London Beckoned Songs

Artist: Panic! At the Disco
Song: London Beckoned Songs about Money by Machines
Lyrics: "Just for the record the weather today is slightly sarcastic."

Again, I've been slacking with this blog thing. I really anticipated being better at keeping you people back in the States more entertained and up-to-date with my shit over younder. It's been a hectic couple of days. It's odd because it's not like I'm burdened by classes because I don't watch them or attend them. It was just a crazy week in general. I've been going out almost every night and when we don't hit up a club, bar or pub than we are drinking in the dorms. I haven't yet been concerned by my excessive drinking binge because it's not problematic, but I'm giving it a rest for this week. It's time I start catching up with the real reason I'm here.

I ended up finding my Double Stuf oreos. Unfortunately, I paid close to $11 for them and I'm being a stingy little jew about sharing them with people. As I have every right to be considering that's almost 4 times the amount they cost back home. I still waiting for my friends to send me packages. HINT HINT. It'd be nice to get mail once in a while on updates with your guys lives. Just an idea.

So every day I wake up hoping to spend the day doing something interesting and really gaining a better feel for what this enormous city has to offer. I've pretty much seen everything touristy there is to see. I'm saving a lot of the real touristy shit for just before I leave and when Laura comes. Such as going on the London Eye. I really want to do that with Laura and the Salvador Dali museum is suppose to be ridiculous.

I've been jogging at night with my buddy Shane here and we ended up running down to Regent's Park the other night which was pretty sick. It's kind of like central park. Sketchy at night so we didn't really run through it, but we were convinced we saw a drug deal going down. I wouldn't be surprised considering the streets here are absolutely bare at night from 9 p.m. till the morning. The quality of life here is just completely different.

I also ended up going back to Portobello Market. They really love their market's here. With good reason though. This market is located in Notting Hill (like the movie). It's a really nice area. It reminded me of some place a celebrity would want to live. The market is located down this long street named Portobello Road. Fitting right? It's ridiculous how many stalls of antiques, vintage clothing, tourist shops and just insane amounts of stuff everywhere. They have some of the freshest produce and you jsut walk and walk and it feels endless. If you're into thrifting it's a good place to hit up, but make sure it's on a saturday because I think I wrote last week that I went on a Sunday and it sucked. The stuff isn't cheap by U.S. dollar standards, but sometimes you can bargain with the people. Nothing really struck me as worthwhile. I do however really want to buy a Beatles vinyl record of Abbey Road. I've been searching for more things for my new apartment more than anything.

There was this small shop that had all these black and white photos of james dean, marilyn monroe, vintage tin signs (like license plates) with 60's coca-cola ads, guiness ads, and jack daniels. It's a pretty sweet store, but expensive of course. Again, I'll probably end up hitting that place up before heading back to the states.

As for this weekend we ended up going to a Karoke bar on Thursday which was really awesome. I ended up singing Bryan Adams- Summer of 69. I mustered up the courage to sing knowing very well that I can't. I was drunk needless to say and my friends all jumped in to help out. It wasn't bad. I actually had a blast though.

On Friday we went to an Australian bar named Walk About which was another good place. It was an on old church converted into a night club so it had stain glass everywhere, a dome shaped ceiling, two floors it was sick. I ended up pre-gaming and had a good time. They don't know how to make Jack and cokes here for the life of them. And they don't sell FOSTER'S beer in Australia. It was sort of like a mainstream indie club. They played a really good mix of songs and genres. They love The Killers here and mixing Eminem's songs into trance songs. They dont' play a lot of "crunk" music like LiL John here. I may just not being to the right clubs.

On Saturday we decided to meet up with the other dorm that lives in South Kensington. It's the ritzy part of town where Madonna and other celebrities own flats and stay at their hotels. There are few Huron people from the states living in those dorms and they invited us over to one of their local irish bars called Kavanaugh. Again, we pregamed and I drank Stella Artois (a Belgian Beer) with 5.2% alcohol. I usually buy the cheapest thing of whatever is on sale at the time to drink for the weekend. I knocked back about 5 bottles in an hour and the great thing is that I was able to walk on the Tube with the bottles so you dont' have to force them all down. The bar was OK. It was an irish bar and they dind't know how to make get this.... an IRISH CAR BOMB! We had to order each piece of it separately. They did have a live band playing covers though. That was cool. Other than that it wasn't anything particularly special. Just a good time out with good people. We all hang out in crowds ofl ike 40 of us. It's crazy. I got plastered again, but not to the point of incoherence though. I could walk home and take the bus fine.

So you are all probably reading these entries and thinking that I've become this raging alcoholic that does nothing but spend my money on night clubs, bars and pubs and that I'm practically ruining my liver. Believe it or not I drink in moderation compared to some of the people here. What you guys don't understand is that there really is no pressure to get work done here, the university we go to is a joke compared to UF, and the UF classes really dont' require that much attention until before the test. What else are we suppose to do? We're in this great city with a bar/restaurant on every corner (no joke) we like to explore. We've even managed to convert some none drinkers into drinkers. Like my roommate Andy who never drank back home, but now socially drinks with us and usually gets pretty wasted.

You see it's just like at home...drinking is fun. We go to cool places that play quality music and we have a good time. Sometimes it can get old, but that's why we change up the venue. I've also managed to learn that Stella gives me this ridiculous kind of drunk that feels like a dream. It's hard to explain, but you know how when you dream you feel like you are there and it's vivid, but in reality you're not there. That's what the drunk feels like. I'm in the situation, I remember everythign the next day, all the conversations, but not the details or specifics and it all feels like a dream the next day. It's strange and I probably sound like schmuck, but you have to experience it for yourself.

Contrary to what many of you may think I'm actually have a good time here. If I sound like a certified alchy- I'm sorry, but when in Rome. If everyone here is going out to have a good time together I'm not going to sit at home twiddling my thumbs waiting for something exciting to come my way. There is a kid here who does that and it annoys me because it's like what the fuck did you come here for? I know it's all about drinking and getting drunk every night, but you could hang out with us. I'm just not the type of kid to not join in on the fun. Not to mention people can't resist to get me drunk and take ridiculous pictures of me that I just delete the next day.

I'm looking forward to week of school work and relaxing....never thought I'd say that. We'll see how long this mentality lasts.