Why will I never be as cool as these people?

Enough said.


Supposedly the end of the world happened already - 

So naturally we raged the night away. But since I'm still here to tell the tale, I just wanted to share how awesome everyone's (except my my own) costumes were / needed an excuse to show the avatar pictures.

The one avatar girl even has avatar EARS. Now that's true dedication.

Also.. ventured out into West London for the first time pretty much ever last night. Supposedly very posh... Free entry before 11. We got there at 11:04. 

But we were way too dressed up to call the night quits. :)


And now I'm having a super-exciting saturday night writing a paper. vom dot com.

THE LAND OF RED LIGHTS

AMSTERDAMMMMMMMM.

Where to even begin?


I went to amsterdam when I was 14 years old...

HAHAHA check out my braces.. hilar.


But anyways - back then, we only spent one day in Amsterdam, and the only things we saw were the Anne Frank house, Van Gogh Museum, and Sex Museum (who decided to take a bunch of 14 year olds to the sex museum? ...)


This time around, I FELL IN LOVE with everything about the city.


Step 1 to falling in love with Amsterdam - renting bikes.

If you've ever been to amsterdam, you will know that neither cars nor people own the roads. Bikes are king. Renting bikes was an amazing way to easily get around the city, feel like a local, and just have some plain old fun. Is it lame that I'm trying to get a bike in London now?


Step 2 to falling in love with amsterdam - THE CANALS.

Amsterdam is almost like a more hip, young, fun, and populated Venice. I went to Venice two years ago and found it outdated and full of old people, with nothing much to do other than a 90 euro gondola tour. Amsteram, on the other hand, has beautiful canals amidst one of the most chill, fun, and bustling cities in Europe. SO amazing.

We did a canal tour which wasn't particularly informative or entertaining, but was definitely a nice ride.


Last but finally not least... clearly my favorite part of amstydam. THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT.


We stayed at The Bulldog, which is not only a hostel, but is famous for being the first coffee shop, as their sign below clearly states.

But not only was our hostel the first coffee shop...


If you walk down the canal from the hostel about - hm, 5 feet maybe? - there's a teeny little alleyway that nobody would ever even notice, nestled right in between two shops. But wait - venture down that alley way and you are on ELITE STREET. Basically the most heavily populated area of red light windows which supposedly has the "elite" girls. I wish I had pictures, but clearly thats not allowed.


AMAZING.


Okay and let me preface this by saying - mom and dad, I promise you have nothing to worry about! But here are the deets on being a red light window girl (aka prostitute) in amsterdam.


The girls have to rent their own windows, and they work in 8 hour shifts. The rent for each windows is about 100 - 150 euros. For the eight hour shift. Thats 150 euros for ALL 8 hours. 


Each girl receives an average of 30-60 customers per eight hour shift. The average customer pays 50 euros for their "services".


Lets do the math here - girl pays 150 euros. girl makes that back within 3 customers. say girl gets 40 more customers that night, girl makes 40 x 50 = 2000 EUROS in profit! And pimps are highly illegal, so these girls aren't paying this money out to anyone. Obviously they pay taxes on it just like everyone else.


But still. Fucking LUCRATIVE.


Other funny things - 

The condomierie - famous for their custom sized condoms.

World's warmest condom.

Our tour guide's joke for this one was... "You don't have to go all the way to Paris to mount the Eiffel Tower!"  hahaha... mildly inappropriate.


The other awesome thing we did was the Heineken Experience.

The original Heineken brewery has been turned into a ridiculous high tech museum / marketing scheme. Its a really cool experience, and is only 15 euros (with 3 free beers thrown in!).

They even have one of those silly motion rides where they "brew YOU" into a heineken beer. Basically taking you through the whole process while jerking you around and spraying water / bubbles at you. Fun times.

Bruxelles

If I had to pick the #1 most underrated city in Europe, it would definitely have to be Brussels.


Why exactly? Waffles, Chocolate, Fries ("frites" as the Dutch would say), and Beer. 


Coming from an expert who tried probably 6 different waffles on my 1.5 days in Brussels, the street waffles are always better than the restaurant waffles. Mark my words.

Observe the delicious street waffles pictured above. Every type of topping imaginable from ice cream to chocolate to nutella to whip cream to fruits to sprinkles to alsdkjf can't even keep going.

Restaurant waffles may be presented in a more prim / proper fashion. But I'd say options are key.


In regard to chocolate - all over Europe, chocolate is definitely way above american chocolates (Hersheys is like Cadbury thats been vommited up and eaten all over again). BUT the sheer amount of chocolate and the hype surrounding it in Belgium was definitely exciting.

Go to Chocopolis if you're in Brussels. Most bomb dot com free samples of all of the millions of places we walked into. And who doesn't enjoy some high quality pleasure? I sure do!


On to the beer...


Belgians fucking LOVE their beer. We went to this ridic awesome place called Delirium Bar. It came highly recommended from multiple sources.

They're famous for having over 4,000 beers on tap. FOUR THOUSAND!

AND they even hold the Guinness World Record to prove it.

Pretty bomb dot com.


The bartenders are somehow familiar with all four thousand of these beers, although they do have an abridged menu of about 50 or so for those of us who are too lazy to look through the giant BOOK of beer.

If you order a liter of beer rather than a pint, they give it to you in a giant glass boot.

You have to put down a 20 Euro deposit on your glass boot because apparently they have a big theft problem. I'm not exactly sure what kind of purse or pocket can hide that thing, though.. ?


Belgians also love their fries. Or "frites" as the dutch say. There are fry places on every corner. Not burger places that also sell fries. Just fry places. They have Fritland, the Friteria, etc.

Aside from all of the amazing junk food that Brussels has to offer, it really is great in other respects. The city is extremely small and super easy to navigate. There are also stunningly beautiful views everywhere.

Like I mentioned before, I was passed out for 98% of out initial bus tour, but I did wake up for glimpses of some cool things. Such as...


The Atomium - apparently it is a ginormous iron crystal.  

You can go inside and ride around on escalators from ball to ball and then enjoy a nice meal in the restaurant at the top. Next time!


You also can't pass up the peeing girl.


Yes, the peeing GIRL. Most people who go to Brussels make sure to see Manneken Pis ("peeing boy" in english).

Its just a little statue of a boy peeing that has some big legend or history behind it that I can't remember right now.


HOWEVER we stumpled accross the peeing girl statue as well. The feminist movement in Belgium made sure to have one built.

HAHHHH love it.




Still need to post about Amterdam - my favvv.

Airport Floor = Best Bed Ever

I feel as though I have been traveling FOREVER. But of course, it has been nothing short of amazing.

First stop after france was Madrid. Madrid included carbonara pasta and Winnie the Pooh.  Very spanish.

Oh and aside from Pooh bear I got to visit Liv in her new habitat. Which basically consists of gay men, cute chopping, and mucho mexican food.


And did I mention hours and hours of laying in beautiful Retiro park? They have this really cool thing in Spain that us Londoners haven't really heard of - it starts with an "s" and ends in "un". 

Makes your skin darker too. Dear Sun, how I've missed you.


And of course at night we partied a little too hard - 

Thats okay though because we managed to also go to a pretty sweet dinner / FLAMENCO deal. The spanish guitar was ridiculously beautiful - Vicky Cristina Barcelona style. 

The dancers were weirdly old but shocked me by how fast their bodies could move. I have never seen a 45 year old woman sweat so much.

We tried to get up there and imitate them, but our clapping skills weren't up to par.


The other highlight of Madrid was my first ever Ryan Air experience.

Look closely at the picture. Correct - 6:30 am flight out of Madrid. Naturally we thought it would be a brilliant idea not to get a hostel for the night preceeding our flight.


Where did that get us? Four hours attempting to sleep on the ever so comfortable airport floor. Where we were surrounded by other super sketchy travelers and crackheads such as:

Nicknamed "Mowak Man", this character was so fucking cracked out it was unreal. I tried to take super stealthy stalker pics of him without pissing him off because he probably would have knifed me.


Lets just say I slept during our entire 15 euro bus tour of Brussels the next morning, but it was definitely worth the expense.

Five Grapes, Three Volftsuns

I have a refined palate.

Okay maybe not so much, but refined enough that I got to attend the 2009 Vintage Bordeaux Wine Tastings - where all of the wine professionals of the world come together to decide which labels taste delicious and which don't. And how much each Bordeaux wine produced last year should be worth on the market. And yes, the event is invite only.

Okay we only got to go because the faj is in the wine business, and he told them we were his employees, but still. My official Five Grapes badge was pretty sweet.


Rather than stay at a typical hotel, we lodged at Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte.

Not only is it a pretty famous Chateau (which means "castle"!!), but it also has a world famous spa that Lana and I got to enjoy. All of the treatments and products are "inspired by the vine", and most are made out of grapes in some way or another.

We stayed in a little cabin next to a pond (yes - the one we're standing in front of), complete with swans and its very own bird of paradise, which we of course named Kevin. 

Kevin is a mom?!

We spent our days traveling to world famous Chateaus and tasting / critiquing their wines. These included Chateau Margaux, Chateau Lafite, Chateau Mouton Rothschild, and many more.

It was actually pretty hilarious to be at these hoity-toity wine events. Picture one hundred dressed up wine snobs in suits swirling, smelling, and sipping there wine and consequently spitting it all out into huge buckets.  Classy.

I was pretty much the only person in the room that chose not to spit.... :) Maybe that's why my shoes fell apart.


So all in all, the three of us tasted some AMAZINGGGG wines, both those that we had heard of before - Like Lafite, Margaux, etc.  But we also found some exceptional lesser known wines, including some that aren't yet imported into the states.

You guys should all check out my faj's site at http://insidethegrape.com and look around! And just because you are all my friends and lovers / faithful readers (or even if youre not) - you can use the promo code BOMB10 to get a 10% discount. DO ITTT.

p.s. spread the word and tell your parents too - as my dad always reminds me, my future depends on it!!! BOMB10