So as I remember it, you were all sitting on the edge of your seats while I was getting ready to leave on an epic journey through London and Germany for the second half of my spring break. I think if memory serves that you were also all staring at me, googley-eyed, trying to figure out just how I can pull of these ridiculously good looks while still maintaining my devil-may-care attitude. What can I say? It's a gift.
Anyway, the morning after the latest in my line of glorious blog posts, I finished packing my bags and left home to catch my flight to London. My entire plan was based on the fact that the flight left a little after 4, but somehow between the main Plaza in Toledo and the bus station I convinced myself that it actually left at two, and that me being at the bus station at 12:30 meant I wasn't making my flight. Yeah, I'm not sure either.
My fears allayed, I continued on my usual journey to Madrid's Barajas airport and boarded my RyanAir flight to London-Stansted. The flight was pretty much uneventful, except for the part where, after most of the passengers had boarded, the pilot got on the horn and told us that we had three minutes to find a seat or we might be delayed up to two hours. Yeah...not sure where to go with that one. Guess ya gotta love RyanAir.
When I finally did land, I remembered the nice warm, homely feeling it gave me to be able to ask directions to the bus stop in English. This was in stark contrast to the eyebrow-raised suspicion I felt from the rather inquisitive customs official who checked my passport in the airport. I'm going to assume it had something to do with an American coming to London from Spain that confused him. Oh well.
The bus from the airport into London took an hour and after I got off I immediately looked everywhere in sight to find either TJ or Kyle, two of my friends studying in London who I was planning on meeting at the bus stop. Naturally, neither of them were anywhere to be found. Even more naturally, Spanish phones arbitrarily decide not to work when calling certain London phones, TJ's among them. Finally, I got in touch with Kyle who (naturally as well...for him at least) had forgotten to set his clock forward an hour for DST and missed meeting TJ. Keep in mind this is a full THREE DAYS after the clocks turned over in Europe. Niems, I love ya, but c'mon man...
Finally, I found TJ. Turned out he was bumming on a staircase about a block away. Whaddya gonna do, I guess. We road the Tube back to his neck of the woods and dropped my stuff off in his flat because, well, I didn't feel like schlepping my crap all over London. My shoulders now much more relaxed, we headed to a nearby pub and had what was actually a fantastic bacon cheeseburger. At least those Brits got something right, eh? I also got to try Carlsberg, a beer I'd yet to get to during my adventures AND I added one more to my collection of pint glasses. Booya.
Having nothing else to do, we went and got another pint. This time we stopped at a place called the Old Red Lion where I got my first taste of Strongbow, an alcoholic cider (kinda tastes like a mix of light beer and champagne). Unfortunately, they couldn't spare us a glass, so they gave me a Kroenberg glass instead. I mean, I wanted Strongbow, but I'll take it. While we did briefly consider a third pint, TJ did have a quiz in the morning and I had a few plans of my own, so we headed back to his flat to meet up with our friend Charlie and some of his other friends who were watching Armageddon. They also may or may not have been playing a fun drinking game. It may or may not have been fun. But, all doubt aside, I DID get tired so I had to get my stuff and head to bed.
As if life didn't have enough wrinkles at this point, I was also awaiting the results of the Glee Club elections (which took place at 11 PM London time) and I found out that I had gotten into a three-way run-off for the Presidency. That would certainly make life more interesting the next day...
Not that that day wasn't interesting enough already. My main problem (if you can call something so fantastic a problem) was that I had already committed myself to seeing Les Miserables at 2:30 that afternoon and then following that up with a five-stop pub crawl with TJ, Kyle, and Charlie. That meant that, waking up at 10 AM and taking the 45-minute walk to TJ's classroom building (luckily a block away from Trafalgar Square), I would have about two hours to run around and get as many pictures as I could of London's main sites. I would like to narrate this frenetic insanity now:
Alrightlet'sgetgoing!HeylookTrafalgarSquare! *clickclickclick* OhandtheNationalGallery! *clickclick*Fewmoreofthisfountainoughtadoit *clickclickclick* Rightmovingon!Ohlook,HorseGuard! *clickclick* I'llcomeback.Gah!BigBen! *clickclickclick* Westminster *clickclickclick* Redphonebooth!Doubledeckerbus! *clickclick* SignforBuckinghamPalace!OhandonemoreshotofBigBenforgoodmeasure! *click* HeywhyaretheRoyalGuardinformationlikethat? *click* BuckinghamPalace! *clickclick* Toomanypeople.HeychangingoftheGuard! *clickclick* *video* *click* HorseGuardagain! *clickclick* Aaaaaaanddone!
[Griff collapses, out of breath, near the ND classroom building]
Seriously, though, it was a great time and I got some really cool pictures out of it. Plus, it gives me a great reason to go back to London when I'm older and actually enter all of these places that I saw. Anyway, the reason I had to get back to the classroom building at around noon was because I had been an idiot and forgotten my passport in the flats (a 45-minute walk away, you'll remember). This posed a problem because in my passport was my student visa, without which I wouldn't be able to get the student rush seats for the 2:30 Les Mis performance. Tragedy, I know.
Luckily, my friend Lizzie was also studying in London and agreed to come with me to the theater to buy my ticket while on her lunch break. Unluckily, the student rush tickets (where they give you half price on their best ticket available at the time) didn't start until 1:30, so when we went at noon we were SOL. Luckily again (2-1 Luckily, for those keeping score) Colleen, a girl who I hadn't met until the previous night at the Armageddon screening, volunteered to come back with me after her class ended at 2. Fast forward through a buffet Chinese meal and a lonely pint in a pub and I was back at the theater and, before I knew it, had spent 27 pounds on an eighth-row ticket to Les Miserables.
I can't even begin to describe how truly awesome that show was. And I don't mean awesome the same way surfers mean that wave was "awesome, dude." I mean awesome in the old sense; truly awe-inspiring and beautiful. It sounded amazing, of course, and at one point I was actually moved to shed a single tear. I can't think of any better way to spend 25 pounds and honestly, if you should have the terrible misfortune of getting one of those one-week-to-live notices, make sure you come to London and see this show. You won't regret it.
After that amazing three hours, I called TJ and met up with him back at the classroom building, where he printed out all of his tickets/boarding passes for Germany and we found our route for the pub crawl. Once all four of us – TJ, Kyle, TJ's flatmate Sam, and I – were gathered together, we headed to the first pub, the Princess of Wales and downed a quick pint. Then, it was off to the Coal Hole, where curiously enough we were able to find a green ale that tasted rather good. Go figure, right?
At this point it was around 7 so we headed upstairs at the third pub of the night, The Wellington, to enjoy our next pint over dinner. I originally ordered fish and chips, only to find out that for some inexplicable reason they DIDN'T HAVE ANY! What kind of London pub is this?! Still, hunger overcame rage, and I ordered something else that was quite good and filling.
As we were waiting on our check, Charlie and his sister randomly showed up at the Wellington to join us for the final two pints. There was much rejoicing (more so when the check was finally paid). From there we headed on to the Bear and Staff, a fantastically named establishment if nothing else. About this time I started to fade a little bit. Granted I'd had a lot more alcohol in my system several times before this; it was the carbonation that was getting to me. My best solution was to drink this fourth pint as quickly as I could and hope it would make me burp. Miraculously, it actually kind of worked, and by the time we got to the White Lion, our final stop of the night, I was feeling okay.
The sad part about the White Lion was not that it was the end of our journey, but rather that it was out of the T-shirts we were supposed to get for completing the crawl. Lousy bastards. Still, a fun time was had by all, and it was most certainly time to get a Doner kebap. Apparently it's a London thing, but they make them available with garlic sauce. So incredibly clutch.
Back in TJ's flat, I hopped on Skype where we first talked to Mary and Jenny back at good ol' SMC. Five pints deep, that was quite fun. Though not as fun as next Skyping my family for my dad's birthday (which it had turned in the UK, although it wouldn't for six more hours back home). Yeah, we had fun. There was kind of a dent put into that fun when it came across the wire that I'd gotten beat by a few votes in the race for Glee Club President, but whaddya gonna do?
To end the night, TJ made me watch Beerfest in preparation for our trip to Germany the following morning. Not the best movie I've seen, but certainly not a bad way to spend two hours, so I ain't complaining. Also, for those wondering...the garlic-sauced kebap was phenomenal.
Here I leave you all for now. I'll be honest; I may not update this until at the very least when I'm finished writing all these damn papers I have due this week. At best, I'm hoping to have updated through Germany when I leave for San Sebastian next weekend, but hell, who knows at this point? Either way, you've got something to read now.
Right, I'm off.
Ta luego,
Griff
