Londonium

Hello all, sorry about the delay in update, I've simply been having too much fun to take the time to write about the fun I've been having.

Tuesday I arrived at Gatwick airport at 8.15pm and caught a bus into London, except my bus arrived at Fulham Broadway which is about a hundred miles from Paul's house. To complicate matters I caught an earlier bus and he had just ordered a drink with a friend who lives out there when I got in so I spent my first half hour in the country drinking lager in an Aussie themed bar (not his first choice but closest to the bus stop.) It was fun, like a piece of almost home. Then we headed big pack and all to find some food because we were both starving but by the time we got to his part of town is was almost midnight and we had a mission to find a place open. Ended up with Indian from a nice restaurant, don't know why their kitchen was still open at that time on a Tuesday but didn't ask.

Wednesday was a touristy tour of the city, I saw Big Ben, Winchester Cathedral (didn't go in, £12!) Buckinham palace, St James Palace, Trafalgar Square, the Canadian Embassy (not so touristy but still cool) and had lunch in a 400 yr old pub called The Cheshire Cheese. Then we went out to Camden - pretty much the coolest place on the planet. I want to go and live in the market, or at least near by. Amy Winehouse lives there, which is not necessarily an endorsement of the area. I really loved it to the point that I insisted we go back at a later date when I had time and money to really shop. Paul's uncle works in London and we ran into him on the street, really weird since that never happens in London, and we were invited to go out for a drink with him that evening. We had to meet him in Leicester Square which is coincidentally where the Twilight preniere was taking place (Haven't heard of it? Lucky you.) and we got to battle screaming teens and preteens all waiting for cheekyboney brooder and sweepeyhair glarer, not fun. Found a lovely pub with two for one drinks and I released my inner girl by ordering a raspberry dacquiri. We had decided to go to a West End show and since my heart was set on Les Miserables or The Lion King and Paul alway thinks of beastiality with the latter we bought the cheap seats to Les Mis. The seats were right at the front, Paul literally got spit on, but we could see almost everything and were right in the action so I loved it. It is such a great musical and it was so well done, I wanna go back!

We found something for dinner and headed home to watch British comedy (Green Wing) before retiring to bed since Paul had to be up at 5 to pick up Charles from the airport. Paul is playing hostels as various people take advantage of him for free acommodation. So not really playing hostels since no one is paying him.

Anyway, he had had about 4 hours sleep and left me still sleeping and Charles had just flown for 12 hours so they were both pretty punchy all day. We went to the Tate Modern which was very very cool. Lots of great modern art and some odd contemporary stuff - Paul is doing his Art History PhD so is qualified to say things like "well that's just bollocks" and "ach, what shit." Along the walk to the gallery was the Tower Bridge and the Tower and various other sights from the Thames. We headed back to The Cheshire Cheese for lunch, it's one of Paul's favourite places. Terrifically historical - burnt down in the Great Fire and was rebuilt, Samuel Johnson wrote part of his dictionary there and invited many a famous friend around.

That afternoon we went on a major hunt for an inflatable mattress so that everyone would have a place to sleep and failed to find one for a very long time, eventually picked one up in Argos which is this crazy place where you order from a catalogue and they go get it from the storeroom for you. That evening we headed out to Wembley Arena to see Russell Howard, a British comedian who's often on a show called Mock the Week. Hugely funny, I had trouble breathing at times I was doubled over from laughing.

Friday we all slept for about 10 hours, them from tiredness and me from laziness! We got up around 11 and headed out to Camden again for lunch and shopping. I bought a few nice things, though I was surprisingly controlled. The markets have everything from secondhand stores to rave stuff. There's a store called Cyber Dog which sells a bunch of neon coloured Jetsons' style outfits. I suspect you have to take a lot of party drugs to really appreciate the clothing, but it was fun to browse. They also sold stuffed toy versions of germs like chlamidia, black death and ecoli. It would be kind of fun to give someone the plague!

We decided to cook our own dinner that night instead of going out yet again and then hit the town! We went to a couple pubs and then a couple bars. I'm still not sure what the distinction is but pubs close at midnight and bars are open later. Eventually we decided to go dancing and ended up somewhere Paul described as gay-friendly but being one of only five girls there I think it was more than just friendly! It was great, no worrying about creepy people grabbing you or about people spiking your drink or being labelled a 'tease' - not a single person in that room was interested in me, it was quite relaxing. We danced our hearts out until about 3.30am before having the mission of getting a taxi to take us home because apparently at that time of the morning all the taxis want to go home and will only take fairs in the direction they're going. Got home safely anyway and am now about to head to the British Museum! So ridiculously excited.

Yeah... I'm a classics geek. But a happy one. Except maybe they should return the Elgian marbles, just not this week. After this I think my London experiences will be complete: West End, comedy, Camden, gay bar, museum... what more is there?