March 18, 2011
Hey all, it’s Jen again. Mallory was going to write but she is tuckered so hopefully she will get a post in tomorrow. Today was quite an interesting day…oh the trials and tribulations of public transportation!
Mallory and I woke up at 3am local time because of that stupid 4 hour nap we took yesterday. So we played cards until about 5am when we were both able to go back to sleep until the alarm went off at 9am. All in all it was a good morning; we rearranged our packs and got everything situated for our trek to Wembly. In an attempt to get hyped for our day we tried to plug Mal’s computer in so we could listen to some music…well we blew the circuit in the room L and had to pack using our headlamps to see (thanks Patti and Dave for the headlamp tip!). Once we checked out we took a bus to Terminal 1 of the airport to catch the tube. At the tube station, Mallory and I had a hard time figuring out how to get where we wanted to go and ended up asking a very unhelpful tube attendant. Mallory decided that our best bet would be to call the hotel and ask them how to get there via public transport. Anyways, here is Mallory to finish the story…
We eventually got here. It was a long arduous trek from the wrong bus stop that I misheard over the payphone in the tube station at Heathrow. So we had to walk over four bus stops to our hotel, in the rain, uphill, carrying our packs. Jen was in a FABULOUS mood because we still hadn’t eaten. She swore a vow of fasting until we reached our place of residence for the evening (so she had quite a wait!).
We made it here and got checked in and the nice pretty blonde receptionist took us to our room – a basement room of 12 bunk beds with a shared bathroom. The cleaning guy was just wrapping up his duties, which focused on making the room smell like drain-o. He was very good at what he did! We also got to meet one of our roommates…’meet’, a loose term, since he was unconscious and snoring like a tranquilized antelope and we were staring agape at his ability to sleep through the burn of the aroma of clean.
We went upstairs and ate another traditional English meal. Mine was a beef stew on mashed potatoes and Jen had spaghetti Bolognaise. Both were quite good. Warm. Warmgood. We split a diet coke out of the bottle.
We then started exploring the neighborhood. Most of residents are of African descent. The women wear head garments and skirts all the way down to their ankles. These folks are mixed in with a bunch of Afro-Caribbean Rastafarians. There are also quite a bit of people of Persian/Arab/Middle Eastern heritage. Lots of families running around the bricked suburbs.
We got back to the hotel and decided that we could eat. We sat at a table behind the city workers who had come straight from work in their neon-colored work clothes to socialize and share a pint. The eating area in the hotel is very nice and open with many different televisions on and tons of interesting conversation. The barkeep was a nice guy who reminded me of characters in “Snatch” (movie) and reminded Jen of Cal on “Lie to Me” (tv show). He was hilarious and made fun of us for losing our key. Jen had fish and chips and a pint of Guiness, I had Chicken Tikka Marsala with naan, chips, salad, mango chutney, rice, and Jen and my pints of Guiness. Since its St Paddy’s week there’re AMAZING Irish specials going on in the pubs. You cannot refuse these bargains! (Summed up with the amazing quote from a manager at our hotel from yesterday “it’s Irish, but not too Irish”…she was talking about the decorations in the lobby/bar/restaurant area of the hotel…it was like a business assessment. Jen and I died laughing.)
We found our key. I had left it in the room. We tried our new bath chamois towels. They were stellar. Our roommates are bad, but not too bad. One of them started watching tv and driniking stella artois from tallcans when he got home from work at around 5…not much has changed. He (and the rest of us, apparently) are currently enjoying Pierce Brosnan Bond movie magic. It’s kind of homie in its own way.
We’re looking forward to clear, sunny Saturday morning skies tomorrow. We’re heading in to the City of London to check out Westminster area down to London Bridge. Excited!
Happy Holidays!
Mallory
It’s Jen again…obviously Mallory is the more entertaining writer of us. I’ll try and get her to write more, but if you see that I write a post please don’t skip it because you know Mallory’s posts are funnier.
Time to hit the hay!
Night!
Jen
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