Sorry for leaving this one day more than I’d originally said, I had the best intentions of blogging yesterday morning however time ran away from me.
At least this one is going to be jam packed with action! Here we go, let’s break this down into days…
day four //
As you may recall from day three, day four was the first non-football day.
I had a lie in in the morning, we’d had a late night the night before with getting back from Rotterdam around midnight.
After finally making it downstairs to the communal area of the hostel, I set up to do some work and ordered a cup of tea. This was served in a glass glass which was very strange and we also had to ask for milk.
We also ate lunch at the hostel before me and Deb went for a walk along the canal, heading towards Domtower - the tallest vantage point in Utrecht with just the 465 steps to the top!
You had to buy tickets to go to the top with a guide, so with some time before our slot we went for a walk along the canal and found a really cool comic book shop. I could quite happily have blown the rest of my trip’s budget in this shop yet restrained myself to some Star Wars book marks.
There was also this entire shop dedicated to board games, like floor to ceiling packed with every kind of board game possible. Even a dodgy looking one called Secret Hitler and another about Exploding Kittens.
We headed back to the tourist information to meet our guide and began the climb to the top of the tower. On paper 465 steps looks hard and in reality it is brutal, especially as the further towards the top you get the steps get steeper and narrower. My legs were burning even with a couple of brief stops along the way to see different things in the tower.
Half way up we bumped in Lisa, one of The Gang that follows England everywhere - you bump into people in the strangest of places.
At one point we were in the bell tower where the bells were made of [Lucy] Bronze [Bronze, Bronze] and the guide asked for a volunteer to hit the bell with a hammer looking object. With no one else stepping forward I took my chance, quite like Katniss at the reaping, and tamely whacked the bell with the hammer thing, the guide told me I could hit it harder, which I did but that still wasn’t hard enough for him and he told me to hit it again. So I hit it a third time, which I still don’t think was hard enough but I think he was bored of my weak efforts at that point so we gave up. In hindsight I should have waited for a stronger person to have a go.
Once we made it to the top after many, many, many more steps the view was amazing - you could see all the way to Amsterdam! I love going to tall buildings when travelling because I think it’s boss being able to see the city mapped out below, here you could see all the winding streets and canals. You could even see the football stadium!
If you can believe it the walk down was somehow worse than the walk up, there was no stopping on the way down so it was just 465 steep stairs to the bottom of the tower.
We needed a swift beer after the climb so we went back to the canal and after Deb almost fell in a familiar face went past on a pedalo - Izzy Christiansen! Izzy looked extremely confused when I first shouted her but seemed to realise on her way back that we were English so we had a little chat and she pedalled on her way back down the canal.
It was almost time for the 6 o’clock kick off so we met back up with Ley and Oonagh to watch that in the fanzone while we ate dinner, then walked to an Irish bar about five minutes away to watch the France v Iceland game. Here I consumed a few beers and when we went back to the fanzone there was multiple groups of England and Scotland supporters, we met up with The Gang and on the next table I found my new best friends - Scots! I taught them the Caroline Weir song, we had a group singalong and I ended up back in the hostel covered in the Euros bunting. Don’t drink kids, things escalate.
day five //
Feeling the effects of the night before but it was nothing a bowl full of the cheesiest nachos I’ve ever seen in my life couldn’t fix.
The fanzone was now full of Scotland supporters, the tartan army out in force with only a few English dotted around.
I've never really felt an affinity with the England team, something I documented while out in Canada a couple of years ago (because I felt very patriotic at England v Colombia). It's weird how England just don't excite me and I can't really describe it well, I can go crazy when the Netherlands score, or Italy score. When Liverpool score, well all bets are off. But England it feels like a, 'that's nice' rather than a 'LET'S GO ABSOLUTELY MENTAL AND FALL OVER THE CHAIRS'.
Don't get me wrong I like England, I like the girls that play for England and I do genuinely want them to win the tournament, it would be fantastic and I would love it.
With that cleared up I really wanted Scotland to do well, they've been battered by injuries to big name players in the lead up to this, their first major tournament. Liverpool's Caroline Weir also plays for Scotland and I want her to do well in this tournament.
I made more Scottish friends, seen my friends from the night before - looking a bit worse for wear - and took a photo with a couple and their flag emblazoned with the EU symbol.
Then I met up with Hannah, Hayley and Keila and we played football tennis with some Scots in the next football pitch to us, before playing pole football - basically you try to knock each others pole over with the football.
That was fun but sweaty in the sunshine and for the rest of the day we parked ourselves in the shade, counting down the hours until we could head to the stadium. I also met up with Leigh Moore to collect my Creative Players Lionesses t shirt, which is really cool - photo further down this blog!
Before going to the game my accent got me into a bit of bother in McDonalds, first they couldn't give me six chicken nuggets only nine and then they gave me a side salad instead of fries. When I told them I didn't want the side salad, the woman asked me why did I ask them for it then. It was all very confusing.
Me, Hannah, Hayley and Keila walked to the stadium and they had their faces painted with the England flag so were getting a lot of 'good luck' shouts from the Dutch! The Scotland bus also drove past us so we gave that a big cheer.
We arrived at the stadium just as the England team bus arrived and headed in to watch the match, I sat over with Ley, Oonagh and Deb for the game and also made friends with two girls who sat next to me - who for the life of me I can't remember the names of, so if you read this blog by chance send me a message!
England won 6-0, we'll go into more detail on that over on @LFCladiesfans. England looked good, Scotland not so much. Jodie Taylor was boss and scored a hat trick.
After the match we went back to the square, Oonagh accidentally (I think) swilled me with a beer so I had to go and get changed. This was our last night in Utrecht before heading to Rotterdam once more the next day.
day six //
I HAD HAD THE WORST NIGHTS SLEEP. It was so hot and hot and hot in the hostel that I probably slept about half an hour in total it was horrible.
We had to check out of the hostel around 11am and following that hung around in the bar as I had some blogging to catch up on. I also went to Subway and had spicy cheese on my sandwich which was different.
The trip to Rotterdam on the train was nice and relaxing, I listened to the new Paramore album which is an absolute belter.
There's not too much to report on the day time here, we got to Rotterdam and I bought a box of Women's Euros stickers and yet I am still missing just THREE to complete the album. Including a Caroline Weir so if you have her on spare hit me up.
Once I'd stuck my stickers into my book we went to dinner at this chicken restaurant, I had Japanese chicken with sweet chili sauce and fries and it was sweeeeet.
When we got to the game they were proper patting you down with full on body searches, the woman had a right good feel. She also told me that because I was a child she wouldn't confiscate my fidget spinner and I wasn't going to argue with that. I'll leave it behind for the next game.
The game once more, WAS BOSS. Shanice was boss again and Sari Van Veenendaal was immense in goal for the Dutch. Again, stay tuned to @LFCladiesfans for more on the game.
Afterwards we hung back to see Shanice and Mandy and that was also boss. I'm made up I'm seeing most of my favourite footballers on this trip, I have two more games left on this initial part (Italy v Germany & Scotland v Portugal) and then the final, so I just have to see Amanda DaCosta now and then I've seen everyone play that I wanted to!
//
There we go, we’re all caught up now. I’m writing this on the train to Tilburg because I’m Italian again today, they play Germany at 8:45pm Dutch time.
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