Day 2: London

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Ferny and I race walked our asses off of the plane to customs. The last time I was at Heathrow in 2012, I was stuck in that queue for over two hours. Ferny's colleague made him aware of the wait as well. Surprisingly, the lineup wasn't more than 30 minutes. We bought return tickets to Heathrow from Paddington Station because both of us will be flying back home through London. The weather was colder than expected, in the high teens at most. We stopped and grabbed a donair, our first real meal in 12 hours. We got to St. Christopher's Inn London Bridge. It's located above a traditional pub and has live music until 1:00 am. The place is pretty old and the bathrooms are kind of gross. Unpacking I discovered I left my gym shorts at home and part of me dies inside. In our room we met one of our roommates, a South African. He seem very sociable and was keen on having a fun night tonight. Before we could have some fun, Ferny and I set out to find European SIM cards for our phones so we'd have data during our trip. We got plans for 15 euros. Plans are dirt cheap compared to the ones in Canada. Ferny messaged Conor, a friend we went to highschool with. He and his girlfriend join us at the pub downstairs. By now we had more people join our group. Three Germans, an Aussie, and an unknown, in addition to the South African. It was 10:00 pm and I needed to wake myself up before we went out. He headed out to the area Shoreditch and found a bar/club called Zigfred von Underbelly. Some of us grabbed food afterwards nearby. After getting off of the bus near the hostel an early 90's Mercedes (re: vehicle of choice for drug dealers) abruptly pulled up near our group. The driver got out and asked if we had any change for gas. When we sent no, he offered to drive one of us to an ATM. Uh, not happening buddy. Ferny and I made the mistake of getting even more food near our hostel and it was terrible. You become desperate at that hour. I was ready for bed. Because we went out the same day we landed, I was awake for 36 hours straight. I'm too old for this shit.

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