Day 1

Ok. I’m going to make this brief as I’m kind of tired and lame.
So I got off the plane at Heathrow and got my baggage extra uber fast! Well…the baggage claim was fast. Getting through customs was uber slow, even at 7am. So I was in line with a shit ton of people since I’m not from the EU (which is funny, because our line was the shorter of the two!), and waited for my passport to get stamped. I knew all the right answers till I got to this one: “And what’s the postal code of the place you’ll be staying in London?”

To which I replied “I have no idea.”
The guy just laughed and said, “Do you at least know the neighborhood?”
And I said, “I know where I’m taking the tube to, does that help?”

He smiled, gave me back my passport and told me to get my maple syrup chugging pale honkey ass outta his sight.

Well not in a matter of words, but he did laugh and hand me back my passport and told me to enjoy my stay.

Motherfucker. (kidding, he was awesome!)
So.
Here I am in Heathrow, one of the world’s biggest airports, and Im wondering, “Where the hell do I go?”

Then the voice of my zen master Danielle came into my head and said something retarded and so I told her to shut up since I was staring at the sign that told me which way the tube was. So I headed down and quickly taught myself how to check the balance of my tube card and how to fill it up.

Using the change I had received from Danielle I topped up the oyster card that was in my pocket…which was co-incidentally also from Danielle. thankfully the change in my pocket combined with the remaining balance on the card were enough to get me where I needed to go. BOOYEAH! So I slid through the gates and found the right train.

After a ride that seemingly took forever, I was in Leister Square. By this time it was pretty well the early morning rush hour so I decided to get out and see the square for a bit, take a 30 second walk around, and THEN head on my merry way. This ended up being useless in my attempt to find direction for later, but it was still nice to get some air.

I hopped back on the train and headed to where I needed to be. Unfortunately, I pulled moron and decided to get off one stop early, which was a bit of a drag. I didn’t realise this until I pulled out my tube map and saw that the circled stop was indeed not the one I was at. Damn. All that “Finchley” shit got really annoying, I guess.

SO I hopped on the next train and got on my merry way. The map started to work better after a slight hiccup. As I followed zen master’s directions, I saw something up ahead on the road; something familiar (which is REALLY fucked up considering I was about 12 hours away from home). Holly happened to be walking on the path ahead of me coming right at me. How convenient!

They had been home for a couple hours or so and she thought she might try to find where I was at! How lucky!

So we strolled on the way to the house, talking about whatnots and hoo-dads. She was tired as fuck, I was tired as fuck, the conversation was much less than enthralling.

Once inside, we met up with Lauren who was, as the trend goes, dog-ass tired. Yay! The girls showered and got ready to head off to work and I unpacked slightly and got ready to hit the town.

We took the tube back to Leister square and walked to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Fucking sexy, considering it’s been operational since 1660 (yeah, I did a report on it. BLOW ME!).

So we walked inside and I met some of their friends and after a few words was on my way down some random streets! I literally just put the maps away and strolled for what seemed like ages. I stopped in for sushi at a fun looking place, and decided to make a right at a random street since I thought I saw water (I would find out at a later date that if I had looked straight and up a little bit, that I would have seen St. Paul’s Cathedral staring me back in the face. Oops).

So I went down towards the water and quickly realised I was approaching the Themes. Sweet merciful crap, I thought. Oceanic tide for the win! So I strolled down the river Themes on the north bank until I reached Big Ben (From where I was, that’s a long fucking walk.)
So I took a little gander at Big Ben, parliament, Westminster Abbey, and finally broke out a map. I decided since I was at all these wickedly famous places, that I should find out where other wickedly famous places are.

I decided upon Buckingham Palace since it was a logical choice. As it turned out, I wasn’t very far from it! So I picked up my feet and took a stroll along a park (St. James I believe) and checked out the palace. Lovely. Ended up at the Australia Gates and wondered, “I wonder if Canada has gates”. Sure enough, ours are aesthetically sexier and remain closed. Boo-yeah.

I headed towards Picadilly Circus (which as we all know does not have elephants, tigers, monkeys or even a single tent) and ended up through a major fashion district in london.

DKNY, Tiffany’s, Gucci, everyone was on this street; and gucci had a line-up outside. Incredible.

So whence I finally realised I’d forgotten to make a turn, I was at Picadilly. Lovely place! Cinemas, theatres, museums, and a fuck-ton of tourists! As a tourist myself, I felt the need to take pictures of other tourists, and all the other things. Unfortunately, I had left my camera at home and only had limited cell phone memory.

Damn.

So I headed towards Leister square quite happy on how this day had gone (it was about 5:30pm at this point. I got to Holly’s around 11:30 or so).

As I passed by a theatre, some loud germanic techno began to play. I did find it rather odd that there was a huge section of the street caged off. Then I looked at some signs and noticed that it was the UK Premiere of Bruno, and it was about to happen within an hour or so.

So I decided to stick around. Why the fuck not, right? A chance to meet Sasha Baron Cohen? Hell yeah! So I got by the cage, and stuck around.

Started talking to the guy beside me (well he asked me at first “What’s the deal here?” and I replied by simply pointing at the GIANT BANNER ON THE THEATRE THAT SAID UK PREMIERE: BRUNO”.

Eh, to be honest, I missed it too on the first pass, so I can’t blame the guy!

So we got to talking about his accent. He’s from France. Funny though, his english was weak and asked me if I spoke French (since I’m Canadian, I ought to, right?). I replied no, I hate quebec, but I DO speak spanish. Turns out so does he.

Turns out he does for the same reasons I do. His family were Chileans displaced from the coup of 1973. Go fucking figure! The first person I have an actual conversation with (that I don’t know or haven’t been introduced to), and he turns out to have some crazy bond in common with me! AH!
Wicked.

So we stand, talk, and then, Holy Eff. Sarah from HIGH SCHOOL walks up and says hello. I’m in LONDON. I know you from SASKATOON. DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF.

I screwed up her name and called her Ashley cause I was so caught up in trying to process all the things going on.

Suddenly Bruno arrived wearing short shorts and parading with a bunch of half naked gay men in a marching band. Deadly.

I almost got an autograph and was in fact about 2 feet away. Dang, hey?

After chilling out there for about an hour and a half waiting for him to do another round, I left. (well he DID come back and I was still there, but then he went to the theatre, so I left after THAT).

So I went to the train station and took the tube back home.

Chilled out here, wrote that first post, then took a walk for some groceries.

I ended up at a store where a crime had been committed and quite recently as the police had set up a parameter around the store and I couldn’t go in. Dang.

So I went home, waited for the girls who showed up very quickly afterwards.
Holly, Lauren, Tom and I very quickly polished off a 26 of Gibson’s Gold (which IS MUCH BETTER THAN CROWN, DANIELLE) whilst playing drunken jenga.

Well, more like “Ed has a buzz but everyone else is pretty well done” jenga.

After drinking hard the two nights before, I’d built up a sick tolerance.

Ok. I was going to try and write about the next couple days, but obviously that wont be happening as this post is really effing long.

Enjoy! Day 2 coming up eventually…not sure when though as I’m going to have limited computer access. I leave for Switzerland/mainland europe on Tuesday and won’t be back till early july sometime.

So hopefully you hear from me! Even if it’s quick. Facebook will be a much better bet.