Thursday: Thursday was packing, faxing and travel day. The travel adventure started around 5pm or so when I met up with Tanzawa and we decided we should try and find some spicy food (Thai or Indian usually). Our chosen path wasn't restaurant laden so we found a quick thai dinner place and we ended up catching the 6:20 Flygbuss to Skavsta airport and arriving at 7:40 for a 9:50 flight. A little early...but as the evening progressed I felt successively crappier, so I was happy to find a place to just be at rest. Once we boarded the plane (after I finally got a swedish stamp in my passport!) I went into "omg I have a huge fever and the most sore throat ever coma" mode.
After arriving in London's Stanstead airport we had to hop on the train...except the bus people there are wily and put their stand under the train signs. fuckers. anyhow, it was cheaper than the train and ended up putting us at the corner of Hyde park, only a 1k walk to the hotel. which I didn't get lost on...there we collapsed.
Friday: John and I made it to the tail end of the breakfast at the hotel, and decided to walk around town for a while, we couldn't really do anything 'cause Brian was arriving around 2pm that afternoon and probably wouldn't have been too happy with us if we were in the middle of touring Westminster Abbey or something when he showed up to a locked hotel room. So Tanzawa and I walked through Hyde Park, along the Serpentine and eventually across to St. James Park to Buckingham Palace. I have to say I expected it to be bigger. But hey, still impressive! We then headed a little more northward into Soho and the West End. I found a shop with rugby jerseys and got an All Blacks jersey, trendy I know...but they really do have the best jerseys...and pre-game "I'm going to kick your ass" dance. After this we headed back to the hotel, I went out and found an Indian place that did carry out then met Tanzawa on the corner, waiting for Brian to show up. He did, we rejoiced, ate, and then headed out to walk the town some more. We popped into the tube, resurfaced near St. Paul's Cathedral, walked to the Bank of London, then to the Tower of London and then decided to go to Notting Hill, find a place to eat, and then get back to the hotel for pre-party, showers and head out to meet Brian's girlfriend's friend Liz out on the town. Nice people, beers, and hanging out. This is when I saw the car of my dreams, the Nissan Skyline GT-R34. It was in the back of a pack of some other Japanese cars...I theorized it was in the back so it didn't leave everyone behind while racking up 30 speeding tickets. We then found another pub once everyone else had to leave for fear of being hungover at work the next day then I went home as Brian and Tanzawa snuck into a club with a 40 pound cover. yipes.
Saturday: English Breakfast (of sorts) from a place close to our hotel, not 100% authentic but certainly good and mild enough on our stomachs :) From there we headed back through Hyde Park and by Buckingham Palace for Brian, then on to Westminster Abbey...I wasn't going to be happy if we missed it. So! Inside we went, saw the kings and queens, said "what's up?" to chaucer...then I wandered until I found Darwin and Newton. I stood on Darwin and waved to my main man Isaac. Then I was ok to leave. No photography in Westminster...boo! After this we walked by Parliament and Big Ben, across the Thames and along the south side until we reached the Tate Modern. Impressive collection, also no photography, but I didn't know that until after I managed to snap a photo of a Picasso. whoops. It was getting on in the evening so we decided to hop back on the tube to get back for dinner (Indian at a place around the corner, very good stuff), pre-party (Stellaaaaaaaaa), showers, and mixology (cheaper to pack a rum and coke to sip on the tube than to attempt to make it up at the bars). Saturday night out was fun, met up with Liz again, in South Kensington near the hospital works at...she has an evil sense of humor and walked us past a house owned by one "Hugh Grant". Disreputable fellow I hear. After meeting up at a pub near the Tube we rocked out at Chateau 6 until closing time...tried to get in somewhere else, to no avail (three more dudes?! no thanks!).
Sunday: Even more tired/hungover than Saturday. We almost stayed in the room until checkout, Brian had to take off early to make it to his flight, so John and I decided to walk the other direction through Hyde Park to Kensington Palace, then south to the Natural History Museum (I demanded a photo of the Diplodocus) and then we spent a while in the Victoria and Albert Museum, including lunch. We walked past Harrod's...it has a Maserati dealership in it. that's just ridiculous. Past a place called High and Mighty (the better british name for Big and Tall). We were getting a little tired from walking and decided to hoof it back to where we were going to catch our bus back to the airport...caught up on some reading with the Economist and chilled for a bit. Then it was time to end the adventure...except John left his passport on the airplane and didn't notice until they were already boarding again, but he thinks it has been found in London now. yay!
PS The cars in London are insane. I saw no fewer than 20 Aston Martins, 10 Ferraris, 10 Lambo's, that Skyline, a ton of bentley's, a bunch of Rolls....it was nuts. crazy go nuts.
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7 comments:
Sounds like fun, you should have checked out the British Museum... though I guess you didn't have time, since it alone can take days...
OH well, hard to cram a country into a weekend... guess you'll just have to go back! I say, Joe is as good as any diploduckass, Disraeli, or museum you can find...meet a genuine British eccentric or a few and do the real thing. Standing on Darwin? heeheehee...
Great story, one problem. You call it "pre-party" now? What happened to your "pre-game" linguistic roots? Pre-party is a mid-west thing and in my humble opinion...LAME.
I've been poisoned by UNC where they also pre-party. thank you for pointing out my lamosity. I will bring back the pre-game as best I can in the last few months of college. I am humbled.
I've also noticed that they say "Flippy cup" here in the mid-west. Crazy frozen people...
god. yeah...we get a few people saying flippy cup at UNC...they get shouted down ASAP.
The most obvious and annoying regional party variation I've run into is the different rules for Asshole. Having played a few of them, I can say pretty confidently that the version we played at St. Mary's was better in a lot of ways, even if I never liked holding up 2s. At least there was some strategy, which there isn't when doubles or triples just act as trumps over singles....
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