After a busy day at work with a candidate interview, I got my suitcase and backpack together and got on the luxurious 2-man vanpool to Long Beach with Max and Dustin. Their van is pretty ridiculous for a vanpool of 2- it has all leather seating, a back up cam, collision avoidance during turns, and 3G Internet. After taking a few shortcuts through Marina del Rey, we made it to Lincoln Blvd and finally to LAX. We met up with Sunny at the “On the Border”. After cheersing our journey with a couple of margaritas, we were on our way to London.
On the flight I sat next to Sahel, a 24-year-old reporter from Karachi, Pakistan. She was covering the Intel Science and Engineering Fair at USC. She has apparently traveled all over the US and England, partially as a copy editor for the International Herald Tribute and partially visiting family. We chatted for about an hour or so and I spent the rest of the time sleeping / reading (~10 hours). They ran out of beef meals so I had vegetarian Thai curry.
Having made it to London, our next mistake was not having printed our itinerary for British customs. Luckily, I had a copy so it turned out okay. I also found out that British people are serious about checking your credit card signature. When I bought my commemorative Prince William & Kate Oyster card (London Underground), which Max missed, the guy had me give him my California driver’s license and re-sign my receipt until the signatures matched. We stayed at Amsterdam Hotel, near Earl’s Court station. $200 for a 2-bedroom room with barely enough space to walk around the beds to the bathroom. Thanks London!
Leaving our baggage behind, we headed over to Masala Zone, which had vanilla (!) lassi and overpriced curries. I got a Vodafone SIM with 500 megabytes of data and was then off to Millenium Bridge to at least pretend to be a tourist. However, about half of the Underground was down due to maintenance. The bridge and view themselves were beautiful, although windy and a bit rainy.
I then took a scenic walk along Fleet Street and London’s theater district to make it to Bricklayer Arms, a bar. I initially headed for a Bricklayer Arms on the wrong side of London, but realized my mistake in time to not have to walk an additional 2.5 miles. After a bar hop, bars started closing so we went back to Earl’s Court. We enjoyed one more beer there before they closed. Clubs wouldn’t let us in without a 5 pound cover, which Sunny had negotiated down from 10 pounds. Back at the hotel, I made a huge mistake by not drinking water before bed, which I paid for with a headache in the morning.