London

Jet, that one band. We leave Edinburgh for London on a rainy cloudy morning.

 

Bloggin' away between destinations.

 

No grids here. England is totally free-form.

 

We get off the plane and take the train into the city. To our surprise, and in a foreshadowing touch of just how ridiculously expensive London is going to be, it costs us 4 pounds a piece to ride "the tube" one way, akin to roughly $9 U.S. Dollars. Holy shit.

 

 

 

I think this might be one of the worst photos ever taken of me... Like a deer in the headlights, right?

 

London's full of weird fucking statues like this one that appears to be masturbating with a sword.

 

Buckingham Palace. I think the rule is that when the Union Jack is at full mast the queen is in residence. Unfortunately we didn't get to meet her or anything.

 

More weird statues.

 

The royal crest.

Our hostel is in Kensington, a fairly "chi-chi" (aka "toney" aka "wealthy") part of town -- not what two budget travelers are looking for. We decide to walk into the center of the city to see what we can find, anticipating that we'll run into some cool pubs or some cool people, but we're sadly disappointed.

Instead, we run into plenty of department stores, expensive "modern" bars (all lightly-stained wood and glass), and well-dressed people. We walk for a few hours, snap a few photos, get stuck in the rain. Fed up, we head back to the hostel and enjoy some bottled Budweisers in our room while watching old episodes of The Office on our computer. Total America therapy.

 

London Day 2: Discouraged by all the not-cool things we find in London the day before, we decide to take one of those famous bus tours to try and get a feel for the city. It costs us apprx. 38 pounds for the two of us, roughly $80 U.S. Dollars. Gay.

 

 

London has some weird 70's architecture in their business district.

 

They have a musical called "We Will Rock You" based on Freddie Mercury's life. Here is a 20 foot tall golden statue above the theater, totally mind blowing.

 

 

 

They've got dragons all over this city. Another goth haven. Beak would be into it.

 

 

 

Pot-bellied buildings.

 

 

 

Our tour guide is 100 percent hilarious, continually cracking jokes about his ex-wife and his mother in-law.

 

 

 

 

2nd worst photo ever.

 

 

Check out this dude's hair. Apparently it's intentional. It's our opinion that hipster dudes in London have the worst haircuts in the world, possibly (probably) related to the fact that they like to go to dance clubs for fun and listen to dubtrancehouseelectrowhatever.

 

Westminster Abbey.

 

The River Thames and the London Eye.

 

Big Ben.

 

 

I guess when the guy on the top of this statue died he asked to have his body preserved in Brandy so that they could get him across the sea and home to London without the body decomposing. After they got him home all his buddies did a cheers and drank the body brandy.

 

This is when Jeff and I start finally winning the London game. We do a little research on the interenets on where we can find record stores, deducing that the area of the city with the highest proportion of of them will be where we have the most fun. Our research takes us out of the city to Camden. We head north on the tube, hoping to find some solace from the obscene wealth of the city. We win!

 

We eat some Italian dinner at a cafe. Jeff drinks his first Italian beer and calls it "pretty good."

 

 

Our luck gets even better. After dinner we walk down the street and find a little pub that serves the original Budweiser from the Czech Republic.

 

We stop and have a few. Within minutes we make friends with our barman. He's real nice guy who tells all about his town as well as some other bars we should stop by, including a "Grunge" bar down the road that he thinks we'd enjoy. Jeff jokingly asks if Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder are going to be there but I don't think he got it.

 

 

Pub religion.

 

 

 

WTF? There was a dude in here dressed like a pirate, non-ironically.

 

A photo from the grunge bar - they've got some NIN on the stereo.

 

Late night tube rides home.

 

Young British love.

 

Our London trip in a nutshell: we accidentally spent time in a manner inversely proportionate to our interests. Trapped in the wealthy fashion and business districts most of the time, briefly discovering the cool affordable areas before leaving. Oh well. Sod off London (or some other such Britishism)!

Now we're back off to Dublin for a few days before coming home to the States. Dublin has been our favorite spot so far, so it should prove to be a happy ending.