Enjoying England

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Cruising from Paris to London on the Eurostar was a cool experience. The only downside was that I wanted some pictures of both French and English countryside (both of which, at least along this particular route are essentially the same) but because the train goes so incredibly fast (I think around 350km/h), any attempts at a photo from my window seat appeared as simple blurs of green grass and overcast clouds. In fact, looking out the window and actually thinking about it quite freaked me out because I’d never gone that fast on land before and anything remotely near the tracks seems to whiz by before it’s even beside you.

I arrived in London and took the underground back to the familiar neighbourhood of Clapham where my cousin Aura and her boyfriend Harvey reside in a “flat”. I managed to purchase some groceries before relaxing a bit and waiting for Aura to get home from work. Sometime around 7pm I jumped on the London Underground and headed north to Leicester (Lester) square and to my surprise actually met up with Randal J, and Jordan M (friend and cousin respectively from Vancouver). After a few hugs Jord immediately got us totally lost in downtown London before Randy took over all navigational procedures and found us the “Cambridge Pub” where we quickly ordered “Toad in the Hole” and a pint. Though I had spent about 18 hours in London the week before, I didn’t see anything of substance besides the Clapham neighbourhood as that time was a rushed “passing by” on my way to France. I failed my ancestors horribly by unsuccessfully eating the lovely English cuisine, which in my defence was rather large (as if that fact prevented Jordan’s cruel comments towards me of inadequacy on my part). The menu reads the following: “Nicholson’s Toad In the Hole… A huge Yorkshire pudding filled with a half pound Cumberland sausage ring, buttered mashed potatoes, seasoned vegetables and a rich gravy”. Not a bad meal if you ask me! After our pints arrived so did the memorable Michael Lee from Wimbledon London. Mike had just finished work at his hot shot job and decided to join his old mates for dinner and some drinks. I hadn’t seen Mike in over 15 months since we parted ways in Costa Rica during an earlier stage of my trip. I quickly realized how much I missed Mike’s beautiful smile, warm loving eyes and heartfelt conversations.

We hit the town, first visiting a near bye pub to watch the football match. I must say, after all my walks around London one of the most amusing and consistent sights I saw were the creative names for all the pubs. We chose, on this particular evening “The Crooked Surgeon” and after several pints, a “jason” and an African man kissing Randy (then almost spilling his glass of white wine all over him), we moved on to someplace that closes later than 11pm. From this point onward the night gets foggy, but I remember some tequila, whiskey, several orders of kebabs, standing on the side of a road at 4am near the point of frostbite, and then ultimately meeting Mike’s dad at their home sometime approaching dawn. Sadly for Mike, he had to work the next day while I spent the morning with his Dad discussing several important matters over a few cups of tea. I can see where Mike gets his sincerity and kindness. Since my knowledge of the London underground was still in its nubile stages, I took the long way back to Clapham and immediately took a nap at Aura’s. That day was pretty much a write-off… in fact I don’t remember much of the days activities.

The next day after extensive guidance from both Aura and Harvey, I began my exploration of London. I started at the Waterloo International train station (a familiar locale after using it to go to/from Paris) and headed up a couple blocks to the south bank of the river Thames. I walked a few km’s west past the parliament house, then crossed the river and got a closer look at both that and the abbey there. Protesters of all sorts with their megaphones shouted and chanted at the parliament house while riot police stood at the ready. After a closer look at Big Ben on the west side, I headed north again up to St. James’s park. A lovely park indeed (I took lots of photos for brother). From there I continued west to Trafalgar Square and watched in fascination at the mounted guards who stood ready for any danger at all. No need to protect anything here, that’s for sure. I then walked back to the Thames (one pub stop en route) across the bridge (one of many) and took some photos of the giant Ferris wheel. I then headed east for quite sometime in order to visit both London Bridge and Tower Bridge. After finally taking a decent rest I realized I had completely missed Buckingham palace and thus had a lot more walking to do. At the palace, I stood for awhile with all the other onlookers watching the guards march and stand around protecting their beloved monarch. That pretty much summarizes my days sightseeing in London. That night Aura and Harvey took me to their favourite perogie restaurant, hidden deep in the alleys of Clapham. Being Aura’s favourite food she quickly took control of the situation. After a long discussion and analysis of the restaurants version of the delicacy and the old Ukrainian woman’s that lives in Stepping Stones (her name I can’t remember but Aura will never forget) we quickly settled on the homemade version from days of old as the clear winner. A type of food I had written off as being impossible to find in any of my visited places quickly became an exciting possibility and I enjoyed them thoroughly. The next day I continued my sightseeing extravaganza by visiting more of Leicester square (this time by day), Piccadilly Circus, and the Natural History Museum. For the sake of my own pride and matters of the stomach, I proudly returned to the Cambridge (looking back I have no idea how I found it) and attempted my second “Nicholson’s Toad in the Hole” this time, successfully completing my mission.

The following day I took a train ride out to the ancient university of Cambridge where I strolled around through the brick buildings (castles really) that house some of the bright minds of tomorrow. While it seemed more like a rather large neighbourhood of guild halls and a training ground for secret societies, or maybe even Hogwarts itself -I managed to sneak into many of the grounds that don’t allow visitors and simply pretended that I belonged. The Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge was also very interesting and more swords (unlike the national war museum in France they had two handed swords here which were easily my favourite), armour and pistols which were viewed in awe. The rest of the day was spent at another pub for lunch and then a nap on the train back to London. This being Friday night, Aura, Harvey and I went out with some friends of theirs until quite late before returning to their flat. Harvey managed to extend to me both his disturbingly long arms and his extensive knowledge of beer, his neighbourhood, pasta’s on the menu next door, pizza’s on the menu next door, where his “best mate” lives, where to catch the bus back to High Street, what the best seat on the bus is and finally his bottle of German brandy after I had forced him to drink cheap Thai Whiskey for 4 nights in a row.

Saturday Aura and I went downtown to Leicester square and through some shady ticket offices managed to secure two very nice seats at the Palace Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue. We then went for sushi at a local yuppie establishment with revolving conveyor belts of food. The show we saw was: Monty Pythons Spamalot. The shows synopsis is: “Lovingly ripped off from the classic film comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Spamalot is the new musical directed by Oscar-winning Mike Nichols, with a book by the third tallest Python, Eric Idle, and an almost but not quite entirely new score by Eric Idle (no relation) and John Du Prez. Retelling the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and featuring a number of gratuitously scantily clad showgirls, not to mention the cows, killer rabbits and French people.” While I’m not an experienced theatregoer by any stretch of the imagination, I really did enjoy the show and laughed the entire time. I wanted to go to see a show I knew I’d enjoy and this seemed like a logical choice. Aura was in full agreement by all accounts and we sat there all afternoon giggling away at the absurdities on stage.

After the show I went to meet Mike and his mates for his long-anticipated 23rd birthday. We started with dinner at a nice Spanish restaurant where I helped Mike order for everybody in my best, but not nearly adequate Spanish. Several bottles of wine later we checked out a very posh nightclub that essentially refused to let us in for no good reason (no trainers of Tracky-B’s (sp?) for me either) and decided to fall back to another pub before trying a different club later. Randy seemed to have left quite the impression on these particular Londoners as none of them could stop talking about what a drinking legend the Ukrainian blooded Canadian was. Mike constantly tried to celebrate my last night outside of Canada and NOT his birthday, so what ended up happening was essentially everybody’s worst nightmare. Any beer, any shot (any drink for that matter) order was immediately doubled and all toasts were done twice to both occasions. I lost count after roughly 12 shots of sambuca and countless other combinations of poison before I stumbled out into the cold London night with Thomas who basically carried me to one of the red double dickered buses and I miraculously appeared back in Clapham. Knocking on my pour cousin’s door at 4am and having to wake up at 7:30 for my flight wasn’t the worst part. Apparently the clocks switched so now it was actually 5:00am already and she thought I was going to Heathrow so my directions and timetable had to all be adjusted and though I could barely stand-up I had yet to pack. Somehow I found my way, somehow even with a power failure in Gatwick, somehow even though the airline refusal to take my bag, somehow even though I was dizzy and nauseous, somehow, just somehow I made it on my plane. Next stop Canada, but not quite home.

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Photos

Tower Bridge
Often mistaken for London bridge, this is in fact one of the coolest bridges I've ever seen. That says a lot given the Westminster/Southbank area of London along the river Thames has what seemed to be no less than two dozen bridges in a 5km span.

House of Parliament / Westminster Palace
I can't remember the name of the bridge I took this photo from, but the parliament was quite interesting. Out front there is a statue of Richard the Lionheart and just past that were mobs of angry protesters as I inconveniently visited the parliament on budget day.

London at Night
I'm not sure why but this is a popular photograph of London. My guidebook said it would be dissapointing so I didn't bother to go check it out. However, on my last night in London and in a drunken haze we happened to walk by here so I snaped this shot.

Observation Wheel
The "British Airways London Eye" which one can apparently see 4 countries from. Once I saw the lineup I walked right on by!

Statues
These were scattered all along the nort shore of the Thames in Westminster along what I supposed to be a very important avenue.

Cambridge
On the river you see a "punt" NOT to be confused with "punters" the disgusting unsavory gentlemen that frequent establishments and locations of questionable ethics and morals.

Temporary Flatmates
Myself, Aura and Harvey at... where else? The pub.

Happy Birthday Mike
Mike and some of his "mates". There were in fact others around, at least if my memory hasn't completely failed me. From what I recall some people left early and some people were nowhere to be found in the club when I tried to get this group shot.

Comments

[jaxw17]

why no bag
what was the reason that they would not take it? Oh I feel hung over from your description. Jackie

[lush]

Explenation
There are a lot of straps on my bag, I guess they worried those would cause problems on the belts. I have a pack cover though so after adjusting that they said it would be OK.