Discount travel blog

Well, I though withdrawing 300 Euros just before I left to Amsterdam would be enough money for one week just to cover food, drinks and a bit of red light fun. But it turned out that I was quite wrong. Everthing here is bloody expenisive and estra charged for. Even  the  jam  at breakfast cost me 1 Euro extra because I wanted a bit more.  A bit of toast  butter and jam for 5,90 Euro.  PFFF,  even London is way below that, I  could name you  countless places where your get a english rich breakfast for 5 pounds in London. or less. here its starts at 7,50 Euro without drinks.

Correct me when I am wrong, but arent prostituts there you to paid to fullfill your sexual needs and whishes. You would pay a women for sex because you want to do things that you are not wanting to ask your girlfriend, or you are to shy to try out with someone you just meet in a bar. etc etc.. many reason why you would pay 50 Euros for a super quicky. And it can get quickly to a 100,-. So then once you choose one of the girls, they sometimes start like, you are not allow to touch my tits, bla bla… what in goods name would a girl thing to pay for not touching even the tits. do I have a sign hanging around my neck that I am “Ga Ga” or what!

The only reason why I give a girl tones of money for sex is that she would for me what ever the hell I want her to do for me. Should that be the way how its working, otherwise I rather keep my hard earn pennies or may as well clean my ass with the 50 Euro bill.

Yes, its cheap to sleep in a 18 bed dorm, but if you are unlucky to have snorring pigs in your room and I had one fat indian guys sleeping and snorring three nights in a row just above me.

I arrived by train and had only 5 minutes walk from the Centraal Stations to my hostel.

This time I decided to book a hostel which is right in the city centre of the old town in Amsterdam. There were basically two options I had to decide between the Meeting Point Hostel and the St. Christopers Hostels / Hotel in the Wormoestraat.

The Meeting Point Hostel seemed to be an ok alternative especially in terms of price. It was actually a bargain booking for 6 nights ahead at once. Rates then get cheaper at the meeting point hostel. So I paid 18 Euro the night which was really rock bottom in terms of accommodation in the red light district.

The first two mornings I took the breakfast in the Meeting Point hostel. It was extra charged for which I was not used to since the last couple of places I stayed at where always including breakfast.  So what they give you as breakfast at the Meeting Point Hostel is three slices of toast, one butter, one jam, one boiled egg and one slice of cheese. The scond morning I decided to ask them if I could have only jam and butter with toast since cheese and eggs are not what I like each morning. So they got me three toast but only with one jam and one butter. Then I ask for more jam, but only one more etc. etc. I thought that was rather tight. Was I suppossed to eat two toast just dry. How funny!. Well, these are just little things, but often the little things make the big difference, it shows the hostels caracter.

This morning I actually had my towel clean away from the cleaners, this happens to me each time I am in Amsterdam. Ha ha. And also, I decided this morning not to take the breakfast in the Meeting Point Hostel, but outside in a nice cafe, snack bar run by dutch people opposite the Dam Rock. I loved it there, since the toast and jam was 2,70 Euro just like in the Hostel. But again the same story, I had to ask for more butter  and jam, a tinny little jam for three giant toast. How do dutch people each toast like that, I dont know. I really missed the belgium way of offering breakfast at this point. The Belgiums simply have two to four different tastes of jam and honey and nutella on each table. Each as much as you can put on your toast in the rule in Belgium. I loved that.!

Hi, this is my second trip to Amsterdam within the past two months. This time I was comming from Munich in Germany and not from Brussels in Belgium. This trip of course was a completly different story. A 8,5 hour train ride with switch in Hanover instead of a 2,45 hour straight train trip from Brussels. 

It was an urgent call to find a free bed in one of the London hostels as quick as possible. Not hard to picture that at this time of the year all the hostels in London are pretty much booked up but I needed to find a hostel place to stay with yesterday afternoon. So I searched around on the Internet for 2 hours. And what I finally came up with was some spare bed at the Smart Hyde Park Inn Hostel (www.hydeparkinn.com). As the name says, it must be close to the Hyde Park, which means close to the city centre, just south of Picadilly in fact.

That didnt sound to bad at all so I booked a bed for two nights to the price of 20 pounds roughtly $40 US equivallent. I thought that was a reasonable price for that area so at first I was quite pleased also with the fact that I got anything done just a couple of hours before I arrived at the Heathrow Airport in London. That cheap flight there is another crazy story. But lets stick with the hostel story for this time. So that was cool too, since I did not feel like carrying a 25 kg back switching tube lines several times and so on, you know what I mean. Having arrived at Earl’s Court underground station it was only a 3 minute walk to the Hyde Park Inn Hostel.
So I arrived in London Heathrow and it was a straight 1,5 hour tube ride from this airport to the hostel metro stop which was called Earl’s Court. The receptionists where friendly and explained everthing, the hostel rules etc., to me in detail.

Just next to the Inn’s reception there was a little common area with a big flat screen TV, and some of the guys were watching a DVD, the State’s Enemy movie. I thought that was one of my favourite movies, however thinking also, why would I visit London, pay the price of the most expensive hostel rates in the world, and and stay inn on a Saturday night to watch DVD. Hmmm, funny backpackers i suppose.

So I went up to my room, just quickly dorpping of my big bag with the intension to move out very soon to discover area a little bit more. In fact, this area counts as one of the more classy areas in London. It’s save, nice little houses, else as brick houses which is rare in the UK I thought, and tones of little indian shops, cafes and snack bars. Great!

Just next to the hostel is also the Kensington Gardens, really nice area all togheter. I recommend to stay there even if you don’t go for the same hostel. There is plenty of choice for budget hotels, around the 60 pounds mark.

The Eurostar is really cheap and now even faster. If you book only 2 weeks in advance you usually snatch up a cheap ticket for 40 Euro single. And the trip now takes you to the brand new station in London Kings Cross San Pancras in less then 2 hours, instead of the 2,5 hours before to Waterloo. Yes, its unbelievable but the English finally managed to speed up their railway system in the UK such that the Eurostar can rise to its full speed even on the UK side. It’s a cheap and easy trip, faster than queuing at the airport and mostly cheaper as well. If you buy the ticket online there is no hidden taxes or fees involved to pay what you see on the offer. And two or three weeks ahead is not that much to plan in advance. The London station Kings Cross San Pancras is all brand new and I was amazed! When you get off the train you are also much better connected to the rest of London. The northern line and circle lines get you to Oxford Street and Tottenham Court road in no time.

In the Eurostar there is a little bar area and I was delighted to meet a bunch of friendly and chatty French service people there. The saying the French don’t know how to do friendly service is a myth. Although in Brussels I sometimes experienced otherwise locationally. You have comfortable seats in the Eurostar, more spacious than in the plane (except first class). The train is also very quiet and air-conditioned. All in all, I must say, it was one of the most relaxed trip I ever did on such a high speed.

So there we were, only a couple of days before the weekend and it was up to me to find a decent place to stay in the city centre of Cologne. Well, the first thing I had in mind was of course a hostel. So I went to hostelbookers.com and quickly I narrowed down my choices to three different places. The Warsteiner Hof, the Hotel Goethe and the Meininger City Hostel which still had vacancies and is located right next to the Rudolfplatz. And I have to say that in the end the Meinigner Hostel was a good choice, we got a double room for 60 Euros. That was cheap I thought, and stayed as central as we could imagine. I cant actually remember if there was a breakfast, I think we simply skiped it. But the hostel was clean, and inside it looked more like a hotel to us. Perhaps typical for Germany, a clean and high quality place to stay. Well, if you go to Colgone you should definitely check it out.

Well, due to the fact that the Meininger Hostel is so central, parking was not that easy, but we were lucky. There was a little parking lot just 50 meters down the road from the hostel. And the good thing about this parking was that is was for free on Sundays. On the Saturday we arrived however we had to pay some 2 Euro the hour, but there is another parking garage just a 100 meters further down from the Meininger hostel where a day parking would cost you about 12 Euro.

The good thing also about the Meininger Hostel is that there is a hostel in a number of cities like London, Vienna, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich in Germany and that means that these guys have really standardized their accommodation service and tailored towards the low to mid budget range travellers. So whenever you visit any of these cities you already know where you can find a clean, quite and cheap place to stay for a couple of nights. So here is their main website in case you wonna check it out. http://www.meininger-hostels.com/

We stayed at the Meininger City Hostel in Cologne, at that was a very wise decision in terms getting around on foot. The Meininger City Hostel is only a stone’s throw fromt the Rudolfplatz. And the Rudolfplatz is pretty much the heart of the city in terms of nightlife, shopping and attractions. It’s been simply so much fun hanging out there and watching the people and chatting to the verz friendly German’s in that area. So many cool bars, like this one bar was a combination of pipe smoking lounge, cocktail bar and pool table bar.