Last Few Days

My Europe trip is finished now and I'm back home but I need to finish writing about the last few days. We had to spend the Friday night in Rotterdam because there were no more beds left in Amsterdam. The cannabis cup was held that weekend. I think it's where all the coffeeshops compete in certain events and one of the 234 is crowned the winner at the end.

Walking towards our hostel down the streets of Rotterdam there were many modern and odd looking buildings. I, of course, was very impressed and thought they were all very cool. Holland has been, and still is, a hot spot for new architecture. But that didn't explain the fact that these buildings were everywhere. It all made sense when I found out that Rotterdam was levelled in WWII by order of Hitler. Hitler gave an ultimatum saying "give us Holland or we will bomb Rotterdam." Holland, with no other choice, handed over their country in which case Hitler bombed it anyway. Why would he do that? I don't get it. Anyway, we'll leave that for the historians to figure out

We only spent the one night in Rotterdam and really didn't need more. It was a nice city but there wasn't much to do. We did, however, have the pleasure of figuring out how to get to England. There were two options: a train, then ferry, and then train, or just a train. Sticking with our motto of cheaper is best, we chose the latter option which would take more time but was less expensive. When trying to book it though we found out that the train workers were on strike in France - they were on strike in Germany too - so we had no choice but to take the train through the Channel tunnel to London. I was excited for this because the Chunnel is a huge engineering feat and I wanted to see it. However, it was unimpressive since it was too dark inside to see anything. But at least I can saw I went through it.

Now that we made it to London we had to find our way to Kirsti's flat. She lives in Greenwich so it was a little complicated to get there. We caught the subway to a train line called the DLR but it was closed for repairs. We were upset about that but not as upset as one of the British guys we saw. He was going crazy and in the cool British accent which made it even more amusing! We took a bus to a new train and then walked to Kirsti's place after enjoying some tasty McDonald's. We met Jacki and Angela, Kirsti's friends from back home, and Kristy and Chelsea, some very cool Aussie girls. We also met the Kirtsi's flatmate Mark and his German friend Stephan. There were ten of us staying over and needless to say it was a fight for the couches to sleep on that night. Luckily, we went out to the bar that night so it didn't matter where I would be sleeping but I did manage to get the nice couch.

We basically slept the entire next day before leaving that night to go to the airport. We caught the last train from Kirsti's to the London Bridge train station where we were to catch a train to Gatwick. But the trains listed to come never came. As we were getting worried Jack called the train service and found an alternate route to the airport. Unfortunately, there were 2 trains leaving at 11:58 and we got on the wrong one. This was going to be a long night! We got off on the next stop unsure about what to do. Calling a cab was an option but instead we walked to a main road and luckily caught the last bus back to London Bridge. Now there were no trains to Gatwick left. With more luck on our side we found a bus/train worker that guided us on a train replacement bus that took us to the Blackfriar train station and from there we caught a train to Gatwick.

The story doesn't end there though. We arrived at the airport exhausted at about 2:00am and found ourselves a uncomfortable and cold nook in front of an Air Transat desk to sleep. After waking up shivering uncontrollably we eventually got our boarding passes and successfully got through security. Eight hours later we were back where we started 72 days earlier. The feeling of being back home was very wierd but it was nice to not have to carry that pack around anymore.

This will be my final post about my travels through Europe. I will still write a few more catered to people planning on going to Europe. I have had almost as much fun writing this blog as I have on the trip itself and I hope you enjoyed reading it. I like hearing people, who I didn't think were reading my blog, tell me that they've been reading it. So, for anyone wanting to hear more stories - possibly the more entertaining and better stories - about my trip I'm throwing an open invitation out there to go grab a beer or two. Send me a message on facebook, msn, or this blog. Until...I guess I can't write 'next time' here...cheers!