We went on a wild weekend with our girl gang this weekend to Rotterdam, Holland for a weekend of booze cruises, carnival-ling and unadulterated jokes. We all arrived separately to the city and linked up at our the Art Hotel Rotterdam.
On our first night, we went to the ExtaSea annual carnival boat fete, it was a 3-tiered boat with 3 different music arenas. We had to board the boat between pm and pm, being ten minutes away from the docks we booked a cab for twenty past. We waltz down to reception and the cab was nowhere to be found, so we were panicking slightly! Tuba, one of the receptionists was frantically trying to call the cab company to sort it out, shouting down the phone in clipped Dutch tones.
While we were hysterically laughing, she turned on blaring techno music and stepped on it. We got there with a few minutes to spare but luckily there was a hugeeee queue so we were bang on time. There was a Caribbean buffet which Meghan took full advantage of before we drank and danced the night away. Usually when we go abroad, it always somehow ends up being a London link up but there was surprisingly only a few familiar faces. It was good to be more immersed in how the Dutch get down but with the kind of standard Thursday night vibes at your favourite club night.
The only thing that drove us nuts about all the events was the fact we had to buy drink tokens. We were far from impressed. What was also outrageous was the fact that the clubs charge you 50 cents to go to the toilet! We had no expectations of the carnival itself, but we knew it would be no match for our beloved Notting Hill. We got off at Blaak station and walked along towards the crowd, it was quite subdued considering and there were no soundsystems on street corners to help bring the vibes.
There were lots of families and groups camped out on the pavements behind metal barriers; with cooler boxes and chairs seemingly waiting for something. When we asked someone what everyone was waiting for, he told us that we had to wait for the precession.
