Nick Greenslade > Emotional Roller Coaster: Incredible London and Beers with Aussie Legends

Sunday, July 11, 2004 Incredible London and Beers with Aussie Legends

OK, I think I have a little more time to blab tonight. I've had a few beers at the pub and am sitting in front of a computer recalling all of my antics over the last few days.

Friday night I sat in the pub below my hostel and drank too many Kronenburg pints with an English lad (Eddie) and remember vaguely returning to my 4 bed room reasonably drunk desperately trying to find my padlock keys to my bags, gave up and just passed out. I awoke in the morning next to my backpack and found my keys in the place I'd left them.

Saturday was awesome. I buddied up with a guy who was in my room - Barry, who was in London for really only one day - and we decided to be true tourists. We got the the Tube and asked some English lass where we should get off to be in the shopping district -- she said Bank, so we followed instructions. Bank was empty. Like no one. Nadda. Freaking out that London was not anything like we expected we headed to St Pauls to check it out. Oh. My. God. Unbelievable place it is. Ginormous big church. We wentup to all of the areas you could and got awesome views inside and outside -- it ends up about 350 feet in the air so you can look all over London from the top. Bloody lot of stairs tho -- including annoying small people stairs and spiral staircases... ahh the pains of being 6" 2'.... But it blew me away.

Next we continued thru the deadness of London to the London Bridge and walked over that and then along the Thames to the HMS Belfast - a battleship from World War II that is "parked" in the Thames. Awesome boat with a grealy set up tour that we went thru -- took about 2 hours so we (Barry and I) got our £7 worth. Dad - I'm sure you are proud, and I'll take you thru it when you come over.

Next was cruising the Thames (I want to live in Butlers Wharf) and then across the Tower Bridge, followed by ogling at the Tower of London -- big arse castle on the Thames that is really old and very cool looking, yet incredibly expensive to go thru. We stayed outside.

Next we decided to be true tourists and hit the double deckers for tours around the place. These things are great -- you cruise around the tourist points of London and can get on and off at any time for 24 hours (how long the ticket lasts) and its only £16. Well worth it -- you see it all. We stopped off at Buckingham Palace and sat in awe, then walked down to Trafalguar Square and hopped on another bus and saw more places of interest. You come over, get on one of these!

We'd started at 9am and returned to the hostel at 715pm, so it was a massive day where both of us just revelled in the tourist thing and really enjoyed London for how amazing it is. We also found the shopping district while on the bus trip; the girl at the station was way off -- Leicester Square, Picadilly, Oxford St etc are the places...which brings me to today.

Today (Sunday), I hopped on the Tube and scoured the town for the comic book shop I saw on the tour. Got there and waited outside for 15 minutes until it opened -- it seems that regardless of which country your are in, there are still freaks going to the comic shops. Phew -- wierd dudes out there today.

Next was a walk to Oxford Street (and Regent, Bond [green on the monopoly board] and Carnaby) and from there I just wandered for about 4 hoursthru the streets looking at the amazing amount of shops around the place. Incredible amount and sooooo many people around. Think Christmas Eve shopping everyday its open. Crazy place. But I can say I've been to the Diesel (Bart) and Ben Sherman (Thommo) shops -- very cool -- along with soo many more. Must say I could've spent about £1000 today but left only with buying lunch. I'll wait for a while until I buy some clothes.

So I returned with incredibly sore feet to the pub and sat down for a few pints. And as the rumours had spread, and I'd seen him around last night, Sam (Aussie Legend One) was staying in the hostel. Along with Mike (Aussie Legend Two) who I had a few Coronas with (Ange -- 2 coronas for £3!!!) and we talked girls/relationships and the challenges they bring. Then I was introduced to Sam and gave him a stir about shaving as he'd made a purchasing mistake regarding deodrant vs shaving cream..... even away from the likes of my ex-workmates I can cause havoc regarding my hairiness vs others! Habit obviously -- Sam laughed along. Great guys and good drinking mates.

So you can see I'm having a blast and tomorrow its job hunting time. The suits out, the shirts ironed andI'm going to attempt to dazzle some recruiters.

Songs on iPOD: Potentially being copied all to the hostel's laptop to add to their nightly playlists :)

Posted by Nick @ 7:30 pm 1 comments

1 Comments:

At 7:41 pm, Nick said...

This post has been edited to respect the mates I've made; knowing that they are legends in their own right. Fuck why people around here think they're it and a bit, I've talked and dropped a number of beers wit hthese boys and have the utmost respect for them as new mates of mine. Thanks Sammy and Mike, for the fun times. Keep in touch.