LONDON
July 8th 2009:
We landed today in London after a long flight from Los Angeles. I was surprised to see how relaxed their (British) Customs and Immigration were, compared to how strict Mexico, Canada, and Australia were for me in the past. Andrew (my demon-from-hell incarnate of a force-upon-me roommate situation) and myself checked into our hotel room only to realize we hadn't any power nor would our toilet flush! We went down the hall and checked on Rachel and Tessa's room only to find that the two of them had twice as much space as we had AND they had a couch!
I immediately went down to the lobby and got the concierge to give us a better room: one with a desk and a dining room table with two chairs! We had unpacked all of our luggage in our old room before discovering its inadequacies, so we re-packed sloppily and enough to be able to transfer rooms. By the time we re-unpacked and got settled into our new room, everyone else was getting ready to go see the city of London!
We got ready and met our fellow classmates (almost all of them) in the lobby of the hotel and set out for the Euston Tube Station-- a little rain didn't stop us! We got to the station and realized we only had 2 1/2 hours before our scheduled meal at a restaurant together, so that meant we had only that much time to soak up our new city.
Some people needed to get money out, some people were being indecisive, others were stalling, and we flat out lost Rachel and Andrew. So Iggi, Ernie, and I decided to take the train to Oxford Circus. The reason we went there in the first place was because we were on hot pursuit of Rachel and Andrew, thinking they had gone on to Oxford Circus to shop. Though we had lost them in a crowd back at the train station, we wouldn't realize this till meeting up with the two of them at dinner.
So when we arrived at Oxford Circus, we were literally running through store after store trying to find them. (Trust: Trying to find two eager beaver shoppers in Oxford Circus is like trying to find two specific whores in Bangkok! Haystack: meet needle...)
We gave up trying to find them and realized we only had an hour and a half to get to the restaurant. What does one do while in London with an an hour and a half to spare? Why...GO TO A PUB!! Drink a pint! OR THREE!
We walked for a bit down Bond Street until we hit Chinatown, where we found a grand, old pub and did exactly that! Drank! We drank our Leffe Beers and strolled around in London's Chinatown for a bit. We walked everywhere! We were buzzing with a mild, pub-induced intoxication and kept stopping and taking pictures of everything!
That is until we found another pub and had another pint of a different type of British Beer! Our own little pub crawl was a great way to introduce us to our new city and get us pissed at the same time!
We left that pub feeling better than King George himself and ran into some guys doing some tricks and pull ups on scaffolding surrounding a building nearby that was under construction.
((**What I originally didn't include in my journal entry is Ernie asked one of the blokes where we could get some weed or hash, and the guy, Rich, said he was our man. Not only did Rich end up meeting us at Trafalgar Square later that night with an 8th of Marijuana, not only was it AMAZING pot, but he would later meet us an extra 4 more times during our stay in London.
Apparently it is common knowledge by hardcore tokers that it is very hard to find good weed in the UK. In fact, a girl friend of mine's fiance is British, so she is in London 6 times a year and she can NEVER find any good pot. I think it's hilarious that the first day when we weren't even looking for it we found a great weed source and dealer and also someone who sold high quality stuff!))
We eventually made it to the restaurant and were among the first to arrive. We ordered gin and tonics at the bar and waited for the rest of the group to slowly filter in. After a disappointing meal and a hardly memorable (obviously) time at the restaurant, we went off into groups.
We were all set to go explore when we realized we couldn't find Andrew, God love him. Rachel went back to find him, and when Andrew walked up a few minutes later without Rachel, I decided to go back for her. When I returned without finding Rachel anywhere, I realized the group had left me!
After wandering, by myself, in the direction of Euston for an hour, I finally got to Chelsea and came across a gay bar. I talked to some nice British guys whilst enjoying another Gin and Tonnie and those kind chaps were able to help me figure out which Tube train to take back to Euston to get me back 'home'.
By the time I returned to the hotel, it was 11:30 at night, though it seemed like 7 in the morning because we had been up since the previous day when we left Los Angeles. Andrew was 'home'/in the room and as it turned out, he too went back for Rachel and myself and he too got separated from the group. He said he shopped for a bit after losing everyone then came back home.
I got a wild hair up my butt and decided we should go out. It was midnight by the time we were ready but we charged out of our hotel room determined to have a gay ol' time. We walked down the hallway and pushed the button of the elevator when all of a sudden we hear:
"Andrew?"…"Koelen?"
It was Rachel! She, like Andrew and myself, had lost the group, so she had come back following the dinner via cab to rest. We convinced her to go out.
10 minutes and a chat with our friend Mr. Gin later, the three of us (bitches) were on foot and ready to hit Londontown by storm.
We immediately took a cab to the West End and walked to Chelsea from there. We swigged on the "roadie" of Gin and Tonic that I had made in the room until it was all gone and walked up into a club that could have come from another dimension!
We were at a normal, two story pub on some street corner; however, that night was gay night and a THEMED gay night, and that theme was BEACH PARTY. So the entire place was covered in sand! The floors were 3 inches thick of sand, in fact. There were palms trees and beach balls and everything!
Mai Tais galore and little gay hobbits wearing next to nothing passing out jello shots from their work belts strapped to their lean abs. This one little shot guy was not only giving multitudes of free shots to Rachel, but also kept trying to make out with Rachel! Was he gay? Straight? Frodo? Who knows?! It was so much fun.
We danced in the sand in the middle of London till 4 in the morning and laughed drunkardly at our amazing decision to study abroad. That, in my opinion, was the best night out we had in London.
