Thursday, August 13, 2009

London Calling, London Drinking, London Sleeping.

We left France via the Chunnel. Which ... is apparently not what they call it in either the UK or France. But, anyway, we met some nice actor named Chioke on the train. Oh, and we went first class because the tickets for some bizarre reason were the same price as coach. That meant we were offered champagne. Champagne. I had a beer instead.

Anyway, we got into London and stayed in a hostel for two nights. It was our first experience away from the high-society living, and I really enjoyed it. We met some nice people, the place was clean and felt safe. We did a free walking tour of the West end of London, and later went out on a pub crawl. Joe and I had a great time, we made pretty good friends with a Canadian Dr. who is on his way back from a few months in Tanzania.

I was especially proud of fooling a few people I met that night with fake accents. I told some British guy that I was from New Zealand, and he totally bought it! For like ... hours. And then I tried out my Australian accent on a few Aussies, and they bought it ... for a few minutes. But, still, that's a pretty good step up for me. Last year, I couldn't have even told one from the other.

We got really drunk and had a great time until we ended up at some dance club. Man, I always thought I didn't like those places - now I'm positive. I guess to be honest, I was having a good enough time until everyone else paired off with a girl - even Joe. I just got so bored and sick of pretending to dance that I took off. Joe met some nice lady (who went by the name of "Dream" ... I'm positive that wasn't her real name) and stayed out til about sunrise. I was powerfully hungover the next day, but we managed to get out to Wolverhampton to see my friend Alan. He's such a nice dude. It's funny how I only really met him two times - once in Hiroshima and once again in Tokyo - but I feel like he's a dude of mine. Like, if he needed a favor and I could help him out, I'd jump to do it. And he's definitely helping us out by letting us stay.

Though, I must say that the Black Country is not as tourist-friendly as London. We had a good time last night at two local pubs, and had a good chat with the owners of the Ace of Spades Pub, Penny and Andy. Today, though, we were going to go to the Black Country Living Museum - you know the kind, a bunch of dudes in a village pretending it's two hundred years ago. I was pretty enthused about it, actually, but the prices were way too high for us. Almost 20 US Dollars for admission is just too much for us.

So, we went for a bit of a walk around Alan's place. But, I was a bit startled. Some young Chavs (British teenage troublemakers) were out for a walk as well, and one of them decided to piss in broad daylight next to the canal, as we walked by on the other side. As we walked away he said "Hey, dickheads, were you looking at me? Were you faggots looking at me?" or something, to which I replied "Uh ... well, I'm looking at you now, because you called me a dickhead. But, I don't even know you, man." I was just so caught off guard by that kind of a thing. I've been in Japan too long! I got used to people just minding to themselves mostly, but I guess I better get used to the occassional angst-ridden youths. *shrug*

Anyway, we watched Blacula this morning, as we did laundry, and now we're watching Scream Blacula Scream. I fucking love Blacksploitation movies.

MY NAME ... IS BLACULA!

1 comment:

nickyj said...

Next time when some punk tries to step to your game, just breathe some fuckin fire on him. It'll be classic.