Coach to Amsterdam
1993. Traveling by coach with a couple of mates to Amsterdam to celebrate New Year. Our saner friends decided to fly, but lured by the prospect of a cheap fare we rocked up at Victoria in London at about 9 at night to get this thing.

Cue 12 hours of hell, caused mainly by the fact that some twat decided to try and flush their half eaten doner kebab down the chemical toilet as we were pulling out of the terminal, putting it out of order for the entire journey.

We're already half cut and we've got booze, but the price of a slate of stella on the ferry was just too good to resist (think it was under a tenner), so we get one each. We then pool resources with another group on the bus (we're all getting on famously by now), who for some reason have just bought a load of baileys and fancy a lager.

It all gets very messy and we arrive in Amsterdam at about 9am surrounded by piss filled cans of wife beater and a mate who's unconscious with the booze. He then has to be forcefully removed from the bus because he steadfastly refuses to believe that we’re in Amsterdam because he doesn't recognize the car park we were in (and could see no canals, clogs or prostitutes I suppose). Oh, I forgot to mention we'd nowhere to stay…..

Coming back was no better. For some reason we go a different way and the ferry goes from Ostend. Don't know if you ever experienced the delights of an early 90’s Sally Ferry, but think of a big rusting tug boat containing a large DSS waiting room and you won't be far wrong.

A member of the crew manages to wrap a cable around the propeller (I kid you not), so we're stuck there for 4 hours whilst they sort that one out. The boat's taking everyone home after new year, so the place is fit to burst. There's nowhere to sit and people are lying in the corridors. It's like the evacuation of Dunkirk.

A gang of scousers get lippy with the crew so the captain shuts the bar and threatens all of us there with arrest. This does not help my paranoia, as I've just swallowed nearly an eighth of Amsterdam’s finest because I know I can't bring it home and I'm too pretty to go to prison. The only place I can find to get some sleep is with my head next to a video game, which woke me up every 3 minutes when it announced the high scores.

I have to be practically carried onto the coach for the last leg of the journey.

We get home and I announce to my mates that I'm just going to have “a bit of a lie down”.

I'm asleep for 23 hours.
(Jones the Unstoppable Jess Machine, Tue 12 Sep 2006, 16:51, Reply)