So! Last weekend I was in Rotterdam for my mate Charlie’s stag weekend. We went for three days, and chose Rotterdam because there were flights from Belfast to Amsterdam, and one of Charlie’s favourite bands were playing there in a mini-festival on the Sunday night.

Saturday we all got up early (like 4am early) and caught the Easyjet flight to Amsterdam. It was pretty painless really, the flight left on time and even arrived a bit early. Then it was off to our home for the next three nights.

We stayed at a place called Hostel Room. I was a bit worried about staying in a hostel, as I like a bit of luxury, and a hostel isn’t really the Four Seasons, but it was actually really nice. The people were friendly, and they had a dog which was a bonus. 

After a ham and cheese toasty (ham and cheese seems to be everywhere in Holland, but no complaints from me) we went off to do a spot of paintballing. It was in a bit of a weird spot really – sandwiched in between two major roads. The walk up to the place itself was like something out of Hostel, which didn’t bode well! (Scariest film ever btw)

Before the paintballing, we had a sumo fight session – basically putting on massively heavy sumo suits and trying to move around and throw our opponent out of the ring. It was cool but exhausting. Most of the time we just spun Charlie round and threw him on the ground so he couldn’t get up. In the photo above he looks like he’s getting kicked in the face, but he wasn’t really.

The paintballing was brilliant fun, I really enjoyed it, and the guy doing it although he looked mean, was pretty funny. I did take a shot to the head (thanks John) which swelled up immediately to give me an egg sized lump on the head, but apart from that it was cool. I think my team one twice, and the other team won twice, so it was kinda of a draw. Then the paintballing dudes made us some (deep fried) croquettes (cheese and ham again) which were AMAZING and hit the spot!

After that we were meant to go to a North African restaurant for a meal, but after waiting for what seemed like an eternity, we still didn’t have a table, so we left and started an hour trawl to find something to eat. I had cleverly decided not to wear a jacket which wasn’t great considering that it was freezing – and snowing. Eventually we found a wee Chinese restaurant which was closing in five minutes, and persuaded them to make us some food.

Then it was off to continue drinking! We found a busy street with bars, but all of them were “members only” i.e. not wanting a group of eight blokes in. Finally we stumbled across an Irish bar (the irony!) called O’Sheas, and stayed there for the rest of the night. It was really good fun, the drink was flowing, and we met some nice Dutch people as well and chatted away to them for most of the night (hopefully not boring them).

On the way home we had one of these. It looks absolutely minging, but let me tell you at 4am or whatever in the morning it was like manna from heaven. A chicken frankfurter with cheeseyness and stuff. Er I actually had two.

Eventually I made it back to the hostel, and after a couple of more beers, it was time for bed.