Today’s guest post comes from my Harlow travel partner, Ange. When I studied in Harlow in 2007, I travelled with a group of 30. Two of those girls, Ange and Amy, became my partners in crime, because most of the group was lame as hell. The townsfolk literally told us we were the quietest group in the history of the town. These ladies were my stronghold, my crux. I loved them both for being totally laid-back, open and fun. Here, Ange describes what happened to her and Amy when we separated during that fateful day of The Spacecake.

I was in Amsterdam with Candice. She wrote about her classy ass adventure at the Anne Frank Museum. Oh, that Candice sure knows how to scare children. I miss that crazy bitch.

This is the story of what happened to me at the exact time Candice was puking all over Anne’s bedroom.

Let’s start at the beginning. I had been warned about the Space Cakes beforehand, but I brushed off all the warnings. When it comes to pot, I’m no amateur. I had never eaten it (well there was this one time on an airplane, but that’s a whole other story), but I assumed the effects would be similar to inhaling it.

We were two days into our adventure. Beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. Aside from all the sexy hookers I also noticed a humongous abundance of queers. Big, small, bear, twink. It was too hot for leather or plaid but my gaydar has been finely tuning itself since I was 16. We were in homo heaven. Our walking tour guide informed us that it was Pride weekend. (I would also like to say that I’m 100% sure I saw Elton John the day before, but my friends totally didn’t believe me. I guess I was high as a kite, but if I’m gonna hallucinate anyone, why the fuck would it be some aging Mary?).

This information may have been disturbing to some people. Well, those people are lame. A city full of gay people doubled my chances of getting laid, and everyone knows gay men know how to party the best. These guys had the canals. WATER PARADE!!!11!!

The parade itself is again, a whole other story for a whole other time. Suffice to say the floats had a re-occurring theme (what’s long and shaped like a boat?). We managed to exit the festivities without incident, and we all felt we deserved a nice big muffin-shaped reward. And yes, the fact that none of us accidentally yelled out something like “I LOVE DYKES TOO!!!” was worth a reward. If you’ve met my friend Amy, you would understand and be proud.

Space cakes can be obtained at any of the pot shops in town. They are just chocolate muffins, and it certainly didn’t taste like I was munching on a wad of pot. We all split one. And nothing happened. I was obviously way too cool for the muffin cake to have any affect on me.

The one thing the cake managed to do was arouse my hunger. We were so busy having a gay old time at the pride parade, we had neglected to have lunch. Candice and two of the other girls decided to go to the Anne Frank Museum while Amy and I went in search of a proper restaurant. I had seen the line up at the museum earlier and was not about to wait for that shit. Also, and perhaps most importantly (Candice, this would have done you good), I did not want to be high as a freaking kite in a museum dedicated to some poor child who spent a good long time hiding out in an attic before she was murdered by Nazis. Talk about a buzz kill.

We were downtown, tons of shops and restaurants. Easy pickings, right? I have no idea how this happened, but Amy and I managed to find ourselves in the only part of town without any restaurants or shops. In fact, the only thing this part of town had going for it was crime and poverty. While it was classier than St. John’s any day, I began to get worried. Twenty minutes went by, and we walked and walked.

I should have realized something was fucked up.

We came upon a pizza joint. Joint is an understatement; it was the most expensive pizza place I have ever visited. I don’t even really like pizza, but Amy and I had somehow wandered into the outskirts of Amsterdam and my legs were getting tired. We took a seat on the front veranda. The waiter came and handed us our menus.

I began to study my menu as if it there was going to be a test on pizzas the next day. Each pie had a list of pros and cons, it was a difficult decision. I looked up to find Amy staring at me quizzically, brow furrowed.

I tried to ask her what she was getting, but my voice would not cooperate with my head. I could see she was having the same problem getting her words out. I looked back down at the menu and up at her again. She looked stunned.

We burst into laughter.

“Dude, I’m so fucked up!”

“Oh my god I know!”

We continued to laugh until the waiter came back and while he tried to take our orders. We continued to laugh while he became more and more agitated at our inability to communicate anything other than giggles.

When the pizza arrived, the laughter died suddenly. How was I supposed to eat this? The task, which at any other time would be basic and second nature, was quite daunting. All the muscles involved with grabbing a slice and directing it towards my mouth, the other muscles required to then chew it. Not to mention the precise motor skills needed to not drop it all over myself.

My growing apprehension began a battle with my hunger. I was really hungry, but here we were in a fancy restaurant. I didn’t want to look like a pig.

I sighed and picked up a fork and knife. Amy looked like she was in the same head space.

I’m really good at pothead poker face. I can be totally fucked up on the inside and no one would be the wiser. Amy did not have such luck. I watched her as she attempted to eat, her face twisted in horror. She was freaking out.

“Angela,” She leaned in towards me, speaking softly.

“What?” I asked, leaning in, my voice a whisper.

“We have to get out of here. We need to go back to the hostel.”

“Okay. Just finish your food. Then we will try to find the hostel.”

Her eyes widened at the prospect of having to find the hostel. So did mine. I had no idea where the fuck we were, and Amy is a smart girl, but also rather ditzy. And in our current state I could see this would be much more challenging than trying to eat fancy pizza. The energy that had fueled my laughter was fading and being replaced by an urge to lie down. I just needed to lie down.

\
Miraculously, we found our hostel in what felt like ten million years but was really only an hour. The rooms were on the fifth and fourth floors, with no elevator. The boys were on the fourth and the girls were on the fifth. The stairs were steep. By the time we reached the top, Amy and I were beat.

Sadly, Amy and I were in different rooms. Hers had maybe only 20 people, mine had at least 45. All I remember about my room was that it was dark and hot. The drapes were down for those who wanted to sleep.

Amy decided she needed a nap. My body rebelled against my mind and agreed with her. Since I wasn’t in her room I had to go to my own, all by myself (and 44 other Europeans).

I forgot to mention the part where, right outside of our fucking hostel the gays were setting up a stage for a huge gay dance party. My favorite. Just a couple of hours of sleep, I told myself, and I would be dancing up a gay storm. Right outside our hostel.

I was awoken by Candice and our fellow travellers sometime later. It was dark and I could hear the gay dance party through the open window. I could barely move my extremities but I managed to roll out of my top bunk without seriously injuring myself or anyone else.

We went out to the street. There was a stage set up at the end of the lane. I cannot emphasize what a huge GAY DANCE PARTY it was.

But I could not dance, and it broke my heart. I excused myself and returned to the hot dark room where I could hear everyone enjoying the big gay soiree.

I found it difficult to go back to sleep. My body was numb, but my mind was alert. The room was much noisier at night than it had been in the afternoon. People were returning from various big gay dance parties all over Amsterdam. Normally I would have just listened to music until I drifted to sleep. Sadly, however, my discman (and no it wasn’t 1999, I just felt a fondness for it) had run out of batteries.

It was about 3 am when two loud chicks rolled on in. Most of the girls had at least attempted to be quiet, but these broads just didn’t care. I was on the top bunk facing the window so I could not see who had just arrived. But I could hear them. German. Ugh. Spanish may have lulled me to sleep, but German, in my opinion, is one of the nastiest languages ever created. I’m not saying English is any better.

These two girls decided that 3 in the morning in a room full of strangers is the best time to have a heart to heart. It turns out that German whispering is even less attractive than everyday German. My ears were cringing, and I was singing really loudly in my head, but to no avail.

Miraculously, the whispering stopped. I was just in the middle of thanking Jesus for putting an end to my misery when I heard Something Else.

No. It couldn’t be….it was a smacking sound. Maybe they were eating. There was some moaning. Maybe it was really, really yummy? There was German grunting.

The two German chicks were totally banging. Despite my inability to comprehend what they were saying, there are some things which transcend language completely. “Harder” and “faster” come to mind.

I was mortified. I’m pretty sure the whole co-ed dorm style of this hostel was to prevent these sort of shenanigans from happening. Despite my crude outer shell, I’m really something of a prude when it comes to sex. Also, it didn’t sound very sexy.

I heard all of it, I can still hear it today. To try to help overcome the nasty audio I pictured two smoking hot chicks. It helped a little until I finally passed out.

Breakfast the next morning, I told Amy and Candice what happened. They found it hilarious, and we all decided to play a Find the Lesbians game.

Then I saw them. They sat next to us, matching crew cuts and plaid shirts, holding hands and whispering sweet nothings in German. I nearly died.

And the moral of this story is: Don’t eat the space cakes or you’ll miss out on a fabulous gay dance party and instead be an unwilling voyeur to unsexy German lesbian banging.

Note: I actually hurled in the public bathroom…that makes things a little better, right?

Oh, Ange. She has a wealth of stories to tell, just ask her about the fireworks and fingers incident. For the record, I never made it out of bed either, and I can’t believe I didn’t even catch a glimpse of the big gay dance party. So people ended up at the hospital because they freaked out so hard (make sure you have travel insurance, for the love of god). Instead, I snored so loudly through my Spacecake-induced coma that I disturbed the entire dorm. True story.