Amsterdam, Antwerp & Suffolk

Christmas was jaaaaym-packed this year. Cruises always seem like such a good idea before you get on one. Saying that, this was the first cruise I've ever been on. It felt, to start with, like a really cheesy Benidorm package holiday, with a preppy animation team who thought they ran the entire ship / complex. Then it felt like an extremely posh holiday, with room attendants and five courses for dinner.
It's a shame I don't do boats haha. I will get onto the ship, and feel sick. I will look at a ship… and feel sick. It's just the way it is. At least I wasn't actually sick, physically. I feel this is getting too graphic. But I just mis-judged the time it takes for travel sickness pills to work on the first night. Ended up missing the incredibly cheesy entertainment that night. Gutted.

Amsterdam was nice. Very different to 90% of the rest of main European cities, in it's architecture, canals, way of working… But still a nice change. The red light district was… interesting. The whole city is just a free for all, and it's crazy, but somehow society still carries on, and it's nothing like the purge, minus the murdering.

Bought some nice cheese in Amsterdam. When in Rome…

Also managed to sneak into as many clothes shops as I could. Mostly ones that we don't get in Newcastle / England.

Golden hour in Amsterdam

Then, the next day we woke up in Antwerp. This was a nice place, I quite like Antwerp. It was very cold, and pretty Christmassy, and it was nice to walk around the lesser explored areas of the town to find little gems like this:

A Flemish library

But there are some verryyyy nice buildings in Antwerp…

Cathedral

Central Station. This was an amazing building.

I have never been in such an interesting place. This train station has 4 levels of trains stacked on top of each other. Instead of having platforms side by side like everywhere in England, this train station stacks their trains. It's amazing. There are also escalators that have a flat bit in the middle of them. It goes down along down, and whilst this really doesn't sound amazing, it actually is, believe me!

How cute. We're on a carousel hahaha.

Again, when in Rome… found a Belgian bar, with very weak raspberry beer.

Overall, I had a fairly nice time. It's nice not to have to worry about travelling to these places, because you're distracted by nice food, cheap drinks and cheesy entertainment. It's also incredibly soothing to be rocked to sleep. If everyday I could be rocked to sleep, I totally would.


So then we stayed in Suffolk. Fairly standard. Despite not having been down there for a year and half, Felixstowe is still my second home. Kind of. Suffolk is a very strange place, that isn't so much 'backwards' but it's very slow. Not a lot happens there at all, and it's both relaxing and frustrating. There is also very little signal, and every single breed of dog you could name. Every single family has a different breed of dog. It also appears that every family owns a horse. There are thousands of horses in Suffolk. I love horses, I'd do well.

Christmas Eve snapchats haha. Hair & lighting was on point. These were too good not to save.


We also went to Framlingham on Christmas Eve. Big fans of Ed Sheeran will know that this is where he spend most of his childhood until he was 16. Framlingham is however, 20 minutes drive from Felixstowe, and so we went for a visit. I'm surprised I've never been before, although there is not a lot there… surprise surprise, welcome to Suffolk. My mam and dad are worse than me when it comes to stalking celebrities. And so we took a trip to his old high school haha, and also a walk around the village. It's pretty, but it's so obvious why he needed to get out haha.

This is creme de menthe, and apparently this particular bottle is over 35 years old…
I had a taste and there is literally no alcohol left in it haha

Then it was Christmas. I hope everyone had a good day. Whether you were with lots of family like me, or just with a few people you love, Christmas should be spend together. You quickly find though that time alone is nice too haha. I always need time with people, and time away from people. Christmas is only such a short period of time though, spending a lot of it with other people is tolerable haha.

Christmas day dip…

This is next door's cat, Dexter. He is the friendliest (and biggest) cat I've ever met and I want him haha. He doesn't look like he's enjoying himself on these pictures, but he was. He was practically with us all day and I had the best time. I can't believe how much I love cats haha. Any cat, I'll stroke it and pick it up and love it and I'll be happy.

May have gotten the most popular Christmas present of 2014 this year too. See if you can guess what it is hahaha…

My brother got some 'indoor fireworks' for Christmas, so we had a cute little display on the dining room table on Boxing day haha. I was expecting something a lot bigger and a lot more dangerous haha. I think I was expecting miniaturised fireworks going off in the middle of the living room, however these were just little sparklers and stuff.

Had a game of mousie mousie…

and also Ali Baba, the middle eastern version of buckaroo

Beach hut opening party

Such a nice day

What a horrible filter this is on the computer haha

Then we came home. And did we all know, I have driving lessons now?! It's scary, I don't really like driving very much. I guess a lot of it will come with practice, and once I pass my test I'll be alright, but learning to drive is so boring, and hard, and scary and I can't wait until I can just drive. I did have my theory test today though. And whilst I did do a lot of practice, and read a lot of the questions I could have been asked, the test I got was realllyyyy difficult. I was sure I had failed after the second question, when it asked a stopping distance question I hadn't learnt haha. So many questions, not one about road signs. I know every single road sign, yet not one question asked me about any of the road signs. Gutted. But turns out I did pass, which was a massive relief, because if I had failed, I probably would have just sold my car hahaha.

My grandma's cat likes ham and cheese sandwiches more than I do haha

Feels like a long time since I've had a few days free, which is exactly what's coming up! Yaaaay. Can't wait to just lie in bed… actually, as I've just typed that, I've glanced down at my minimised documents on my dock, and one of them is my assignment, that I'm completely dreading. It's hell. Luckily, I've already done 200 words of it, but unfortunately the bad news is that it's 4000 words long :( due in on the 14th January and I've barely even started it. Reallyyyyy don't want to waaaaah :'(
Think I'm going to stick uni out for a little bit longer though… that is, until it gets unbearable this time next year haha.


Jordanavia :)