London Dungeons

Last Sunday was good-- met up with Tom to figure out our upcoming trip to Barcelona. We found tickets for about $60 and spent another $100 on 3 nights in a hotel. I have a couple city guides, but haven't opened them yet. Later, we met Rebecca at Bungalows & Bears for Sunday Roast.
I spent the beginning of the week catching up with school, but grabbed some beers with Tom on Wednesday. I also tried my first order of buffalo wings-- or, more accurately, BBQ wings. Rather disappointing. On Thursday, I bought a new shirt and a kitchen knife made in Sheffield. The city is known for its steel, and more specifically its cutlery. All the shopping made me thirsty, so I tried my first English Bloody Mary-- again, it left much to be desired.
On Friday, Ken and Craig picked me up when I got out of school and we drove to London. I was hoping to see a different part of the country (than the train route), but the time change messed that up-- it was dark by 4:30pm. Ken set us up to stay with the bass player of his band, John, and his wife, Fiona, in Tottenham. They have a really nice place, so we hung out and drank some beers to avoid London drink prices. I should clarify, we didn't just get beers: we got the cheapest, most-potent cider in England. 69p x 7.5% = do the math. After a while, we grabbed a bus to Camden and headed to the Electric Ballroom. Ken's girlfriend, Janine, was in London for a job interview, so we had a pretty big crew. Some of us had problems getting in, but John sorted it out. This place was alright; good music and a nice foosball table. Six of us crammed into a taxi back to Tottenham, but for some reason we still had to stumble a ways to get home.
The next day was pretty relaxed; we went to Big Red to watch football, play pool and eat. I had fajitas-- in England. After a while, I split and met up with Julia and Tim in Hackney. Julia is an old roommate of mine from Chicago-- I saw her this summer in Los Angeles. Tim just got accepted to a PhD program in London, so they just moved to England. They have a really cool apartment in an rehabbed synagogue. We went out for noodles at a Vietnamese place called Loong Kee Cafe. Afterwards, we grabbed a pint at an Irish pub near their house before I caught a bus to Soho. There are a ton of pubs in the West End, and on a Saturday night, it is possibly the most populated place I have ever been. Not even the taxi or peddy-cab drivers know where any of the bars are. Somehow, I ran into Janine and Ken's friend Tom on the street while looking for Garlic & Shots--unfortunately, this place was closing, but it looked good. We met up with everyone else at the Intrepid Fox. After doing a shot of Jaegermeister, I needed to walk around the block and saw a bus driver pissing on his own bus.
On Sunday, we hung out around John's, watched In Bruges and ate pizza before heading back to Sheffield. I don't intend on doing too much this week; yesterday I followed up on some volunteer opportunities and got some school work done. I went out for a drink and checked out The York for the first time.