was about 11ish, so we were pretty early for the meet-up. What were we going to do for the next 4 hours?....first stop pub.lol

Drink 1= Wayne – beer, Ruby – Malibu orange

After a few much needed cigarettes, Wayne suggested looking for that steak house he ate in years ago, that he didn’t know the name of, but thought he could find it anyway.

Me, Mark and Devi

I think we did about 5 laps of Amsterdam, but he was still sure he would find the place. We got tired in between so it was another pub break

Drink 2= Wayne – beer, Ruby – Amaretto coke

After studying the map I bought, Wayne was convinced he’d find the steak house as soon as we got to the red light district, because he could work out the bearings from the banana bar. That didn’t work. I’d got pretty annoyed by then and was starving so we ended up going to this really posh looking restaurant. Wayne had a toastie, and I went for a kebab.

Drink 3= Wayne – beer and Ruby’s white Russian, Ruby – gave this one a miss

Drink 4= Wayne – beer, Ruby – Vodka coke

We bumped into an Irish guy and a Geordie woman, who we had a nice chat with.

Wayne, Mark and me

By then it had just hit 3 so we headed back to central station to the meeting point. We didn’t know where the hell it was, so we just went inside and bumped into Sylvie and Kim. We then went outside and found everyone congregated there.

Sylvie – lovely girl!

Kim – Awesome guy!

Mark – crazy American! Really awesome! He had a sign for us as well!

Dev – so glad we finally met! Been waiting for ages!!!!!

Jeff – awesome dude!

I know I spoke to more people but I’m so bad with names! But those were the initial four I recognised/knew.

Then it was off to the first place.

Second group photo

Drink 5= Wayne – beer, Ruby – coke

Drink 6= Wayne – beer, Ruby – coke

I met quite a few people there I don’t know on here (and the latecomers)

Lauro – everyone knows and loves this guy. Nothing more you can say really!

Hanie – so sweet and shy! Bless her! Wish I had more time to sit and speak to her!

Marlous – she let us play with her camera. Wayne was trying to teach me aperture

Satu – I thought he was Indian. He thought I could speak Dutch

Willem – I think I made him laugh?.

Me and the beautiful sylvie!

Charlotte – we didn’t know if she was actually vosking, and Wayne was too scared to ask her.lol

After all the paparazzi shots in the coffee house we headed to Humphreys for dinner. By then everyone were mingling, which was really cool. Met some more people.

Ant – my fellow smoker

Marcel – bless this guy, I owe him so much! Love his g’friend too!

Wendy – the other famous organiser

Dinner was pretty good. We had the beef thing for starters. Wayne liked the beef. I preferred the pesto.

Main course - Wayne and I went halves so we had a bit of both, which tasted good!

Dessert – sparked off the mango/apricot flavour argument.

Me, Jeff and Wayne

Drink 7= Wayne – beer, Ruby – coke

Drink 8= Wayne – beer, Ruby - coke

Then after more picture taking, it was off to find a pub. Now that’s pretty hard when there’s a group of 30 odd people. After invading 2 or 3 pubs, the group finally found a pretty empty pub, but Wayne and I had already brought a drink in pub find 3, so we stayed to down them and said we’ll join them later. Met some more people.

Eef – you can hold great convos with this girl!

Johan – agreed to get some weed! Woot!

Drink 9 = Wayne – beer, Ruby – amaretto coke

So off it was to the final pub, just full of TBs!.

Flugel-tastic!

And then I got smashed. I blame mark firstly for introducing me to baileys, I must have had 5 of those, and then wayne for giving me flugel, I think we had 4 each (and I still have the bottles in my bag!), and then myself for letting me do jaegerbombs. No wander I was para…..lol, only joking.

I think I stopped thinking at this point. I don’t know what happened afterwards, but I think now’s a good time to apologise for my behaviour.

Apparently I got Lauro in a headlock? I’m so sorry lauro!!!..i didn’t mean it! I don’t even remember it, but I think it was after you took that picture of me smashed against Wayne…lol.

I remember eef helping me out a lot too. I think she kept shoving water down my throat. Lol

And then all the other people who came and helped out. Especially Marcel, who gave us a bed to stay in, but I kept him up literally all night, and he eventually had to lock me in the room.

How many you got there then?

But most importantly, I have to thank Wayne, for putting up with my irrational behaviour, and for keeping his cool and not leaving for those 3 hours I lashed out at him. Bless you Wayne. I’m sorry.

Well Wayne told me everything that happened the next morning. I just remember getting up from the floor and thinking ‘Where the hell am I?’

We got up at like 6am, and took the train to the airport. Lauro, Hanie and Johan were taking a train at about 7.15am from the airport, so we decided to go along with them. Better late than early! But having said that, knowing our luck we still nearly missed our flight again!

We were in McDs having breakfast, and Wayne was telling me what I’d done while para, and at one point he checked his phone and it was 9.

Lauro and Me being stupid

We did sleep on the airport floor though, which was pretty comfortable, until we were told to get up by a guard.