Amsterdam III: The Worst Hotel in Holland.

We arrived in Amsterdam and walked for about five minutes until we reached the 'budget hotel' (It was clearly a hostel). Lee and I looked around our group from the coach and tried to decide which four people we would most like to share a room with. We went and put our bags in a room where we assured they would be 'safe' and then went to sit in the bar and wait for our keys. A middle aged man watched us with a suspicious wary eye, shouting "No breakfast for you!" if anybody went near the food area. Our names were eventually called in groups of six in a schoolyard manner and we went to collect our keys. There was no guarantee Lee and I would be put together in the same room. Luckily we were, along with four other boys. We were relieved by who we were put with, it could have been far, far worse.

The six terrifying, angry looking people from the coach got a room together. We referred to them as 'the gangsters'. They really did look like they may pull out a gun and 'pop a cap in yo ass' at any moment. We left to go get our bags and see what our room was like. They pushed past us and went up the lift. We took the stairs and got to the 'safe room' where we had left our bags. The door was locked. We knocked. One of the gangsters answered the door. It was the room they had been assigned. We quickly gathered our bags and left, them watching us furiously the whole time.
"That's the least safe place they could have put our bags." Lee says as we scurry away to find our room. He was right, I would have rather left it with the crazy breakfast man.

We found our room and went inside, the four other boys were already in there, standing around awkwardly. We said hello politely and put our bags in our assigned lockers. They had already each chosen a bed, there was one bunk left for me and Lee. Lee took the top bunk, I took the bottom. I looked at my unmade bed with disgust, questionable brown stains covered the sheets, and it was damp underneath the pillow.
We left with haste. On leaving we noticed some of the hotel's advertisement posters. "The Worst Hotel in Holland", "Won the Worst Hotel in Holland award 3 years running." accompanied with pictures of socks used as toilet paper. - Lovely.

Every time we went back to the room to drop off, or pick something up we found all four boys sitting on their beds doing nothing. I swear they never left. In the evenings they used the rooms to socialise with all their friends, so to use the room to sleep was out of the question. Instead we sat in the bar and waited for them to leave.


(Me, unwashed, in the bar. It looks quite nice in this picture, looks can be deceiving)

The atmosphere in the bar was fascinating, a large mix of nationalities trying to socialise with each other. One boy approached and tried to talk to us. "Where you from?" he asked.
"England."
"Ah, England! Where abouts?"
"The Midlands."
"Umm..? Liverpool?". To avoid confusion we just said yes. To which he sang us a song about Stephen Gerrard whilst spinning around like a helicopter. He then rejoined his friends where they together sang what could only be described as the Wayne Rooney Winter Wonderland remix. Basically Winter Wonderland, with all the words changed to Wayne Rooney, except for 'walking in a winter wonderland'. It made no sense but was extremely entertaining to watch. They then sang in foreign, we tried to learn the foreign football songs but they were far to complicated.

We awoke the next morning, quickly showered and left. I say showered, the shower just dripped water. We went down for breakfast, which was included with our room.
We asked what we could have, the man looked at us with his still suspicious eyes and said. "You can't have this." he pointed at the bacon. "You can't have this." he pointed at the sausages. "You can't have this." he pointed at the eggs. "You can't have this." he pointed at the fruit and jam. "You can't have this." he pointed at the juice, tea and coffee. "You can't have this." he pointed at the cereal. "You can't have this." he pointed at the toast. We looked at him confused.
"Well, what can we have?"
"This." he pointed at some bread.
"Butter?"
"No."
"Okay, we'll go somewhere else thanks." He looked at us confused.
"But it's 5 star breakfast sir." We left and as we went we noticed everyone was eating a dry piece of bread.

On our last night we went to sleep early ready to wake up for the coach the next morning. As I got into my bed I noticed a half smoked spliff broken up all over my covers. I pushed it onto the floor and went to sleep. In the middle of the night, the door flew open and in came one of the boys stumbling around the room. "I've had too many drugs, I’ve had too many drugs." We didn't know who he was talking to. He fell over, got back up and awoke his friend. "I've had too many drugs."
"Alright" his friend replied. "Just get me up in the morning okay?"
"I've had too many drugs." he stumbled back out of the room.

We got up the next day and went down for the coach, 15 minutes after we were suppose to leave we were asked who was in room 215. "We were." we answered.
"Do you know where the other boys in your room are?"

... we knew exactly where they were. Still asleep in their beds no doubt. They finally arrived, we got on the coach and left, unwashed, covered in bites, and for some reason bruises, vowing that should we ever return to Amsterdam, we would book our own hotel.

Oh, and, it sounds like we had an awful time in Amsterdam, we didn't I'm just getting the bad stuff out of the way first.