Hello, lovelies! Today, I’m sharing my fifth and final Travel Diary. I hope you enjoy.
Previous Travel Diaries:
- London, Paris, & Swiss Alps | Travel Diary #1
- Florence, Rome, & Venice | Travel Diary #2
- Croatia, Slovenia, & Hungary | Topdeck Travel Diary #3
- Poland, Prague, & Germany | Travel Diary #4
//Copenhagen
Would you believe me if I told you that I spent the majority of my time in Copenhagen at the theme park that inspired Disneyland? Tivoli Gardens is in the center of the city. Walt Disney literally drew inspiration for Disneyland from this theme park. While I was there, I could see where he got his inspiration.
Copenhagen was the last place we camped at in our tour, which makes sense since Copenhagen is freakin’ expensive. We went on a bus tour of the city our first night and you can honestly see my exhaustion after almost a month of travel in the photo in front of the Little Mermaid below. That statue has been through a lot. People use it for their political agendas by cutting off and stealing its body parts or straight-up blowing it up. Hearing our tour guide, Fran tell us the stories was very funny.
We spent most of the next day at the amusement park, I only got the limited ticket first but ended up paying for the unlimited ride ticket after seeing everything there was to do. I kind of feel like I was a bummer since I wasn’t as impressed by the park as my Aussie/Kiwi counterparts. I never thought about it, but America is basically the land of roller coasters. I was literally just at Universal Studios three months before, so the park wasn’t as impressive as it could’ve been (What made it impressive was that it’s the second oldest theme park in the world, built in 1843, and it’s still running.). There aren’t really places like that in Australia and New Zealand, so I tried not to be as “been there, done that” as I felt.
I still had a lot of fun. The lines weren’t too long, so we got through a lot of rides. Half of us left the park in the middle to go walk around the rest of Copenhagen and see the colorful houses. That area was super crowded but very pretty. It was a nice place to sit.
A few more rides at the Amusement Park and a cone of ice-cream later, we were back on the bus to head back to the campsite. It was a good day and a nice break from our typical travel routine.
//Funny Story – The State Of My Shoes
One of the days we were camping, K forgot to close the rain cover of the tent, so there was a GIANT puddle of water in front of the entrance where we kept our shoes. Because one of my boots had been directly in the puddle, the soles were incredibly weak and were basically falling apart by the end of the trip.
I could still walk in them easily, but I told my friends that I would throw them away at the airport at the end of the trip after destroying them with my bare hands. And that’s exactly what I did. After landing in Miami, once I got through security, I found a corner, took off my boots and ripped the soles of the shoes. I completely Hulked out on them. It was so satisfying. The boots had served their purpose and I had owned them for years. This is an example of how I keep wearing all my clothes until they die. Here’s a picture I took below before destroying them.
Looking back, that was an incredibly sketchy thing to do at the airport. I’ll just chalk it up to jetlag. I put on my sandals, threw the remnants of the boots in the trash, then walked to my gate.
//Amsterdam
I loved Amsterdam. I had so much fun there and the food was phenomenal (and incredibly unhealthy). I was super excited to go to the Netherlands because my grandparents used to live there, and they celebrated my dad’s first birthday there. R and J are both Dutch, so they were super excited to be there and gave the best food recommendations.
I spent part our time in Amsterdam exploring alone because some of my friends had other things to do, or were staying in Amsterdam longer after the trip, so I spent some time exploring on my own. It was really nice and reminded me why I enjoyed doing it.
Literally the morning of our second day in Amsterdam, J went online to get in line to get tickets to the Anne Frank House, and we GOT THEM. She was literally on the online wait line for two hours, but it was worth it. I’m so glad I was able to experience going there. I highly recommend it. I read her diary when I was in middle school, so I kept picturing scenes she described in the book while walking around. I was surprised how much I remembered considering I read it so long ago.
The one thing I didn’t like about Amsterdam was the smell of smoke and weed everywhere. Every European country I went to contained a lot of smokers, which was strange to see since most Americans don’t smoke cigarettes in public like that anymore. Because weed is decriminalized in the Netherlands, a lot of people were smoking it. I don’t have any problem with marijuana, but I was having a lot of asthma problems while we were there because the city reeked of smoke. The city was beautiful to walk around in, but I felt like I was gonna cough out a lung. This probably would’ve been my favorite city, otherwise.
//Saying Goodbye To Everyone
Saying Goodbye to everyone was really sad. We left two of our friends behind in Amsterdam. We woke up really early in the morning on the last day to say goodbye to M, who was flying to Spain to see her gran. That one was super emotional because it was the first one. She told me that saying bye to me felt sadder because the others lived so closeby and I lived all the way in America. I told her it’s an excuse for us to visit each other. New Zealand has never been a big country on my bucket list, but now I definitely plan on visiting.
Before getting on the bus, we said goodbye to half our tour group in Amsterdam (the ones who were staying behind) and our friend Z, then got on the bus. We talked there and on the ferry back to the UK. We arrived at the hostel and hugged our tour guide and bus driver, Fran and Don, and our other friends from the tour group before heading inside.
We didn’t check into the hostel. We all just sat downstairs and talked together for a bit, feeling sad and discussing our plans. After about an hour, we hugged K and C goodbye because they weren’t staying in that hostel and were flying to (I think) Ireland the next day. K, J, and I checked into our rooms, took a shower, then met up at 5:30 to go grab dinner together. We were about to go to Nando’s (which I never ended up trying) when we saw that there was 50% off on Tuesdays at the restaurant next to it and changed our minds. The food was really good and we ordered three different desserts to share because everything looked so good (and discounted).
Then I said my last goodbyes because I had to start walking to Her Majesty’s Theatre to watch a West End show. K was the first person I met on the tour and was my tent-mate for the majority of my trip, so saying bye to her was hard. I remember saying, “I’m so glad you sat next to me before I could start writing my paper.” I didn’t cry, but I totally would have. I think I’m just used to saying goodbye and not seeing family for years because they live in other places, so I was in the mindset of “I’ll see them again soon.” When I said bye to J, I told her that she better hit me up when she comes to America at the end of this year. She’s going to be on the west coast, so I probably won’t get to see her, but we’ll see.
I was definitely eased into the whole “saying Goodbye” thing because it happened very slowly over the course of the day. The entire time we kept saying, “I’m so glad I met you guys,” because they were really what made the trip fun for me. I thought it would be harder to make friends while traveling alone, but it ended up being easier. The people that joined the tour group with friends mostly stuck to the people they already knew, but going alone made it easier to meet new people. I got very lucky.
//London
Twenty minutes after the tour ended and we were dropped off at the hostel, I bought tickets to a West End show for that night. I had money left over from my budget and night of tickets were on sale. I ended up watching Phantom of the Opera. It was a half-an-hour walk from my hostel, so it wasn’t too bad. The streets were crowded, so walking back at night didn’t feel that scary since I’ve walked alone at night in Downtown Atlanta. I got back to my hostel and went to sleep immediately because I wanted an early start for the next day.
I woke up later than I wanted to, but after waking up at 6 AM for most of the month to drive to different countries, I didn’t kick myself too hard. I woke up at nine and left the hostel at 10. I made an itinerary for that day where I could walk to all the different landmarks I wanted to see. I’ll write a whole post about my itinerary later on, so stay tuned. I went to the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abby, etc. I also bought tickets for the London Eye that morning. I wasn’t super strict with my schedule. I’m pretty sure I spent an hour each at two different book stores and walked into a Harry Potter shop at one point.
I’m glad that I knew that Big Ben has been under construction since 2017. I would have been very disappointed if I hadn’t known. It’s a bit of an eyesore, but it made the view from the London Eye look very funny. It’s just an excuse to visit again I guess.
The only thing on my itinerary I skipped was taking the Platform 9 3/4 picture. I had been walking around London for about 10 hours and my phone was about to die, so I decided to take a shower and charge my phone at the hostel before heading out to dinner. After that, I was so exhausted and didn’t feel like waiting in the long line at Kings Cross. Plus I had to wake up at 5:30 the next morning to catch the train to Gatwick Airport. I was a bit disappointed but decided it would be more fun to take it with my Potterhead friends when we go together someday (Right, guys?)
//Truly Traveling Solo Again
In many ways, this was my first “real” solo trips. All the other times I’ve traveled alone, I visited friends or family members and stayed with them to save money on accommodations. This time, I went to an entirely different continent alone, where I knew nobody. I’m glad I made amazing friends really quickly. They honestly made the trip for me and it wouldn’t have been as much fun without them, but the tail-end of the trip where I was truly traveling alone reminded me why I loved it so much.
I didn’t delay anyone by waking up late. I could just buy tickets for Broadway shows the day of without worrying about other people’s budget restrictions. I was able to just eat one big meal instead of sitting in on and spending money on multiple meals with other people. I was also able to walk around a lot faster and see more things in one day. It was nice to be with myself in another place for a bit.
//Food
I’m pretty sure all the food I mention here is going to be Dutch.
- Bitterbolen – These are basically deep-fried balls of beef and ragout. Needless to say, I had a lot of pimples after leaving the Netherlands.
- Kroket – This is kind of like bitterbolen, only it’s a different shape and contains different types of meat. I had a veal kroket, which is basically veal and ragout sauce covered in breadcrumbs, then fried. It was so good! (I also had a fried cheese dish)
- Stroopwafels – These are basically really thin waffles with caramel syrup in between. It was delicious.
//Travel Tip #1 – Use Google Maps Offline
I asked a friend of mine what I can do to improve these travel diaries because they felt kind of self-centered and not the most helpful. She said that they were fine and interesting to read, but after some discussion, I got the idea of writing one random travel tip at the end of future travel diaries/trip recaps I do. So instead of just reading about what I did that day, you can get a travel tip, as well. I’m sure these tips will get repetitive with other posts eventually, but I thought this was a good place to start.
My tip for today is to use offline Google Maps to get places. I didn’t pay for a European sim card for the month I was there, so I didn’t have any data. My phone was basically on airplane mode the entire time. Whenever I needed to go anywhere, I would walk to a place with wifi, connect to it, then type in wherever I wanted to go next.
The day I was alone in Amsterdam, I used the hostel wifi to get the direction to the Rijksmuseum museum. After I went to the museum, I found a cafe to eat and ate lunch. I used their wifi to walk to a bike rental place. Later on, when I needed to meet my friends at the Anne Frank House, I stood in front of a random cafe and used their wifi to get directions.
Depending on where you go, you will likely find public wifi everywhere. Since all the European countries I went to had lots of places with free internet, I was able to survive without a sim card for a month.
Wow, I’m officially done with all my travel diaries. Don’t worry. There’s still a slew of Europe posts coming at you, but they’ll be more technical, tip-filled posts rather than personal reflections. I hope you all enjoyed. I’ll see you on Tuesday!
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Have you ever been to any of these countries? What was your experience there?