Alright, so I've been lacking a bit in the online journal department lately. Time to catch up for the last few days I've been away. This could take some time so bear with me please as I gather my thoughts and develop them into this delightful piece of electronic literary work we call a blog.
Well then, I believe it is time to start at Thursday, the 25th...hmmmmmmmm. Ah, yes, now I recall. I had a race that night. But before that, the morning, as we will be moving in chronological order on this post. I slept rather poorly, but well enough I suppose considering even at night it has got to be up past 20 degrees outside and even warmer in the hostel basement where I'm located. Which reminds me that I must post up some more of the pictures and videos I took. But enough sidetracking. I wandered around a bit that day, got to see, if I'm no completely off my rocker, Oxford Circus. Now, this is not an actual circus with clowns, elephants, trapeze artists, fire eaters, and the like (I wish it was though), but rather a crazy shopping district just North of Hyde Park. Quite a nice spot actually, lots of shops, a university campus right in the middle of it (strange), and plenty of gorgeous people to meet. This one lovely lady by the name of Rosie Hudson sat down next to me at a coffee and sandwich shop on her way back to work. So, being the social person I am and not one to pass up a challenge, I proceeded to engage her in some conversation. She was awesome, rather enthralled by the idea of travelling the world solo, but quickly amended she likes her creature comforts too much. Well, to each their own. Mind you, she has already seen more of the world than I have and she won the ticket for free through a contest, or a friend, something like that. This is her picture, before I move on. Good luck
Rosie I hope the job is going well and that you manage to get back to the countryside when you can. Keep in touch and drop in to Newfoundland one of these days and I'll show you around, well, when I get back there of course.
That night was the race, and what a race. It was the London Bridges Relay, right down by St. Thomas Hospital, the Millennium Eye, and MI5 and MI6. Probably about 200 runners or more. 4 Persons per team, 100 teams registered, wel, 3 people per team on all-female teams. So i showed up, and my impromptu team member Kevin, was about to go mark the course with some chalk, so I went along, running in my Tilley hat along the course, chalk in hand, chatting away to this fine runner. We were put together on this team by Mr. Stephens, great cat, not at the race though, but I'm sure we had the most global team there. Kevin from London, Elise from Australia, Alicia from Poland, and me from Newfoundland. The world is definitely a global place, and we just proved it. Kevin ran 12:57, Alicia 15:00, Elise I think 18:00 or thereabouts, and I ran 14:00. Not bad, but for an above 40 year old guy, Kevin can run! It was about 3.6k we figure, not real accurate, but a fun, flat course. The little headwind on the turnaround helped me catch a few people, he he he. After that we all, minus Alicia, headed north along the waterfront to hit one of the local watering holes. All the crowd inside the bar must have been flabbergasted when about 100 runners or more showed up to this pub and took over the joint. Ha ha ha. The looks on their face was priceless. Elise and I stayed for a bike to eat (burgers and fries, but salad instead of fries for me, damn deep frier and fish allergies). The food was excellent, though next time I'll get the burger well done, rather than medium. Our server was quite blond, and definitely lived up to all the jokes about her designated cranial coloring. Then it was time to head home on the tubes, and crash. What an amazing night's sleep I had that night. Whew!
Right then, on to Friday I suppose. Not so good this day. I spent the morning in bed sleeping in. God did I need that. I guess the mix of exhaustion from no good sleep for a few nights and racing and walking in the sun everyday and then finally utilizing my earplugs and sleep mask before the damn blokes from the bars got in and caused a ruckus may had inadvertently caused my cerebral cortex to shut down for the night entirely. 'Gasp' That was a run-on sentence, for all you grammatical freaks out there, but I had to get the point across how amazing it was to only wake up one during the night and immediately go back to sleep. So as I was saying, not a great day, but fun. I had picked up a book earlier the previous day at Oxford Circus, so I sat down to do some reading in the Hostel and in Hyde Park, just up the road. The reason being, I was feeling a bit ill, green around the gills, if you will. My bowels were not quite agreeing with me that morning, and still aren't quite at 100% now, but it's a work in progress. I tried to line up some stuff with my health insurer, but that story is better left alone. Grocery store at night, picked up some mangoes and such stuff, chatted with two lovely ladies from Norway and Poland, if I screwed up and you're readying this ladies, sorry! My name and country memory bank is getting a workout lately with all the travellers I'm meeting. Then it was off to bed to end another day.
Next day, late waking up and I had to check out of my hostel in about 10 minutes. No shower, no teeth brushed, nothing, just packed up and took off out the door. Ha ha ha. Only 15 minutes late, so the crew at Astor Hyde Park were really good about it. I had approached them before going mad at packing, and they basically said don't worry about it, just make sure you stay out of the way of the cleaners. So off I went to another hostel. I didn't quite realize how far away it was until I started walking with a pack I had packed quite badly. I also had a little too much food and water on me, so I opted for a cab. Never again! 18 pounds to get where I needed to go. Blah! Now I wish I had a bike to ride on and no training gear to lug around. I sear, if I had only packed for the summer season, I could get away with 10-15 pounds instead of 30-35. Whew, it's so hot here now and I'm so dehydrated I'm sucking back water like mad. Well, moving on then. Arriving at the Palmers Lodge, my new home until the 2nd of July, I took a look around, read a little bit, went for a walk, and then got settled in. Then it was out for another walk around the community to check out the local shops, where I could track down some grub, and grab the nearest tube. Once sorted, I got in tough with Elise who had went down to check out Wimbledon. She was there for hours and couldn't get in, so she took off and hung with some mates of hers. Mates as in friends, not mates as in a polygynous relationship between one woman and many men. That would just be weird, considering she's from Oz. So she invited me out with some of her friends to a pub that night, which was an adventure in itself I will outline below.
I started on the right tube, but once there, the damn thing was cancelled after me waiting for about 20 minutes, no service whatsoever. I had only missed the last good tube by about 10 seconds. Rubbish on me for re-checking the route. Ha ha ha. In any case, I took off walking/running to the next stop, saw a couple of buses and said, ah, to heck with it. I waited at the bus stop for the nearest bus, but lo and behold, three buses passes us all by because they were full. I guess they were filled by angry tube-goers further up the line. So, off I went to walking again. I did have a partner in crime though. This lovely young lady had been on her feet for the last two hours or more, and was doing the same as me, trying to get to another station due to the tube being down. She was off to meet her boyfriend, I think, who sounded quite upset on the phone. But, we had a good laugh at his expense. She kindly escorted me down to Baker Street station, and then proceeded on to Oxford Circus to meet her BF. Me, I hopped on the Bakerloo Tube and headed for Waterloo in short order. Quick, simple and made it in record time. Now, you know when you look at a map, and the distance doesn't seem that far to walk? Yeah, I was subject to that wonderful little fact of irony that night. Arriving at Waterloo I walked along the river Thames in a Northeasterly direction for a good 25 minutes. Now I'm only 1hr30min late to the bar. Ha ha ha. What can I do. Keeping Elise and her gang in place with multiple texts, I found the Globe Theatre, yes the Shakespeare one, and thus the Swan at The Globe, the bar we met at. Nice, swanky joint too.
Next comes the fun part of my night. Elise and her crew, a German and another UKer, decided to crash a runners party nearby. The Serpentine Road club, I forget the actual name they put on themselves, had 150 tickets sold on this gathering they had going on. Great times there. he three ladies were actually part of the club, but no tickets, and me, well, I'm just along for the ride. At the door, lo and behold, big black man. The kind of guy you look at in the night and the only thing you see and the two eyes and teeth smiling back at you. Luckily, very patient. The girls tried to work their magic, to no avail, but then produced some cards proving membership to the club. Well, two of them anyway. Elise was too new to the club and me, well, I'm not part of it. So the bouncer heads upstairs to check with the organizer of this thing, bringing him back downstairs to us. We explain what we want to do, mostly true, and he doesn't bat an eyelid and invites us up, after checking the occupancy limit of course. Ace! He must be part Newfie to pull that one off. So, we got in, ceiling within my arms reach, it was quite the jumping little club. Then the party really got going. We had to work as a team there for a while to get the dancers up on the floor, me being a little bit of an instigator. God, I haven't sweated that much in most races, let alone on a dance floor. But, after a while, got them all up there, and it was great. Absolutely crap music, but great crew. All gorgeous people. Check out the pictures and maybe a video or two on the links north of this post. You'll not be disappointed. Right then, so after wowing all the ladies with my light feet and camera work, and the fact I crashed the party, Elise and I took a cab to her place. Now guys, don't get any dirty thoughts here. i crashed there because the tubes, or most of them, were not running at that late hour and I had no idea how to get back there save for a 30 pound taxi ride. So I crashed at Elise's place. Awesome pad for being here on work. Extra bedroom and all. He shorts were comfy as I had to wash mine out to be able to put them on the next day without knocking out small animals from mid-flight. Of course, I cooked in the morning. Bacond and eggs baby, yeah! Definitely tasted awesome, though english back bacon, waaaaaay too salty for my tastes. Still, quite good after being dehydrated as bad as I did. When your urine looks like gatorade, we have a problem. Then it was on the tubes, navigating my way to the general viscinity of where my hostel was, picked up 2.5 litres of water, and then walked back here, where I'm typing this blog post.
Whew, well, that was quite the writing done for this morning. Hopefully I've kept you satisfied for the next little while. I'm going to chug back some more fluids now, check out my room, which I paid for yet never slept in so far (he he he), and maybe go check out london bridge and the buskers down at the milleniium eye today. Oh, and definitely gotta check out some of the shows and when they're playing. Maybe see a Shakespeare one, or maybe We Will Rock You, the one written as a musical of Queen. There's just so many to choose from. Right then, I'm outta her bloggers and bloggets. Have a good one and catch you next time.
Neal
