Day 3 interrailing - Travelling to Berlin

Day 3 was the day we were leaving Amsterdam and travelling to Berlin. We had most of a day still in Amsterdam however as we had had to check out in the morning we had to carry our bags with us so we decided to have a chilled out day in Vondel Park where we could dump our bags and take it in turns to wander round and find food. As usual I was starving by the time we got to the park so was desperate to search for food, this is a more difficult task as a vegetarian. I wandered around the streets trying to sniff out food whilst the carnivores happily munched on hotdogs. I loved Amsterdam and I think one of the main reasons is because I could wander around the streets with no shoes on and no one looked at me funnily, I've tried this England and lots of people really do look at you like you're crazy. I guess maybe they just assume you're high in Amsterdam.

Most of this day we were sort of just waiting to go and get the train to Berlin so nothing too exciting happened although there were a few interesting points to the day. Milly's French cousin, Louis, is living in Amsterdam so Milly arranged for him to come and meet us in Vondel Park. When he arrived (on his bike like all the Amsterdamians) I asked him if I could call him Loulou, he said I could but I think he thought I was a bit odd for asking considering we had only just met. We all chatted for a while, mostly about what we thought of Amsterdam and Louis told us about how he works for a pub crawl company which is mostly fun but sometimes hard work because you have to be excitable even when you're not feeling it. After a short while I left to find food and when I returned Louis had gone, leaving behind a load of pub crawl leaflets.

As per usual there were some oddlings in the park that talked to us. One man came up to us and asked us if we wanted some postcards. I pretended to be asleep so he wouldn't bother me as he handed out postcards about homeless people. On the the postcards had a picture of a lobster on it and had some writing next to it comparing the lobster to a homeless person, weirdest postcards ever.

Another man, bless his cottons, came up to us to try and sell us refreshments from a cool box. He was Australian but lived in Amsterdam. He told us how he had lost his job and needed to pay his rent so was trying to sell drinks and chocolate bars, I felt sorry for him but not sorry enough to buy anything.

Later in the day we made our way to the train station by tram, when we got there we were panicked, trying to find the correct platform. We also managed to lose a few people as they wandered off in different directions to try and find the platform. Whilst this was going on, those of us with inter railing passes rushed to fill in the details needed as we thought we would have to before we got on the train. We were panicking for absolutely no reason. We got to the platform in plenty of time and didn't actually need to fill in our interailing passes before we got on.

When we got to the platform we saw two girls sitting on the floor, they must have noticed our wrist bands or something because they asked us if we were inter railing. We all decided to sit down and ended up chatting to these girls, Abi and Bryony. They were also interrailing but just the two of them and for a month, they were taking mostly the same route as us but that seems to be a common route with interrailers in general so it was not too surprising.

When we got on the train we hadn't booked seats so we quickly searched for seats near each other. I sat next to Mill. Abi and Bryony sat across the isle from us so we got to talk to them for some of the journey. At one point we decided to play cards with them in the isle which was a bit tricky especially when some one wanted to walk down the train. We never managed to finish our card game because there were too many interruptions.

Whilst we were interrailing Milly was thinking about getting her nose pierced so Abi told Milly about her piercing. She told us a strange story about how she thinks a man stole her nose ring in Amsterdam, suggesting he did so because it was worth a lot. I don't quite understand how he managed to take a metal ring out of her face without her noticing but hey ho.

The train journey to Berlin was fairly uneventful and felt really short although it took 4 hours. When we got off the train we said bye to Abi and Bryony and went to find out how the transport system works in Berlin so we could make our way to our hostel. We also all needed food so we separated into two groups, one group wanted to eat McDonalds, the other wanted to go to a shop called "Back Werk". I was in the Back Werk group. We had a very nice meal, the shop was like a bakery and sold warm pizzas so I had my third pizza of the trip that night but followed it up with a healthy fruit pot, in which I discovered a new type of berry I have never seen or eaten before.

The others took ages to get their food, once they had finally finished and returned to our meeting point we began to make our way to the metro which would take us to near our hostel.

Interrailing- Day 2 Amsterdam

Milly, Jenni and I got up super early with the intention of visiting the Anne Frank house and trying to beat the long queues. We had been told by a few people previously that the best way to miss the queues was to arrive very early in the morning. We woke up at 7:45 and ended up getting to the house at around 8:30, the air was cold at this time in the morning and we regretted not wearing more clothes. To warm our selves up we decided to go, one by one, to a shop near by to buy hot drinks, I have to say the tea was very expensive but I suppose that is because it is so close to the Anne Frank house. We had to go one by one into the shop so we would keep our place in the queue, which, despite it being early in the morning, was very long. It took us one and a half hours to reach the front of the queue and finally get in to the house.

Inside the house everything felt calm, we began by walking though a room with pictures and quotes from Anne Frank's diary on the walls. I liked reading the quotes because they show how normal she was even in the most unusual setting, which also makes it more real, It is easy to think that, however horrible her situation was, it is a distant story that could never happen to ourselves. In fact it wasn't that long ago and I don't think there is any reason it couldn't happen again. One of the saddest things, I thought, was how she talks about not being able to open the curtains, so they were not really able to see daylight for the duration of their stay in the house. In such a small space it must have felt claustrophobic even with daylight let alone without. 

We left Anne Frank's house to find the queue had doubled from when we joined it. In the gift shop we heard a man ask one of the staff "is it always this busy", she replied "yes, everyday". It is so wonderful that people, so many people, from so many different places and backgrounds visit the house everyday so that it takes 2 hours or more to queue, in fact, despite the long queues, people still visit. I think that really shows the good in the world. 

Jenni, Milly and I headed off for lunch, we got on a tram and decided to get off anywhere that looked like there might be a place to eat. When we got off the tram in an unknown land we walked for a while, lots of places were closed, but eventually we found a little cafe on the corner of a road. We ordered paninis and sat outside, we noticed that the people of Amsterdam, whilst they are lovely, love to stare. We don't really know what is so interesting about us that makes them want to stare but whatever it is, it's very interesting. Whilst we waited for our paninis and ate them a few people watched us, I just wish I could speak Dutch so I could understand what they were saying. The Paninis were wonderful, whether that was because we were starving or because they were genuinely fantastic I will probably never know. During our lunch we noticed that the road near by was rising up from the ground so that it was vertical, being something we have never seen before we all stared at it in amazement whilst the locals went about their daily business as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, of course it hadn't in their eyes. We must have looked like such tourists! 

After our lunch we made our way to Vondel Park as there had been talk that we would all meet there at 2 o'clock, after the others had finished their walking tour. Vondel Park was lovely, we only discovered a small part of it that day but what we saw, we liked. It was full of people cycling and chilling on the grass. We waited for the others to turn up or communicate with us for a while but when they didn't we called them, Tesni had actually texted me, unfortunately my phone had run out of charge. When we called them we found out that they had taken too long to get out of the hostel so had missed the 11 O'clock tour which they were planning to go on. This meant they couldn't meet us in Vondel Park because they were going on a later tour. At this point we decided to make our way to the Van Gogh museum which is in walking distance of Vondel Park.

We followed signs to the Van Gogh museum and still managed to get lost. We did work out the directions eventually, walking through the Rijksmuseum archway towards the Iamsterdam sign (which we later climbed on) and across a park. We made it to the Van Gogh museum which I had been excited to see for months before our trip and were surprised to find such a short queue, it took us only about five minutes to get in. We were slightly annoyed that we had to pay to get in because we are 18 but it was worth it. When we got inside we had to go through security (like full on air port security with a metal detector machine and trays to put your bag in), the security man said we couldn't bring in bags so Milly and Jen had to put theirs in the cloak room. We got through security fine, no bombs were detected, so made our way to the first room of paintings. What I love about Van Gogh is he seemed to see movement in the world that other people don't, even his skies look alive and full of emotion. 

We took quite a while to walk around the gallery. I was intrigued to see some of Van Gogh's paintings that are unlike the style I would recognise as his. It was also nice to see paintings by some of Van Gogh's artist friends. I like the idea that he had a group of artist friends and they all gave each other paintings they had done and even painted portraits of each other. At one point, when walking around the gallery, Milly went slightly mad for no apparent reason. She was running around laughing, she laughed into Jenni's shoulder so it looked like she was crying, she wasn't, it was odd. Milly calmed down eventually before we left the gallery. Once we had left we decided to sit in the park area near by, Ellie (a friend from school) had texted Milly saying she was in Amsterdam at the same time as us, so her and Libby came to meet us in the park. We chilled for a while whilst trying to find out what the other part of our group were doing. We wanted to go and have dinner in a cheap restaurant, Libby and Ellie knew of a good pizza place not far from where we were so we tried to persuade the others to come and meet us before going to the restaurant. By this point I was starving.

Amsterdam seemed to be full of interesting people, for example I saw a man carrying a bag look into a bin as if he was searching for something specific, he walked away empty handed unfortunately. Another couple of interesting people we met were two girls who we saw walking into the park carrying rucksacks, wearing hippy clothes and walking boots with pink and blue hair. We decided we liked them so Milly waved at them and they waved back, confused. Milly went over to them after a little while to explain why she waved and eventually we all joined them to have a chat. It turned out they had hitchhiked all the way from the Czech Republic (coolest mode of transport ever!). I asked them if they were scared about hitchhiking because they are girls, one replied "no, because there are two of us" I told her I would still have been scared with 5 other girls. Another interesting thing these Czech girls were doing was camping in Vondel Park ( I assume illegally) for free. They were actually only interested in doing things for free. When they asked us what there was to see and do in Amsterdam and the rest of Holland we started talking about the Anne Frank house and the Van Gogh museum etc but they weren't interested in sites they had to pay to see. Basically I want to be those girls, although I have to admit the sites we saw in Amsterdam were worth spending money on.

The rest of our friends rang to tell us they were on the other side of the road, opposite the Rejkmuseum. We walked to meet them, finding them on a bridge, only to take them back in the direction we had come from, under the Rejkmuseum arches, past the Iamsterdam sign. After that I can't remember the directions to the restaurant, I zoned out and followed the crowd. 

So we arrived at the restaurant and Ellie and Libby left us there, we all went inside and sat down. We told them how many there were of us (12) and had to sit on two separate tables of 6 because there wasn't enough space for us to put tables together. By now I was actually starving, I'm not even sure how I was conscious. I think the waiter thought I was a bit strange because of how enthusiastic I was about pizza. We didn't have to wait long for the food which I really appreciated, when the food came I ate super fast (I am a very slow eater but I spent most of my time on InterrRailing feeling hungry so I ate at twice my normal speed). When we we're done and were counting out our money to pay the waiter turned down the lights so there were only disco lights in the restaurant and turned on some music. He then fetched a lady from outside and began to dance with her, she wasn't very in to it. After dancing with her for a little while he went to the back and came back in with a vacuum cleaner to dance with instead. It was hilarious.  Whilst the waiter was still dancing we left the restaurant and began our walk back to a tram stop to get home to nap before going out in the evening. 

We walked back past the Iamsterdam sign, we couldn't resist climbing on the letters. All of us started to climb except Fiona who stood like a worried mother holding everyone else's bags, watching us and telling me to be careful with her eyes. I managed to climb onto the letter d, the highest letter, despite everyone's worried exclamations, telling me not to hurt myself. This one of the highlights of the trip for me, possibly for everyone else too, I'm not sure. After having a good climb and taking some great photos, we headed back to our hostel on the tram. 

At the hostel everyone spent their usual 7 million years to get ready whilst I napped. We ended up running for the tram, we thought we would miss the last one which leaves at about 11:30. As it happened we got there with loads of time to spare, so I spent the time singing and dancing at the tram stop, which made most of my friends question how sober I was, the answer was 100% sober just high of life. We had decided to get the tram to the same area we went to the night before (Leidseplein) because a few of us wanted to return to the adorable bar we had found, others wanted to meet some boys they knew from home and others still wanted to go to the Sugar Factory Club they had heard about. 

When we arrived in Leidesplein we went to meet the boys in a steak house (stupidest place to meet ever). We got stopped outside the steak house by a group of English boys asking us to give one of their friends a kiss, he needed 18 because it was his 18th birthday. Sophie told them she wouldn't give him a kiss, when they asked why she said "what's he going to do on my birthday? come and give me a kiss? no." they left eventually and we went inside this stupid steak house. There wasn't really enough room for us to all sit around one table so a few of us sat on a different table, after a short amount of time Milly, Jenni and I decided we wanted to go to Biblos (the bar we were at the night before) so we made our excuses, I said that a steak house offends me because I am vegetarian, and left. 

When we arrived at Biblos it was packed, unlike the night before, we could barely move. We found seats at the bar and said hello to the barman then bought drinks. It was a wonderful atmosphere in the bar, I felt very at peace. Later on the Bar man gave us free shots in the cutest shot glasses ever, like tiny pint mug things. We ended up dancing in the bar and it felt more like a really tiny club, later the rest of our friends arrived and joined the dancing. There was very little room so Soph, Orla, Milly and I danced on the bar to the Back Street Boys, at one point I fell off but was fine. It was more difficult than it looked to dance on the bar due to the heavily decorated and rather low ceiling.  Milly then decided she needed more money to buy more drinks so Milly, Jenni and I headed off to the cash machine. 

There was a long queue for the cash machine, I didn't mind because I am very good at entertaining my self with singing, dancing and spinning in circles. A couple of Dutch people were laughing at me, they asked where we were from and I shouted "ENGLAND" they asked if I ever stopped talking, I said no. We got to the front of the queue for the cash machine, Mils put her card in but it wouldn't go in fully and the machine didn't recognise there was a card in it, we tried to pull the card back out and couldn't. The two dutch men behind us tried to help us get in out but also couldn't, I think the rest of the queue behind us were getting a bit annoyed, they all left soon enough. The two dutch men and another girl remained and tried to help us by ringing ING (the bank which the cash machine belonged to) they spoke to the person on the phone for a bit for us and then asked if they could speak in English I think so Milly could then talk to them. She spoke to them for a little while, I wasn't really concentrating. I was talking to one of the dutch guys and he said something about him being a robin and then asked me what I was so I asked Jenni what kind of bird I was, we went through various different birds trying to decide and it turned out that he wasn't trying to tell me he was like a bird but, intact, his name was Robin. I told him my name was Hannah and he called me Hannah Montana, I did not appreciate that.  

ING said they couldn't help Milly because she needed to talk to her card company so the dutch guys googled Milly's card company's number and rung it. Annoyingly the time of night (about 2.00 am) meant the offices were closed so she would have to wait till the morning. We stood around not knowing what to do and then decided we would go with the dutch guys (Robin and Phillipe) to a work party they were at. 

Robin and Phillipe lead us to this club which had a massive bouncer man standing guard outside it, the bouncer said "these girls weren't in here before and stopped us going in, the boys said "its okay they're with us" I felt very important.  We went into this club and almost immediately noticed people were staring at us and Robin said that was because we were the only girls in the place, that wasn't exactly true but there were very few girls. So we danced and talked for a little while but Milly felt a bit overwhelmed from losing her card so we decided to go home. We had been warned by a few people about getting a legitimate taxi so we thought we would go back to Biblos where the nice barman was and ask for his help. 

We walked into Biblos, Milly was a bit teary so the bar man knew something was wrong, he came outside with us and rung a taxi for us, he told the taxi driver where to meet us and then directed us to where we needed to go. He also told us we needed to look for a particular number on the taxi to make sure it was the right one. Milly hugged him goodbye and we all thanked him, I was actually amazed at how genuinely lovely he was. We ran off to where he said we would find the taxi and saw one, we weren't sure if it was the right one but the driver pointed at his phone then Milly's phone started ringing, this was to prove he was the right one. We got in the taxi and told him where to take us, it didn't take very long to get home, we got back to the hostel at about 3.00 am. We went to our bedroom and just sat and talked for a while, I packed my bag a bit because it needed to be ready for check out in the morning.

Here's a link to Biblos' facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/biblosamsterdam?fref=ts

Here's a link to the hostel we stayed at: http://www.nieuwslotania.nl/nieuwslotania/index_slotania.asp?taal=en

Interrailing- Day 1 in Amsterdam

 So, as I've said, we arrived in Amsterdam (Jenni, Milly, Laura and me) at around 1:30pm, expecting the walk to the hostel to take around 1 and a half hours. We had decided to make this journey a while before we went inter railing and yet neither, Milly, Jenni or I had remembered to print out directions. Luckily Laura, the only one of us who actually wanted to get a bus rather than walk, had remembered to print off directions from googlemaps.  Unfortunately they were difficult to understand and the small bits of map it showed us were not very helpful in showing street names so, perhaps inevitably, we got lost. We thought we knew the way for a while so Milly and I ran along with our bags singing Taylor Swift at the top of our voices.  All the locals stared at us, a few actually joined in or smiled and waved which I appreciated. We had a break by the side of the road because carrying massive rucksacks, running and singing all at once is tiring. Laura took the opportunity to look at the map, deciding that we had gone too far along that particular street so we turned back and were still not sure which way to go. 

At this point we decided it was best to ask someone for help, thinking that even if they didn't know the way they could use google maps on their phones. We stopped two men and asked them if they knew where a particular street was, they asked us "do you not have phones?" as if we were stupid.  We replied "it's too expensive" (meaning; using the Internet on our phones in a different country was too expensive). In the end one of the men got out his phone and searched up the name of our hostel "Hotel Nieuw Slotania", he told us the way to go but suggested we ask someone later on as well because it was quite a distance, he seemed to think we were crazy for not just getting on a tram, maybe we were. 

 We walked in the direction the man showed us for a while but we got lost again and sat by a busy road for a while, sweating and exhausted in the heat of the day. Milly turned on her Internet so I could look at the map and screen shot various parts of it so we could check the street names when she turned her Internet off. The map suggested we carry on walking next to the busy road which would have been okay if there were a footpath.  Unfortunately for us, in Amsterdam the hierarchy is; bikes, cars, foot, so there was only a bike path next to the road and as we had been told off earlier on for walking on the bike area we didn't much like the idea of trying to walk along it again. Instead I decided we should turn left walking down what looked like a nice footpath leading away from the road and then walk parallel to the road.

After walking along this path for just a few minutes we ended up in an area of flats that seemed a bit rough but I felt perfectly safe. We weren't exactly sure which direction to walk in yet again so we asked a woman who was walking with her son and she knew where our hostel was.  She walked with us for a while and then pointed us in the right direction telling us to turn right at the traffic lights and then we would see the hostel because there was a big sign down the side of the building. We didn't see the sign so asked another woman.  She said we were going the right way and we ended up walking behind her. I saw the sign first, I shouted in excitement "I CAN SEE THE SIGN!", the woman laughed at me, the others cheered up when we could see our hostel as well. 

We reached the hostel after a boiling 2 and a half hours, went to the desk and told the man that our friends had checked in earlier, he asked what our names were, we answered and he replied (as if we had got A*s in an exam) "correct!" so I cheered. He gave us the key cards, we ran (sort of) up the stairs to the first floor and found our room. 

 Our room was cosy and very clean but also boiling.  We had little energy by this point so for a while just sat, ate Pringles and slept. One of the proudest moments of the trip was fitting all four of us in to one top bunk bed. After a while the others phoned to ask if we could buy some supplies from the Aldi across the road as they wouldn't be home in time to go themselves so we did. We journeyed across a road that would later seem much more dangerous than it first appeared and entered Aldi

We headed back into the hostel through its rather grand reception and back to our room where we waited for the others to return. We again spent our time eating, drinking and generally making a mess. I think we were getting a bit bored of being in the hostel so were a little frustrated at the others for taking their time but it was okay and when they arrived we were very excited to see them. For a while we spent time in our room talking and then decided to go and visit their rooms (which were next door to each other) because some of the others were there. 

The other rooms were different to ours, one of the first things I noticed was they were a more comfortable temperature, also they both  had stairs leading down from the door to the main room which I quite liked, it adds a bit of character. I went to sit on Orla's bed, a top bunk, she told me I wasn't allowed to put my feet on it (weirdo) so I tried my best not to. Once I was settled Tesni gave me a pizza she had bought me earlier for dinner (very exciting), I ate it and it was delicious but messy. I managed to get crumbs all over Orla's bed, while trying to brush them off I had to turn round, in the process putting my feet on Orla's pillow! Not just her bed but her PILLOW! I was quickly and subtly told to leave the bed.  

Laura, Jenni, Milly and I decided we would go out earlier than everyone else because they took ages to get ready and we had already been in the hostel too long so we set out on the tram to an area of Amsterdam called Leidseplein. We went into the first bar we saw called "The Bull Dog", we went downstairs to order a drink however when Milly asked if they had gin and tonic the barman replied "no no no what do you want to smoke?", we are perhaps the only people on the earth to not only accidentally walk into a coffee shop in Amsterdam but to leave as soon as we found out what it actually was. We realised that the downstairs of the bar was just for smoking and the upstairs was for drinking and smoking so we walked upstairs. Milly and Jenni ordered drinks, they were very expensive so I decided not to although I think they probably got their money's worth because they were very strong! 

 Later the others arrived and met us out side the bar, we decided to go somewhere else because the bar had gotten quite empty. Sowmya had researched places to go earlier and had found a club called "The Sugar Factory" so we went to find it, however when we got to it, it wasn't yet open so we decided to find somewhere else. Milly and I thought we should go into the bar next door to the club because it looked really cute so we persuaded everyone to follow us.

 We went into this bar called "Biblos", it is really small so our group pretty much filled it which was good because this night it was quite empty (to be fair it was a Tuesday). We sat down and bought drinks which were a fair price, the bar man gave us a pad of paper and pen and told us we could write down names of songs and he would play them, this got us extremely excited. When we were first thinking of songs we were careful to be in keeping with the general theme of the songs that were originally playing which were older, reggae-ish songs, some one (I don't know who) broke this trend with a Bruno mars request, we were not happy. So anyway, we stayed in this bar for the rest of our evening (which was not very long because we were aiming to get the last tram home at 11:45), we really liked this bar so we decided that we would go back the next day before we went to a club. We said bye to the barmen and told them we would be back the next day. 

 Back at our hostel we went straight to sleep, Jenni, Milly and I had the idea we would wake up very early the next morning to go to the Anne Frank House. 
 

Interrailling Begins- Journey to Amsterdam

On the 1st of July my friends and I started our adventure across Europe, our first destination - Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Jenni, Milly, Laura and I decided we would travel to Amsterdam on the Eurostar because trains are the best, whilst the other eight in our group travelled by plane. The train left from St.Pancras at 8:00 in the morning on the 1st so Jenni and I stayed the night before at my Auntie Esther and Uncle Ben's flat which is about a 5 minute walk from the station. When we woke in the morning and began our walk to the station we were filled with excitement and nerves at the idea of what we were about to do, this meant we walked really quite fast with a spring in our steps.

At the station there was a little worry that we wouldn't find the other two but this was soon forgotten when we saw Laura with her dad near the security area and Milly in the crowd dressed in her usual hippy gear. It took us a little while to work out which queue to join but we did it and so waited for a short while to go through the security checks.

Once on the train we found our seats; Jenni and I sat behind Milly and Laura. We talked very loudly so the whole of the carriage had to listen even if they didn't want to. I'm pretty sure they wanted to because they all sat in silence for the majority of the journey. Later on we went to buy food, I bought a chocolate muffin and made the most chocolaty mess because I am probably one of the messiest people on Earth. I say it's because I'm artistic, my mum disagrees. Opposite us on the other side of the aisle were an American couple who we got chatting to.  They said they would be our surrogate parents because they have four daughters of their own, they were such lovely people. Ironically they warned us about talking to strangers so Milly said "It's okay we don't like strangers" later worrying that, because they were American they didn't understand it was a joke. I think they did understand.

We changed trains at Brussels so took a few photos outside to prove we'd been there and then got on our next train to Amsterdam. We found our seats (which were not together) and I fell asleep for a while, only awaking when Jenni ran over to tell me that the girl she was next to (who was from Paris) was planning on moving soon so I could take her seat which I did. Once I had moved seats the train began to fill up extremely fast. It turned out they had overbooked the train so people were having to stand in the aisle and being told off for doing so, we were lucky to have seats. The lack of space on the train meant a couple of American guys had their bags in Jenni's face accidentally, she didn't mind because it meant we ended up making conversation with them easily, they were really nice. One of the best things about inter railing was definitely the number of interesting, genuinely lovely people you get to meet on the way, it is so easy to spark up a conversation with a stranger when you're carrying a 65 litre back pack around because you instantly stick out (especially when you're only 5' 2" like me). With all the extra people on the train there were also too many bags, they were originally piled up neatly on one side of the carriage in the bag area but at some point the side of the train the platform was on changed so, in order for people to get on and off, the staff on the train chucked all of the bags away from the door on to the floor. At this point one lady got off the train with 4 bags, we're talking 4 massive 70 litre kind of bags, the staff had to help her get them off but made sure to tell her that she was actually only allowed one bag, she waved them off and continued to get off the train. I wish I knew how she managed to walk along the platform with so many bags.

So we arrived in Amsterdam at around 1:30 full of energy, excited to properly begin our adventures across Europe, and proceeded to walk to our hostel (a journey that should take one and a half hours)…

I will continue my inter railing story soon.

A Unicycle Story

When I was 15 (about 3 years ago) my mum brought home a unicycle for me which she had acquired from a college who no longer wanted it. I had been saying to her I would like to learn to ride one before hand so it seemed quite lucky that someone she new then was selling one cheaply. I was ecstatic when she gave it to me and as soon as I could I was out at the park and in the garden trying to get good on it. 

After a week or so learning I could just about ride with out holding not o anything (I was really proud). Then, just as I thought i was getting it I fell off backwards with my left arm stretched out behind me taking my weight as I hit the ground. I remember the pain was horrible and straight away my dad, who was in the garden with me, knew I had broken it. I had broken my arm twice previously so he knew what it looked like, the last two times were a bit different in that I went completely silent where as this time I couldn't stop screaming/crying. I remember getting funny looks from people in A&E, as if I shouldn't be making so much noise, and thinking "I can't help that you all came here for a cold nose and some of us have actually been injured". When the nurses saw me they gave me some tablets which made me laugh, it was weird because my arm still hurt but in a kind of funny bone way. I was x-rayed and given a bed, eventually the doctors came to tell me what was what, I was expecting them to just put a cast on it and let me leave like they had the last two times so was surprised when they told me I would be having an operation during which they would put a metal "wire" in my arm to fix the bone back in place and I would have to stay over night so they could do the operation in the morning.  Later I discovered, when I had my cast changed that the "wire" they put in my arm was more like a lamppost/captain hook's hook. The worst part was probably when they pulled the "wire" out of my arm as I was given no anaesthetic and my bones had apparently healed a bit too well. It felt like the nurse was trying to rip my bones out of my arm. 

So anyway, after this incident my dad chained up my unicycle so I couldn't use it and until this year I never rode again. Luckily my mum and I agreed that the unicycle I had was the wrong kind for me as it was a mountain unicycle (yes- people actually do that). We decided that what I needed was a smaller unicycle to learn on which my parents kindly bought me for christmas 2013. 

I have recently been spending as much as I can on my beautiful new unicycle and have now named him Ulysses after the greek and roman stories. It has taken a lot more than I expected to gain confidence again after my fall and probably am not quite there yet but it's going well and I'm sure over the summer I will become nearly an expert… maybe. At least this time i'm wearing full protective gear, wrist guards, elbow and knee pads and a wonderful toucan helmet.

Geographical Association Conference 2014

On Wednesday 16th April I went to the University of Surrey for the annual Geography Association (GA) conference, organised by the president of the GA, Bob Digby. I was't really sure what to expect, to be honest I had signed up to go purely because I saw the word "Geography" in the title.  I managed to arrive late because, despite having a Gold DofE award, I got lost on my way. This meant I arrived to hear the tail end of Professor Terry Callaghan from the University of Sheffield talking about the Arctic and the effects of climate change  on its environment. He made a good point that those who say climate change isn't real have no alternative theory so they have no argument to disprove the climate change theory. He also said that we can tell the planet's changing temperature is due to human activities because if it were due to outside influences, the stratosphere would be warming as well and, in fact, the stratosphere is cooling whilst the planet warms. I would have liked to have seen the whole of his talk.

Later in the day Dan Raven-Ellison, a Guerrilla Geographer, came to talk to us about what he does. I had never heard of Guerrilla Geography beforehand but am so glad I've heard about it now! Dan described Guerrilla Geography as a geography version of Banksy (the street artist), it seems to me that it is a form of protesting and aims to make people more aware of various issue in the world, for example; showing people how much land in the UK would be need to be used to support London's food consumption if production was moved from the various countries it is currently produced in to the UK. Dan also talked to  us about his new movement to get London to be made a National Park. Most people would not think of London as an appropriate place for a National Park due to its constant need to develop and build and and idea of the city having a lack of green space however, I think if London were to become a National Park people would start to look at and think about the city in a different way  and it could potentially persuade companies and individuals to act in a more sustainable way. Also the map below shows just how much green space there is in the capital city:

From attending this conference I have heard some wonderful new ideas and am thinking I would love a career in Guerrilla geography or at least to do it as a hobby. 

Here is a link to the Greater London National Park website http://www.greaterlondonnationalpark.org.uk  Sign the petition!

RED

This story starts with my friend Milly messaging me on an ordinary tuesday evening. I was relaxing, watching TV whilst sort of doing work when a message saying "Hannah would you like to do me the honour of coming to see Taylor Swift with me on Sunday?". Now before this I had actually asked Milly if she would like to go to the concert but we both decided against it as it was too expensive. So it was of great surprise to me when she asked, I can't begin to explain the excitement that built up in me as I read her message. At first I didn't believe it, I thought it was a cruel trick but as Milly assured me this was a genuine request I couldn't contain the feelings, Milly rung me so we could scream together.

On the day of the concert my dad took me to Milly's house (the most beautiful house ever), we drank tea and then her dad drove us to the train station. There was a big kerfuffle because the trains were't running properly so the times of arrival had changed, also Milly needed a new railcard so had to fill in a form but we couldn't find a pen or any other writing instrument. Eventually we found something after minutes of searching. We missed the first train (it arrived and left earlier than expected) so we waited for the next one.

Once on the train Milly and I listened to music, a favourite past time of ours is to show each other music we like. We wished we had brought biscuits with us because the girls next to us had loads. The train wasn't very long but once we got of it we had to get on the tube after working out which were the correct lines to get. Milly worked it out because she's good at tubes. On the tube Milly danced to the beat of the train and received various looks, many saying "I'm so sorry you're mentally ill" with their eyes. I occasionally joined in with the dancing but I'm not quite as crazy as Milly. We ended up getting on the wrong line the first time round, I think the map was wrong but any who we got to the right place eventually.

We left the underground and met a man standing outside trying to look scary, he stopped us and told us about a scary London tour thing. We told him we were poor because we are students (even though that is not strictly true), he replied telling us he also was a student so he understood and would give us half price on the tour, I must mention that this man did not look like a student, more like a 50 year old, I suppose he still could have been a student but its not the same. We both decided not to take the tour and made our way towards the Tate gallery.

We were disorientated and weren't sure which way to walk, we found a sign and thought it was point ing to over the bridge so we started walking in that direction. When we were half was across the bridge I looked around and saw the Tate on the side of the river we had started on so we turned back and walked along the river towards it. At the Tate we visited the Paul Klee exhibition (we got in for free with my dads membership card). The exhibition was really good, Milly really enjoys looking for the meaning in the paintings, her favourite was one of some flowers on a dark background because she thought it symbolised putting the bad stuff in life behind you and the happy stuff in front ( I think that was what she thought anyway). My favourite are you funny paintings, I laugh more than most.

After the Tate we journeyed on over to the O2 arena, on the way passing a busker to whom I offered a ginger nut cookie to, he refused it which made me sad. We got back on the tube and did some more underground dancing. When we arrived at the O2 there were loads of Taylor Swift fans with cat ears and Red banners, at first we were jealous of how well prepared they were and then decided we didn't want cat ears anyway. Before the concert we were meeting Milly's boyfriend Seb, I had never met him before but Milly said we would love each other and I had heard so much about him we may as well have been best friends. Seb told us to meet him at Starbucks which would be on our right when we walked out of the tube station. It wasn't. Unfortunately Seb did not have a phone so we had no way of telling him that there was no Starbucks and to meet somewhere else so we spent a while wandering around trying to find a Starbucks and eventually decided maybe there used to be one but it had been knocked down and the best way to find Seb would be to sit outside the station.

We sat on the floor and ate veggie percy pigs for a while until we got bored. I went to the cafe nero inside the station and asked whether there was a Starbucks anywhere and the told me there was one inside the O2 so we went to look their. WE FOUND HIM. Seb stood in a long coat with green paint all down his back and in his hair, Milly asked why and he told us he had been on set and lent on a freshly painted green wall. However this did not just happen earlier that day as we assumed, but happened the day before.

Seb said he wanted a drink so we went to
a bar inside the O2, we sat and talked whilst listening to the Taylor Swift that was being played continuously in the bar. We thought it was strange because most of the people in the bar did not look like Swiftys but we enjoyed it anyway. Seb had no idea who Taylor Swift is because he likes to be different and not a part of the whole consumerism world or something like that.

Finally we found our seats in the arena, we were at the front of the back but had quite a good view actually. The show was amazing, i particularly enjoyed her slower songs such as; "All too well" because they were relaxing and I was able to sit down for them, of course the more up-beat songs were fantastic swell, "22" is a favourite of mine. During the show Taylor Swift brought out her surprise guest, I have to say I was hoping for Ed Sheeran so was disappointed when she introduced Sam Smith who, at the time, I had never heard of. He was surprisingly good so I want to thank Taylor to introducing me to music I would have never listened to my self.

Finally I must thank the wonderful Milly Kidner for taking me to the concert as a birthday present, it was the best present I could ever be given.