The Flying Dutchman and I are going straight to hell

The days following Jeff's departure were usually made up of me doing some sights that I didn't get to see the first two times around (Mainly the Tower of London where I got to see the crown jewels) and devising my next step.

I got a bit of a scare one day while hanging out in the TV room of the hostel while I was reading. I was kind of eave strapping in on a conversation between two German girls (yes they were speaking in German, so I guess I was only half eave strapping). My next thought was to join in and introduce myself (as I have the huge German girl fetish), but as I looked up I gave myself a bit of a startle. One of the girls looked quite similar to a German girl that had caused me a lot of grief in Australia (readers from my last blog will remember her, as I wrote about her quite regularly. I shall refer her as Freya for privacy reasons this time around). The face was similar, especially the nose and even the small things like the shoes she wore were exactly the same as those that Freya wore when I first met her. I know it sounds weird to remember things such as that, but I have tenancy to remember useless facts which explains my limited brain capacity in other areas. After noticing such similarities I decided against getting involved in their conversation and just walking away. I know it was not the same girl, but just the scare of mistaking her for Freya for a split second was too much for me to deal with at the current time. This brings me just one step closer to the possibility that I may have to deal with the real Freya one day. It could be a reality seemings as how we ran into each other randomly 5 different times throughout Australia after our initial meeting, and Australia's landmass rivals that of the United States. Germany is quite smaller on the landmass front. For now I'll take this as a warning of what I could be encountering in the future, but I will not let it get in the way of my trip.

Just as I was figuring out that Ireland was going to be the next destination and I started to research the money and time involved getting up there, I ended up receiving a message from my dutch buddy, Bjorn whom I know from Australia. Turns out he was headed out to London for a weeks vacation and was wondering if I was still going to be there. I couldn't turn down this opportunity to see Bjorn again, so I put my Ireland plans on the back burner and awaited Bjorn's arrival.

Bjorn wasn't due to arrive until late Friday night so Luke, Chris (another ozzy) and Anne (an American girl who lives in Scotland) all went out to this Australian pub called the Walkabout (which I believe I've written about before, but this is a different walkabout located just down the street from our hostel). This place was going off. Tons of people having a great time and we all got a chance to join in. I promptly wore my "Kiss me I'm Canadian" T-shirt to distinguish my from the Ozzy and Kiwi folks to frequent this bar. One of the female bartenders made a point of giving me a kiss everytime I ordered a drink, so I guess in practice the shirt works. I got a message from Bjorn when he arrived at our hostel so I made the quick walk back to the place to meet up with him and then promptly bring him down to the walkabout to meet the group. Just like old times we were together drinking and sharing the stories of what we did with the rest of our Australian journey and the 2 years after our returns home. This probably ended up being one of the more memorable nights in London to this point.

On Sunday morning Bjorn and I had made plans to goto a bar called "The Church" which is only open on Sundays from noon until 4pm. We had to line up for an hour and a half just to get in. Once we got in it was just a complete party. Drinks were bought in plastic bags of 3 and there was plenty of entertainment to keep everyone going for the day. We had heard a lot of great things about this place, it had strippers and wet t-shirt contests and all that, so I had my hopes set real high only to kind of be let down. I had a lot of fun and the place delivered on the strippers and wet t-shirt competition, but (as sad as this sounds) I saw much more lewd acts in Australian backpacker bars, so all of this seemed a bit tame to me. A great time was still had by all. After everyone gets kicked out at 4pm they all congregate at the Walkabout in the sheppards bush area (also known as She-bu). Bjorn and I made the very drunk journey only to find that it really wasn't worth it. It was just a super packed bar to the point where it was quite difficult to move around. While some may think that's a great time, I think it's a bit silly if I have to take 20 minutes to go from the dance floor to the bar. We packed it in and headed back home where we thought we'd have a quiet evening.

The quiet evening was out of the question. We met a bunch of new people in the hostel bar that night and kept going (yep, way too much drinking. I know). I met a girl from San Francisco named Hilary (I took it upon myself to only call her San Fran all night) who was trying to convince me to drop all of my plans (like I had any) and leave to Israel in the morning with her. While I had to decline this offer, I did actually put some thought into it just because she had a bit of a cuteness factor to her. We continued the evening playing UNO and Jenga until the bar closed up. We continued the madness by moving into the quiet room with a bottle of rum and coke. I stayed up til about 3am and finally thought that this day has to end at some point.

Bjorn convinced me to goto a football game with him as it is something you should experience while in England. He found a local team playing that wouldn't charge an arm and a leg for tickets called Millwall. We made the long journey (which funny enough had us goto the "Canada Water" tube station) and got our selves some tickets. We took up our seats in the general section and took in the mayhem that is football hooligans. The amount of police presence at a football game is absolutely amazing. Even the fact that the fans of the visiting team had to sit in a separate section away from all the home team fans was kind of crazy. All in all it was a great experience with some of the rowdiest fans I've ever seen at any sporting event.

Later in the week I went to the walkabout (it became a favourite hangout) with Luke to watch some of the Rugby world cup action. We saw the New Zealand vs Italy game and Australia vs Japan. After all was said and done we went back to the hostel and took part in a huge BBQ and watched the England vs Israel football match. I had made plans to goto the church with him the next day so I was going to call it in early evening to get my rest. This did not happen. I ended up meeting some more American folks (2 girls from California and a guy from New York). We ended up having quite the conversation for a few hours and I started to fall for Erin, one of the Cali girls. That was until she expressed her over-whelming desire for some weed. Which brings me to another pet peeve. I don't mind what people do and don't do, but what bothers me is when people clearly have the addiction thing going and have to express how much they need to drink/smoke/whatever. It's just an unattractive trait when people feel the "need" for some kind of substance such as those.

So with my attraction to Erin lasting all of about 20 minutes, I left them to go on their hunt for weed while I stayed behind and began a new conversation with 2 Spanish girls and 2 Belgian girls. Okay, I lied. The conversation was mainly between me and the Spanish girls and the 2 Belgians couldn't speak English. This was a real shame as I tried my hardest to muster up any French I could remember to try and talk with the extremely beautiful Belgian girl, Emilie. Just to put in perspective how cute this girl was, I thought she was a cross between Keira Knightly and Winona Ryder. Almost on cue, 2 French guys arrived out of no where and I was able enlist the help of one of them to play my interpreter for the evening. Back and forth Emilie and I talked through our new interpreter and quickly I found myself becoming really smitten with this girl. She kept giving me those cute smiles and shyly looking away only to quickly look up to see if I was still smiling at her. oh, it was just too cute, but we knew there was nothing we could really do as we were lost without someone to translate our thoughts and feelings. After 2 hours of this I felt I had to end it and go off to bed. I had my translator inform Emilie that I thought she was very beautiful and sweet and apologize to her for my inability to speak to her myself all evening. He did just that and she gave me hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. I'm also finding that in my attempt to romance these women I never ever get a picture of them (probably because my mind is on other things). I need a sticky note to remind me: Take plenty of pictures of the pretty girls!!!

It was time to leave London finally. I felt I was getting no where fast in this expensive city and needed a change of scenery. Ireland became the country of choice for the next leg of my journey.

Onward! To the Guinness brewery!