London again

We got back to London and slept for the whole day. That night, we went to the bar beneath the hostel and both of us scored. Although for Genevieve, this was a night living up to her expectations, this had never happened for me before.

To tell you the truth, guys, the guy I kissed in the bar was my first kiss (hides face in shame).

It's a very long story with kind of a sad ending, so I won't go into it. But he was a mid-20s British journalist. It had been my goal ever since deciding on studying in England to kiss a British boy, and this one was actually cute, a journalist and asked to kiss me. I would have been a fool to turn him down.

Genevieve, however, was even luckier. The boy she met (the guy's friend) is now her boyfriend and she goes to visit him most weekends in London. Envious? You have no idea!

The next day, we went to the Tate Modern. I was so glad I wasn't there with my father, who would have called most of the works there "trash." Although I'm a little more open minded, some of the stuff was pretty unintentionally laughable. When the plaque describes a white plastic tube as being "representative of the hollowness felt by the population after WWII," you have to kind of take a step back and wonder at the state of the world. However, the place didn't disappoint--even if a work was ridiculous, it was nonetheless interesting. And there were some pretty amazing paintings, including multiple works by Dali.

That night, we finally met the people in our room. There were three Tasmanians who were incredibly nice and fun and took us out to drink and dance. (I couldn't stop them from buying me drinks despite all the feminist protests I could muster. I finally bought my own when they actually ran out of money!) I bonded with one of the boys, Tim, as he kept talking about how his friend got all the girls because he was much more attractive. I could definitely relate after spending four weeks with Genevieve in tow--a pretty, super-confident blonde. Nothing is more damaging to the ego.

We got to the subway and got to a station pretty far away before it closed for the night and we didn't know where the clubs were. Genevieve opted to search for one with one of the boys, and me (as I am never a big party animal) and Tim decided to head back to the hostel. We were both very, very drunk however, and headed back in the direction we thought was the hostel.

Finally, we saw the London millenium ferris wheel and Big Ben. We then came upon a really beautiful building . We couldn't for the life of us figure out what it was, as we were on the side of the building and there were no signs.

So Tim decided to be a boy and climbed the fence to go look at a doorway to see if there was a plaque or something. I started yelling at him, telling him we would get in SO much trouble, but he didn't seem to listen to me (or was too drunk to). He couldn't find anything and climbed back over the fence and we set off for home again. Or so we thought.

In about 20 seconds, there was a huge burly security guard in front of us who asked what we were doing. Freaking out in my mind, we told him we just wanted to know what the building was.

"This is Parliament," he said, "and there are two men coming who want to talk to you."

I have never felt more scared in my life (except for maybe climbing the Eiffel Tower). I had know idea what to do as the three men grilled Tim on his name, his address, what he was doing. What would I do if he went to jail? Would I go with him and try to bail him out? Would I try to go back to the hostel and tell his friend? Where was the hostel anyway? I was this close to crying.

Finally, the men said that they realized he had just had "one too many drinks" and that he shouldn't do it again. When they asked us where we were going and we told them London Bridge, they paused for a moment (probably marveling at our utter stupidity).

"That's in the opposite direction on the other side of the river," one of them said.

We powerwalked away as fast as we could. If I ever visit Parliament again, I might have to wear sunglasses.

Despite a quick bathroom run at the Savoy, the ritziest hotel in London that was the only one open at that point and required me basically begging the concierge and telling him I wouldn't take more than 30 seconds tops), it was an otherwise screw-up free trip back. London at 1 a.m. is so beautiful with all of the lights reflecting on the river and (in a unusually ballsy move by me), I held Tim's hand most of the way, not necessarily in a romantic way, but just in a safe, friendly-type way. It was a nice night.

We got back at around 2:30 or so, but Genevieve didn't make it into bed until 7 a.m. So when I woke up, I wrote postcards, read and got lunch for us at our favorite sandwich place that we went to eery day we were there (the staff started to recognize us). We went to clubs near Liverpool Street that night, which was nice for dancing (I dance like a fiend) but a killer on the wallet for drinks. We got Indian food at 2 a.m., though, which always makes the night better.

The next day we went back to the neighborhood to a huge vintage store we saw while walking around at night. We also ate gelato in the open air, which was amazing because it was about 70 degrees out (they made announcements over the tube intercom about ways to "beat the heat," with Genevieve and I trying not to crack up). That night, I met up with three of my newspaper friends with Genevieve. Although the three were about two hours late, they took us to pubs around Angel (which has always been one of my favorite tube stops, as my parents call me "Angel" and put the tube sign on my room when I was little). It was nice being in a city with actual natives, and the fact that it was so warm was a bonus.

Being Sunday, every single bar was shut up tight by midnight. Raf and Nicky got the bright idea to have rum and coke in the park, "just like middle school" (or whatever it is they call middle school, I forget). However, two things should have been warning signs for us at that point:

1) Beer before liquor, never been sicker (we had consumed about four pints of cider by that time).
2) English kids can drink you under the table any time, any place. Because of basically being soaked in alcohol since they were 13 or 14, they can handle rum and coke with about 1/16 being Coke and the rest being rum.

The hour or so we spent in the park was really fun and we were all talkative, including Genevieve telling of her boy adventures so far in England. At the one-hour point, though, we both... got upset stomachs and the rest of the night and the next day was kind of a blur. When I got back to York at 6 p.m. or so, I fell into bed and spent the next two days hanging out alone in my room in my underwear--just because I could.

Sometimes, you just need some time alone. Preferably in your underwear.