England: Day Two, London

Bob *You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want When You're Making Love* zegt:
think Marcello and let the semi-porn flow from your fingers
Bob *You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want When You're Making Love* zegt:
ew
Tim - Home zegt:
...
Bob *You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want When You're Making Love* zegt:
that didn't come out right

After our scorching first day, we were awakened, as previously mentioned, by an overzealous mother bird who provided food for her extremely loud young. I like birds, but if they hadn't been safely out of reach, I'd have chucked 'm straight onto the pavement...

At 6.30 our Italian Stallion and his mate came in, talking about the night they had (I don't care, either take off your shirt or I go back to sleep), the bars they visited (take off your shirt), the girls they met (that's it, I'm going back to sleep), the 3 hour walk back (Almost asleep), and asking if I could wake them when I got up (sure, zzzzzz). Being a dutiful boy, I did wake them 2 hours later, as they asked, the masochists, and in return we were rewarded with shirtless Italian heading to the showers, sporting that towel again. There really are worse ways to wake up.

We had quite a busy day planned actually, ranging from shopping to sightseeing to barhopping at night, so we headed to breakfast, seated next to some Germans. The English hotels universally serve what they call a Continental breakfast, and it's always cereal, toast, jam and some kind of bun. But hey, at least they had decent coffee. We were soon joined by our roommates, who would be moving out of the room after breakfast (aaaaow) and as we were leaving, Marcello grabbed Tim in an impressive bearhug. It has to be said, Italians are a very physical people. Me, not having talked to Marcello that much, nor being a fan of the Hugging People I Barely Know, tried to get away with a friendly handshake, but to no avail, I simply had to be clasped in those muscular arms and ground against those impressive abs. I think I had a complaint in there somewhere, but it slips my mind. Anyway, his friend did let us off with just a friendly handshake and we were loose in London once again.

I honestly don't remember the exact sequence of events after that, but I do know that we saw a lot of shops, where we couldn't afford anything. The shops were described as 'hip and alternative' in our guide, which basically means like the Kammenstraat: used to be hip and alternative, now they're just really expensive and everyone goes there. I did buy another cap at this suspect store where they sold a lot of print-on shirts, the kind that are really funny and come in two sizes: Anorexic and Citizen of Minnesota, so they never quite fit. We also visited a rather fun, and very gay store, where they were playing very dance dance music and the salesboys just stood around dancing and shaking their groin around. The clothes were actually nice, though way too expensive and extremely queer (not that I ever had a problem with that, it's just that I can dresh trashy and queer like that for a lot less money).

Anyhow, despite visiting a lot of stores, we didn't buy anything, except my cap thing. We did also go to a Waterstones, and everyone who knows me, also knows that I have wood for Waterstones, so it's actually a bad thing that they are all over the UK. I ended up buying four books, and Tim one, which we put into two separate bags, but somehow we managed to lose the bag with one of my books and Tim's book in it after only one day, so that was pretty stupid. I considered buying back the same book at one of the many other Waterstones we visited later on the trip, but in the end I didn't. Speaking of books, since the book I had with me (Tom Lanoye, Zwarte Tranen) was done after only a few days, I also read my newly acquired book, a biography on Lady Jane Grey, The Nine Days Queen, and after that one I started in Sisters to the King, a biography on Mary and Margaret Tudor.

Anywho, we also did some sightseeing, taking the subway over to Southwark Cathedral, which was a nice enough Cathedral, and although we'd only been on the road about 5 minutes by then, we immediately plunked down there to have a coffee, and I had another one of those speaking in English moments, this time concerning a very tall Swedish boy who was sitting at the next table. I don't think he noticed though, and if he did, he was very tactful about it :)

From Southwark we walked along the Thames to London Bridge, which we crossed to get to the side of the Tower. London Bridge is really nice, I didn't bother to look at it very well last time I was in London, but this time I gave it a little more thought and it really is a stunning piece of work. The only downside is that the whole time I was near it, I was stuck with that horrid Fergie song, it just kept racing through my head, on and on and on 'My London, London Bridge wanna go down like blah blah blah', I don't even know the right lyrics. Basically, Fergie ruined London Bridge. And Josh Duhamel. And her pants. And her face, but that's more her own tragedy.

So after that we went around the Tower. We didn't go in, because we felt it would be a bit too expensive and we were already going to see Warwick Castle in Birmingham (we didn't, but more on that later). Next time, no matter what, I'm going inside, that's for sure :) I also amused myself with taking pictures of this really funny kid while we were sitting down. His poor mother was in a bind, but he seemed to be enjoying himself splendidly and I couldn't resist snapping a couple of pictures.

After the Tower, we wandered through the City, staying in the shade (it was fricking hot and I was getting burnt all over the place) and not really passing anything too notable. We did pass by the Monument, which according to Tim you can climb and then you get a certificate that you climbed it. So basically it's scorching hot, and you get to pay to climb a gazillion stairs, to get a view of a bunch of tall business buildings and then you get a paper. Yeah, we didn't do that one.

We'd earlier had a drink at an Irish pub named O'Neills and we rather liked the dinner menu there, so we found our way back there, but the terrace was full and inside they were watching a World Cup Soccer Game, or whatever and it was packed with enthusiastic fans, so we didn't feel like having our food there. Determined to have some real Irish cooking, we sat in wait until people left, but they took their sweet time so by the time they were gone, I was absolutely famished. It was worth waiting for though, I had Colcannon (I think) which is some sort of mash and Guinness and pork sausages, which was absolutely delicious. We did feel rather stupid when we later on discovered O'Neills was actually a chain of Irish pubs and you can find them all over the UK. Oh well, live and learn.

After going back to the hostel to freshen up, we headed into Gay area of London and visited a bunch of bars, none of which I thought were particularly fun. Sure, it was bemusing to see a faux-blond boy with a super-faux tan, strutting around in really short Diasy Duke shorts, and sure we got well and drunk enough, up to the point of taking very embarassing pictures, which are actually on Tim's camera, so sadly (you can feel my pain, I'm sure) I won't be posting those, but (wow, sentence structure went down the drain there somewhere) I didn't think it was all that great. The fact that we made it back to the hostel rather early says enough when it comes to that.

We had no roommates for our last night, but sound sleep was not to be ours, as mama bird was still dedicated to her breed, but that's for the next update: England: Day Three, London & Oxford.

Cheers!