Gay pride Amsterdam, Barcelona & Italy

So the last 5 weeks or so has consisted of multiple cities, great times and great people! First stop after Germany was the Netherlands where I went to the gay pride festival and was lucky enough to score a spot on a boat on the river for the day! My dear dutch friends hooked me up 🙂 I actually drank so much vodka I cut myself off (Yes, true story) and I had to climb over 6 boats on the river to get to land everytime I needed to pee.

There were a few close calls there! It was an amazing day… It was like the Sydney Mardi gras but on the water and all the floats were actually boats! The streets were lined with thousands of people and the rivers swarming with decorated tinnies and motor boats blaring Cher with men dressed in next to nothing. I managed to make it out that night, after a long day of gay pride drinking in the sun, to party with the Dutchies.I have learned how to say “sex with cucumbers in the kicthen” in Dutch which was very amusing to the Dutch people I met in the club!

After The Netherlands it was time to head to the amazing Spanish city of Barcelona! But first it was a train to paris and an overnight to Barcelona, which turned out to be a nightmare. Some French arsehole ticket inspector kicked me off the train in Antwerp (the middle of Belgium) and charged me 40 euros for nothingl; meaning there was no way to make it to Paris on time for my connecting train. Usually I wouldnt mind, but this time I actually had a hotel booked, which I couldnt get a refund for. I was made to look like a total mad crack screaming at the French inspector in the middle of the station “you’re a f**king arsehole!” After calming myself down I managed to get a plan from a nice Belgian man to make it to Barca in time, which involved 8 trains in over 20 hours, some of which I had 3 minutes in between to run from one train to the other! It was absolute mayhem. Did I also mention that I began this journey with only 3 hours sleep under my belt? All was smooth until another French kicked me off at a shithole little town somewhere in the country of Belgium for no apparent reason, which then left me 2 minutes at the next stop to get the next train. I have become an absolute pro at juggling suitcases and bags of luggage and running my arse through, up and around anything, anywhere! Anyway I made it in the end. 6 countries, 8 trains and another 2 hours sleep somewhere along the way. What a nightmare!

Barcelona was amazing and I ended up staying a week. If I lived in barcelona I would become obese for sure. Someone would have to come and rescue the Australian beached whale with a truck within a few months. You sit at the beach or the park and yell “Cerveza!” (beer in Spanish) and a nice Pakistani man is there within the blink of an eyelid to sell you one 🙂 You can also buy hash and space cake! IN PUBLIC! I had space cake one day, which ended in eating copious amounts of amazing fried chicken and sleeping 15 hours. OOPS
The days were filled with beer drinking, beach bumming and smoka da hash. What a lifestyle!
The city is so alive and vibrant and it seems to never sleep! My favourite place was an infamous skatepark called MACBA where foreign skaters come just to skate! It is just an open concrete space in front of a museum that has become the place where they congregate. My great Greek friend Andreas took me there night after night. The place is completely filled with Pakistanis selling cold beers and hash. You simply had to look at one of them and you had an ice cold beer in your hand! 🙂 We sat there every night and met strange and wonderful people and smoked hash and drank Cerveza.

After Barca next stop was Italy, which meant the most expensive train Ive ever paid for. SO I made sure to make the most of it.. I rounded up every english speaker I could find and we were off to the train bar. I dont think the barman liked us too much so he cut us off and sent us to bed.. or so he thought. I spent the next 4 hours drinking wine in the hallways with Italians and smoking ciggies in the toilet. Naughty! By the time we arrived in Italy I had a killer hangover and an Italian stallion (not) who wanted to come to Venice with me… (spew!)

Finally I made it to Venice (the most expensive city EVER.. 5 bucks for 15 mins on the internet!) In saying that, it really is an amazing little city set on water. There are no cars, just boats… the taxis are boats, the ambulances are boats, the cops are on boats! And just like in the movies there are small Italian men waiting underneath bridges in Gondolas singing sweet sounding songs. If you’re a romantic this is the city to be! I, however happened to be on my own both times I went and felt extremely lonely :s
I stayed at a campsite out of Venice, where there are cars and buses and shops that charge reasonably. I  found some English girls to drink with and we managed to polish off 2 litres of wine each. I passed out fully clothed and woke in the morning to find I’d (temporarily) lost my phone, broke my ipod and had spilled wine all through my bag..?? All of my belongings were floating in a flood of wine. I dragged my sorry hungover arse to the train and went on my way to Latisana, a small Italian village a few hours away. I went and stayed with my amazing friends Anouk and Lucy at an incredible little 3 storey villa they were “borrowing”. We spent the next 3 days swimming, drinking wine, eating amazing food and sleeping in! Absolute bliss!
next stop- SERBIA!! stay tuned…