Nightbus to Amsterdam

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With no thanks to the Belarus Embassy in London, which is staffed by Alan Partridge's wife, (who forgot to process my visa, and when I went to pick it up on Thursday my unopened application, lay under a collection of dirty coffee mugs, despite my paying £113 for fasttrack service, and she told me to do it in Amsterdam which I later found out didn't have a Belarus Embassy), I have made it to Amsterdam. Because of the Belarus Embassy, or maybe just Alan Partridge's wife, I missed my pleasant morning bus from London and had to get the dirty stopout night trawler which left Victoria at 8pm last night. It wasn't as packed as I feared, and was peopled with a strange mix of african christian missionary types reading books entitled "The Divine Light" and "The Lord Giveth Life" etc, and a few aussie stoners up the back by the toilet, which was fine by me. I have fears of getting stuck on one of those seats next to the bogs on long journeys, after a particularly distressing London-Bristol trip a few years ago where it go blocked within the first 20 mins and everything slopped all over the bus floor for the rest of the journey... We went via Dover, where I don't think I have been since a child and was amazed at how huge the ferry port is. Mind you the last ferry I go was the one from Oban to Mull which is miniscule...

For some reason the bus arrived at Amstel station in Amsterdam 2 hours early, so at 6am I stumbled into the dark morning, blinking and wondering what the frig to do next. My original bus would have got me in at a sedate 7pm last night, where I could have gone and checked straight in at my hotel and got amongst it straight away. Instead this morning I loitered at the bus station til 8am and then got a cab to the Hotel de Filosoof, where I am now residing in the lovely lobby. The whole place is far too nice for me, especially as I've been in the same clothes now since Thursday, but can't check in til 2pm so will continue to stink until then.

Anyway, the initial pain is over, I am here now, London is thankfully far away, and my trip has finally started. I am off to find a suitably stimulating breakfast and start my musing of life up until now and where the hell to go from this point.