Amsterdam and the Case of the stoners and the missing bicycle.

I don't have much to write about Amsterdam since I don't remember anything, but why have I got tickets to a medieval torture instrument museum and a sex museum ticket for midnight in my pocket? Also where is all my money? Some mad shit went down then? Yes pretty much.

I woke up almost each morning in Amsterdam thinking: oh my god, how did I get back, and which completely defenseless Red light district prostitute did I try to free last night, like freeing slaves or fleeing farmyard animals.
I also lost my bike in Amsterdam after getting too stoned and parking it somewhere without completely remembering where I had parked it. It took a few more joints and a canal tour offered free by Heineken to work out exactly where in Amsterdam I was that one night. Lauren had died in the hostel after eating too much cake, so i'd went for a cheeky joint in the hostel (Flying Pig....which was amazing by the way) and then for a ride into town to have a look at some prostitutes. because it's Amsterdam, and you can do that shit there. Also it was funny to see these girls think that they're luring me into their sex-boxes when I'd more than likely prefer their (male) pimp to them.
I'd went to a bar and sat down next to some American guy on his own, travelling because his friends didn't want to come to Amsterdam too, so he was stoned as fuck and pretty lonely. I took him for a smoke and a beer and from thereafter I can't remember. What I can remember though is almost riding into a canal and having to book myself a taxi home later on!

But I still had sex museum tickets, and I can't remember going there but I do have vague memories of seeing some women do interesting stuff with their nether regions, but nevertheless, I thought I was just in some sort of hell/purgatory for my sins as a gay man. Also that being said, there were definitely not enough half naked gays parading around Amsterdam......

So my first weekend in Amsterdam was bizarre, hopefully going back soon, but I think after my first few days there I need a break and a return to civilisation. Lucky for me then, i've got a massive drop back into the realisations of the modern world: I now have fuck all money until the start of January, Christmas will be fun then.

This is a painting of the wall of the 'Grasshopper' coffee shop. Yes, it's a grasshopper violating a woman.

Europe is worth it though.

Taking trips

I just stumbled again on my old blog which, written in 2009 at the tender age of 19, was supposed to 'document my life before, during and after university'. It's now the end of 2012, i'm almost 22, still at uni and reading this blog makes it sound like a million years ago. It also reads like what you would expect an angsty teenager's blog to be like. There is a lot of angry ranting posts towards my housemates in Coventry who I really hated, as well as mushy posts about my ex Kai, who i'd been going out with for almost 2 months in a weird Anglo-German LDR via the internet.

I'm not going to show the world it however, especially because there is one post where I uploaded almost-naked pictures of Kai, who was posing with only a trilby hat covering his modesty. As much as we didn't break up on enormously great terms, I'm still not that much of a bastard to potentially embarrass him over the internet especially after so long without hearing from him.

Anyways, i'm not entirely sure whether that little discovery has cheered me up or made me feel a little bit more down today, it's made me realise that i'm still not finished university, and made me think again how long left I actually still have. I don't want to be a perpetual student anymore...

Everyone promised me that i'd have a fucking billboard time in France and that I wouldn't have anything to worry about, yet here I am sat in my chambre traditionelle in just my boxers eating vine tomatoes as a 'main course'. I just cannot wait until the next installment of my uni Erasmus grant comes through in a few weeks.

It's about time to get on to the real topic about this post and something a hell of a lot more relevant to the title than moaning about my lack of wealth. I was going to be substantially more subtle about this topic because I didn't want people to judge me, but fuck it. If you judge me, you judge me. An ex-boyfriend of mine even suggested that I should go on my Erasmus year and come back to England a much more mature person, yet I can safely say that I am a hell of a lot more world-wise and a lot happier from not following his advice.

I recently took quite a lot of a legal hallucinogenic drug (legal in France) while here in Aix-en-Provence and it was a really fucked-up experience. It was LSA, similar to acid, but in grain form and it's quite cheap but still very powerful.
What I definitely do remember was the effect it had on language, making it seem much 'smoother', easier to comprehend and sound a lot more pleasant. I find it quite interesting to note how alcohol changes language ability, and without trying to sound like a PhD student or a junkie, I certainly do like to test that theory quite a lot. I turned up to my German and French oral exams last academic year quite tipsy. It worked well and I did surprisingly better than what I thought I would.

Aaaanyways, it was fun. it's only the the second time i've done something like that and the first was better, but our mistake was going outside. Meeting some friends in a packed Irish bar in the middle of Aix through Dark provençal alleyways and lots of drunk people is not the best idea for when you're tripping balls on acid.

It's not the glorified colour-changing mind trip that films make it out to be. And there's certainly no little dragons that pop out from nowhere. Lights were brighter and colours were more intense and my pupils were as big as dinner plates but according to friends we just looked really drunk. I did get very lost though trying to find a toilet in an Irish bar across the street, ended up wandering alleyways a little bit and then panicked (not a good idea), but all was well.

There's not enough letters in the alphabet for all the things I've done in the last few weeks.....

Newcastle, reverse culture shock, Greggs pasties and drugs and jazz.

Returning from Provence was a trek. Instead of taking the train from Marseille - Montpellier as was planned (due to train strikes on that exact date), I had to explore a few of my options:

1. Stay in Provence. Okay, so it's a lot warmer, the food is better and it's maybe even more of a place i'd like to live in than Newcastle, but I still really miss home, my friends and my family. This was not an option
2. Covoiturage from Aix -> Montpellier. A car share website just like CouchSurfing, where you apply to people's pre-given routes/destinations and organise a possible carshare together, for a small fee given to the driver to cover petrol.
3. Staying in a hostel in Montpellier the day before my flight. This was my preferred option, but unfortunately due to the time restrictions of actually having responsibilities for once, I couldn't miss my B2 French class. It's a shame, because it's a city I would have loved to explore.

Those were genuinely my only options around this time of year, so me and a friend from class who coincidentally booked the same flights/dates & times/UK destination chose to try out Covoiturage. It was awesome. We got picked up at 7am just outside of Aix, had a bizarre conversation with one of the passengers who was about 70 and travelling on her own until I ended up falling asleep and woke up to being poked awake when arrive at the airport.

I would recommend it to anyone who wants to save some money, or save their journey because of some higher uncontrollable problem such as striking for sure!

Coming back to Newcastle (via Leeds and York) was surprisingly different than I expected. As I approached Durham on the east coast line, I began to see snow and as soon I arrived in Newcastle all hell had seemingly broken loose.
Newcastle Central Station was packed with travellers like me, waiting for delayed services to Scotland and even more central parts of the Arctic Circle.... Buses were running skeleton services and, despite the snow and rain being pretty gruesome, there were still middle aged women prancing around in t-shirts and belts (can't bring myself to describe what they were wearing as even mini-skirts).

Such things are quite ordinary up here, but after living here for around 20 years, being away for just 4 months and then coming back, these things become more glaringly obvious and slightly bizarre.

I'm not about to bad-mouth my hometown, and home for most of my life so far, but there really are things I bloody hate about this place. I'm not giving up on it so easily though, and i'm not sure i've been totally bowled over yet by the promise of moving to Provence after my graduation.

Anyways moving on, someone commented on this blog congratulating me for not posting 'self centered' tit-bits of my travels 'like most year abroad blogs', but I have quite a few cool things to tell, so here's a self-centred recall of one of the best. I don't want to blow up my ego after all.


We went to see Mr Scruff in a nightclub in Newcastle, he's a electro/jazz/reggae/funkywhatever DJ who is absolutely amazing and I would love to see again. The nightclub wasn't too packed which was awesome, there was brownies and a tea stand as well as normal alcohol at the bar and we all dropped a whole shitload of drugs just to top it all off. The best jazz is jazz with a side serving of mandy, after all.

We danced on the bar, talked to random people about absolute rubbish and pulled out some absolutely wicked dance moves (As usual, of course) and a great night was had even though the moustaches we were gonna wear fell off for most of us!

Apart from that i've just been hanging out with friend and seeing my family again. Tomorrow it's Halloween and I have my costume sorta planned so i'll let the interwebs know how that went and if I managed not to fall into a gutter in Newcastle or not.