So back in April a crazy ad for the Eurostar did its job in convincing Danielle and I that we should in fact jump on a train and head to London for a weekend. We chose a random date and purchased our tickets and didn’t think much more about the trip until about the day or two before we were set to leave. I mean it’s London, they speak English there, we just recently went on a whirlwind trip to Budapest, Vienna, and Prague; London should be a breeze right? At least that’s what we thought before we crossed the English Channel and started our weekend filled with “interesting” people.
We took off work a little early on Friday and hopped on the train that would take us to London via the depths of the English Channel. For some reason ever since I found out about the Chunnel, way back in High School, I have been dying to take it. So for me this was a very exciting train ride and I couldn’t wait to go into the Chunnel. Danielle couldn’t have cared less and probably got a little annoyed/concerned about how excited I would get each time we entered a tunnel thinking this one was the Chunnel. After a while and many false alarms, we finally did enter the Chunnel. But now what to do, no scenery and too tired to read but not tired enough to sleep? Naturally that signaled picture time for Danielle and I. We some how managed to amuse ourselves for almost the entire 20 mins that we were in the tunnel by taking pics of ourselves in the reflection of the window. I think it was at this point that our giddiness started. For from this point on we seemed any and everything made us giggle.
We arrived in London around 7:30 p.m. and in trying to decide how to get to the hostel we witnessed an unexpected role reversal. This time it was Danielle who was suggesting taking the metro to the hostel while I was the one saying “why don’t we just walk it, I don’t think it’s that far.” Unfortunately we went with my idea and after an hour and a half walk and a 4 block cab ride and we were finally at the hostel. Why the 4 block cab ride one might ask. Well before leaving Danielle had been in contact with a Pepperdine Alumni, Raj, and it was arranged that we were to meet up with him upon our arrival. After calling him when we thought we were close to our hostel he came out to meet us at the closest metro stop. Timing was perfect and we met him right at the corner, unfortunately we still hadn’t reached our hostel. Since he didn’t really feel like walking and probably thought we were absolutely incompetent since we appeared to not know what we were doing, he had us get in a cab even though we were only 4 blocks away. So alas we made it to the hostel and went to check in. It was at this moment that our trip took a drastic turn and our adventure in London officially started. While checking in Raj decides, for some unknown reason, that he wants to step in and “negotiate” our hostel room. Danielle and I still aren’t really sure what exactly happened there, as we both sort of stood in shock watching him attack the desk clerk, but we some how ended up with a room reserved for one night only even though we had reservations for 3 nights (Raj of course offered to let us stay at his place which we didn’t have much interest in doing after what we just witnessed). Once this was all settled, we took our stuff up to the room and Raj waited for us downstairs so we could freshen up before he would show us some London nightlife. During this time Danielle and I quickly got ready while also expressing our complete bewilderment with what had just happened. We quickly realized we were in for quite an unusual night.
We freshened up, changed, hurried downstairs and met Raj and the three of us quickly hopped in a cab and headed off for our first destination of the night; a club called Eclipse that was in typical posh club style with no sign out front. The three of us entered the club but Raj quickly turned around and went back outside leaving Danielle and myself inside not quite sure what to do. Not being strangers to bars/clubs you would think Danielle and I would have been just fine, but for some odd reason we felt socially inept and felt as though we belonged in a Bridget Jones movie/book. This feeling would continue for the rest of the night; it’s really a shame no one was filming us, we could have been the next Bridget Jones’. Once Raj came back into the bar we met up with two of his friends, two girls. Slowly more of his friends came and after having drink after drink bought for us everyone decided to move on to a new club. However, one girl actually didn’t want to leave so her friend, the other girl, decided to stay with her and before we knew it Danielle and I were in a cab with 3 guys and being lead to the next bar, Cocoon. While in the cab Danielle was propositioned to “party party” with our unusual host Raj. It seems our new “friend” wanted to know if we did cocaine and just couldn’t except the fact that we didn’t or had never tried it; kind of unusual coming from a 34 year old Pepperdine alumnus. But he eventually moved on and we arrived at our destination where we were again lead into the bar, bought drinks, and then quickly lead out again to go to yet another destination. During this leg of our tour of London night clubs I was the fortunate one approached by Raj about my “party” habits. The rest of the night continued in this sort of fashion with clubs, drinks, and cabs and finally ended with us making it back to our hostel where we of course discussed the bizarre whirlwind of a night we just went through. Vowing that we didn’t want to see Raj for the rest of the trip we went to bed but had no idea what the rest of the trip had in store for us.
…to be continued
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