London Baby, Yeah!

I can finally use that title with some sense of pride as I have begun to settling into life in London. Hanging at Murph's has given me the opportunity to chill out, store some stuff and just plan the next few months with peace and ease.

First of all, I have to apologize for the constant use of stock photos from trips-past, but I'm having a couple of issues with my camera. I have a new fancy digital camera that the lovely Lori Gulisano gave me for my trip! (Thanks Lori!) However, I made the mistake of NOT buying rechargeable batteries and the regular AA sort run out every five minutes. My old crappy digital camera had a built-in rechargeable so I would just switch between the two batteries I had and never ran out. Secondly, I still have to get Murphy to download the software from my new fancy camera into his hardrive so I can download current photos. I have some great ones from the rugby match and our Saturday night out. I was at least smart enough to start a Kodak Gallery account and downloaded a bunch of old photos from my last trip here. If all else fails, Google images work wonders. Okay, back to the trip...

So, Murphy's friend Paul arrived from Boston early Saturday morning and we all sat around to Bernie's famous Irish breakfast: eggs scrambled soft, sausages, bacon (kind of really like American thin ham) grilled tomatoes, baked beans, whole grain toast and Irish tea with milk. Paul has been working in Europe for the past few years and just came back from a gig in L.A. so there are two Yanks staying at the house at the moment. He will be staying here for the summer while Murphy is in Ireland and I will pop in and out between tours. (I hope he doesn't read this, he would die if he knew I called him a "Yank" seeing as he is a die-hard Red Sox fan.)
So, after a long post-breakfast nap we all hopped into the car and headed for the Rugby. This weekend was a bank holiday three-day weekend so the traffic was murder and it took about an hour and a half to drive 20 or so miles. I dare say that I was NOT looking forward to watching 30 or so strapping young lads running around in tight little shorts tackling each other but I managed somehow to suffer through! The stadium reminded me of a polo grounds and even had a club inside with pictures dating back to the mid-19th century. Really cool stuff. What wasn't remotely cool was the beer, in fact it was perhaps the crappiest beer I've ever had! YEACH!!! Warm and flat for about £3...of course I had two as it was the only beer available. Bernie's younger cousin Cathal, who is also from Kinvara, played for Ricnmond, the losing side, sadly. (That's him pictured above, he's the extremely tall one of the left.) Anyway, it was the championship match and the other team went on to play in another level of the tournament. Oh well, they were still cute! (Update, Bernie says that the beer is supposed to be served warm....yeach!)

After that we went to another friend's house, a guy called Nick and he is from South Africa. He's married to Annie, an American girl and they live in a pretty posh part of town, just South of Chelsea by the river. We had some strong coffee and a nip of whiskey and then went to the center of London where I was awe-struck by all the famous landmarks...Big Ben, Parliament, the MI-5 building, the EYE (the big ferris wheel) and on into Covent Garden where we were due to attend a friend's birthday party. We had Indian food for dinner (where I discovered I can get a big serving of rice for about £1.50) and then went to a club called "LAB." It was a blast, too small to dance properly but lots of nice people. I was DYING watching the bartenders try to make cocktails though, good god! I even piped up and said "who the hell orders a frozen daiquiri in a club at midnight?" Oops, of course the people right next to me did. Silly American. Anyway, I stuck with bottled Corona, which was also warm BTW and ended up just sipping Jack Daniels. I did have a bit of trouble understanding the accent in the loud club. I said "What kind of beer do you have?...Corona and that's it!...What is `that's it? I asked...THAT'S IT!" That seems to happen a lot.

The next day I took a train ride to Wimbeldon and then had to take a bus home because the train was out of service coming back. I said "Can you drop me at Streatham Common?" (Now, I have just busted all of you Americans because I know that you read "STREETH-HAM." HAHA! I did the same thing, only I did it out loud to a bus driver who promptly said in his best British accent "Well love, we don't have any STREETH-HAM here in London, but I'll be happy to take to you STRATTAM!" Fair enough. I got off the bus in STRATTAM and proceeded to go to my new local pub called the Pied Bull. It is your typical English pub, or the "local" as they say, and it has everything one needs in a joint. Big screen TV playing sports you have never heard of or don't understand, lots of smelly cigarette smoke thickening up the room, guys with babies in their strollers and local chaps sitting around screaming at each other about this or that, laughing and generally staying away from home for far too long. I was the only female besides the bar maid so I stuck out like a waif at a buffet. Luckily, I met a really nice group of lads who took me in and bought me beers and made me feel right at home. It was such the typical cast of characters...the dad John with his 17 year-old son, Alex, Bill who looked like he had been to one too many Grateful Dead shows and some older dude from Scotland who just mumbled insessantly and kept offering me cigarettes. Then, John's wife Alice showed up and we just chatted away until I realized that I promised the boys I would make them dinner. (They had STAYED up until 7 a.m. singing songs at the piano.) So, I bid my new friends adieu and headed off to the house for a chicken and roasted potato dinner. It took a lot for Murphy not to kick me out of the kitchen, he is as anal as I am about cooking but it's his place so I give him credit. It might have been my three beer buzz that did it.

Things have been relatively quiet since then. I'm off today to go and see about my summer plans and to stay in Kensington overnight at the ACE hostel. I just felt like being centrally located for a night. IT IS ABSOLUTELY GORGOUS OUTSIDE! Tomorrow night I am going to check out some local comedy and then perhaps take a tour to the South Coast or Scotland next week. I'll keep you posted. Until next time....LATERS!