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.

Forget romance, Paris is darker than you think

 From my arrival in Paris I have seen as many sex shops as cute boutique cafés and restaurants and as many drunk French guys falling out of back alley bars and closet alcoholics drinking all the night through at the Sacre Coeur as i've seen couples romancing each other over a bottle of champagne or decent wine in upmarket street bars and restaurants.

Love in Paris isn't a lie, but it's not an epidemic like Hollywood makes it out to be.

I'm staying the best hostel so far in my travels; this place is the meeting place of the world. We have a large courtyard as communal area decked out with graffiti of Dali and other artsy stuff.

So i've been hanging out with a lot of awesome travellers, coming from every corner of the world looking for a slice of Paris. An awesome set of friends from New York, Sam and Liam as well as  whole heap of Dutch guys/girls and some English girls too. I've met an artsy Russian girl who smokes a lot of everything, Polish guys who hate art and a Turkish guy who was drunkenly talking about people in his area having sex with donkeys. Madness.....

I'm not really gonna post too much of the tourist tat photos that I have.....simply because everyone has seen the bloody Eiffel Tower, but I might add a small collection of photos that I like for you all to see. I've been pretty much everywhere and today is my last day. I've been so far drunk and flying high under the Eiffel Tower, right around the Sacre Coeur and Montmartre...down the Champs Elyseé to the Tuilieries and down the Seine, the artsy fartsy Pompidou Centre and today i'm going to go to the Père Lachaise cemetery to make love to Oscar Wilde's grave.

Here's me with a fucking awesome car in the Mercedes-Benz store

drunk on the Sacre-Coeur at 3am with a whole bunch of the travellers and some random dude who fell asleep. The view from this hill is the most spectacular view of Paris at night, by far.

So from Paris, i'm moving to Marseille for two nights and then on to Cannes, unless I find an extremely cheap hostel like this one in Marseille......i'm also getting really fucking nervous about moving to Aix. I guess that's just normal before starting at a new school or, in this case, a new university.

I'm having an awesome time though. I miss home, but not for bad reasons.

How to travel Europe for diddly squat (from the king of corner-cutting himself).

I have just made an extraordinary discovery. More extraordinary and life-changing than the Higgs-Boson quantum particle could ever be, and certainly more useful to the layman:

I just found out today that the Megabus has a new European service from London.
This actually brightened up my day. It was that good.

On the Megabus, which trundles through UK cities with their bright, bold, blue exteriors and instantly-recognisable fat controller mascot Sid, you will now be shuttled to Amsterdam, Brussels, Boulogne or Paris in an attempt to make crossing The Channel a much cheaper, simpler affair. Ooh la la, indeed.

With tickets from the minimum (but nearly impossible to get) £1 + 50p booking fee to anywhere on their route map, travelling Europe and getting onto the continent has never been so promising, especially to me, a skint student from the North of England who has previously found it impossible to get anywhere onto Mainland Europe without it biting a sizeable chunk of a budget.
Not only that, but every Megabus journey that i've ever taken has been an experience. I've either been stuck next to some random tramp, or there was this one time some poor doddery old lady fell asleep on my shoulder and drooled everywhere, or the dog that barked from Birmingham to London, or the stag (coach) parties or breaking down in the middle of the motorway and having to walk up the hard shoulder for miles to the nearest service station to be rescued a few hours later.

My point, is that it is an experience. I kinda love it. And the price isn't half bad too....

Actually, today I've been looking at prices for trains all the way from London to Provence and they range from £100-£200 depending on time of day/week, whereas a train from Paris to Provence costs a meagre £35.

The Eurostar is officially dead then, you'd think. You'd probably be wrong. The main reason that the Megabus can afford to keep such a route is because so many people don't want to spend a great deal of money on the Eurostar. But on the other hand, the only reason that Eurostar hasn't been killed off by the big, blue 6-wheeled monster is because the journey across La Manche takes a fuckload of time.

It takes 8-odd hours to get from Victoria Coach Station, right in the heart of London, to the drop off point in Paris which lies outside the city itself (but is still served by the RER) but as long as you've got tons of books and a comfy pillow, and you get the lucky seat next to someone who isn't a tramp or a general sexual deviant then you're sorted.....