London

So I finally made it to London the other day, after successfully avoiding it for somewhere in the region of eight years. Not bad going, when you think that it's the favoured destination of most Kiwis. I read somewhere that it has the second largest number of New Zealanders in it. Of course, once I was there I adored it. I had such a great time I'm scared to go back and pop the bubble.

I had a ridiculously early (6:30am) flight, and Lara told me I had to be there for 5am on the Saturday morning. I thought I had it all sorted, from my previous débâcle at the airport, going to my Galway cousin's wedding (where I joined the wrong queue three times); so I'd checked in on-line the previous day, and had organised (ha!) myself so that I could take my backpack on as hand luggage, so no queues there. I'd been invited to a birthday party on the Saturday evening, and had been told that a bottle of N.Z. white would be an appropriate present. We have a great bottle-y (Pooh Bear and I decided on this as a compromise between offy and bottle shop when we were living in Stirling, but I'm still not sure how to spell it) up the road, so I'd bought one (Lawson's Dry Hill's chardy) there. I arrived disgustingly early at the airport, and started the queue for security, which hadn't opened yet (unsurprisingly, it being 5am). When someone finally showed up, I asked if I could take the bottle on with me, but I couldn't. Apparently you can only take things that you buy on the other side. I contemplated downing it there, but concluded that discretion was the better part of valour and all that. So I joined the now-massive queue for check in and luggage-leaving.

There was a BMI woman walking up and down asking for people who only needed to drop luggage, so eventually I joined the (ironically named) Super Express Luggage Drop, behind one (american) family. They had three trolleys piled high with enormous suitcases, each of which was overweight. Of course. It was unbelievable. Another woman joined the queue behind me, and we stood there in absolute disbelief, watching while ... nothing happened in front of us, and the queue we'd come from moved (albeit slowly) ahead of us. We didn't even know what the problem was because nothing was happening. She started to panic after a while (about 45 minutes), because she was going on holiday to Portugal, and had to catch another plane at Heathrow at 2pm. We seriously stood there for about 50 minutes. Eventually they sorted themselves out, and we raced through. I had to take my bag to the "Out of Gauge" place, because it had straps on it, and the other woman decided to wait for me, because she didn't want to face the wrath of the other travellers queue-jumping by herself. As it turns out she didn't need to worry: we'd taken so long everyone else had gone through. The flight also ended up being delayed (which isn't great for the first flight of the day), and I'm fairly sure it was because of the stupid americans.

However, we arrived, and I picked up my bag, got a coffee, and got hold of Alice (with whom I was staying), who duly arrived; she'd been out to see Eddie Izzard the previous night. She was house-sitting in Hampstead, and we caught the tube there. I dropped my bag off at the house, which was huge, and had a gorgeous garden out the back. She told me that they sell for several million around there, and I can fully believe it. We went for breakfast at a place that does good coffee, which is apparently a rarity in London. I noticed afterwards that they had a licence too - so Alice has been in serious need of my company. We took a look at the weather (which was fantastic the entire time I was there), and thought: beer!! (We would have thought "pub" had it been bad.) We walked down the hill around Hampstead Heath, which looked lovely, but full of people, unlike the (Belgian) beer garden we ended up in. After my first pint I called Olive (another Kiwi muso), but her phone was off. She got back to me though, and decided to come down and meet us in a couple of hours. Disaster: we had to stay at the pub, and I had to entreat Alice to try multiple different half pints in the interim. It's not something that rolls easily off my tongue: a half; but she's a genuine gym bunny, and disgustingly fit, so that's some kind of excuse. It was fantastic to see Olive again; we worked out how long it had been, but I won't say. With any luck she'll come to Paris when I'm over there seeing Kipper, my friend from school (and no, in case you're interested, I'm not Elle).

That evening I went to somewhere on the tube (it could have been South Kensington, but I'm not sure), to another Belgian pub (the Dove) - how unfair was this? I wanted to be drinking ales in London! - for Abby's 30th birthday party. She's an ex trumpeter (we rock!) from Chch, who used to go out with Papa Smurf, and she'd gathered a bunch of Kiwis. Danger Mouse (pretty much the entire reason I was even in London) was there, and it was the first time I'd seen him for about 6 months, which was was extremely cool. Hahahahahaa - I made him drink a lot of highly alcoholic Belgian beers. By the time they threw us out most people were ready for bed, but I wanted to go clubbing. Penny and Steve (Chch friends of Abby's) and I were on the same tube line, and she knew a club, but unfortunately it was closed for a private function; and that was the only one around there. I couldn't believe it. I mean, this was London! However, an early night was possibly a good plan; especially when I got off (correctly!) at my stop, and couldn't exactly remember how to get home. I stood there for about five minutes, looking around vaugely (I hadn't worn glasses earlier, because it was so sunny); then I set off in about eight different directions, for about five metres, and came back again. I don't think any spy company is going to hire me. Eventually I made an "executive decision", i.e. took a punt, but fortunately it was the correct one.

Sunday Alice and I went out for breakfast again, to another place that does good coffee (another place that had a licence - when she comes to Belfast we're having a pint for breakfast). The Wimbledon men's final was on that afternoon, and Danger Mouse had organised some more Kiwis (his family were over in London for a bunch of family birthdays) to meet at a pub: his sister Aoife and brother Rob, Abby, Rob's ex Miho, who'd got an £80 ticket to the women's final the day before, and Holly (yes, another muso from varsity) and her bloke. It was fantastic to see them all again, and I have an invite to go and visit Rob in Valencia, which I'm SO going to do! So we were finally in an English pub (in South Kensington, I think), but they only had two ales on tap - gargh, it was a conspiracy. However, it was great weather, and Wimbledon was on (and Federer was looking very fetching in his white jacket and trousers). Everyone crashed again quite early, which was rather disappointing, so I went home and distracted Wendy from her work; she had to bribe me with beer, and music (specifically West Side Story, and the Bruch Violin Concerto(!)), and I stayed up reading Pippi Longstocking (family home) and drinking the family's beer, which was a bit random.

On the Monday Alice and I went to Covent Garden for coffee and brunch (see left) and to meet Danger Mouse again. I'd spent probably 45 minutes "persuading" him the previous night that we should meet at 10am, and it turned out that there was a "passenger incident" on the tube, so he didn't arrive until twenty past anyway. Covent Garden is lovely! We forced him to drink coffee, and he got the jitters (not that we ever would have laughed at him). Then I got hungry and we went to an Italian place for pasta before Alice and I caught the tube back to Heathrow (where I had a Hoegaarden and Alice a glass of bubbly) before I went through security, only to find the plane was delayed by 40 minutes. Ah well... I had Hunter S. Thompson to keep me company and another beer. I arrived home to fog and rain and wind. I giggled.