London Day Five

I apologize to the people who have been anxiously awaiting the fourth installment/fifth day of my travels in London, I have made you wait far to long. However, to my defense, I just started a new job and have been working anywhere between 8-13 hour days, so cut me a little slack. So, without further ado……..

Day 5

Our wake up call arrived at 8:00 AM, which I must say was far too early, but all the same, I was anxiously anticipating the events in front of me. After we all ate the horrible English breakfast it was time for the panoramic bus tour, which we were supposed to take during the first jetlag filled day, but due to an excessive amount of sleeping on the bus it was postponed until day five. The tour was nice but unspectacular; the best part was definitely our tour guide. Her name was (is) Madeline Rainbow and she was 4’11” tall, but what she lacked in size she made up for with knowledge of the city. She seemed to have an interesting story about every building in London! She also went out of her way to drop subtle (or not so subtle) attacks on Tony Blair and George Bush.

Our tour bus tour ended in close proximity to Westminster Abbey, which strangely enough, was the site of our group activity for the day. The Abbey was amazing, it is something I have wanted to see my whole life, but my interest in it has increased even more since reading the DaVinci Code. The architecture of this building is simply astounding, and is by far the most beautiful building I have seen in my few years on earth. The ceiling was a high arch supported by various pillars, and the walls are basically works of art in themselves, completely covered by stone carvings. Perhaps the most impressive artwork in the building was found on the “High Alter,” which is more or less a giant gold room, full of elaborate gold carvings and artwork, bling, bling baby! It really does make you wonder how many decades, or even centuries, it would take for medieval Londoners to build and sculpt such an extravagant piece of architecture.

After saying all that above, I haven’t even mentioned what I believe was the most awe inspiring quality of the building. Of course, that would be the grave markers of all the famous people from England. This may sound morbid, but as this is the closest I will ever come to being in the presence of great minds such as Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton, George Frideric Handel, Rudyard Kipling, and nearly all of the important kings and queens that lived throughout England’s history. There are also many less well known markers such as Oliver Cromwell, the man who led a revolution that temporarily disbanded the monarchy, and Lord George Grote who of course is the great, great, great, great grandfather of the immortal John Grote (I can't actually back that up with evidence).

Alas, we could not stay there all day, although if it was up to Jill we surely would have, so afterwards Tiff P., Amber, Chantel, and I looked around a few London tourist traps, I mean gift shops. This lasted for a short while, and I did buy a “Mind the Gap” t-shirt, but we had to cut it short in order to catch our bus to Charles Darwin’s Downe House.

The journey to Kent was only 15 miles, but due to the extreme congestion of traffic and poorly designed infrastructure, this trip took us a solid ninety minutes to complete. The wait was well worth it and the exhibits in the house were extremely interesting. In fact, this museum was everything that the Freud Museum could have been. The ground floor was recreated, or preserved, to be exactly as it was when Darwin was writing his “Origin of Species.” This is interesting to a point, but the real attraction is found upstairs where a number of preserved specimens, and interactive exhibits could be found. These exhibits shed light on everything from his trip to South America aboard the S.S Beagle, to the reaction of the church to his theories. It even had a small café downstairs where Amber, Jill, and I sat down with a small group of Welsh people and had our first cup of real British tea, which, by the way, is far superior to its American counterpart.

All this sightseeing tends to work up a large appetite, so we went to dinner at a pub called “The Duke of York.” As a general rule English food is not good, but the one dish they do extremely well is fish and chips (fries). I do not know what type of fish I ate, but I do know that it was bread battered, extremely tasty, and was so big that it did not properly fit on my plate. The chips were not so good, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

Since this was an educational trip, I will tell you one of the many important lessons I learned, DON’T TRUST GUIDEBOOKS!! We decided we wanted to go clubbing and Tiffany P. found Club 333, which was supposed to be the second best club in London. Three hours, and God knows how many wrong turns later, The Bohnkers, Tiffany P., Chantel, Amy, Kristen, Jake, Jen, and I arrived at club 333 and immediately doubled the clubs population. It was horrible, Junior High spring flings had more people than this place did! We tried to find another hotspot in the area but all we found was a Mexican bar, and a punk rock club complete with leather collars and metal studs. Not exactly the proper scene for our group of people.

Eventually we decided to take the tube back to Piccadilly Circus and found a club with no cover charge called The Buzz. We all partook in some adult beverages, I personally had a rum and Coke, a Strongbow Cider Beer (which was very good!), and a shot called “Suck Me Beautiful” which contained Kahlua, Baileys, and some other hard liquor. Once we were sufficiently lubricated we went downstairs to the dance floor which was pretty cool. I personally was loving life because I was at a club dancing with six different attractive women all at once, which let me tell you, did not suck. After an hour or so everyone but Jake, Jen, and I left, but being the troopers we are, we left for another club.

We wandered around until we found some guy selling VIP passes to a club called Walkabout, where we skipped the line and went straight inside. The place was packed; it was one of those clubs where it was actually difficult to move. We drank the English Snakebites, which are half Strongbow Cider and half Stella Artois Beer. This is probably the best tasting drink I have ever had so I had to have like 5 of them, plus a three wise men, and another suck me beautiful. I was all sorts of fucked up and I danced some and unsuccessfully hit on some girls from Wales. This debauchery continued until about 3:00 AM and then we bought a Bratwurst from a street vender, and took a double decker bus back to our hotel.

Somehow I made it back to my room and lay down to go to bed, but the damn bed decided it was going to spin on me. As a result I made a mad dash for bathroom where the contents of my stomach were emptied into the toilet. The odd part was that my puke was red, which made me wonder if it was blood the next morning until I remembered that the Snakebites I had been drinking were, in fact red. Eventually I fell asleep and my Snake bit night was complete.