Day 59 – London to Croatia

London

After a very rushed morning and missing out on breakfast at the hostel, I had my bags packed and ready to head to the airport.
Maybe I packed them wrong because I was defiantly struggling with the amount of luggage I had.

I called an Uber and paid him to take me to the Airport train station. It cost about £19 for a one way ticket to Gatwick Airport which wasn’t too bad.
Once I’d met up with Kara (as she was leaving on the same day as me) we hopped on the train with all our stuff and headed off to the Airport.
It was about a half hour train ride but I’d defiantly recommend using the train if you can because it’s heaps cheaper than paying for a taxi.
It takes you straight to the airport as well so when you hop off, you just need to go and find your check in desk by either walking or taking another short train shuttle to a different terminal.

Kara had to take the train shuttle as she was flying back home to Australia. We said our goodbyes and I promised I’d come visit her in the gold coast. Which I defiantly will as it’s so close to home anyways.

I had a few hours to spare so I went and got this Cornish pastry thing and sat down to eat it while I waited for my check in desk to open.
I also went and bought some UK treats to take back home with me which I’m still trying not to eat haha.

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When the Croatia Airlines desk was open, I went and checked in and got told that my luggage was a bit too much over weight. 😯
I always try to be super nice to airport staff so maybe that’s why she let me off the hook this time.
I did however have to go and take my bag to the oversized luggage drop off.

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Once that was all done, I waited around to board my plane (which didn’t take long at all) then set off for my flight to Split, Croatia.

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Croatia

I can’t remember how long the flight took, maybe about 2 hours and 20 minutes. I landed when it was dark and took a bus to the airport terminal (which is really small by the way)
And collected my luggage.

As I had lots of stuff and was tired, I took a taxi to my hostel. (It’s good to book some transport before you arrive I think) I didn’t organize anything or even research how to get to my hostel before I arrived so when I left the Airport i kind of just looked aimlessly around hoping someone would take me into town.
It probably wasn’t the best first night in Croatia.
When I got to the hostel, the street was all dark and I had no idea I was even at the right place. The building looked all closed up but the taxi driver insisted I was at the right place.
I pressed the buzzer on the Intercom and the guy at reception buzzed me in.
I walked up the stairs with my stuff and checked in at the very small reception area at Cro-paradise Hostel.

As I had booked my own room, the receptionist took me across the road to a different building and carried my bag up 5 flights of stairs.
The poor guy was like sweating and puffing carrying my stuff. I felt bad. But not bad enough to take over…
The room I was staying in was actually pretty cute. It had its own little kitchen/bedroom with a TV and they provide a laptop if you need it.
The bathroom was small but nice with good water pressure.
Not bad for like $80 NZD for the night.

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Once I’d put all my stuff down and charged my phone for a bit, I realised the Wi fi wasn’t working so went in search of food hoping it’d work by the time I got back.

No such luck on the food or wi-fi problems an hour later.
There was like no food places around, just a couple of bakeries and that’s it. I wasn’t feeling like a pastry at all, so I walked back to my room and sat on my bed watching CSI (the only program in English) eating chocolate and feeling very lonely as the Wi fi still wouldn’t work and I had no one to talk to 😥
Even when I went to get food, not many people spoke English so it was hard asking where to eat. Everything seemed to pretty much be shut and no where accepted money cards so I couldn’t really buy anything either 😦

Eventually I went to sleep to prepare myself for my Sail Croatia trip the next morning ☺

Xx

Day 55 – Belgium – London

5th October 2015

Today was our last day together on our Top Deck tour!
We left Amsterdam early in the morning and said goodbye to some of the people on the tour who were staying in Amsterdam.

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It was a bit of a drive to Belgium but we got there with a just over an hour to go off and do our own thing. A couple on our trip had booked their flights for that afternoon so we didn’t get to stay in Belgium for as long as we wanted to in case they missed it.

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Myself and the girls went off for a walk to find some food and eventually just settled on eating some true Belgium waffles haha.

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We were going to get proper food but it was all a bit too expensive.
We went to this place called Oyya for waffles and it was amazing!!

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The guy there just made the most amazing creations with our waffles.
I got a waffle with white chocolate flavoured gelato and caramel sauce and whipped cream. Soooo good!!

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We then all met back at the bus to head back to London.
Unfortunately we were stuck at the boarder to get onto the boat for like an hour.
You have to go through an immigration type thing and get your passports checked etc… and since there was a few buses ahead of us we ended up getting the 5pm boat I think.

When we got to London from our one and a half hour bus ride to the hostel (our finishing point) it was dark and raining ☔ it made me reconsider wanting to move there actually because I’m like a cat and I hate it when it rains! Also my fake tan runs which isn’t very fun 😐

We all said our goodbyes to the last remaining people when we arrived and I checked into the hostel for the second time that month.
Hostel Review Here
I planned to meet up with the girls again as Kelly & Emily live in London and Ash & Kara were staying for a few more days.

I don’t think I did that much that night. Just went down to the hostel bar for a few drinks and talked to people who were about to go on a Top deck tour.
I was all tired and they were all excited for their upcoming adventures haha.
Plus I was still sick and seemed to have caught a cold on TOP of my sickness from everyone getting sick on the bus. (Probably from me I must admit) 😷

Next blogs will be my 4 days in London
Xx

Day 54 – Amsterdam 2

I am sooo behind on my blogs.
I blame it on being sick. 😥😩
I keep sleeping in for ages in the morning and then being too busy all day to actually sit down and write anything.

So our second day in Amsterdam!
We had to get up a little early as there was an optional free bike ride tour around the city. I’m glad I went and didn’t sleep in because it was such a good way to see the city. I felt like such a local riding around on my bike haha. I just got paranoid about being hit by a car because the lanes all get so confusing!

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We had a few stops on the bike tour where our guide explained a bit about the history of Amsterdam, why things are legal here, some of the good sights etc. It was interesting listening to him and I’m happy we got to take pictures at the I Am sterdam sign!

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It was the foggiest morning though so the pictures wern’t super good. The fog made it so cold too! Biking through it, it all hit your face and it made my hair so damp. It wasn’t a terribly good hair day after that so that’s my explanation for my hair looking shit in all my up coming pictures.

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When we finished the tour, myself and the other 4 girls from my tour went and got some breakfast. Of course it wasn’t healthy 😣
There are just too many pastries and nice looking donuts to justify having s bowl of muesli for breakfast.

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I did chuck in a smoothie with my meal to be a little bit healthy.

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We went for a walk around the city after that. A couple of the girls wanted to go to the Anne Frank house so they went and lined up for that. I unfortunately didn’t get to see it because the line was soooo long!! Like down the street – wait 2 hours long. I didn’t want to just stand around when I could be exploring so I skipped it out this time. I feel i’ll be back in Amsterdam one day so I’ll definitely do it then.

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We browsed round more shops, saw some buildings and then grabbed some frites to share (Dutch word for Fries me thinks) they were so good! And you got to pick sauces to go with it.
Kara and I only got some chilli mayo stuff but went back and got a second sauce. The guy at the counter must have been trying to impress us coz he gave us more sauce for free on top of our frites but ended up absolutely drowning them in sauce from his generosity that we could barely eat them after that haha.

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I was laughing with Kara the other day about our own pictures and how it always looks like we’re wearing the same thing. It’s cold in Europe so I’m continuously wearing my Kathmandu jacket and she’s always wearing her one so all my pictures seem to be of me and her in a jacket haha!

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We split up from 2 of the other girls as Kara and I wanted to do some shopping and the others weren’t super keen to keep looking in shops. We saw lots and lots more yummy food places and oohed and ahhed over all the goodies.
It’s honestly a foodie heaven for anyone who likes sweet things and pastries.

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Eventually it was time to head back to the hostel so we could get ready for our night out. We made sure to get back around 4pm so we had plenty of time to glam ourselves up and get ready.

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I got the girls to use my MAC volcanic ash exfoliating scrub as well since I’m always raving about it. They loved it! Even if it did make our faces look funny.

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We didn’t scrub up too bad for dinner! It was like the first time on our tour that we felt we were all glammed up which was nice.

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On our way to our river cruise dinner, our tour leader stopped off at the I Amsterdam sign again so we could take a big group photo.
I may of also tried to get everyone in on my selfie stick photo too haha.

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Dinner on the boat was nice, we went through the canals and out near the harbour. The waiters served us dinner on the boat (a bit of chicken thai curry with some veges and rice) the meal was good, we just didn’t get enough of it I thought! We got free wine and beer through so it can’t complain haha.

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Once we’d all eaten and drunken our fair share. We did some speeches where our tour manager gave us some words of travel wisdom. We all gave him some cheers for being a great tour leader and then we hopped off the boat to go to some clubs.

I never really take any pictures on my phone of my nights out because my phone is horrible at taking pictures at night!
I guess I could put it on flash but it wastes the battery and everyone ends up having these white – shocked flash faces haha.

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The clubs we went to were all good, it was just our group though as it was a Sunday night in Amsterdam. A Contiki group ended up joining us at one of the clubs and I swear half of our tour just ended up hooking up with their tour. It was quite funny to watch. (I was not one of these people by the way haha)

Kara and I were the last ones from our tour at the club so we headed home in the early hours of the morning to get some sleep before our trip back to London the next day.

Thanks Amsterdam for being more than I expected!!

Xx