Amsterdam day one: the coach

Hello!

Its been a while since I updated this blog mostly because I've been way too busy to even begin to find the time to update here...  BUT!!! Right now as I am typing this I'm sitting on the floor of a cruise ship at sea on my way to Amsterdam!  It's a college trip and its only for a couple of days but I found a wifi spot so i decided to take this opportunity to start write typing up the journey so far.  (EDIT: at the time of publishing I am back home in Scotland).

Before I got on the train through to college I headed off to the local pharmacy to get some travel sickness pills and to the newsagents to get a couple of treats for the coach through to Newcastle to catch the ferry.

When I got to the college, we were given our itineraries from one of our lecturers while we were waiting on the coach arriving . everyone was kind of buzzing with how excited/nervous they are. The coach arrived at 11.15 and we all closed in (I got there first and was first to get my suitcase put into the hold) then we chose where to sit. I chose sorta near the toilet in case there was a travel sickness problem but I was sitting next to Tanya.

We spent the first hour talking about random crap and tbh the topic changed so much that I lost track and I can't remember what we were talking about..

After about an hour and a half we arrived at Gretna Green welcome break .

!! welcome break !!

When we arrived at Gretna Green, we were told we had an hour to do as we wanted (food, toilets, limited shopping, you know, a normal service shop.) and I decided that, even though I wasn't that hungry I wanted some food: so I got a burger king.

I stayed in the queue for a bit, it was a small one but there were a lot of us and not too many staff members on shift, and I chatted to a few people from the other class while I waited and then ordered my usual: chicken nuggets, medium friends and a medium cola. Then I thanked the server and sat down.

The group I was with had re-arranged the tables (circular) so that we could all sit together. I took my seat and... Lived up to my clumsy reputation.

I dropped the tray.  And lost my whole cup of Cola. On the floor. Ice. And. All.

So I panicked, because I panic over everything for about 5 minutes before walking up to the counter at burger king and explained what had happened.  They were all really nice to me and gave me a replacement drink and used the blue roll to clean up the spillage (I felt awful because it was the manager who cleaned it for me, and he was dressed in a shirt and tie. I've never felt so guilty and I apologised about 10 times.)

I finished my food then went up to the counter to give £3 (not much but it was a gesture of thanks) to the assistant who told me that it was genuinely ok, that it was greatly appreciated but just put the money in the charity pot.

I just wanted them to know that I was genuinely grateful.

!! back to the coach !!

At this point it was mostly just plug in the headphones and get through the journey.

We passed signs for things such as Hadrian's wall, we passed lambs which were newborn and genuinely really adorable.

In about no time at all we had arrived at Newcastle.

It was time to check in!!

All that involved was standing in line, handing over the passport (sidenote: whenever I show my passport or any form of ID, I always try and pull the same neutral expression and idk why, it's so weird.), then we were issued with our boarding card which was also the cabin key card and made our way to security (again showing both passport and boarding card-- the person thanked me because I'd made it so the passport was open on the page with the card at the same time which apparently made it so much easier for them and told me to do the same the next day) and....  We boarded the ship!

Total journey time: about 3 hours.

Stay tuned for more of Gail's trip to Amsterdam!!!!

Until next time, be excellent to each other