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Bartending and travel Volume 2 This article actually has nothing to do with bartending unlike the first article from this series. This article is totally related to travel & it is the start of my European adventure. It does however have some bar & beverage related information 
Well it was a hot summers day just short of 40C when I hoped on an aeroplane bound for Amsterdam in the midst of winter. 
I can tell you I had never been so cold in my life, Australian winter clothing just does work in Europe. I stayed about 6 weeks in Amsterdam, staying with family. My first trip out of Amsterdam was to visit the Maastricht in the South of Holland where I stayed with a friend named Guus, we made friends whilst he travelled around Australia. I went for a festival named Carnival, for Carnival everyone dresses up in stupid clothes & drinks beer out of tiny glasses. You also dance around to this crazy music which my Dutch cousin describes as Humpa Humpa music, anyway its Dutch Folk music. 
People just keep handing you beers, the glasses are small that you don�t realise how much you are drinking & later you get totally trashed. I had so much fun but I also ended up on the floor & lucky for me, Guus carried me back to his girlfriend�s apartment to sleep it off. Lesson 1 When getting really drunk in a foreign country, in winter, make sure you have someone you can trust to carry you home, every year people freeze to death from being to drunk at carnival I set off on my first adventure outside of Holland, a Euro lines 10 week bus ticket. My first stop was Berlin Germany where I got lost in a real doggy part of town in the dark freezing night trying to find my hostel, my map had old street names. I was lucky & just walked in a random direction finding a street on my map, then the hostel. 
In that hostel I meet Thomas an English guy who lives in Koln & Charlotte a really hot English girl who lives in Sheffield England. Thomas put me up for a couple of days at his pad later in my adventure in Koln & Charlotte took me clubbing in Sheffield with all her university girlfriends when I visited her. Lesson 2 Talk to people they may provide you things like free accommodation that is money you have to spend on enjoying yourself.Please however be careful if you are female. Berlin is hip & happening especially if you like house music. It is also amazing just taking a trip on train where you go for sky scraper building, to everyday Europe, past world war 2 bombing sites a church in the centre of town filters back into my memory & finally into East Berlin with its Soviet image. 
From Berlin I travelled to Koben Hagen Denmark now Koben Hagen is a city of colour, bright buildings with a grey sky backdrop, very beautiful. I visited the Carlsberg Brewery a free tour is provided, followed by 2 free beer samples. I started talking to the bartenders & talking about elephant beer, then the bartender pulls out a bottle of what he call super Elephant beer. It was not for sale just simply a trial product that never became available for me to try. I also had far more that 2 beers. 
Lesson 3 When visiting breweries tell the staff youre a bartender, complement the staff on their products & complement them on how well they pull a beer. Its very expensive to drink in Denmark so anything free is good. 
Also in Koben Hagen I meet a professional traveller & found out about
discount food halls, as Denmark has high taxation they have lots of resources for their people, food is
really expensive in Denmark but in these food hall you can eat a hot meal very cheap, you will not find
them listed in any tourist publications. 
I then travelled to Hamburg Germany well unfortunately Hamburg was not my cup of tea. It has a really popular nightlife area named the Riper Barn full of bars & strip clubs. Unfortunately along the Riper Barn you have Prostitutes grabbing you by the arm trying to sell you their services, Strip Club owners grabbing you by the arm trying to convince you to visit their club, Drug dealers grabbing you by the arm trying to sell you drugs, everyone keeps grabbing you by the arm & I just wanted to visit a couple of bars. 
Lesson 4 Give Hamburg a miss, unless this is what you are looking for. Too Be Continued By Joel Scholtens Lindsay  |
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