I was having a nice sleep, when I heard strange voices, then a loud "Bing
Bong" the ships loudspeaker was going off, and the speaker was right next
to The distressing loudspeaker woman was repeatingly going off to tell us to get
off the boat in a number of different languages. She had a horrible voice, which
was made to sound worse because the speaker that was a few inches from my head
emitted all the sounds with a loud crackle. Dave had awoken first and had grabbed
the bath room, so I went in after he had finished a had a quick shower then put
on my clothes, Chovi was next in the shower and he took his usual time, (he loves
people waiting for him) while Chovi was in the shower and as usually taking his
time, Dave and I attempted to awake Moffy from his coma, this had mixed success,
but we had managed too by the time one of stewards came knocking on the door to
kick us of the boat. Moffy quickly got ready while Chovi slowly finished his shower
and got ready.

When we all were ready we left the cabin and started to depart the boat, we
ran into the other lads near the exit from the boat, apparently they had been
up early and some of them had even got breakfast. We departed the boat and made
our way to customs at which point Chovi realized he had left his passport in
the cabin, and so he had to go back and get it. We waited from him in the departure
lounge, while members of staff were telling us that the bus to Rotterdam was
going to leave without us. When Chovi did inventively turned up with his passport
we went outside and found two buses, one going to Rotterdam an one going to
Amsterdam, We did consider getting on the bus to Amsterdam for a short while
but we got the bus to Rotterdam as intended instead.

The trip on the bus to Rotterdam was largely uninteresting; some people had
the good idea of going to sleep to catch up on all the sleep that was lost the
night before. However those who were awake watching the trip out of the bus
windows and remark how much it looked like Tees-port and we also considered
the possibility that we had not gone to Rotterdam and had in fact returned to
Teesside. After a while the bus arrived in central Rotterdam we departed this
bus and set out to see what we could find.

We headed out to the first bank we could find to draw out some Euros, being
oblivious to the exchange rate I drew EUR200 (about a £140), we then went
to café across the way to spend some monkey and help recover from last
nights excess, I had a nice cup of tea. First stop after this was at McDonalds
for breakfast, it was now after 10.30 and thus McDonalds had stopped serving
breakfast, and so I had large fries and a cup of tea for breakfast. The tea
was revolting (damn cream instead of milk). While in McDonalds we asked a strange
gentleman for direction, after leaving McDonalds we headed out with the strange
gentleman’s directions looking for what fun we could find. It was still early
in the day so we could not find anywhere open, however we kept walking around,
asking people for assistance. We went to the Information Centre to see if we
could find information there, but we still could not find any fun. So we went
down to the Metro to see where that took us, and it took us straight back to
Rotterdam central, were we had started from. So we asked people inside the station
where we should head for some fun, they suggested Den Hagen (The Hague), so
we bought some tickets in the train station and caught the next train to the
Hague.

We boarded the train, and picked some nice seats, and then when the conductor
came and moved us from the 1st class to the 2nd class section we picked some
other seats and sat down. Watching the scenery go by a noticed the following
things Holland has loads of football pitches (about ten per mile I reckon) a
few windmills (in the middle of build up areas), lots of graffiti and needs
a good cleaning.

We started out again this time looking for fun in The Hague, we again started
to wonder about aimlessly asking people for advice on where the fun is, and
again we were get desperate and frustrated by out lack of success, however after
a short while we then found a street full of interesting women, It was a short
street with a number of women in windows, with very little clothes on. We had
a look around the street at these women, they seems to be mostly Asian girls,
some locals girls and a couple of dark girls. However we had developed a mighty
thirst by this time and we wanted to find a pub, any pub would do so we stopped
and the first pub we found open which fortunately enough was just down the road
and around the corner from the whores. It was called "Café – Biljart
De twee wezen" (whatever that means), and it certainly was of the beaten
track, the bar staff one lady called something that sounded a bit like chlorine
who could barely speaking English, which lead to lots of fun. The Bar itself
was one long room with a pool table with no pockets at the back. (You don’t
want to know about the toilets) fortunately the bar sold Heineken (surprisingly
enough) and so we ordered one of these all round (except for Chovi who of course
who has having Pepsi) in old-fashioned pint glasses. Moffy was finding drinking
these and staying awake a little hard going as was very much suffering from
the night before.

The bar seemed to be populated with a small number of regulars and bar owners/staff,
one of these looked very like Bet Lynch and she would go behind the bar to turn
up the music that was playing unfortunately it was German Disco/Pop music and
it was already loud enough, thanks. They all were drink the same drink which
was this clear liquid Chlorine would pour from a bottle and then mark down on
a piece of paper, One of the customer didn’t say a word however Chlorine would
go over and fill his glass with this drink and then return to the bar to service
ourselves. We continued to order more lager from the bar and now even Chovi
joined in and drank some filth of the top shelf. A new person joined the bar,
a man dressed in Blue overalls with a red shirt on, this in combination with
his big dark moustache make him look like very much like Mario (of the Super
Mario Brother fame), Mario spoke English so he could translate for us to Chlorine,
he spent a while talking with Moffy and he taught him a few words of Dutch and
gave him advice on bartering with prostitutes. Fuelled by this internationalism
we deceived to have a toast, with the drink that the locals and staff where
having, unfortunately they did not have enough glass for all of us to have one,
so a few of us, myself included drank this drink down in one, I must say this
is most vile excuse for a drink I’ve ever had, how I wasn’t sick there and then
on the spot I may never know. We continued to drink and tried other various
drinks on the top shelf until Mario’s wife arrived, however she did not look
like Princess Mushroom (or was it toadstool). At this point we decide it was
time to head back and so we said good-bye and left the bar. We went back to
the station via the street with the Whores, and had another look around, there
was some very good looking ladies there, included a very cute Asian girl a young
blue eyed girl who made me blush when she look straight at me and smiled. We
then continued back to the Train station.

At the train station while awaiting the train back to Rotterdam I was feeling
a little peckish so I bought a lovely bag of chips with ketchup and I bought
some English news papers for a couple of Euros, So I could read the read up
about the Mighty Boro’s win over the black and white turkeys, Some of the other
lads got a food, and some bought a few cans of lager of which we were told can
be drank on the train but not in the station. The train itself was much busier
than it was on the way to The Hague, but the trip back was just the same.

When we arrived at the Central Train station, we decide to hang about there
because it was after 1600 and the bus was leaving at 1630 to take us back to
the boat. So we had a look at a shop call "Free Videos" which unsurprisingly
stocked videos and DVDs, despite the name of the shop these weren’t free and
they want some Euros for them. While browsing these DVDs in the shop two nice
policeman with nice guns came in to remind us that those cans of lager can not
be drunk in the station. A couple of pornographic DVD where then purchased and
we left the inside of the Train Station, when we arrived outside we noticed
the young drunk lad from Middlesbrough we had seen on the boat the night before,
he now looked a little sheepish and we also discovered we weren’t all there
and that some of us were still inside. Instead of going to look for each other
we though it would be better to try the Bar/Café, which was next to the
station and we were rewarded with a very attractive girl barmaid to look at,
after a quick one (a drink) in there we headed back to the coach were we found
our missing elements, they had gone to buy some cheap fags, Good Idea thought
Moffy and Myself and we went and bought some cheap fags also, (not for myself
of course). After this we jumped back on the bus and headed back to the boat.