day 13.5: dance craze in berlin

My trusty Lonely Planet guide describes Berlin as a city with night owl stamina. So we did not need much persuasion before signing up for the €12 Sandemans New Europe Pub Crawl.

The new friends we met from our hostel and the New Berlin tour quickly caught our contagious enthusiasm. And we made even more new friends along the way!!

• Ben from Canada: Taught me how to say 'ey' at the end of every sentence
  
• Tim and Chris Smith and Steve from Texas: Tim and Chris are brothers, Chris hates it that everyone thinks he is the elder brother
  
• Jin Sha from Hunan: Grabbed attention with her alluring eyes once the spectacles came off
• Ariana from Brazil: She had the best party hair that night
• Diana from Columbia: She did not look like a party regular but she danced and drank as hard as me when we got it going!!
• Carlos, our 'Arrmano' or big brother: He made sure the guys we do not want to dance with are behind the wall, there was like a 'death zone' which he was guarding. He is the best!
• Kelly and Sarah from Kansas USA: Hot babes!!

The bars we covered were:

1. Zapata
2. Silberfisch
3. Ruderclub Mitte
4. XO Berlin
5. Matrix Club

day 11.5: i survived leidseplein

The Leidseplein pub crawl organised by Ultimate Party gets a full 10/10 score from me!

For €20, we got entry to six clubs, your choice of beer, wine or shot at each club, a 'I survived' t-shirt, unlimited mouthfuls of some sweet vodka concoction, and non-stop dancing with 50 to 60 other partyheads!

The pubs we went to are pretty much alike, differing only in the music they play. They were all in the Leidseplein area, which is in the centre of Amsterdam nightlife (besides the Red Light district). The clubs were:

• The News
• Pirates
• Amsterdamned
• The Cooldown Cafe
• Royalty!

The bunch of pub crawlers were amazing. We met three girls from Germany, Gohan from Southern France, Joe from England with an English accent so strong I almost could not understand him, Joel and two friends from Canada who stayed in the same hostel as us, just a floor below. They were obviously high from something, and we lost them in the middle of the crawl. Fortunately when we went back and passed their room, they were already in bed.

Jerrain and I surrendered after the fifth club and headed to Burger King for wings and twister fries.

• Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  
• Cost: €20 pub crawl, €8.50 vodka lemonade, €6.20 Burger King supper wings with twister fries, €8 taxi back to hostel

day 7: instant comfort food

Too many glasses of vodka cranberry. That was the first thing on my mind - together with the headache - when I got up this morning, still in my dress and make up from last night.

Jerrain and I dragged ourselves to Leicester Square to hunt down noodle soup, which we have been craving the moment we landed in London. The first shop we passed was Cafe de Hong Kong at Newport Court. Both of us agreed that we could not wait to walk to the next stop. I had luncheon pork and egg instant noodle soup at £4.70. Bubble tea would have been a heavenly finish, but it was £3.60!

The highlight of the afternoon was seeing Dirty Dancing at Aldwych Theatre. There was less dancing than I expected.

To make up for that, Jerrain and I joined the New London Pub Crawl for £12. It gave us four drinks (though I only remembered drinking three shots) and priority entry to a bar and four clubs in Covent Garden. But most of all, it is the company of 91 other partyheads that made it a crazy night.

1. Belushi: Rather no-frills bar which Jerrain and I were there the night before. First shot of rum.
2. Roadhouse: Single storey club with harleys scattered around. This was where we had wanted to go last night with the London lawyer trainees.
3. Verge: Bar with a tiny basement club. Good DJ playing the latest hits by Lady Gaga and Shakira. Shot of sambuca. Salsed shortly with a guy but I could hardly handle the turns in that space.
4. Oxygen: Bar with a basement club. It had poles at several corners but I couldn't convince Jerrain to do a demo. Shot of tequila. Met Matthias from Germany and Vitor from Brazil who were part of the pub crawl bunch.
5. Zoo: Biggest club of the five and had the highest energy both in the bar area and the basement club. Met James from Boston who just completed his first year of the Masters programme at the London School of Economics, Rebecca and her guyfriend from Zurich who are doing an English course in London, and (wait for it)... two Singaporeans!! I cannot remember their names now but it sure feels great bumping into them. We wanted to have frog legs congee (popular post-club supper in Singapore) after being chased out of Zoo at 2ish in the morning, but Jerrain and I settled for cup noodes and strawberry milk respectively. They sent us back to our hostels before heading back, how sweet.

• Location: London, Britain
• Cost: £7 chinese food for lunch, £39 Dirty Dancing, £3 ham and cheese croissant, £3 Starbucks mocha frap, £12 pub crawl, £12 drinks
• Highlight: Bumping into two Singaporeans and dancing six hours straight in my heels!