Going home - Part 2

So where were we? Ah yes, I’d just completed my night in Amsterdam. Luckily I survived all the raucous shit that makes The Hangover so hilarious. I really must calm down.

Anyway, I woke on Thursday morning with some Ukrainian guy snoring in my ear. No, this wasn’t one of those ‘what the hell happened last night’ moments; I was sharing a dorm room with six other guys. Raunchy.

The snoring woke me at 7:00, and I was out of the hostel by 7:10. Amsterdam is just like any other city on a summer’s morn. As I walked across the lush green park outside the museum, two sunburnt tramps casually discussed the problems and dilemmas of everyday life, before one of them left to sleep on a grassy slope.

I decided I would get to the ferry as soon as possible, even though it was departing at 17:00. With two bags strapped to me and a bike beside, I knew it could take an Everest ascent effort to get to the port, which was not in Amsterdam as advertised on the internet. Oh no, the ferry terminal was in fact in IJmuiden, a village 30km outside the capital. At this point, I was wondering why I hadn’t just gone with easyjet.

The solution for me was to get a speedboat to a harbour close to the port, and walk from there. I sat roasting under the glorious morning sun waiting for the speedboat. It came, and I couldn’t get on because it was too full. Half an hour later, having befriended some Australians, I boarded a different boat.

Now, these Australians. Why is it, wherever you are in Europe, an Australian pops up out of nowhere? These four guys were actually quite nice – surprising I know. I got chatting to them about Europe and Holland and then sport. I mentioned cricket, and got a blank look from all four sets of eyes. “Nah mate, we follow AFL.” Of course you do. Ever since England beat Australia on their own turf, any Australian I have met suddenly doesn’t know what the concept of cricket is. Instead, Aussie Rules Football takes precedent in the conversation, so that I my only contribution of any relevance is to say the referees look ridiculous when they do that pointy thing (you know what pointy thing I mean).

Cricket has become extinct in the average Aussie’s vocabulary. To even try and mention Alastair Cook would be an invitation for complete social rejection. No, we talked AFL for half an hour, me only occasionally able to mention the C word when they spoke about the stadiums.

As I said, they seemed an OK bunch of chaps. However, one soon turned out to be what I like to call ‘Australian’. The others could almost have been European, but this one guy – I can’t remember his name but it was probably Ricky or Bozza – insisted on using the phrase ‘hanging out the back of’ almost every two minutes.

Now, I seem to remember there being some controversy during the winter about a Sky Sports presenter being a complete knob and suggesting Jamie Redknapp ‘was hanging out the back of’ quite a lot of females. As comedian Alan Davies said at the time: “what kind of idiot thinks his mates respect him when he says that kind of thing?” And, I have to agree. Ricky or Bozza or whatever his name was, in that one repeated phrase, confirmed to me that he was a complete tosser. Richard Keys was rightly sacked: I wanted to throw Bozza overboard.

I eventually left the speed boat and found my way to the ferry terminal, where I was told I would have to wait four hours to board. No worries, I had my book and it was sunny. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise just how sunny it was, and I’m still feeling the effects of a peeling left ear five days later.

The Ferry

I got up off my arse eventually and went to take a good look at the ship. My heart skipped a beat when I saw ‘Princess Seaways – København’ painted on it. I hurriedly dived into my pockets to find my booking confirmation – there was surely no way I had booked a boat back to Denmark… thank God, no, I was just being thick. I was definitely going to Newcastle. I soon boarded the boat.

When I booked my ticket, I was told I could take my bike and store it in the secure bicycle compartment on ship. What I didn’t know was that this ‘secure’ compartment was to be the handrail of the boarding ramp that a thousand motorbikes and cars would speed past. I was sceptical, and so lashed my bike as hard as possible to the rail, like so.


I of course went straight to my cabin upon leaving the car decks. An inside room with no windows – lovely. Importantly it had a bathroom, meaning I wouldn’t have to roam the ship looking for toilet facilities. However, the bathroom wasn’t fitted very well, as this photo demonstrates. The gap between toilet and loo paper was a good meter. I could reach – thankfully – but imagine an infirm old lady stretching her arm across the bathroom, mauve trousers round her ankles. She’s almost gets to the paper when suddenly she slips forward and bangs her head on the sink, mauve trousers still round her ankles. Just saying…

I went for a mooch around the ship after a little kip and a real good top-up of sun cream. In my desperate hunger I scuttled over to the ‘Sea Shop’ to buy some basic supplies. There was no bread. There was no pre-made food. There was only bumper size sacks of Daim bars for €20. Whoever needs €20 worth of Daim bars I do not know. What struck me most however was a very exclusive special offer for bottled water. €2 for still water. The ‘special offer’ sign made me wonder how much the water was before they kindly dropped the price.

Anyway, I spent the rest of the evening either on deck with some old curmudgeons or in my room. I finished my book while quaffing my luxurious still water, and fell asleep with chocolate smeared all over my face, submerged in a mountain of Daim bar wrappers.

I opened my eyes to a generic wake-up call to all passengers: “The ship will be arriving in Newcastle in two hours” – well let me sleep for two more bloody hours then!