germany/france/switzerland

hello, oh god i feel like i haven't been on here forever, but here it goes, my massive blog.

so on monday i spent the last day shopping with my mam in town. last few things such as the glasses i wanted, and new clothes and what not.
we had a meal at wetherspoons, and got terrible service. i need to e-mail them to complain actually because my mam told me so after my holiday.

got to leylas house at around 10, obviously the last one cause i didn't want to watch the tv stuff her and liv like. headed off for stansted at 11. it took until 5 in the morning to get there. the journey was so long, and i felt like i got no sleep at all.
in the airport it was basically empty, until everyone queued up to drop off their luggage. of course, something would be wrong, and our boarding passes said that there was no lugguage checked on the boarding passes, and we had to sort that out, making us at the end of the massive queue. i was scared incase i had to throw away my clothes or something. but it got sorted and everything was okay!

when we got in i don't recall much happening, time flew. there was a hmv there and i was drooling at the cheaper dvds that i couldn't afford. i could afford a chocolate frappicino from starbucks though. we were sitting next to an american guy who was most obviously annoyed by how hyper we were or something.

um the flight to germany was at 7. it was very quick, i think it must have been 15 minutes early. on the flight we were reading through magazines together being generally hyper.
through passport control, the person who spoke to us was obviously having fun at his job and asked us all silly questions. he said to me "so what are you doing here, coming to party?"

when we got there, it wasn't as warm as i was expecting it to be. i figure thats because it was 9am.

leylas auntie carol was in the airport waiting for us. she was much less scarier than i was expecting! she drove us to a supermarket called real to pick up some things to eat. she let us look around the shop ourselves, and of corse we wanted to check the price of alcohol. lots of beer and wine, lushious.
for our breakfast, carol had bought us some bread buns. they were definately different to the ones they sell over here. even the small things like that prooved i wasn't at home anymore.

we got to the house. it was well and truely massive. 4 storeys, and one of those was for me liv and leyla to share. i met some more of leylas family, pascal and dimitri. this was one of the only times i saw dimitri on the whole stay there, and i never got to speak to him.

after having a general welcome to the home, we went into the town centre to work out where everything was. the first things we bought was an energy drink and an ice cream. i got an after eight ice cream, liv got muffin flavoured ice cream, and leyla got lemon ice cream which she kept calling shaving foam.

not long after we went back for lunch which was this weird meatball and rice meal, which was nice.

hmm, i don't really remember what else we did. leyla and liv went in the pool for a bit, and i had a shower cause i didn't bring a swimming costume.
i also met natalie, leylas last cousin.
for our tea we had a barbeque, and apparently it wasn't very normal for it. also, afterwards we had a beer, just because we could.

the next day we left earlyish for strasbourg in france.
the first time on a train in germany, and it was packed. nicer than a metro though, a lot lot more. i think people in germany actually care unlike the people in newcastle.
we had a change in appenweier for 40 minutes. we sat around and made videos/took photos, and time went by so fast.
the next train was worse. i felt like i was going to faint, it was so packed. i had a german man breathing onto my face ugh. i was sweating, grosssssssie.

france was goregous. the hotel was right infront of the train station.
in the hotel we got upgraded to a family room, and it was perfect. we all picked the beds we wanted. we spent quite a bit of the time in the hotel room watching french tv, (mr bean, french cartoons and the music channel), but not long after we went to look around everywhere else. it seemed more touristy than in buhl, so at least we weren't completely out of place.
we bought slushes, and the heat melted them straight away, it was quite amusing.

we found virgin megastores, and we were all excited for various resons. leylas being, they sold shutter island there and not yet at home. it was 20euro though, not really worth it.
what was also amusing, was the fact the films had different names, for example twilight was hesitation, the hangover was called very bad trip, and street dance 3d was called sexy dance.

i recall finding a concert hall thing, and seeing a festival line-up poster up. only a few days after we were back home, bad religion were headlining a festival there. gutted! would have been such a great experience, not only seeing one of my favourite bands, but my first ever gig in another country. i should arrange to go abroad for gigs another time though, the idea sounds nice.
we sat near that venue with ice cream from a van. me and liv got this double flavoured on, strawberry and lemon i think, and leyla got this manderin/blood orange or something. she wasn't happy with it, and threw it on the floor after a few licks.

we found a spar there, and i bought a cheap bottle of wine there, whilst leyla and liv bought smirnoff ice. the perrier water had dita von teese on and i was like "oh god whaaat", and i must have forgot to buy it or something. that's something i wish i done now, but nevermind!
for lunch we ended up going to mcdonalds. it was the last thing we wanted, but it was raining, and we didn't want to go far. we also arranged to see inception again, since it was only french subtitles. seeing it again did help me understand it further in ways i didn't even imagine. it made me enjoy it more, and the things that annoyed me previously were forgotten about. i don't think i could watch it again for a while though since i saw it in less than a week of the first time i saw it.
it was the first time liv saw it, and she had no clue what me and leyla were talking about.

when we got back we watched the freddie mercury documentry. it reminded me of media studies in AS, cause i said it was my favourite documentry. obviously i didn't watch it close enough, because i discovered freddie mercury was indian. weird maaaan.

i knew i would enjoy mentioning this bit, because i think it was brilliant despite how much i was shitting myself.
so liv had went in the shower, and me and leyla were chatting. our door knocked, and leyla casually shouted "LIV STOP KNOCKING THE DOOR WHILE YOUR SHITTING!" and then she said "it's not me man"
i knew it wasn't her, but leyla insisted on warning her to stop. til liv opened the bathroom door, at the same time as the person knocked on our door again. i literally jumped, it was the biggest fright ever. thinking about it, it's so fucking funny.
we were silent for the rest of the time. i moved my bed closer to the bunk bed liv and leyla stayed on.
but i figured it was someone to kill us at the door. we couldn't get the window closed, and it was a room we were upgraded to. none of the doors had peep-holes too, it could've been anyone.
i guess it must've been someone telling us to be quiet.

oh and i only got burnt on my back, just cause i put sun cream on everywhere else. i felt so proud, it's the only time thats ever seemed to happen in my life. i think that day was one of the only ones i needed sun cream on the most.

the next day we tried to go to places we hadn't came across yet, such as the cathedral. all around it there were beggers, the people who pretend to be statues, those people who sell cheapy fake items. also, every shop in that area tended to either sell tacky holiday souviners, or over-priced resturant food.
we found a footlocker, and liv bought a pair of trainers. the guy who served her kept talking to us about england, and i recall him shouting to his collueges "FROM NEWCASTLE"
oh and liv got undercharged somehow, i can't really remember what happened.
we found a indie cinema that day and they were still showing shutter island, and we arranged all day to see that. we got lost looking for the toilets. not only was it raining really heavy, we were cold and lost. we decided instead of being late for the cinema, just go back to the hotel and have food. although plans were changed once we found an internet cafe.
half an hour there: 20 minutes attempting to log into facebook, 10 minutes writing everything i wanted to say in a hurry.

once we got back to the hotel we sat and watched tv for aaaaages.
we had tea at a resturant called hippo, which was probably the equivilant to frankie and bennys here, except less italian american, more typical resturant food.
we thought it would be easy to understand things, but it was quite daunting trying to work out what the things really were.
we all got this set menu thing, and we all picked a burger for the main since it was the most obvious option for us. it was alright, just like any other burger, nothing special to it.
for the desert, both me and liv had ben and jerrys, again it was the easiest to understand, plus, why say no to it? leyla wanted to try something new, and she picked something that had either a chocolate or caramel option. she insisted she'd get caramel, but when the waitress came over, she assumed she wanted chocolate and leyla nodded. it turned out leyla picked rice pudding with chocolate sauce on. she was so confused, and she couldn't eat all of it.

we stayed in the hotel all after that, we didn't want to get back too late like the previous night.
we just watched whatever was on really. we found skins on one channel and watched 2 episodes of that, completely in french. then 30 rock was on tv, not a programme any of us care about, but steve buscemi came on, and obviously leyla made a fuss about it.

the next morning we had to be up early and we had 7 hours waiting around for our train.
we just went in shops we'd been in before. in virgin megastores we all found cds. i bought a lagwagon cd for 3 euro. there was an alkaline trio one aswell for 5euro but i already had it on my ipod, so there was no point in buying a copy. i didn't have many euro with my in france anyway.

we spent an hour in the internet cafe, and it was there i discovered i didn't get the place for the tv course at newcastle college. i was pretty bummed about that, but i tried not to get too upset about it and just relax on holiday. but it wasn't very great after that, my computer suddenly went off, and i had 5 minutes left. annoyeddd.

once we were out of the internet cafe, we had past this shop that sold music merchendice, i first spotted green day action figures. when we first wanted to go in it was closed, so we tried the second time. it wasn't as great as it appeared really. the whole shop was halved, one side was jewellry and random pieces of shit with band names on, the otherside was clothes, hoodies and band shirts.
awkward shop really. would've been nicer on a day i could actually have afforded something from there.

we sat outside the catheideral and we were confronted by a german man. i was pretty scared by him, but liv and leyla were having a good laugh at him. he kept making lion noises, and he was trying to ask if the cathederal was for arabs.
after discovering we were english he tried to say wonderful, and obviously liv would interupt him and shout "WONDER BRA?"
leyla was leaning on the door, and her laughing made the door knock. it was crazy.

the last couple of hours, we decided to go and see shutter island. we went to a sandwich cafe called 'pomme de pain'
the guy who served us was weird, ughhh. liv got a ham sandwich, coke and a cookie. me and leyla got this tuna and egg sandwich (which i didn't know had eggs in, i wasn't pleased!) and muffins. they were giant. i was pretty gutted about my sandwich really, but the place was nice.

when we got to the cinema i needed the toilet, and in the cinema screen we were in apparently there were toilets. we went to the door, and i think they were just for show. no light switch, and the doors basically went to the same place.
i found a mens toilet, and leyla told me to hold onto the door incase anyone came in. it was scary, a man shoved the door open even though i was pulling it, then he went "OH, DESOLE!" and closed the door. i was so embaressed and scared, and leyla was literally wetting herself laughing.

the cinema was nice though. 2 floors for the screen, i think most people went on the top floor, however we went on the bottom floor seating. nice red velvet seats, but nearer the end of the film i realised how low down to the floor they were.

i burped accidently through the film.

we made our way to the train station, on the way going to the supermarket for crisps and stuff. liv bought magazines, i don't even remember how many but certainly more than 1.
on the help cards, we were given the wrong platform number, and we were lost. after finding help, we went straight to our platform. i was just excited to get back to germany and put my bags down.
we were sitting waiting for the train, and from a distance this young man was walking over, and leyla nudged me and said "it's mclovin"
and when he came right over to us i got scared. he was american, and he said "do you guys speak english"
i forgot what he asked after that, but it was awkward. the train was back not long after.

we got picked up at buhl station by leylas uncle, who had been away when we first got to germany.
once i got back to the home, i went straight to the shower. i was desperate for a bathroom with a lock, oh god.

the next day we went to another part of germany that wasn't so far away from buhl with carol and natalie.
we had a chinese box thing, i had rice chicken stuff, and added soy sauce which made it perfect. leyla added chili sauce to hers and it made her lose her appitite really.
we went in a few clothes shops and things, then we seperated from carol and natalie so we could look for dvd shops. we found a place called media markt, which was kind of like currys, but had a dvd/cd section.
in the dvds we found extreme movie, which both me and leyla had been searching for! we got really excited about that. but leyla got even more excited about the rebound being on dvd there already, and only showing at cinemas in the uk.
another thing interesting about that place is that the music had a section called "black music" and i thought it would be like black metal or something, but when i looked at the cds there were artists such as rihanna and 50cent there..

when we walked out the shop the security man asked to look in my bag, i was so paranoid after that D:


OH GOD, it's now the 24th july 2011
it's a year since i been on this holiday. i've spent 12 months writing that, i give up. i'm not even going to read through it. but just so you know, i still haven't emailled to complain about weatherspoons, omg.