Written SEPT 17th 2007-The First Drunken Week

So I expected to be updating this blog daily… But in turn its Sept 17th and not only have I not had the chance to update this writing, I actually have not even had the chance to actually get what I had already written over a week and a halve ago on the internet.

Anyhow, London is amazing. Simply put. Amazingly cultural. Amazingly expensive. Amazingly weird. And them driving on the wrong side of the road really does have an effect. Anyhow time is brief (though today is the first day I slept in, I know Sally doesn’t believe that) but I am going to attempt to spend an hour or so writing in this blog and letting my experience be told in the closest order it can be.

The plane ride luckily I slept like a baby which ironically put me on their time as the plane arrived in London at 6am. Though I did spartically wake up on the plane ride and I can say the most amazing thing I saw was when I woke up, looked out the widow and saw the big dipper that seemed to be parallel with the plane as opposed to being on top of the sky as usual. It was an amazing site.

Getting off the plane at Heathrow airport in London the first major difference I noticed was there are no Spanish subtitles on every single sign. And as I walked around it didn’t seem to be that different than say New York’s airports. I went through customs, no issue. It wasn’t until I walked to the subway station (what will now be referred to as a tube station for the rest of a time) when the first cultural difference in wording confused me.

I was waiting in line to get my ticket when a older lady came up to me and I asked if I was in what sounded like “cube” and I politely said “no”. She then proceeded to cut me. I potentially asked her what she was doing and then she said that I had told her that I was not in “Queue”. They do not use the word “line” to mean standing in line but rather “Queue.”

So I proceeded to get my ticket and get on the tube heading towards my destination the Earl’s Court Tube Station. It wasn’t crowded but enough people got on that when this eldery couple came on they were missing a seat so I stood up and proceeded to talk to them, they were from South Africa. The tube ride was weird but seemed okay… But with each stop more and more people came on the tube. Soon it felt like what I would expect New York to feel, no room… Almost sickly full.

When I got off at Earl’s Court, I had to find my way to my flat and got to experience my first instant of British life. London is diverse. You hear different languages as you walk about and see crowded stores, more people than you can imagine and more busses than you can imagine. And out of all the stores and restaurants I see when I get off the tube the first is… KFC… Which will be a reoccurring fact as it appears KFC is the big fast food chain here (yet no Wendy’s). On a side note, KFC’s here do not have mashed potatoes or famous bowls so it is quite disappointing.

As I walked down Earl’s Court Drive I didn’t need to experience driving on the wrong side of the road yet (a deadly thing) as it’s a one way drive. I turned onto my street, about a 5 minute walk from the tube station and found my flat… Knocked on the door to have an extremely hung over male answer and let me in. All my 5 flatmates were up but hung over… I could tell I like this place already.

They were not at enthusiastic as me due to their overall drunken partying last night they were trying to recover but the flat is amazing. Two leather couches, hardwood floors, two bathrooms (or as the limey’s say loo’s) and of course a nice kitchen. It is small but nicer than any rooming accommodations at UPJ. This is a real “basement” house as it is basically the basement of the five story building we are in. But it is amazing.

Anyhow, I dropped my bags, I explored a little, got my keys and almost got hit by a car because I looked the wrong way when I crossed the road. This will be a reoccurring theme. London does feel like an oversized West View… Its clean, its crowded, its old.

Now its hard to put all of this in chronic logical order but I can tell you that it is very interesting how things are, how the food is, how they drink their pop warm and their beer cold(thank god). But I am going to try and break this down as best I can.

On the first night we went to the Sports Café. It was an amazing experience. It was a giant two floor sports bar in Piccadilly Circus, which is an area of London that feels like New York City… All lite up, cars everywhere, people everywhere… But before we went their we got some Stella Artois, locally known as the Wife Beater because of how much alcohol the beer has in it. We had a good time(me and my roommates who I can say I glady get along with real well) and then went to the Sports Café. We drank so much.

Anyhow, I was having a lot to drink while out. And had a great time, I unforuntaly lost all my pictures… Due to me accidentally deleting them but trust me the Sports Café is awesome. Tons of LCD and Plasma tvs all with sports on them including ESPN’s Sportscenter. Tons of women… Tons of booze. I drank so much, had such a great time… Because you meet the most interesting people. Brits and Germans, French and Sweedish while drunk here. It is really an international community.

This one bar I kept going to (there are multiple bars in this pub) I kept buying this pound shots. And then started buying them for the bartender whom I thought was pretty cute… I even got her contact info. It was just so much fun because the two bartenders their were so awesome, the one was the cute girl whom I was hitting on and the other was this Irish guy who told us all these stories and had the most hardass, boondocks saints Irish accent ever. I did accidentally call him Scottish(I was that drunk) and then when he asked me what he sounded like I meant to say Irish and said Italian. Note: Do no mix up the difference between Irish, English, Welsh and Scottish… It is offensive. But he wasn’t to to mad.

Anyhow we stumbled from the Sports Café to another club which felt more like a frathouse than a club… Just a bunch of people dancing. But on the way their I ran into the biggest KFC rip-off ever called American Fried Chicken and it was so good (but I was drunk). Anyhow at the next club I ended up making out with some Brazillian chick who kept telling me in broken English that I was perfect.

To go home we had to find a double decker bus and I passed out on the bus on the way home. Nothing more British than that.

The next day we went around town and explored a lil and explored, still a very donting experience. Me and the two roommates who also had internships had a orientation about internships and then later in the day an orientation about the program which ate up three or four hours of the day and then all six of us had to go to this Friday welcome party.

It was to be casual as in t-shirts and jeans. However we decided to look nice so the iron was brought out, ties put on and we all dressed up high class. Let me say this, the six of us looked good and stole the show. Though we did have trouble finding the hotel that the welcome party was at.

The food was terrible so we spent our time at the bar. And I met a bunch of the guys and gals from other places and what not. When we went back to the flats all the 5 flats of American students pretty much partied together on my street… We drank a lot and then went to the pubs in walkable distance. The Prince of Persha or some shit was the name of this two story traditional English pub and it was great.

I was drunk and spent a lot of my time initially talking to this girl named Jackie about Lacrosse and how I plan on playing here. And how earlier in the day one of the ‘Gents’ from the Lacrosse club called me about playing tomorrow but I had to decline because of the tour of the city that we were going on tomorrow.

Anyhow, soon I saw something that changed my life forever. Giant Jenga. Everyone in the pub could play Giant Jenga but the loser had to buy a round for the other person playing. It was literally Jenga stacked up four feet high with huge blocks. As I observed I soon met 2 swedish guys who were drunk as hell and we soon got into chilling out and talking about cultural differences.

The one dude was crazy. Anyhow the owner of a night club came and ended up talking to me and giving me and 12 friends a free pass to his club and each a free shot of techiqula as long as ½ of the people were girls. We obliged. So about 12 people went and got into this “nightclub” that was really just a bar on the top floor and a dance floor in the basement, bummer. Anyhow I ended up drunkly debating politics with someone from the Neitherlands who was actually a big Pittsburgh Penguins fan and actually had to buy expensive satellite TV to be able to follow #66 and now follows Crosby. So cool.

Me and the Sweeds lost the rest of the group and went to find more bars but couldn’t as it was getting real late, got drunken KFC and then we walked back to my place where I realized I didn’t want strangers coming in and ended up telling them my farewall. I though my night ended their but one of my friends told me she had to put me to bed that night because I was so smashed, therefore the night was a blackout and a great success.

The following day it was planned for me and my flatmates, who I do not think I even named in this blog yet… Oh well I’ll go over each of them individually in another blog… Well we planned on going on a bustour of London that the school had paid for, but I was the only one who woke up early enough to shower and get ready in time so I was on my own.

First I went and got some food… Indian food… I can say I honestly love Curry. (Note: at some point I also tried some kind of pot-pie thing that is in a like hot pocket thing at a restaurant and also loved it.)

The tour was amazing. The driver was funny and made a lot of American jokes and kept saying “Git-r-done” with an English accent to admit he doesn’t even know what it means, lol. But we saw pretty much everything from traditional markets to Big Ben, from London bridge to London culture, from St. Paul’s Cathrdral to Kengingston Gardens. I took some pictures, though most are off centered because I actually apparently (I do not recall) dropped my camera the night before (yes the 2nd day) and actually broke the LCD screen so I can take pictures but cannot tell what I am taking pictures of. London is beautiful. Words cannot describe my fascination with it.

Luckily some of the girls I hung out with last night were at the tour (I’m really bad with names and asked them several times haha, but I remember faces not names) and we actually got off on one point in the tour to go and go to a pub, get traditional English food. Fish and Chips… By the way… Chips are called Crisps, and Fries are Chips. The meal ended up costing, with 1 glass of cider like 13 pounds… Now that seems reasonable except that a pound = two dollars. So something that would have been a ten dollar meal in Pittsburgh at Roma ended up costing me 22USD (United States Dollar). Now, it was good… But, the fish broke too easily and was very bland. The chips(French fries) were tasteless but luckily they had some Heinz. The meal was very filling though, I didn’t even need to touch my mashed peas… yes, mashed peas. So me and the girls headed down to the pub part on the first floor of this restaurant and I didn’t start a tab because I just wanted to watch the USA –v- England Rugby World Cup semifinals and try to get a grapsh of the sport and after the first two days of drinking I didn’t want to spend the money on booze.

That did not work out so well. Firstly I didn’t understand Rugby, secondly everyone was rowdy, thirdly America was losing by like 20 points and fourthly I really wanted to drink while all the locals taught me how the game works. So I decide to open a tab.

No money on me just my good old Debit…

Anyhow, the girls decide to leave and head to a club and I am still on my first beer… I write down the name of the club and say I’ll meet them later because you need to spend 10 pounds (20 dollars) to close the tab. So I get 3 shots of tequila (I don’t normally do shots) to try and close my tab figuring I can down them real quick… Well the other night when I was having shots they weren’t full shots, they were low alcoholic and cheap… So I could do them… I hate shots, with a passion… This was the start to a bad night as I do not normally do shots… Anyhow I downed 1… Went to down a second and remembered how big dinner was and waited… The bar tender, she of course made fun of me. I took the second… And waited for the third and struck up conversation with this Gent and his girlfriend… Their names were Phil and Haley and this night might as well be called John’s first fortay into true British culture/the night from hell.

Let me set the stage… The 3 of us are in this pub, my mobile phone can only receive calls because its not “topped up” (I’ll explain cell phones later, but it was actually topped up because apparently I was able to drunk dial Bortz this night). Anyhow Phil is a 31 year old British solider who is dating an extremely hot, metallica loving 18 year old named Haley. Both are from north of London and don’t come down to London very often. I had a beer with them, took my last shot and we talked about general shit…

We chatted about the differences between England and the United States. They gave me advice on cultural stuff and throughout the night taught me my two favorite British words which I was familiar with but never knew how to use them ‘Ballack’ and ‘Waniker’. Ballack is something you say when you are mad, like “Ah, Ballack” and would be like saying “Ah, crap or Ah, Shit”… Its great to let out frustration, for example you miss the tube… “Ballack” you may say to yourself. The other awesome word is Waniker which actually stands for Masturbating man.

Anyhow this was one of those nights I will never forget. It’s a Saturday and I head out to a club with Phil and Haley. We get a table and Phil and I decide to go drink for drink… shot for shot… beer for beer… BAD IDEA.

We both got retarded, I got rejected by a bunch of girls I tried to pick up (Though Phil and Haley gave me a bunch of good pointers I must say, they were good wingers…) Anyhow, soon Phil just wondered off and it was me and Haley for awhile… In a crowded club…

She started crying about how he is “shagging” someone else… And I tried to calm her down and she kept crying for me to please go find him so I could make sure he was not shagging someone else… I looked all over the club for a ½ hour, he’s still gone… I go back and talk to her and some how my comforting of her starts to turn into me hitting on her… And please recall Phil is an Army guy who could kick my ass so bad idea.

Anyhow, I catch that I’m doing that and even though I’m trashed I convince myself to stop… Finally Phil comes back and I forget what he said but I genuilly believed him because their was no place to “shag” in the club. Anyhow, I wonder off for a bit and cannot find them so I get worried that they left and check outside…

For about a ½ hour I look for them to no reguard… Its like 3am, the tube station will be down and I’ll have no idea how to get home and on top of that I didn’t think my phone was topped up and to drunk to think about trying to make a call. I was fucked… Anyhow I cross the road and sure enough theirs Phil laying on the ground, Haley holding him and he’s throwing up all over the ground…

He had started a small fight and Haley had broken it up, but he was so drunk he fell to the ground and was just vomiting on the sidewalk at 3am in London… good times… Apparenatlly he lost his wallet… But had his debit card in his pocket… He crushed it up and threw it had Haley when she told him to calm down… He was fucked up… And so were Haley and I…

Anyhow, because I was so fucked up it was suggested by Haley that we stay at her place… Both of us and we get on a bus… And stay on that bus for about an hour… They just selected a random bus and we ended up on the complete opposite side of London… Ontop of that, Phil was arguing about the Iraq war and how we should support our troops with a Shia lady who felt the war was racist and anti-muslim… I talked to the Shia lady and found out she likes Pittsburgh and has friends involved in the punk scene their… But she didn’t believe me so I called Bortz to tell him I’m lost in London and prove Im from Pittsburgh, I also taught her the word Yinz.
Anyhow, it ended up being an interesting day to say the least… We went the wrong direction and took a bus and ended up back where we started… We just then proceeded to walk around and ended up getting to see a lit up Big Ben on a starry night. And then Haley had it and decided we are going to get a hotel but by now its 5am in the morning and we are all sobering up… I suggest a taxi but she said she refuses to pay their outrageous rates so we go to a hotel that refused to accept people at 5am in the morning so Phil gets the idea of just sleeping in the ER of a hospital which I object to so we go to the tube station, chill outside with the homeless until it opens up and at 9am I go home and go to bed…

Over the course of that night we have a bunch of conversation and I get a real look into British culture and it was a great time. I had fish and chips, I had my first glass of cider, saw my first Rugby game, learned British words and heard British jokes and most of all I got lost in London with the only two English people who legitimately do not know their way around London. I seriously would have been able to get home if I hadn’t followed them, public transportation in London isn’t that difficult and taxi’s not that expensive(Well it would have been 20 dollars, so it is expensive but I could have taken a bus home for free if I just asked the driver, lol).

Next day… Really not going to drink… Really…

SUNDAY…
LET’S GO STEELERS!!!!

Sports Café that we were at earlier was, as they told us, 100% going to play the Steelers so now its off for the Steelers game… Lets just put it this way, I woke up hung over in the middle of the day due to not getting to bed at 9am, went down to the Sports Café with my terrible towel and noticed that the Pats game was on two projectors, rugby on some tvs and soccer on some and football on some… But due to technical issues they couldn’t get the Steelers-Browns game or the Miami game so I sat and watched the Patriots because they said it should be fixed shortly, had a beer and some Fish and Chips… And talked to all the Americans from all over the country coming to watch their fav. Teams… Turned out they didn’t get the issue fixed because it was the satellite companies mistake, and so I wasted my time and money coming down… Luckily the two gents I was sitting next two were businessmen, one from Texas who lived in Pittsburgh for a few years and struck up conversation with me about politics, sports and Pittsburgh and about my schooling. He encouraged me to goto grad school and then paid my tab… How lovely. Steelers ended up crushing the Browns any how.

So I go home and me and my flatmates, mostly my flatmates cook a dinner consiting of salad, garlic bread, pasta and amazing chicken served with red wine. It was an amazing meal. We ate well and took it easy this night and recovered from all of our nights of drinking as tomorrow, Monday, I would have an interesting day as their were a million things to do at the same time in what may go down as the most hetic day of all of my London stay.

To explain Monday I need to first explain something I forgot to explain on Thursdays description. (Please note because I explained so much about the drinking I skipped a lot because things like “British Shopping, Public Transportation and Cultural differences I want to hit up in big areas as opposed to a little bit at a time).

Anyhow on Thursday I decided it was a great idea to go and find my internship location early that way I couldn’t possibly be late on Wednesday when I have my internship interview and on top of that I have the issue that my internship interview was during my first class which I really wanted to go to so I hoped I could meet my boss and reschedule my interview time. Well, anyhow I went down to CAPA (the organization that does my school) and got directions written on the paper that actually has the information about the Green Party and set off the find it. However during the ten minute walk from CAPA to the tube station I somehow lost my directions and all my internship information… So at the welcome party I talked to the people at my school and they said to come down first thing Monday morning and they would relook up the information and give me directions with plenty of time to get to my internship interview at 11am.

So I wake up at 7am, shower, shave get cleaned… Dress up real nice including my dress shirt and pants I ironed the night before (what a riot you should have seen my trying to iron) put on my tie the way I learned to tie it the night before (yes my roommates needed to show me how to tie a tie) and then put on my sports jacket… Of course it was hot this day… Anyhow I first headed up to my 9am class early to tell the professor that I had a conflict and would have to miss class, which in my opinion is a bummer because class is once a week for 3 hours and I will no doubt be behind. So I go and see my professor, get his e-mail and he tells me to e-mail him and he will send me all the notes and its no big deal [side note: it’s a week since then and I have still not received the notes]. He also tells me that class will need to be rescheduled for the following Monday (aka today) because he will be in North Carolina. He seems like a great knowledgeable guy and told me a little bit about the Green Party, which is Great Britain’s fourth party btw, and it brought me down a little bit because they are apparently not significant at all compared to the three larger parties though he did mention they are growing stronger. So anyhow, I rushed over to CAPA and had to sign up for an event I wanted to do which I choose a soccer game and then I had to meet with the person who runs the program about changing my Wednesday Night Internship Class (On top of 20 hours a week in an internship they make us take a once weekly class) to Monday so that I can play Lacrosse on Monday. He wrote down the information (I had already informed him about this conflict about two days ago but he had already forgotten). Anyhow the reason why he wrote it down and didn’t change it was because the servers were down… I didn’t think much of that. But with me going to the night Internship on Monday instead of Wednesday that means the theater ticket the school gave me for Monday night would not work out so well, so then they needed to scramble and get me a Tuesday Night ticket for the showing of Women in Black as opposed to the Monday Night one… Anyhow after all that was done, the easy part… I have an hour and forty five minutes to get to my internship… To get directions…

THE SEVERS ARE DOWN… No way to get my internship information.


TO BE CONTINUED...