Paris-Amsterdam Trip 2018!! : MASSIVE PHOTODUMP, IIINCOOOMING *whump* + holiday thoughts + all the memes because I'm me

I'M BACK, BABY

DID YOU MISS ME

Hey guys!! How are you all doing? I hope you're all enjoying the summer! (Unless if you live in the southern hemisphere, then I hope you're enjoying the winter.)

I just got back from my holidays yesterday, and... God I am so tired I can't even. I've been walking and walking for hours every day for ten days and not sleeping that great half the nights and I am DEAD. I'm glad to be back home in my bedroom typing away at my laptop again after so long, I missed it... I had an amazing time on holiday, though! We went to Paris and Amsterdam and I LOVED IT (even if I was super tired lol). So now I'm back, I'm going to write a post about it! Yay!

First off, I just want to apologise for disappearing without any kind of warning, I mean I did mention in my previous post that I was going away but I intended to write another post telling you all that I was going to be away for a while, and... I didn't in the end. I didn't have time, basically, and to be honest I couldn't be bothered to.... I mean, I didn't disappear from the blogosphere completely, I have been reading people's blogs and commenting and stuff from my phone while I was away, but still. I feel like I owe you guys an apology.

Anyway, this is just going to be a massive photo-dump (I took HUNDREDS of photos. HUNDREDS) with explanations of what I was doing each day and stuff that was going through my mind. So let's jump right in!

(I guess it goes without saying that all these photos were taken by me and belong to me, so please don't copy anything without my permission)

*jumps right in*

Day 1: The Journey to Paris (i.e. living hell)

Like with most of our holidays, this holiday didn't start off all that well. Basically, my parents are completely incapable of agreeing on anything, and they keep arguing and getting all stressed about stuff, which ends up making me stressed - especially if I'm super-tired and already stressing out about something, which was how I was feeling that morning. We were running a little late leaving the house and the taxi driver was waiting outside and he was getting really annoyed for literally no fucking reason, we were ten minutes late?? Ten minutes?? Dude you can wait for ten minutes holy shit. And my dad was getting all stressed out because my mum was taking ages to finish checking that all the windows and doors were properly closed before leaving, and my mum got really mad at him for getting all impatient because, you know, she needed to check that everything was properly closed before leaving and if it takes time it takes time?? Or is it better if we left in a rush without checking anything and ended up getting robbed while we're away? ANYWAY. Something like this always happens. By the time we got to the airport I was like "I want a new set of parents where can I buy a new set of parents."

(I mean, I don't want to give you a bad impression of my mum and dad? They're actually pretty cool people. They're both really supportive and they love me a lot. It's just a pity they hate each other)

Aaaand then there was the flight. I have this total love-hate relationship with flying. On the one hand, I love being so high up and seeing those amazing views! Also, in my current WIP my characters spend a lot of time on a base flying through the atmosphere, so looking out of an aeroplane window makes me feel closer to my characters, somehow? It makes me feel inspired. But I also hate flying with a passion, namely because: the takeoff. 

My entire opinion on taking off: holyfuckholyfuckholyfuckholyfuck H O L Y F U C K. I HATE THE TAKEOFF, OKAY. I HATE IT. WITH A PASSION. My head always hurts so much?? And I always feel sick. And I stop breathing. I just. I hold my breath. For some reason. Like, ten seconds after taking off I have to remind myself to BREATHE, YOU IDIOT, BREATHE. And I keep expecting the plane to just crash straight away and I get really anxious. I just. *shudders* Hate taking off. 

I held a book in my lap during takeoff, though, and I sort of stroked it a bit, and it make me feel a tiny bit better? A tiny bit. And once the plane has levelled off I felt mostly fine. I just read a bit and listened to music and the entire flight was only about an hour, so it went by quite quickly.

Anyway, we made it to the Paris airport and somehow managed to make it onto a train that would take us to a station close to where we were staying. But we still needed to take a metro train that would take us close to our rental apartment, and that was... an experience. Basically, the line that we needed was closed that day, and we had to take a different line, only we didn't know which one, and everything was really confusing because EVERYTHING WAS IN FRENCH. I know, shock, horror, French people speak in French. This news just in: French is a real language and not something created as a joke to torture English-speaking schoolchildren. Anyway, it's a long story, but just picture us going round and round the station trying to find a train that would take us where we needed to get to. We finally made it, but God. Talk about stressful.

So we made it to the apartment at around 6.30pm and I hadn't actually had lunch yet because I'd been feeling sick up until we got off the train from the airport (I get motion sick very easily and an hour-long taxi drive followed by a flight followed by a train journey just about finished me off), by which point I started getting hungry, but I made myself wait until we got to the apartment so I could eat sitting down somewhere. And by the time we got to the apartment I was starving. I swear I was actually trembling by that point. Luckily I had a sandwich and some crisps and snacks that we'd brought from London and I wolfed it down despite it being basically dinnertime. We ended up having dinner around 9pm or something, I don't know.

And that was the travel day! I honestly hate travelling, Jesus. It's always so tiring and stressful. I love being on holiday but it would be so awesome if I could just materialise at my destination without actually having to travel and deal with everything.

It was so weird for me to be in a foreign country, this was the first time ever that I'd visited a country where I don't speak the language - I've visited Spain loads of times but my family is from there and I'm fluent in Spanish so it doesn't really count. It was so weird for me to walk down a street and listen to people talking and not understand what they were saying. And shopping at the supermarket was just a nightmare. As a child of immigrants this is probably terrible but I never fully understood what it must be like to move to a different country where you don't understand the language and fully appreciate how hard it must be until this moment.

Here are some photos of the apartment we rented! It was quite small (I had to share a room with my parents, lol) but it was sort of artsy and quirky and I really liked it:

Oh look, it's yo' fave blogger.

There was a weird mirror. I take pictures with weird mirror. I weird. I happy.

Day 2: Montmartre and the Sacre-Coeur

The next day we were feeling pretty tired from the journey, plus I don't think any of us slept that well despite being exhausted (you know how it is the first night sleeping somewhere new. Every single little noise wakes you up because you're not used to it. And the apartment was in a really old building, so it was pretty noisy) so we didn't go that far. We went to Montmartre, which was within walking distance of the flat. 

We had to walk up so many steps to get there. SO MANY STEPS. MY POOR LITTLE LEGS. I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE.

More steps holy crap.

A Parisian street, idk

The Sacre-Coeur! It was so pretty

There was a great view

The inside of the Sacre-Coeur

I'm sorry to all the tourists that I accidentally took pictures of. But there were so many tourists it was pretty impossible not to take pictures of them.

They had a Bible in comic book version I'm dying

For someone who isn't actually a Christian, I freaking love churches? There's always this sense of peace and calm in them. Maybe it's so many people going there to seek peace over the years and that leaves a sort of energy behind. Maybe it's just because everyone speaks in hushed voices and it's always quite dark and that appeals to the introvert in me. Whichever explanation you prefer.

More views

The Sacre-Coeur from a distance. I'm very proud of this photo, it looks really cool

MORE STEPS ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME

Some graffiti I took a picture of, I don't even know.

More steps.... *faints*

I bought a beret. It wasn't exactly the right kind of weather for it (it was so hot that first day holy crap) but I'll be wearing it this winter. I swear I saw people wearing berets while I was there though?? Like, how do they not die. IT WAS BOILING.

Also I bought the hat myself and I actually said 'merci' to the guy at the shop and I feel very proud of myself for this. I mean, I said it very quietly and I'm not sure if he heard but still. This is an achievement for me

Day 3: The Eiffel Tower!

The next day we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower! I was really excited because I'd wanted to see the Eiffel Tower since forever. (Okay I think I was still a bit sleepy so I wasn't that excited but still, it was exciting.)

I was surprised at how quiet the Paris metro is? The London underground is so noisy when the train is moving that you can't hear yourself think. I took the underground a while ago with a friend and we were trying to have a conversation but haha, nope, that wasn't going to happen. Plus there's the tannoy system constantly going "THE NEXT STATION IS (WHATEVER) CHANGE HERE FOR THE DISTRICT CIRCLE JUBILEE HAMMERSMITH AND CITY AND VICTORIA LINES EXIT HERE FOR WESTMINSTER ABBEY AND THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT DON'T FORGET TO TAKE ALL YOUR BELONGINGS WITH YOU PLEASE MIND THE GAP BETWEEN THE TRAIN AND THE PLATFORM" and it doesn't half give you a headache. The Paris underground is very quiet by comparison.

Oh look! There it is!!

Eiffel Tower!!

Me + the Eiffel Tower

They had this really cool fountains thing! It was super hot and you have no idea how badly I wanted to dip my feet into the water because it looked so nice and cool. I'VE NEVER WANTED SOMETHING SO BADLY. (It wasn't allowed though. Sadly.)

There were so many street vendors around this place selling little models of the Eiffel Tower, and holy crap were they persuasive. This one guy came up to us and tried to persuade us to buy something off him and we refused but the dude would not take no for an answer, he told us that he'd give us two keyrings for free and we could pay him whatever we wanted for a larger model. My dad ended up giving him five euros for it. I mean, I lowkey wanted one of those models which is why we bought it off him in the end, but holy shit talk about desperate. Later on we learned that selling things on the street like that is illegal and that you shouldn't buy stuff of the vendors, but I mean, that law can't be reinforced much because there were literally hundreds of the sellers everywhere and no-one was doing anything to stop them. 

The Seine!

... Look, I'm a weirdo, what else can I say.

The Eiffel Tower from the bottom

There were so many people speaking English around this area though? I swear nine out of every ten people spoke English. Most of them had American accents, which I liked listening to lol. It seems Americans really like Paris? IDK.

The view from the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. Yes, we climbed up it (read: we took the lifts, no way were we climbing up that many stairs in that kind of weather) and we had to wait ages on the second floor for the lifts to take us right up to the top (there were so many people omg).

IT WAS VERY WINDY UP THE EIFFEL TOWER. VERY, VERY WINDY.

Pretty views *heart-eyes emoji*

This is from the very top!

The view was amazing! By the time we got to the top, though, we were so tired of waiting in line to take the lifts that we almost just wanted to go straight back down...

Day 4: Notre Dame

Pwetty cathedwal *heart eyes*

The cathedral from behind I think

The inside

The stained-glass windows were beautiful, it's such a shame my camera couldn't really capture them :(

Some... palace thing.... Look I don't remember anymore okay, it looks pretty though?

We ate at a creperie and this cat that belonged to the owners was just sitting outside letting everyone who walked by stroke it, SO CUTE. It's a pretty good advertising technique to attract tourists to eat there XD

The Centre Pompidou, we didn't go in but we saw it from the outside. It's a very strange building. I like it.

And let's not forget the memes I made from pictures I took of the statues on the Notre Dame cathedral (if you follow my Instagram you've probably already seen these) (I think you can click on them to make them bigger and see them better):

It was so cute tho omg

In other news, I think most of my Instagram followers want to kill me for posting so much bullshit on my story, but hey. *shrugs* That's life.

Also if you're not already following me on Instagram you must fix this immediately and follow me @andrea_the_writer_person (yes this is shameless self-promo, bye)

Day 5: The Champs-Elysees

Arc du Triomphe (if that's even what it's called)

We walked and walked a LOT, after a while we stopped at this small park to rest a bit before walking some more.

Obelisk thing

We stopped at this church called the Madeleine I think? I have a memory like a goldfish okay, I'm sorry

The inside. We couldn't stay long though, because a church service was about to start and we had to leave.

Day 6: The Louvre Museum

We'd booked tickets for the Louvre for Sunday, so off we went!

The inside of the glass pyramid

We went to the ancient Egyptian section first because my mum really wanted to see it. This is some manuscript thing that is apparently the oldest record of writing or something, I'm not too sure.

I thought this was cute so I took a picture of it

Me lurking awkwardly between the two statues while my mum took the picture

Well he looks mad doesn't he

An army of zombies *screams*

This was what the ceilings looked like. I swear we spent more time looking at the inside of the building that the actual displays. It was amazing oh my god

The Mona Lisa!! I was really keen to see this painting. There were so many people looking at it though, I practically had to fight tooth and nail to get close enough to get a good photo. I would have liked to spend some time looking at it but I literally only had time to snap a few quick pics before running away before I got trampled to death by other tourists

The outside of the museum

Of course, me being me I had to make memes:

I SWEAR IT LOOKED LIKE HE WAS TAKING A SELFIE THO. He was holding up some phone-shaped thing and posing. I didn't know they took selfies in ancient Greece, you learn something new every day.

Day 7: Last day in Paris, the Sacre-Coeur and Eiffel Tower again

This was our last day before taking the train to Amsterdam and we'd already seen everything we wanted to see, so we just re-visited some places.

We went back to the Sacre-Coeur but this time we climbed up to the dome. There were no lifts obviously so we had to climb SO. MANY. STAIRS. I thought I was about to die. Also the stairwells were super narrow and there were practically no windows and I started feeling really claustrophobic, which is odd considering I'm not usually claustrophobic. We made it to the top, though, and hell was it worth it. The views were so good

I love being high up. This is something of a paradox considering I'm scared of heights, but I really freaking love looking out over a cityscape like this from somewhere high up. It makes me feel so happy.

Later on we went back to the Eiffel Tower because I wanted to see it one more time before we left.

We walked around the area a bit but halfway through my foot started really hurting, I'd gotten a small blister or something on my heel and it was KILLING ME, I could barely walk. So we ended up going back to the apartment early. I was a bit disappointed because I would have liked to spend some more time in the area, but oh well. 

Day 8: Journey to Amsterdam

We went to the station to take the train to Amsterdam quite early. The journey took just over three hours. It wasn't so bad, I had a good time looking out of the windows at the places we were passing through. We passed through Belgium which I'd never been to before, so that was fun. I listened to music on my mp3 (yes, I do still own an mp3, fite me) which I hadn't had the chance to do for some time, and I hadn't had the chance to read for a while either so I was quite glad to be able to read quite a lot of Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda on the train. 

We arrived at Amsterdam and took the tram to the hotel, don't ask me how but we almost got run over by another tram as soon as we got off, well done us *claps*. I SWEAR IT CAME OUT OF NOWHERE HELP

After resting at our hotel room for a bit we took the tram again to the city centre. I swear I fell in love with this place the moment we got there

CANALS. PRETTY HOUSES. I LOVE THIS PLACE HOLY CRAP

I love how all the houses along the canals look so random?? It looks like someone has taken random houses from different places and just smushed them together without any kind of neatness or orderliness. None of the houses match. There's this sense of jumbled mismatched anarchy about them. I swear this city's entire aesthetic is "LOL THE RULES ARE FOR LOSERS WE DON'T CARE ABOUT THE RULES AROUND HERE". Did I mention I love this place

I was so tickled by the way some of the houses were really crooked. Some of them were leaning to the side, some of them were leaning forwards or backwards, and I just. Does no-one know how to build houses properly around here.

The only part of Amsterdam I didn't like: THE BIKES. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. EVERYONE GOES EVERYWHERE BY BIKE AND THEY DO NOT CARE WHO GETS IN THEIR WAY. We almost got run over a few times. One of my friends who is from the Netherlands warned me that Dutch people love cycling and there are cyclists everywhere in Amsterdam but I don't think I fully realised how many there are. Traffic is absolutely nuts: you have bikes and cars and trams and they're all coming from different directions, crossing the road is a freaking nightmare. 

Day 9: The Van Gogh museum

One of the main reasons that we went to Amsterdam was to see the Van Gogh museum, which my mum had wanted to see in a very long time. Unfortunately you weren't allowed to take photos there, which was a shame because I don't have any pics to share with you here. It was pretty cool, we saw some really famous Van Gogh paintings like the sunflowers one and the one of his bedroom, but there were quite a lot of people and some of the rooms were actually quite small so I was getting a little bit stressed (I do NOT like crowds). 

The museum lobby, which was practically the only place where you could use a camera.

 After leaving the museum we went to a nearby park (I can't remember the name, help) and had lunch there and just walked around a bit. It was quite nice, but it was so full of cyclists you had to keep constantly looking around you to avoid getting run over, so it was a little stressful.

Day 10: Just... walking around I guess.

This day we just... walked. And walked and walked. My poor legs holy crap.

We met a friend who had lived near me for a while but then moved back to the Netherlands, it was so cool to see her again after a few months. We only spent a couple of hours together, though, before she had to leave because she was going to a concert with a friend in the evening. Still, it was nice to see her.

I took hundreds of photos that day. HUNDREDS. I'm just going to throw a bunch of them at you and run

A shopping centre that looks like a palace tbh

This seagull kept staring at us while we were having lunch, probably trying to figure out the smartest way to steal our food. We threw it some crumbs in the end.

I love this photo. It looks like the sort of thing you'd find on a postcard

See what I mean about the mismatched houses?

And that was pretty much the end of our holidays! The next day we flew back home to London. It all went pretty smoothly, I didn't freak out as badly as I did on the flight out - I think I was way too tired to freak out lol. I got motion-sick of the flight and the taxi ride home again but it wasn't too bad. I was a little bit sad to be leaving Amsterdam, I would have liked to spend more days there, but I was also really eager to get back home and just chill for a while. Like seriously, my plans for next week are to do absolutely nothing. I want to read out in the garden and keep working on my WIP, which has been pretty much abandoned for the past couple of months, and catch up on missed sleep. Though it's really really hot where I live right now so I might go to an open-air swimming pool with my mum at some point. I also want to meet up with friends and stuff. But mostly I just want to chill.

It's always so weird when I get back home after a holiday. It's like I've never been away, but I also feel like I haven't been home in ages. It's a paradox; I don't know if others feel that way. And whenever I get back home after a holiday it's always like I've forgotten all the details about my normal life and I have to remember it all again. IT'S SO WEIRD.

Anyway, we've come to the end of this mammoth-sized post! I've just realised how huge it is, I'M SORRY. Thanks for sticking with me this far. Most of it is just photos, though, so *shrugs*. This has taken me around four hours to put together. I'm not even kidding. FOUR HOURS. If not more. I worked on it for over an hour yesterday, for two hours this morning and now I've been working on it for around half an hour. What took the longest was choosing which photos to share, I took so many and a lot of them are repetitive or blurry so it took me ages to pick which ones I wanted to post here. So I hope you all enjoyed this! It would be a shame if you didn't after all the work I've put into it... 

Now it's your turn: have you been anywhere nice this summer? Are you going to be going anywhere? What are your plans? Have you ever been to Paris or Amsterdam? How are you? TELL ME EVERYTHING.

Love you guys,

Stay wild,

> > > A n d r e a < < < 

*vanishes into the shadows*