Welcome to
Before the pandemic,
we made a sustainable guide to traveling Europe
and found out it’s funner without them anyway.
The main way we can reduce emissions is by flying less,
and coronavirus has shown us
that a world without planes is possible.
But calm your tits,
that doesn’t mean you have to stop going on your jollies.
So us legends are going on a journey across Europe,
using ferries, coaches, and trains to get to Naples,
and tracking our carbon footprint
to see if traveling like this will cost the planet less CO2
than just flying there directly.
I’ve only ever left London by aeroplane
if I’m going to mainland Europe,
which is kind of a bad sign.
We’ve definitely racked up the emissions between us.
Yeah.
But we’re trying to right our wrongs.
Club, casino, restaurant,
what more do you want from a holiday?
Sunshine.
OK, you got me there.
To begin our journey, we’re heading to Amsterdam for Pride Weekend.
To get there, a typical flight would take us an hour.
The ferry will take us 20 hours,
but we’d heard there’s entertainment on board,
and also the whole planet thing,
which is kind of the point of the show.
I mean, it’s not as disgusting as I thought it would be.
-Come on, it’s nice. -Do you snore? I snore really loud.
Especially after a couple of...
Are we having some...?
So do you get seasick?
No, I mean, I don’t know.
You don’t know?
What an interesting turn that would be, wouldn’t it?
Oh, they’re mooning us.
Oh my God.
I mean, I feel like the reason why people like this
and it feels like a bit of a novelty,
is because it’s a bit vintage.
This is what people used to do.
Also just the idea to be able to sit out on the deck
and drink a mojito.
I mean, yeah, fine, you’re in Newcastle,
you’re not in the Caribbean, but...
you’re still on a boat.
Like any physical space
in which British people are forced to stay for longer than ten minutes,
the ferry has an onboard bar.
At the Sky Bar,
we bumped into some students from Newcastle
traveling to Amsterdam Pride.
This is what real drama looks like.
How much of a reason for traveling by ferry
is the fact that it’s sustainable?
I feel like the ferry is like an extra holiday.
There’s the shop, there’s the buffet,
there’s the bar, which we love.
We do love the bar.
You feel a little bit less guilty to be honest,
but also it’s much more fun, I think.
Even if you do get a bit seasick, like myself.
I’m literally so ropey right now.
Do you have seasickness tablets?
-I do, indeed. -You do?
Yes, for how many victims?
Just one victim.
This will take 15 minutes to kick in.
Psych, it was ecstasy!
What the ****?
-I feel better! -Did it work?
I feel so much better.
-Sam! -Sam!
Come and do shots with us.
Come to the **** club.
Never gets easier.
It’s getting absolutely **** litty.
Don’t put that on as well.
Ah, **** off, he’s going to lose it all now.
You could get 11 shots for this.
-No! -You ****.
Let’s film this oil rig.
It’s been a wild night, surprisingly so.
-What do you think? -It has, I’ve loved it.
A whirlwind of emotions, would you say?
I like a good gamble and a nice shot.
I do like that.
We went from quite high to quite low, quite quickly.
We did go low when you lost all our money.
It’s not sustainable, because he lost.
Because he’s a gambler.
Do you know what else isn’t sustainable?
Oil rigs.
Oil rigs are gambling with our future.
Night.
This is where you go when you’re 40.
This is where you go when you’re four.
Extremely fast internet here.
Extremely.
We could have happily sampled the ferry’s nightlife forever,
but it’s unnatural for humans to spend so long
without access to a 5G network.
The Netherlands were approaching.
Oh, we made it!
[The Netherlands]
What a lovely bit of kit.
Look at it retract.
There is a subconscious stress level that goes with flying,
and it might be having to just go through security.
OK, the dance floor was a little bit dead until we got there.
-I think it’s fair to say. -Until we got there, for sure, yeah.
We switched it on.
That may change when more people start taking ferries,
and they get better DJ lineups.
[Amsterdam]
As soon as we arrive in Amsterdam,
we’re introduced to an intimidatingly handsome local journalist
named Bo Hanna.
You’d have to literally have no shame or be incredibly stoned
to get a taxi in Amsterdam.
The city is built for walking and cycling,
and there are trams and ferries to go further afield.
Unless you like picking chunks of stroopwafel vomit from your shoes,
don’t stay in the tourist-heavy Centrum during Pride.
Opt for Jordaan, De Pijp, Oud-West, or Oost.
The warehouse parties happen in Noord,
so head there if you prefer techno and ecstasy
to jaegerbombs and stag dos.
Bo is taking us on a pleasant bike ride to Amsterdamse Bos,
a big park on the edge of the city,
where a psychedelic truffle shaman called Chi is waiting for us.
According to Bo, he would realign us with the natural world
through a microdosing ceremony,
and change our lives forever.
It sounds like brainwashing,
but Bo is the best,
so we decide to go along with it.
-Hey. -Hello.
-Hi, I’m Bo. -Hi, I’m Leti.
-Nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you.
-Hi, Bo. -Chi, nice to meet you.
-Beautiful.
Do you think if everyone took truffles or psychedelics
that they would be more considerate about the planet?
The truffles and the mushrooms can really open up our senses
to where we can feel the pain of others.
And then we start caring,
“Wow, if everything is in pain, then I’m in pain too.
It’s difficult for me to be happy if the species and the plants
and the animals around me are unhappy.”
These are the real masters and healers,
and we treat them with a lot of respect.
Notice how you feel and embrace...
your feelings and your emotions.
We are entering the intelligence of the mushroom kingdom,
the fungi kingdom, and the truffle world.
Breathe, relax, surrender, and trust the medicine.
-Who wants to see... -No, no.
-a four-leafed clover? -No.
What?
She found it!
How did you do that?
Honestly, I am the best person I’ve ever met.
I don't say that lightly.
I think we should take off our socks
because then we connect to the Earth with our feet, right?
It’s all small.
-Let’s have more. -Never underestimate it.
I feel like everything is much more beautiful.
When we were closing our eyes,
every noise felt like it was an arranged noise,
like the bird was making a noise,
then the child was laughing and the bird was making a noise again.
It was kind of like an orchestral arrangement.
The sound of the planes would just ruin it.
It was just like...
get out of my orchestra.
You see that?
No really, like, look.
Oh, the glisten.
Usually we take people out in nature
because it can be such a shock to the system
to face everything we’ve been running away from.
Deep down we know what’s good for us,
and this is extremely controversial,
but what if five percent of the population
just stopped believing that the dollar sign had any value?
What would that do?
What if they started turning to...
you know, actually things that have value, like...
you know, mushrooms?
All count to three and then say the first word that we think it was.
-Yeah. -OK.
One, two, three.
-Emotional. -Emotional.
Tiring.
We said the same.
Emotional and tiring.
-Yeah. -Yeah, it was very emotional.
I think it’s having to reassess yourself, which we don’t do a lot.
And within that self-assessment you have to come to terms with the fact
that actually you are a gas-guzzling, meat-consuming,
plane-flying **** basically,
who’s destroying the environment.
And that made me feel very guilty.
Choosing a setting like this to microdose
makes you realize how important spaces like this are.
I’m ready to start a cult around Chi and microdosing.
Returning to reality with open eyes,
conscious hearts, and throbbing chakras,
we now need some guilt-free food
to fuel us for the Pride celebrations ahead.
We heard about a sustainable restaurant called Yerba,
where everything is totally vegan,
but they also offer an ethical meat edition
for people who can’t stomach the thought
of not extinguishing a soul every time they feed themselves.
We’re basically really bad at eating vegetarian meals.
We don’t know what to eat,
and we’re, shamefully, carnivores.
I have meat guilt quite aggressively sometimes.
How many people come here and order the meat suggestion?
Five percent.
-Oh, that’s very small. -It’s very small.
So, what are you cooking today?
I’m making you a cannelloni.
Inside, there’s a paste of leek and artichoke,
herbs and spices.
Nice.
And then I fry them off.
And there’s the artichokes with it.
It’s the whole leek that I use, from the bottom to the top.
-Do you want to touch? -I’m tempted.
I’m guessing I shouldn’t touch it,
because of the way that you’re saying that.
It is a stinging nettle.
I made nettle tea to go with the dish.
The nettles grow naturally
around the whole leek field.
If we can use as much as we can for one product,
we don’t have any waste.
-This is vegan cheese. -Oh!
This is literally burnt leek powder.
This seems incredibly intricate,
but you could, I guess, pretty much make this
out of things you grow in your garden.
Correct.
-And there we go. -Wow!
It smells like the outside.
-Shall we eat it? -Yeah, let’s eat.
It literally feels like pasta, but just way lighter.
-The cheese! -Yeah, the cheese.
What’s going on there?
-It’s good? -I’m blown away by the cheese.
Leeks don’t cry and scream when you kill them.
They squeak a little bit, but that’s it.
They squeak?
This is a Magnum...
made out of asparagus.
-What? -Oh my God.
Oh my God.
-Well done. -Enjoy.
-Thank you so much. -Enjoy Amsterdam.
Let’s go.
To Pride!
Don’t kill me.
No photo, eh?
Yes, hello, where are you?
Are you guys smiling?
Never.
Amsterdam Pride is a celebration of acceptance and diversity,
where hundreds of thousands of people descend on the city every August.
The main event is the canal parade.
Think Glastonbury,
think the Pyramid Stage,
but with boats.
[Homomonument]
So that says Homomonument?
Yes, so the triangle,
because in the Second World War,
gay people that were persecuted by Hitler, you know,
they had to wear a pink triangle on their shirts.
And that’s why they built this monument
to commemorate the people
that died in the Second World War that were gay.
This Pride this year is about knowing the past,
know who started the riot.
Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Victoria Cruz,
all trans women of color that were fighting the police in New York
at Stonewall Inn, you know?
It makes me realize how privileged I am
to grow up in a time like this.
And that I have to be so thankful
and grateful for what these people did 50 years ago, you know?
We’ve spent an hour at Pride,
and I’m already topless and wearing a cowboy hat, so...
I think Pride is working.
Why are you still wearing a top?
I’m trying to keep my dignity.
So, this area looks significantly different to where we’ve been before.
We are in the northern part of the city,
and this is like an industrial area.
There is this collective called Dance With Pride,
and they’re hosting a party.
It’s actually a fundraiser to get money for refugees,
queer refugees, and other causes.
It’s for a community that’s marginalized,
that can’t be really themselves in other clubs, in other spaces.
If they’re queer refugees or undocumented people
or POC and they don’t have the means to pay whatever the entrance fee is,
they can email us so they can come in for free.
That was the most comforting welcome to a club I’ve ever had,
someone to tell me that if I didn’t feel safe,
or if I wanted to talk, then I could find someone with a glowstick.
I’ve never had that before.
Sadly, it’s time to say goodbye to Bo.
We are absolutely devoed.
We’d bonded over Pride, shrooms,
and seen an Amsterdam we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
So there is obviously only one thing left to do.
Yeah, mate!
Oh, it’s empty.
Oh, it is?
Oh, yeah.
Cheers.
Bring it in bitches.
I’ll miss you guys.
We’ll miss you too.
Next time on
we hop on a 20-hour party train to Budapest.
Kind of like the movie
if DJ Marshmello is the train driver.