Non stop september

It is currently the 25th of September, meaning that there are still 5 days left, and so far this month I have been to 7 cities; Orlando, Miami, Manchester, Nottingham, Burton on Trent, Sheffield and Amsterdam. It's been pretty non-stop! And after only landing back in England from America 10 days earlier, on Thursday I jetted off to Amsterdam with all my absolute besties to celebrate little Katie's 21st birthday!

The plane ride was pretty much a joke; the plane only had two seats either side of the aisle and only about 20 rows so it was seriously tiny and we had to really wedge our hand luggage suit cases in to the over head lockers (we didn't bother checking cases in because we were only going for two nights). And the plane ride was so short that by the time we had got our cute mini bottles of prosecco open, the captain was announcing '10 minutes to landing'! I went to Amsterdam about a year ago and it was so good to be back again! Our hotel (Hotel hermitage) was in an even better location than last time too, in Rembrandt square which is only like 10 minutes from Centraal station. And it was so nice all being in one room (which we've never had before in Magaluf or Ibiza or anywhere)!

After taking an embarrassingly long time getting ready (a quick turn around is not our strong suit), we finally headed out to Leidseplein (which was one of my favourite areas last time and was also recommended to Katie by a friend) for tapas and wine. The whole area is really cute, there's like a main square near the tram stop where there's a giant canopy seating area for loads of different bars and restaurants with fairy lights surrounding the whole lot. I'd say that one of the best things about Amsterdam is how pretty it is!

When you go to somewhere like Ibiza, you expect to be jumped on by bar PR people every 5 steps you take but when the same thing happens on a city break it does feel a bit weird. But it worked to our advantage because we got a free bottle of pink prosecco in the first place we went in (served in a giant ice bucket with sparklers naturally) and then free shots while we were in there too. And I hope you all like that last picture too by the way because Staci hilariously fell over down a big step trying to take it! We had a really fun first night out though going to various bars and coffeeshops and managing to blag free drinks in just about all of them. It's a good job we did too because the one bar where we actually ordered a drink, it turned out to be €15 each! Although Amsterdam obviously don't do Thursday nights out like we do it in Nottingham; there were absolutely no food places open when we were ready to head home at about 3, not even trusty old McDonalds!

Then the next morning, we took even longer to get ready and get out than we had the night before! We eventually made it out for brunch at about 1 and headed to the area surrounding the Anne Frank house. I was named chief navigator for the trip and was in charge of getting us around; little Katie wanted to be helpful but her idea of working out how to get to the Anne Frank house was finding it on the map and saying 'there it is'! We had an unlimited 3 day travel card anyway so it wouldn't have mattered if we'd have gone wrong but we actually managed not to for the whole trip!

I've now been to the Anne Frank house 3 times; once when I was really young, once last year and then again this time and it's just as interesting and poignant each and every time! I've read her diary and been round the museum but Staci and Katie haven't read it or seen the movie or anything and they both thought it was really good too. It's a definite must-do I think. And a little piece of advice: book your tickets online! It only costs €9 and it saves you joining this dirty queue (it went all the way round the corner and right up the street and was about a 3 hour waiting time, bearing in mind that it only actually takes about an hour to walk round the whole house).

Then we hopped back on the tram and went to get some selfies with the iconic I amsterdam sign, near the Rijkmuseum (which I went to last time and didn't rate it that highly because I'm not much of an arty person). We would've climbed on top for some cooler photos but I'm way too clumsy for that so we settled for sitting in the d instead.

Then after about a 30 second walk (where we had to jump out of the way of about 200 cyclists), we came to Vondelpark where we sat and ate these amazing waffles in the sunshine. We were seriously so lucky with the weather while we were there!

We hadn't actually booked anything else (only the Anne frank house) before getting there so we didn't have a clear idea of what we were going to do when but we wanted to do the ice bar and it was literally round the corner from our hotel so we popped in to see if we could get straight in and we could. We also had a little voucher from our hotel which brought the price per person down from €25 to €18 for a welcome drink in the normal bar and then 2 drinks in the ice bar which is pretty good! And in a case of the universe smiling down on me, when I got in there, someone who had just come out of the ice bar but only used one of her drinks tokens, gave me her other one so I got an extra free drink! Now I'm not one to normally go back on my outfit choices, but even I'm going to put it out there that bare legs in an ice bar for 35 minutes is not a good idea. Me and Staci were huddling like penguins to try and stay warm!

Then we actually managed to get ready in record time (which is still not very fast for most normal people) so that we made it on to our 9 o'clock cocktail cruise! It was €39 per person and that included the 2 hour boat tour around the Amsterdam canals (with occasional commentary about the house boats and the mooring costs and pointing out where the mayor lives), 2 cocktails each, some snacks and nibbles and then unlimited wine. I got a bit ahead of myself and wanted the wine serving at the same time as the cocktails but apparently that's not how it's done (my reasoning is that 2 hands equals 2 drinks). But to be fair to them, once we'd had the cocktails and moved on to the wine, they did come round and top us up like every 10 minutes!

Then we went to the infamous red light district which was only a short walk away because we were already in central anyway. It was no less weird the second time of seeing it! The way the girls in windows just seem so bored is quite interesting; instead of trying to get guys in they're just like sat playing on their phones. Seeing guys actually go up and haggle is pretty funny though. And we figured we'd really get on board with the whole Amsterdam experience and so we went and watched a peep show, which is €2 for 2 minutes of watching a nearly-naked girl grinding on a revolving table. We squeezed in the booth as a 3 and a 2 and just found the whole thing funny but seeing guys in there on their own across from us was kind of creepy. Let's just say we avoided touching the walls of the booth!

Then after not wanting to repeat the disappointment from the night before, we made sure we got some food earlier this time before heading on to a couple more coffeeshops and bars for our last night of partying before home time!

Then after an amazing couple of days, we headed back to airport for an even bumpier but even shorter plane ride home than we'd had on the way there!

But there was no time to recover (the phrase 'no rest for the wicked' comes to mind) because after waving my baby brother off to uni (can't even explain how much I'll miss him) and squeezing in only a 2 hour nap, it was time to get ready all over again for Katie's birthday celebrations part 2! It was also one of our oldest friends Joe's birthday so we went to a BBQ at his first and then headed to town in time to wish our Kate a happy birthday when the clock (or phone) struck midnight! I wore this white lace up bodysuit with striped skirt and black boots (all missguided) and finished the look with river island earrings, Taupe lipstick and loads of highlighter. You can tell times are hard when you have to take your outfit photo in the bar toilets because your whole family is away so you have noone to take it in your usual spot!

I literally love these girls like family and I've had such an amazing few days with them; we've actually packed so much in to a couple of days as well that it feels like we were there much longer! But life has been pretty much non-stop (as my title suggests) since getting back from America so I'm looking forward to some down time now to finally catch up on my sleep. Katie, I hope you've had an amazing birthday weekend and I love you loads!