London:Part One

Greetings readers.

The last week has been much like a runaway train. But, before I get into the nitty gritty I will warn you that there shall be many spelling errors that I will miss while typing this as the keboards are quite different out here... here being Belgium.

I know what you are all thinking: Belgium, you say? Werent you going to do the UK first? Well, plans have a way of changing... and boy how they changed.

I met up with Jeff for our long plane ride over to the land of fish and chips in the early afternoon of tuesday. We had no complications getting on the flight so no horror stories about customs this time. sorry.

Jeff and I were seated behind a whole girls soccer team that was headed to London to get so,e top-notch coaching. This team was made up of all 16 year olds and I was about ready to cry bullshit on one of them. I had a hard time believing she was under 19. I tried to drink myself to sleep as I was having troubles catching Zs on my own will. I still never got to sleep.

Upon arriving into London I was faced with the horrible line up at customs and made sure I had my story straight so I could anwer all questions asked without hesitation. I made it through without a scratch and was granted access into the country. There was just one problem, Jeff was no longer right behind me. It seems once he told the customs agent that he was traveling with a friend (yours truly) and they had many questions to ask about me. After 20 mintues of intense interogation Jeff was allowed to pass and we were finally able to grab our bags. We reached the carousel to see both of our bags sitting on the ground with no other folks in sight of the luggage area. I guess our stay in customs was much longer then everyone elses.

We caught a train and then the subway to an area with a hostel I thought we would try. I got lost quite easily and cracked out my guide book for help. Before I could even turn to the chapter on London I was approached by a young aussie guy who asked if we needed help looking for a hostel. He guided us to a different one where he was going to be staying. I took this as a good sign and decided we should stay too. Besides, the guy wanted to come sight seeing with us as he had just arrived too. As a side note, there was an absolute gorgeous blonde girl working the counter which made the decision all the easier.

So we did all the sight seeing stuff: buckingham palace, westminster abbey, tower bridge, eye of London etc... That night we went out in search of all the beautiful women and really came up empty handed. In our search for a pub that was going off we found two gay bars instead. We eventually caught a cab to Liverpool street in search of a bar that another guy recommended to us only to find it does not exist. We ended up staying where we were and having a couple of drinks. James took it upon himself to try and hit up some of the local women who were quite a bit older. After a rockey start with annoying them and me thinking that it would all end badly, we actually got on pretty well and the ended surprisingly well. After arriving back at the hostel, Jeff and I had met a Scottish girl and an English lad who ended up inviting us out for a party the next night. I kept this in mind and bid them both goodnight. Not bad for our first day.

Our 2nd day found James leaving us for Paris. Before he left he had convinced Jeff and I to come along the next day to continue our mad adventures. With a full day ahead of us, Jeff and I went to the British museum. This is quite the interesting attraction (which is also free I might add). So many intresting artifacts from around the world laying right under one buildings roof. We had spent almost 3 hours wandering up and down the rooms and hadn't even noticed a rain storm had passed through while we were enjoying ourselves.

That evening I took up the offer of the Scottish girl to go partying with a bunch of folks she had just met and it happened to be one of their birthdays. Jeff decidedt o stay back and sleep so I had to go it alone with all these new people. The pub happend to be a late night one (2am is late seemings as how many places close at 11pm in london). We made use of all the time given and swapped stories back and forth. At one point one of hte guys yelled "naked bar" and all the girls of the group got topless before a bouncer came over. The bouncer warned us that if we pulled this stunt again then we would be kicked out. This is funny as back home this would be enough to get banned from a place for a week most likely.

The next morning began with a lady telling me I had to check out of muy room right away so they could clean it. While I was a tad hung over, I got on just fine and Jeff and I were able to make it for the train station and on to Paris. I was excited to get a chance to experience my first (of probably many) European rail rides.

On to the Romantic city that is Paris!

The Woman Write-Up: London was full of some very spectacular looking women, but many of htem also seemed to be travellers. So in short, English girls aren't really my cup of tea, but the girls who vacation there certainly are. Althought no romance was thrust upon me (as we all knoz that is the only reason why you read this) I have much faith that the rest of Europe will prove to be much more fruitful.