My first destination was London, hopping on an early morning Lumos train to King's Cross. Staying at a hostel in Camden, I explored the British Museum, ZSL Zoo and watched Grease: The Musical at the theatre. I then got an early morning Eurostar to Amsterdam, where I spent my first afternoon bed bound thanks to motion sickness. My first full day in Amsterdam took me to the Jewish History Museum.
From the start of this trip I had been lucky, finding a train from Newcastle to London for just £20. I even found a five pound note that had been dropped outside St Pancras station. Of course, inevitably something was going to go wrong. On my second day in Amsterdam, my phone decided to do a system update. To my horror, the phone would not turn on after. Whilst I had printed off all relevant tickets, I didn't feel comfortable heading to Berlin the following day without a working phone. No access to maps, no contact with my family and worst of all, the PIN to my parents' travel card were all sealed off from me. Panicking, I used what was left of my euros to purchase a Eurostar ticket for the next morning. Needless to say, I was fuming when my phone turned back on at 11pm. Fortunately, my parents encouraged me to continue on to Berlin (which I enjoyed enormously).
Will I let that stressful day put me off? No, but I would like to return to Amsterdam and Berlin with my sister. On another note, because I was travelling alone and hadn't properly spoken to anyone, I sounded absolutely awful by the time I was checking into my hostel in Berlin.
