Sisters in Europe, part two..

Welcome back, folks! Now if, unlike Warren, you bothered to read my entire last blog, you will know we left off in Valencia, Spain. After a very stressful few days of partying and beaching, we were more than ready to finally head to Italy and see what all the fuss is about! I'll admit, 90% of my motive to go there in the first place was the food. I had already eaten so much pasta, pizza, lasagne and gelato in my mind that I almost gained 10 kilos just thinking about it!

Our taxi ride to the airport was among the best I've had in Europe. I try and avoid taxis because they can be expensive and slow, but we had sunburnt shoulders and really heavy backpacks and our only other option was walking 10 minutes in the blistering heat to catch a train. Ain't nobody got time for that! Our taxi driver was so cool, he blasted the radio and joined in with our terrible renditions of whichever song was on at the time. He didn't speak a word of English, but if anything it made him cooler.

We had to wait forever and a day to check in for our flight, but once we got on it the 2 hours went pretty quick. We were sitting next to a Spanish guy who we discovered went by 'Alejandro.' Naturally I started singing the song of the same name by Lady Gaga, which he absolutely despised. But he gave us a quick Italian lesson, so we liked him anyway.

My very first memory of Italy was the extreme sport that is crossing the road. There are pedestrian crossings, everywhere. But apparently, they don't mean anything! Every time I stepped out onto one, I nearly lost a foot. By the time we got to Rome I had the technique down pat; you just walk straight out in front of the cars and hope for the best, really. If they have a little humanity in them they will probably spare you, or at the very least slow down a bit. Anyway, moving on!

Pisa is like the shoebox of Italy. It's TINY! In future, I will plan to spend between 2 and 3 hours there. That's about all the time you need to stuff your face and pretend the leaning tower of Pisa is your penis. But anyway, I booked a night at a hostel which actually turned out to be more of a hidden dungeon, the access to which required a lot of stair climbing! We got to the hostel at about 6, and the receptionist was really lovely and helpful! She DID keep a pet ferret in the courtyard of our room, but I could turn a blind eye to that. There was NOBODY in the common room, but we figured they would all be out and about and we could make some friends later. We were SO wrong!

You could literally hear a mouse fart in this common room. It was so quiet and nobody wanted to party! We still managed to find a really nice girl named Rachel from Hong Kong, and a couple of Brazillian guys who spoke a bare minimum of English. It's times like those I'm glad I speak Portugese so well.

We all went out to dinner together, and this is where the fun started. The food! I was so damn hungry by this stage, and all I wanted was anti-pasto, pizza and pasta in my mouth. It did not disappoint. What DID disappoint, though, was the Pisa nightlife or lack there-of. I wasn't expecting huge things, but the whole town kind of just died at midnight. We decided to call it a night because we really didn't have much choice!

The next day we took a bus to the beautiful coast of Pisa. There were a lot of people on the bus that were dressed for the beach. So we thought we should get off as soon as they did. But then as soon as we saw water we panicked and got off the bus, but nobody else did. It became apparent that the actual beach was a little bit further away. It ended up being a blessing in disguise though, because we found this beautiful secluded section of rocks that we were able to spread out on. There were other people there of course, but it was still like having our own private beach! In fact, I'm not even sure if we were allowed to be on there in the first place. I was half waiting for someone to start screaming at us in Italian to get off their damn rocks!

Once again we were starving hungry and decided to try and find some food. It was IMPOSSIBLE! There were a lot of restaurants, but none were open to serve lunch. We waited well over an hour until we could eat back in town, and it was SO worth it. My first lasagne in Italy, I'm drooling just writing about it. And Italy has the best damn water in Europe that I've found so far, and it was SO cheap!

After lunch we decided to go and have our way with the tower before our train to Florence. I think the photos speak for themselves; need I say more? Our mother was extremely proud to say the least. She should also be proud that we managed to get such nice photos without being caught by the Pisa Police; that's right, standing on the grass surrounding the tower is illegal! We are such bad asses. Possible arrest #56, avoided.

We collected our bags from the hostel, which was still as quiet as ever! I wasn't all that fussed with Pisa; it's fun to play with the tower and the beach was serene, but the people we met weren't that friendly and it just wasn't an exciting place to be.

After our 'night out' in Pisa turned out to be a big flop, I spent what felt like hours trying to find good and reasonably priced accommodation in Florence for the weekend. The problem was that we were originally going to Venice and changed our plans at the last minute; the good ones were either taken or way too expensive. I ended up booking one called 'The Youth Hostel' for 20 euro a night that seemed super close to the city and like it would be a great place to socialise and meet new people; after our Pisa hostel experience, I was keen to check this one out.

Maybe it was the fact I was running on empty, or that I'd read the reviews of what seemed like hundreds of hostels, OR that I'm just simply an idiot. But we were very quick to discover that the Youth Hostel was not all it seemed…

The bus ride there was a nightmare. We were standing the whole time, with our heavy backpacks and then some. I kept thinking 'this must be our stop, this one, this one.' Ten stops in and I was becoming rather worried. A really nice British lady could obviously see we were confused and asked if we were going to the Youth Hostel. Jackpot! She knew exactly where it was and even though it was out of her way, she offered to show it to us. We said 'so, what's it like there?' and she replied 'well I've never stayed there myself, but it's in a beautiful old 16th century building. Everyone there is really friendly and it's great to meet new people.'

Well, well, well. Do I have a bone to pick with Alejandro or WHAT! In our Italian lesson he failed to mention that 'well I've never stayed there myself, but it's in a beautiful old 16th century building. Everyone there is really friendly and it's great to meet new people.'

is Italian for 'It's in the middle of effing nowhere on the top of a huge hill that you have to lug your bags up, only to be greeted by the grumpiest staff ever and have people look at you like the plague when you try to start a conversation.'

She may have been an extremely lovely lady, but she was very misinformed about our accommodation. It got worse when we got to the rooms; the whole place felt like a mental hospital. The hallways were wide and quiet, the ceilings were tall and the rooms had no character. I actually CRIED when I got into my room. Lauren said 'it's okay Kate, we just have to make the most of it.' And she went to find the shower. I could tell she was just being nice, and secretly hated me for finding such a crappy hostel. We decided to get out of there ASAP!

We trekked it down the big hill and tried to find our bus stop. Despite a few 'ciao Bella's and directions from some locals, we still had no idea where we were going! Our next best bet was to wander around until we found a cab to hail; but with one car driving past every 5 minutes this plan also failed. I was getting so frustrated by this stage! We were in FLORENCE, this is where the cast of Jersey Shore lived for one summer, we wanted to PARTY!

As we were wandering around aimlessly, we heard yet another 'ciao Bella' from three guys across the street. I like to have my fun with them and say hello back, so I did and we kept walking. We reached a set of traffic lights when a car pulled up, and the same three boys were in it! They asked us where we were going, and we told them we wanted to go to the city.

'You're going the wrong way!' said the driver.

'We know, we are looking for a cab.'

I've always found Italian guys really sleazy and full-on; we met the exception! He called us a cab to exactly where we were and made sure we were safe. It was really nice!

SO, we caught a cab to a different hostel in town that I remember reading reviews about. Loz had already decided she wanted to stay somewhere else, her shout, and I wasn't arguing! So we decided to ask for a bed at a place called PLUS Florence. Thank God they had two available! They weren't in the same room, but we didn't care. We were finally somewhere with a lot of atmosphere and really nice staff.

We wasted no time getting down to the common area/bar to meet some friends and begin our night out in Florence. There was actually a Topdeck tour staying at PLUS as well, so the place was chocka block full of Aussies! We ended up making friends with a guy called Pat and his mates, and tagging along with their group as they headed out to a Karaoke bar; we managed to snag a table and they served drinks to your table; perfect! I always think of the Exchange when I hear the word 'Karaoke,' I can't help it, there's no place like home! Things were a little different here, there was no VB on tap and there was definitely no Karaoke Kev, but it was still a great night.

The next day we had to go and rescue our bags from the Youth Hostel, which we had by this stage dubbed 'the Pooth Hostel.' Many, many jokes were born from this misfortune! We booked a walking tour through the hostel for later in the day, and caught the disgusting bus again, still in last night's clothes with nothing but our handbags like the Class-A ladies we are. It wasn't all bad though, a couple of the girls in the room gave us their spare tooth brushes to use. Thank GOD!

Once we FINALLY got to the hostel, half the day was already gone! There was an elderly gentlemen 'cleaning,' who could be described in no other words than 'Argus Filch.' He started mumbling at us in Italian, because I don't think we're supposed to be in the rooms between 10 and 2. But there was no way I was waiting around there until 2; we ignored him, grabbed our bags and checked the hell out of that place! We had booked 2 nights here but luckily they only charged us for one; we still paid 40 euro for our bags to have a little sleepover, but it was a small price to pay for an awesome night out in Italy!

We checked into PLUS hostel again and decided to waste no more time in getting out and exploring the city before our walking tour. Florence is home to the most beautiful cathedral, and building, I've ever seen in Europe. It is simply stunning, a huge intricate work of art like I've never seen before. It's only my opinion, but I found it absolutely amazing!

We were well on time for our walking tour and grabbed some more amazing food before it. I don't remember much from the meal; all I know is that there was pasta and it was GOOOOOOOOOD. We were at the meeting point with plenty of time to spare, so we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And I walked around the WHOLE massive block looking for our group, but they weren't there! I was pretty annoyed, as you would be. Because we'd paid for a walking tour that didn't even show up! So, we decided to drown our sorrows in some more gelato and well-earned retail therapy.

After that, we returned to our hostel to see what was up with our walking tour! I showed him where our map had been marked, and he said 'oh no, that's not the right place, THIS is.' And pointed to another spot on the map, which was in fact already marked. Both Lauren and I were kind of WTFing it at this stage, as in why the frig was our map marked in two places?! Then it hit me…

'Ohhhh.' I said, with a guilty look on my face.

'What. What did you DO.' Said a very tired and exasperated Lauren.

'I may or may not have coloured in the wrong part of the map when I was bored before.'

Now I like to think of my baby sister as quite a calm person (she gets it from me), but I have a feeling that if we were alone in the room I wouldn't be here typing this today! You know what they say, if looks could kill I would have been in SERIOUS trouble. Possible stuff up #568, NOT avoided.

We were staying in the same room as the night before, so we had the same room mates, twin girls from Australia named Emily and Chloe. That night we headed down to the bar with them for some drinks again, and being a Sunday it was significantly quieter than the night before. But there was another top deck group staying there, so we joined in with them. They were a little odd, but they made for decent drinking buddies none the less. We also found a pair of American girls who were heading out later on, and Loz and I were keen for round two in Florence so we all headed out together.

We started walking, and the two American girls were powering ahead. In the middle was me and this really cool American guy named Ken, and tagging behind was Loz, Emily, Chloe, and a British guy named Charlie who Emily was in the process of tuning. I was trying to keep sight of the American girls, while at the same time trying not to lose the stragglers. We ended up losing them though, and then Emily had the hide to blame ME! Sorry, Em-Em, but if you want to walk like a snail because you're too busy chatting somebody up, then prepare for the consequences!

We ended up finding them anyway, and after all that walking we ended up at the SAME DAMN BAR from the night before. I wasn't overly impressed about that because I wanted to try something different; but it was a Sunday and this place was pumping so I didn't stay mad for long. We had a lot of fun and trekked home in the wee hours of Monday morning.

The next morning it was already time to move on - to the floating city! Florence was a healthy balance of success and failure; I was ready to see something new. The train ride was a quick 2 hours, and we got some amazing views crossing the bridge into Venice.

Once we arrived, we needed to take our bags into the luggage drop off. The line was HUGE and it was lunch time, so Loz and I only had one thing on our mind. We got to almost the front of the line, about 7 people deep, when the Italian men behind the desk started yelling 'it's full, it's full, go to the other one which is a 5 minute walk from here.'

First of all; it was clearly NOT full, there was still plenty of room for everyone's bags.

Second of all; 5 minute walk my arse! We headed out of the station and turned right, and 20 minutes later arrived at this tiny little luggage storage place. Our overnight train to Rome was at midnight, and this place closed at 9pm. So we paid 14 euro for our bags to stay 8 hours there; so far I think we'd spent more on the bags accommodation than our own!

As much as Florence was a complete s*** fight and very disorganised; I'm still glad we decided to go there for 2 nights instead of Venice. Venice is an extremely beautiful city, but it's also tiny! In my opinion you wouldn't need more than a day there. The canals are gorgeous and the gondola driver men are the cutest. We FINALLY got to have some lunch, and we stuffed our bags full of the free bread for our train later that night. It's not scabby, it's efficient.

We then took ourselves on a little tour of the city. It's an amazing place with a lot of personality, I literally felt like I was floating all the time! We were walking around the canals, when a particularly handsome Gondola driver asked if we wanted a ride. We said we would love some, but we had to get some cash out first. So, he pointed us in the direction of an ATM '5 minutes that way' and said he would wait.

I don't know what's up with Venetians and their sense of time, but once again it took much longer than 5 minutes to locate our subject! And by the time we got back, he was gone. I was more than a little upset, because he said he was going to let me wear his hat and he was extremely good looking! Nonetheless, we found another Gondola and some nice cheap wine as well. It's a bit of a rip off; 80 euro for a 40 minute ride. But you can't NOT do it when you're in Venice. And if you get a cool Gondola man like ours, he will even tell you some of the history behind the city.

We filled in the rest of the afternoon with some shopping, then picked up our bags and made our way to the edge of the city to watch the sun set. It was such a beautiful view, and an easy one to find. I would recommend anyone going to Venice to watch the sun set there. We laid on our backpacks, dipped our feet into the water and just relaxed before going to get some dinner.

Our waiters were very good looking and entertaining to top it off. They charged our gadgets for us, we had some amazing food and we were off once again, this time to the eternal city of Rome!

Our overnight train was only 6 hours this time, so I just booked the basic seats and didn't worry about a bed. The seats were quite comfortable, and Loz and I were opposite each other so we laid right out with our feat on each other's chairs. But there was an Italian guy in our compartment who didn't want to turn the light off, because he needed it. He was quite nice, and it wasn't the end of the world because we could pull the curtains over our faces.

But THEN, his friend hopped on the train a couple of stations later. There are few things more annoying when you're trying to sleep than two Italian men talking loudly and quickly. It was around 1:30 a.m. this stage; me, Loz and the other two ladies in the compartment were quite clearly trying to sleep. I asked them nicely to stop talking, so their idea was to tone their voices down only a little bit. Not only this, but the whole compartment was like an oven; Loz and I were sweating like pigs and completely exhausted!

I decided to go out into the corridor and try my luck at sleeping there. It might sound weird, but I wasn't alone. I laid my beach towel out, used my small backpack as a pillow and covered myself in a blanket. It was significantly colder out here, but also very noisy with the sound of the train! As I was finally drifting off to sleep at around 3a.m, the ticket inspector decided that it would be an excellent time to check everyone's permits.

I ended up going back into our compartment eventually, and the Italian guys were still talking! I had completely lost my nerve by this stage and simply asked them to please, shut up! Luckily they got off the train a couple of stations later, and then it was just Loz, myself and another lady. So we were able to spread out completely and FINALLY get some sleep.

We rolled into Rome at about 6:30a.m, so our rest was short lived. We were both completely running on empty by that stage, but we trekked it to our hostel, dumped our big heavy backpacks and took a much needed shower. And then I went back to the train station to meet a very special friend of mine that I had met 7 months previously in Ireland! Rebecca was staying with her Grandparents in a small village in Italy and made the journey to Rome for the day to see me. The poor thing had been relaxing on the beach for 2 weeks and was so beautiful and brown, I was super jealous but it was SO nice to see her!

We went on a free walking tour of the city; Rome is up there with the most interesting places I've been in terms of history. And it's definitely the most impressive in terms of architecture. So much went down in Rome, I was glad we had 3 full days there to take it all in! During the tour, we were in the Pantheon when a complete stranger approached me and started preaching. Why does it always happen to ME!? He was making me feel guilty for being in the temple and not appreciating it. Well Mr Weird Preacher Man, I'll have you know that I DID appreciate the Pantheon, Religion and all.

We had a lot more luck with our hostel in Rome, it was the party place! Plenty of people there and lots happening every night. We had planned to go on another free tour that afternoon, but after falling asleep several times on the bus back we decided a quick nap would be our best bet. Only I've completely lost my ability to nap since living in Europe; I used to be the nap Queen, it was a part of my daily schedule! So I left Loz to it and prepared for the night.

We decided to do a 'Roming by Night' tour, to make up for the fact we didn't do the afternoon one. Rome is such a beautiful city by night; we saw all the main sites including the magnificent Trevi Fountain. I would interest you with all the history, but I can't remember it myself! Let's just say Rome is amazing at night time and leave it at that.

By the time we got back to our hostel at 11:30, it was off the chain! The bar was packed and the music was pumping. We ended up meeting some awesome Aussie girls who were hanging out with some equally awesome American guys. We were exchanging travel stories, and because the top bar had closed I went downstairs to get another drink for Loz and I.

When I came back up, there was an addition to our group. A kind of Sri-Lankan looking guy from Australia whose name I can't remember, so let's just call him Weirdo. Anyway Weirdo introduced himself and at first I thought he was okay, then as I was continuing my conversation with one of the Aussie girls about Venice, he butted in and said to me 'my cousin was in Venice for 3 days, and she got TEN business cards from guys.' Cool story, Weirdo.

Anyway so he kinda disappeared for a while and Loz said to me 'oi, did you meet that weirdo from Australia?' And I was like 'yeah, what a weirdo!'

She then proceeded to tell me that he said to her: "Wow, you're so cute. I haven't smiled like this at a girl since I got to Europe. It's a shame you're so young, because I probably would have given you the best night of your life.' He is extremely lucky I wasn't there to hear that, because I probably would have given him the LAST night of his life!

Loz, myself and our new friends made our way to the downstairs 'nightclub'… A.K.A. a dance floor smaller than Fog's with the worst DJ of all time. But we made our own fun, we all formed a circle and everyone had to choose a dance move. Then, you had to dance your move in the middle of the circle and then somebody else's move, and then they had to come in and so on. Loz's move was chosen quite a lot. If I could describe her magnificent move in words, I would. It was all going really well until who should dance their way into the circle uninvited, but Weirdo!

He didn't even TRY to get the concept of the game, he just started dancing his dumb moves and barging everyone else out of the way. Then he was trying to feel up every single girl in the place! Luck was on our side though, because he wasn't staying at the hostel and you had to be staying there if you were downstairs. So, I went and found security, which kicked the stupid creep out. And his final parting words? "SHE WAS TRYING TO CRACK ONTO ME!" Yeah right Weirdo, you wish!

The DJ continued to play his crappy songs, but we were having a great time anyway. Loz was wearing my 'lucky dress' and every man and his dog was trying to get with her. I would watch them get rejected, wander around for a bit and then come to me looking for some lovin'! Dude, I just saw you try and hook up with my little sister, get the hell away from me. So many creeps at this hostel! As the night came to an end, we made our way up to the common area with the group. Everyone filtered off to bed slowly, and it was just Loz and I and two of the American guys. We then realised we had a 5th wheel, an extremely suss looking Finnish guy was right behind us.

Loz was busy chatting away, and he said to me 'Should I escort you to your room?' To which I replied, 'no you most certainly should NOT.'

Loz didn't hear any of this, however, so when the two American guys asked which room we were staying in she blurted out as loud as possible 'room 105!'

Great one, Loz. We made the American guys escort us to our room instead; actually it was more of a sprint, because we had to lose this Finnish guy! He followed us, but thankfully we beat him there and he mustn't have heard which room we were in because he didn't show up. We evaded all creeps and went to bed alone!

The next day was pretty cruisy, we enjoyed a sleep in and then took off in search of Michaelangelo's keyhole. This was a real b**** to find, but so worth it! It's literally a keyhole in a door on top of a hill in Rome, and when you look through it you are blessed with a perfectly framed view of St. Peter's Basilica.

We then made a long but scenic journey to a park, where we enjoyed a nap in the afternoon sun. We were a little dazed and confused after that, and despite having a very detailed map we got lost trying to find our bus stop. An American girl was walking past and stopped to help us; she walked well out of her way to show us to the right stop! I meet so many friendly and amazing people on my travels, and it really is the little things that make a difference. On my next trip, I'm going to make sure I carry around small gifts to give to people that help me! Sometimes you feel as though a 'thank you' just doesn't cut it.

That night we had dinner next door to the hostel. For some reason, I was treated to free wine and a discount by the waiter. I didn't ask questions, though. I mean, who am I to question free wine?

We wanted to suss out the hostel night life and were hoping to find a large group to go out with, as we were not game to try and experience Rome's night life on our own! Being two Australian girls alone during the day in Italy is sketchy enough. If I had a dollar for every 'Ciao Bella' I heard, I would be kicking back with a beer right now dictating this blog to my servant.

Before we started partying for the night, though, we were in desperate need of a shower each. The last time I saw Loz after dinner, she was leaving the room with her shower stuff. The next time I saw her, she was carrying a bucket followed by a security guard carrying towels! That's right, my very special sister flooded not one, not two, but THREE floors of the hostel. I could be honest and say that the hostel's sub-par plumbing was to blame, but it's much funnier to blame Loz. I can't take her anywhere! Possible stuff-up #1045 - NOT avoided.

We ended up just staying at the hostel and playing some beer pong down stairs before the DJ came on (a different one this night, thankfully). And I was also thankful that Weirdos numbers 1 through 2 were not there! It made the night much more enjoyable knowing we wouldn't be followed to our rooms.

Our last day in Rome consisted of a huge Colloseum walking tour with a very entertaining Canadian tour guide. It's absolutely amazing to think of what went down in that place! Killing servants all in the name of public enjoyment, now that's some middle age s*** right there. Like I said, the history of Rome is very impressive and I would go back in a heartbeat to hear all the stories again!

The walking tour nearly killed us both, and it was stinking hot. I was more than ready to get on our final overnight train to Munich. It was quite an early train, 7:30p.m, but I was more than ready to sleep! I had booked 'lying places,' but they were more or less beds so I was extremely happy. That was until I realised we were sharing our corridor with 60 of the loudest and most inconsiderate Germans to grace the earth.

I considered the fact that it was only 8pm and not everybody would want to sleep so early; so I blessed the overnight train rule of 'quiet time from 10pm' and had a quick word to the Deutsche Bahn man to make sure he would tell them to pipe down. But 10pm came and went, and they were still banging around in their rooms, yelling in very harsh German and playing the worst house music ever! Eventually I got fed up. I poked my head out of the doorway and asked them nicely to turn the music off. They all looked at me like I was the plague!

Then one of them came to the door and said 'What about if I close the door to your room?'

I said (extremely rudely; I was beyond the point of being nice) 'It makes NO DIFFERENCE! It's time to go to sleep, this is an O-V-E-R-N-I-G-H-T train. Are you planning on going to sleep at any point?'

'Well yes, I'M planning to, but there's 60 of us so I don't know what the other's plans are.'

I could not believe how rude and inconsiderate they were! When the rest of the carriage is trying to sleep and they just couldn't care less. I wanted to strangle them, but alas. I finally got some sleep around 2am, which was short lived considering the train stopped in Munich at 6:30.

Needless to say, I aborted the train as quickly as possible. Extremely tired, hungry and generally annoyed by this stage! But I had a little surprise in store for the end of our trip, and I was so excited to finally tell Loz that we were not spending the weekend in Munich, but in Amsterdam! Man, was THAT secret a b**** to keep. I wrote her a cute little note and made the stupid mistake of giving it to her in a quiet café at 7:30 in the morning; she nearly screamed the whole place down when she found out!

Luckily the trains to Amsterdam were a lot quieter and we were able to catch up on some much needed sleep. We found our way to the hostel which was a complete dump! It was almost impossible to find decent accommodation where someone under the age of 17 was allowed to stay, but I knew we wouldn't be spending much time there so we dealt with it. The place was a pigsty; I am still showering myself from it!

I took Loz for a quick guided tour of Amsterdam's finest, which included a trip to the pharmacy because the poor thing was as sick as a dog! Then we went back to our palace to get ready for a good night out.

We were debating about whether or not to go on a pub crawl; they are generally overpriced and crap, but everyone at our hostel was completely stoned and on different planets! So we decided to do it; but only because they had the cutest little guy named Andy running it. It was quite a good pub crawl, but MAN drinking in Amsterdam is expensive. No wonder everyone gets stoned. I only had a couple of drinks because I was super wary of having my baby sis out in the Red Light District surrounded by the world's horniest men!

We ended up at a really awesome night club a little bit out of the centre. We were still with a lot of people from the pub crawl; neither of us had I.D. but apparently that doesn't mean anything if you're a girl in Amsterdam! We had no problems getting in, and the DJ was awesome. Later in the night, Loz decided to try her hand at getting into the V.I.P area. Needless to say this was unsuccessful, but she made friends with the security guard. Everyone else from the pub crawl eventually left, and it was just us. I was sitting on the back of a couch from the V.I.P area, when three VERY angry looking men surrounded me and started grabbing me without saying a word. It all happened very fast and before I could figure out what the hell was happening Loz had pulled me away. Thankfully they cleared off, but it became pretty clear we were some of the only girls left in the club and the safest thing would be to just go home.

As we were getting our coats, however, the same guys came looking for us! We ran for our lives and made it back to our hostel in one piece. It was the most unsafe I've ever felt in Europe, I have never had any real problems up until Amsterdam, round two! When we got back to the hostel, we stopped on the second floor so we could use the Wi-Fi as it was the only place it worked. Here we found an English girl and a few Irish guys; normally I like Irish people, but these ones were creepy with a capital C. First they asked why we were on our phones, and if we knew how to have conversations with real people. Then when we said we were going to bed, they followed us up to our floor and insisted we stay awake because it was 'still early.'

We slept half the day away which I wasn't concerned about, as it was my second time in Amstrerdam so I only wanted to do what Loz wanted to do! I suggested the Anne Frank house, to which she replied 'whose Anne Frank?'

So with that it was off to the Heineken factory! We invited along an English guy named Ollie and his sister Jess, who also happened to be the girl from the night before on the second floor. I love the Heineken factory, it just doesn't disappoint!

We decided we would meet Jess and Ollie later on, but first they had a dinner to go to. So we got ready at the hostel and had a few drinks on our own. As we were on the second floor using the Wi-Fi again, one extremely high Canadian and an equally high American guy came in and flopped themselves on the couch. The American guy was passed out within minutes, but we got to talking to the Canadian guy. He was only 21 but he looked about 30. He seemed like a reliable escort for the night, and because we didn't want to go out in Amsterdam alone we invited him along. We finally heard from Ollie, he said he was going to meet us in the Red Light District and asked us to buy him some Magic Mushrooms first. So we trekked all over looking for somewhere that sold them, and finally met up with him around 11:30.

The Canadian guy turned out to be more than a little bit weird; and he had just started a beer when we got kicked out of our first café because Ollie thought it would be a good place to eat his mushrooms. We decided to bail on him very quickly and went to my favourite bar in Amsterdam, Café Remember. I had hit the waters by this stage because I wanted to take extra care of Loz, and Olly was munching away on his mushrooms when he decided it would be a good idea to combine it with some very strong weed. We then got a call from Jess, who asked us to meet her in Dam Square so we could go clubbing. The only problem was, her brother was completely off his tree and had no idea what was going on. We managed to find her though, and when we did she was far from impressed about his state and he wanted to go back to the hostel. She was pretty angry, and for some reason at us! We paid for the taxi to and from Dam Square, and by the time we got back to the hostel she had put us in the worst mood with all her b****ing, that it had all but ruined our night.

Loz was really sick and not feeling it, but I was determined to show her a good night out in the Red Light District. We went back to Café Remember and sat down with a drink. The walk there was a little sketchy, we got a few cat calls from men but nothing to worry about.

We started talking to some Dutch guys in the café that were there for a Buck's weekend. A couple of them seemed okay; but the rest were as suss as they come. One guy couldn't stop asking us if we were alone. The other looked about 40 and asked me how old I thought he was. When I replied '40,' he said to me 'are you sick?'

Are YOU sick? You're the one who looks 40 and judging by your reaction, I'm guessing you're not. We decided to get out of there pretty quick and just go back to our hostel.

It was the sketchiest walk I've ever had; 10 minutes felt like a lifetime and I couldn't hold Loz any tighter if I tried. When I saw the entrance to our hostel I was so happy, even if it was a filthy cesspool of stoners and bed bugs.

We had a terrible time that night in Amsterdam; and I felt like such an ass hole for bringing Loz there for her birthday! I still love the city and I will always remember it fondly from my previous visit, but it just wasn't for us this time round. We were more than happy to get out of there early the next morning.

After a long 5 hours of train travel, we arrived home early in the afternoon. We had enough time to do our washing, take a long shower each and simply relax and enjoy each other's company before Loz had to fly out the next day. I couldn't believe our trip was already at an end! And I was dreading taking her to the airport to say goodbye.

I slept so well that night and all the way to the airport the next day. Apparently, I was snoring really loud and people were laughing at me, or so Lauren tells me. I choose to believe she was making it up.

We had about 2 and a half hours to check Loz in; plenty of time or so I thought. We were still waiting in line an hour and a half later; I was worried she was going to miss her flight! And when I say worried, I mean excited because it would mean she could stay longer. But unfortunately, we finally got through check-in and we had to run to customs and cut our goodbye very short.

I had the most amazing time with my sister, I wouldn't change any of it for the world! Having said that, I was beyond exhausted when the trip came to an end and I knew I needed one thing and one thing only; to relax! So I flew myself back to Spain to spend a week with the boys and that's exactly what I did. I stayed with Oscar's parents in Santa Maria De Plautodera, where I had my own little room and bathroom and it was quiet and clean. I'd like to write a whole new blog about it, but really all I have to tell you is that I swam in the pool, walked the dog, sun-baked and went to the beach. And I caught up on A LOT of sleep. It was exactly what I needed to end my holiday before going back to Germany and seeing my host family again.

So now I'm back in Germany enjoying the last days of European summer! I'm laying low for now; trying to save money and focus on my health and wellbeing. As much as I love travel, a break is lovely! My next trip is Oktoberfest in a couple of months, which should be an interesting blog I'm sure! I cannot BELIEVE it's only 4 months until I'm home; very excited but nervous because I know how quick it will go.

Until next time lovers and friends,

Kate