London. The Saga: Part 1

In March, my best friend and I took a little weekend jaunt to London. Neither of us had ever been and in all the fun (most of it drunken) forgot to take pictures. I think we managed to take about five total. Four of them were out of focus. Because of that, I tried to write down a log of our doings so that we could preserve the memories. Here are the events as best as I can recall ...

Day One - Thursday
10:30 am — We arrive at Heathrow and head straight to the baggage carousel. I stand there still a little dazed from the long flight. Meanwhile, Kay is busily picking up bags that have fallen off of our overloaded conveyer belt and setting them back onto it in neatly spaced increments. After about 45 minutes of this, I begin laughing at her and saying that she looks like an airport employee. A moment later, we realize that no one from our flight is standing near us and end up tracking our bags down two carousels away. This does not bode well for the trip.

1:00 pm — We arrive at the hotel after a remarkably uneventful tube ride marked by periodic sleepy yawns.* Our room is charming and particularly notable is its carpeting and bedding both of which are upholstered in identical plaids. This makes the beds almost indiscernible from the floor. I think plaid may be the British version of camouflage. Kay sleeps for three hours while I shower and then tune in to some awesome British Tellie. I am way too excited to sleep.

*Note that we both came alive momentarily to laugh at the stop called ‘Cockfosters.’ What the hell was that named after? Seriously. I’m dying to know.

4:00 pm — We head out in search of a nice, traditional English Pub because we are eager to begin mingling with the locals. What we end up finding is the English equivalent to Bennigans. Once inside, it is clearly a crappy chain restaurant. Instead of serving chicken fingers, they serve room temperature fried fish, sausage and onion rings. We leave as soon as we finish our giant pitcher of Stella.

The combination of the beer and overall travel exhaustion is starting to make us feel a little tipsy causing us to spend 30 minutes attempting to hail a cab in the most inept manner ever. We just can’t seem to figure it out. ** This is pretty sad, because we both live in Chicago and ride around in cabs on a frequent basis. Eventually a cab driver does a commando style U-turn and yells angrily at us to get in. In less than six hours we’ve managed to penetrate the veil of British courtesy. This cab driver wants us to die. After asking us what our problem is, he asks where we’d like to go. Since we don't know the area, he offers to take us to a pub that is full of free spending, single British men. We clarify that we’d like something traditional. He interrupts, though, and insists that we want free spending, single British men. The implication is that we’ll take it and like it, so we decide to sit back and enjoy the ride. He takes us to the Angleseau Arms in South Kensington, which was exactly what he’d promised. And, surprisingly, exactly what we’d wanted.

**Absolutely our fault.

7:00 pm — After hanging out at the Angleseau Arms for awhile, one of the bartenders takes a shining to our imbecilic American ways and offers to take off work early so that he can show us all of the best places to binge drink around town. His name is Paul and he moved to London a few years ago from New Zealand. The next 3 ½ hours are a blur for me. I remember that he at one point introduces us to Fosters beer topped with lemonade and I also vaguely recall going to some bar in Leciester Square, but my next clear memory starts at...

10:30 pm — I’m hit by a wave of exhaustion. Kay, Paul & I stumble back to the bar at our hotel. Paul buys us a round and I slam my delicious beer in an impressive waterfall style of drinking. I am eager to get up to bed. Kay's nap earlier has rejuvenated her and she feels as if she is in the zone. At around midnight, Paul heads home because he has to work the next morning.*** Kay is still going strong and heads over to a different group of people hoping to make some new friends. At this point she’s suffering from a debilitating case of jet lag and has been drinking for over six hours. Kay has become the drunk girl at the bar that nobody wants to talk to. She happens upon a group of folks lounging on a sofa and for the next hour, they grudgingly provide her with cigarettes whilst she runs around like a psychotic toddler until exhaustion finally overwhelms her.

***During the day, Paul works as an Accountant at a firm downtown.

Day Two – Friday
11:00 am – We wake up. Kay recounts the good pieces of the night that I can’t recall. I’m displeased to see that in her hurry to get to bed the night before, she’s forgotten to put on pajamas and has thus slept in only her underpants. After noting my displeasure out loud, she informs me that I can go fuck myself and that this is the way it’ll be for the entire weekend. She then gets out of bed, clutching a pillow to her chest as a cover-up and makes her way delicately over to her suitcase. Upon picking up her sweater from the night before, she discovers an ugly cigarette burn marring its perfect, snowy-whiteness. She mourns for a moment before making her way into the bathroom. After showering, we decide to grab a quick lunch at a Starbucks type café we’d passed earlier called Café Nero.

1:00 pm – We make it to Leciester Square. At that point, it suddenly dawns on me that we were at a bar there the night before. On one of the enormous theatre billboards, we see that Pacey from Dawson’s Creek is starring in some play.**** He’s wearing a bowler hat. We walk around for a while and head up into the Soho Area and Little China. It doesn’t take long before we’re totally lost.

****Please note that I’ve never seen an episode of Dawson’s Creek. I just happen to know who he is. I’m not sure why.

4:00 pm – We stop at a patisserie for some chocolate cake and rest. The cake is good and as we eat it, the waiters openly leer at us from their position at the bar. They appear to be from one of the Mediterranean countries and I begin having flashbacks to my semester spent in Italy. I don’t know who the American girl was that went to Europe and whored it up, but, man she must have had a good time, because she permanently tarnished the reputation of every American female.***** After we finish our cake, Kay and I pour over our maps of London trying to figure out where we’re at.

*****Or perhaps the international popularity of Baywatch did it. The point is, they think we’re all whores. Stereotyping can be so cruel.

4:30 pm – We manage to find our way to Hyde Park and take a little walk about. During our walk, a rain shower breaks out for about the fourth time that day.

5:00 pm – We take a break and have a seat on a bench in the middle of the park by the Serpentine. We look at the various geese, ducks and other wildlife miscellany until we realize that they look exactly like the geese, ducks and wildlife miscellany surrounding every pond we’ve ever seen. After that we decide to continue our walk to our hotel, which is located not far from the park. As we walk by a particularly fat and lethargic goose, I wonder out loud how close it would let someone get to it. This observation is mostly brought on by my secret fear of geese. Kay is incapable of resisting a challenge and walks over to nudge it with her shoe. She presses gently against it forcing it to list heavily to one side. After she withdraws, the goose is so fat that it bounces back into place and wobbles for a second like stimulated jello. I’m amazed to see that in response it does little more than flap its wings in a threatening manner and look at Kay as if she’s a total bitch. We walk the rest of the way back to our hotel, occasionally turning to cast a nervous glance behind us just in case the goose changes its mind about kicking our asses.

6:00 pm – Back at the hotel, we literally huddle, shivering under the crisp white covers and woolen plaid blankets in our respective beds, watching TV. Even ‘The Simpsons’ seem more sophisticated when watched in the UK.

9:30 pm – Eventually, we’re driven out of our hotel by hunger. On the way down in the elevator, it stops at the 5th floor and a tall fair-haired man boards. The elevator in this hotel is so small that three skinny people are about the maximum that it can accommodate. He turns around in order to scrutinize us from an uncomfortably close distance. He is swaying perceptibly and seems kind of drunk. I like him immediately. He doesn’t say anything the entire ride down, and exits the elevator the second the doors open onto the lobby. We look around for him, hoping to see what direction he’s heading in, but he’s disappeared. Shame. After a short discussion – and I really hesitate to confess this – we decide to go to a nearby McDonald’s. The only justification that I have for our actions is that it is chuck full of British people and will be the perfect food to satisfy our hangover cravings.

10:15 pm – After dinner, we go for a walk along High Street Kensington searching for an open bar and stumble upon a little place called Cuba. Subsequent to several beers, a Canadian man who I would estimate to be in his late fifties approaches us. George. It turns out that George is an environmental scientist working at a Canadian University. He’s in London for a conference and hails originally from India. George is wearing several pins on the lapel of his blazer. Several very official looking pins that we discover are related to his multitude of academic achievements. He insists that Kay look and remark upon each one, which she does with great zeal. After he’s finished taking her on a tour of his lapel, Kay tells him that he should win the Nobel Peace Prize and insist upon receiving it in the form of a pin. He effusively agrees telling her that, together they can save the world. Not just people in general, literally him and her. He spends several minutes trying to convince us to go downstairs to the dance floor, but we tell him that we’re comfortable at the bar. Having clearly claimed Kay for himself, he tries to further tempt me by telling me that he has a friend downstairs. I reflect upon this for a moment noting the techno beat wafting up the liquor soaked stairs before declining his offer with a regretful shrug of my shoulders. He is disappointed, but nice, buying us another round before heading back downstairs.

After a few moments of silent reflection, Kay glances towards the back of the bar and suddenly grapples for my arm, still gawking at whatever it is she’s seen. “It’s that man from the elevator,” she says, “the imposing blonde one.” I lean forward to look around her. He stares back at us with either a sinister or ambivalent expression on his face. He looks like a James Bond Villain. After a moment, a balding man with an equally ambiguous expression joins him. I am pondering these new developments when suddenly I’m distracted by a hand on my back. I turn to see that George is back and he’s brought his friend Nicholas. It turns out that Nick is also an environmental scientist. To me, he closely resembles a skinny Santa Claus. I would approximate his age to be around 65 years. George and Nick spend a few moments trying to convince us to go downstairs, but we hold firm. After some awkwardness, Nick tells George that he’s going back to the hotel. We assume that George has also left. Kay and I remain distracted by the two strange men, one of which is clearly staying at our hotel. Suddenly the blond one gets up and begins walking towards us. We both shrink back as he approaches … then passes. Stopping a few feet away at the bar. He orders a round of drinks for him and his friend. Mojitos. After awhile, George suddenly appears again to distract us from the scary, intriguing men. Towards the end of the night, the bald one inexplicably buys us a round saying only ‘Thanks’ before exiting the bar. We have no idea what they were thanking us for, but we’re pretty sure it had to do with something nefarious.

2:00 am – The bar closes. Kay and I walk back to the hotel hoping that the bar there will be open. It isn’t so we go up to our room and order room service. Upon discovering that room service will deliver liquor, we order four gin and tonics and two turkey sandwiches. I make it through half of a drink and a little food before falling asleep. Kay is mad at me and keeps trying to wake me up to make me finish my drink.

To be continued ...