Bangers and Mash

I've been in London for a week now, and I already feel like a Londoner. I can now navigate my way around the London Underground with ease, find the right busses back at night, and drink more than 3 English beers without passing out.

Tuesday night after my last blog, me and my friends from CEA all went to Central London to party. We were going to pregame, so I went to the liqour store and saw they had two bottles of Italian Red wine for £5. I drank that, but it turns out that is literally the worst wine you can buy.
Feeling good we took the train into Picadilly Circus, and then from there we went to Chinatown. Chinatown here is amazing, its all decked out and decorated with balloons and asian ornamanets and such all over the rafters. We went to a bar there called, "O Neills", which is an irish pub, and I think a bit of a chain around london, and I had a ...thats right brace yourself beer drinkers....a red guinesss on tap. Red Guiness is just Guiness with that Red irish flavor like killians has...tasty.

I also drank a bunch of gin and tonics. They pour all their drinks the same here it seems...two measured out shots, and then a personal bottle for you to pour of your own mixer. We had a good time there, there was a live band rockin out and multiple floors, but eventually we left in search of a new bar.

We had trouble finding a place to get into because some famous designer is in town and it is like fashion week, so you had to be dressed really nice to get into the ritzy lookin clubs, but we found a place called , "ON ANON" which let us in for £5 at the door. It was a nice place, a had a few vodka cranberries and then, well, quite frankly I was drunk.

The next morning we had a scheduled proper English Creme tea lunch at a high-end restaraunt called "Browns" in, I wanna say off Oxford Street or Picadilly Circus, but it might have been in Leicester Square...either way it wass weird. English tea done right is great, but it fucked me up. I was jittery and felt sick pretty much all day, i was overloaded with caffeine. But I counteracted that by drinking a huge pint of Stella Artois with some friends in the 300 year old pub next door, and I felt better. Served with the tea was scones. Scones in England are not like those shitty rock hard blueberry triangle shits you get at starbucks in the states, they are like hot soft biscuits, and you put jam and british creme on them....amazing. I had that and some fruitcake, and some cucumber and creamcheese sandwiches which, uh, weren't so good.

After that our group split up and I spent the day in Soho with my friend Jose and our new friend Tori. Soho is awesome, they have endless music shops, vintange clothing stores, sex shops ( lol, which we stopped in but I got freaked out and waited outside), and endless pubs and restaraunts. We made our way eventually back up to Carnaby Street, which is all neat little clothing shops, and we found TOP MAN in Oxford Circus, which sells all the British clothes british people wear for good prices. I bought a couple shirts, now I blend in.

This was a long day. We took the bus back home and my friends were preparing to go out to the Student Union (Club Sandwich) and party and meet people and such. I kinda just felt like staying in, feeling sick from the tea still and tired from walking for 5 days straight.

At about , I wanna say 10:15pm, Becca Nevins signed on and I asked her if she wanted to grab a beer. Now I have no idea how to get to her place from me, I live in Southeast London and shes all the way on the west end, and it was already 10:30 about by the time I left. So i ran to my train stop, but I couldn't byy a ticket because it only takes debit cards at night, my debit card doesnt read in the machines here. I bought a train ticket off a bum for £2 and got on. A nice British lady on the train helped me figure out the tube map and we figured I needed to take the northern line to morehead and the metro-line to farringdon. Long story short I made it to beccas in like 20 minutes. I felt accompished. We couldn't find a bar open so we grabbed some wine and drank it in front of Shakespeare' s Globe, which is just minutes from her house, and there are no open container laws here.
It was pretty cool catching up and we talked about how weird it was that two weeks ago we were hanging out on the dirt road in CP, and now we're hanging out in front of London Bridge, the millenium bridge, and the Globe theatre by the Thames River. On the way back to her apartment I asked a cop which tube I should get on to get home, and he said "oy, all the tubes are closed". Great. I didn't realize they closed at 12am and by this point it was like 3am. So after I dropped off Becca I wondered around a strange, scary part of London until I found a bus that took me to Trafalgars square, which is like the main theatre disstrict, and then from there (after hopping on 2 wrong busses) I made my way back southeast toward Lewisham. I got in at about 4, relieved to be home alive.

The next day I woke up and decided to pick out spots on the tube map by myself and see if I can get there without getting lost. I got everywhere I Needed to go no problem. I have mastered the tube. I went back to buckingham palace to take some more pictures and then I went to a pub called the "bag o nails" and had a pint of Fosters and bangers and mash. Bangers and mash are amazing. Sausages, mashed potatos, and peas, all covered in english gravy. It's the best.

I went back and we went out to O' Neills again at night. There was an irish band like dropkick murphys sort of music playing, I ordered an Amstel Light and just rocked out with my friends. The music was great, all in all it was a great night.

Today I'm sorta chillin. I might take it easy for a change. Tomorrow I am hopefully going to Greenwich with my British friend James, and Sunday is Oxford.

Cheers
Andrew