Those first few days in London

Step counter: 44,930
(3 days, May 24 through May 27)

I think I’ve met more Canadians in three days than I’ve met in the US in the last 12 years. Gary, Olivia, and Megan from Toronto. Nikayla and Eric from Vancouver.

Living in a hostel has been an experience. This being my first time, I specifically booked the “women-only” section for a week, and, especially as I was writing this paragraph, it felt like I was back in college with my girlies joking around and chatting about our past travels and future plans. I got so many good recommendations from everyone, and I am most excited about the recommendations from people who have lived in a city for an extended period of time.

Big Deck Energy

I’m trying to draw one random card a day from the “Travel Challenges” deck that EMJ got me, but on the first day, I drew the card challenging me to take a swim. It’s too bad that I don’t know how to swim, and it’s not exactly convenient trying to find a pool for a quick dip. So, that idea got nixed real quick. But now I’m wondering, do I need to know how to swim in order to be allowed to do a standup paddle boarding class in Nice? Oops… Anyways, I decided to just draw a second card, which told me to have a picnic. Unfortunately, I have been a bit of an underachiever, but I will endeavor to do better!

The next card I drew was to take 5 nice photos. Unfortunately, I drew that card at 5pm, and i was already exhausted from being hungover (we’ll get there later) and being out all day. Lesson learned: always draw the card first thing in the morning so that I can have some time to incorporate the challenge into my plans for the day. So again, I drew another card, which I was actually able to do on short notice.

Flat Friends

I need to get into the mental habit of grabbing my Flat Friends when taking photos. Again, I will endeavor to do better!

The People I Meet on Vacation

I’m not going to be on vacation for the entire time I’m in Europe, but I love this reference to the Emily Henry book. And, I don’t have work for my first 5 days in London. Whatever, I’m sticking with it. I’ve definitely met some characters. Some I clicked with, while others… well. Some notable people are listed below.

I had an amazing time with Nikayla, Fentje, and Claudia on Sunday (5/28). I was originally going to do the hop on / hop off bus tour that day, but apparently the universe had other plans, because more than half the bus stops were closed due to a bicycle event. So, I invited myself to tag along with Nikayla, Fentje, and Claudia and joined them for a day at the Brick Lane market, eating, a bookstore on the water, and watching The Comedy of Errors while standing (for 2 hours!!!) at the Globe Theater.

My hostel peeps

1. Jordan: she was the first person I met. She is a study-abroad junior in Amsterdam, from University of Maryland, taking advantage of her time in Europe. Her major is in International Relations.
2. Natalie: the second person I met. She recently got her Bachelors (woohoo!) after “13 years” in school. Congrats to her! College ain’t easy. She brought a skateboard with her. I hope she got up to some fun times with it.
3. Nikayla: I had to move from one room to another after my first day in the London hostel. She was the first person I met in this new room. She’s from Vancouver (Burnaby!!!) and it’s been funny to compare notes on the slangs I used when I lived there. Thanks to Nikayla, I got to see The Comedy of Errors in the Globe Theater (more on that another time). I hope I see her again on a future trip or in Vancity!
4. Fentje (“fenty-yeh”) & Claudia: they are from Germany (Struttgard, close to Munich). Fentje is currently a grad student in Edinburgh for Information Design. Poor girl has to do a class on javascript even though she wants to do graphic design. Such is the student life.

My pub crawl crew and some others

1. Fahad: he’s basically my twin, except he’s a Pakistani from Berlin. But other than that, he’s also 29, a product manager, and works in tech. He was visiting his sister (and new nephew!) in London, but has spent more time with Emma, Daniela, and me than his sister LOL.
2. Emma & Daniela: both are from northern Texas, and both are in undergrad at different schools. They knew each other since they were 3 and are basically sisters. Emma is studying Criminal Justice, and Daniela is studying History with a minor in Law. Along with Fahad, we went out the next day to nurse our hangover at the Seven Dials market and vintage/thrift shops.
3. Michael: San Diego 27-year who works in tech. His fake British accent he threw around was cringey AF, which I made sure he knew LOL. Hopefully I’ll get to see him at another bar in Amsterdam next month.
4. Eric: another Vancouverite! Geology major at UBC who intends to write a book after his travels. By the time we met on the pub crawl, he’s been traveling non-stop across Europe for 5 (five!!!) months. I’m tired just imagining it.
5. Guy whose name I didn’t bother to get: let’s call him “Steve”. he was an interesting one. More below.
6. Hussein: Also an interesting one…

Speaking of that pub crawl…

On a whim, I decided to join a pub crawl on Friday night. I’m really glad I did, because it was such a great opportunity to meet a bunch of people. It was on this crawl that I met Fahad, Daniela, and Emma, who I spent half a day with on Saturday. Fahad and Emma kill me LOL. Their roasting of each other is too good. I haven’t heard a good string of “your mother” jokes in a while, but Emma takes it to an art form.

I showed up late to the first bar (Zoo Too), feeling slightly awkward for being late as everyone was about to enter. But randomly, Fahad saw me queuing up and asked if I got my free shot ticket yet. Like any self-respecting pub crawler, of course I doubled back to get that free shot ticket. Somehow, even though I got into the bar after everyone, I got a drink first. In fact, I accidentally got two drinks (Aperol Spritz 4 life), which I gave to Fahad. And a beautiful friendship begins hahaha!

From there, I met Emma and Daniela, and us three became The Crew. I gotta say though, I really felt my age going into the rest of the bars/clubs. The music was so loud in that second club, I could feel it set the tempo of my heartbeats. They were playing “throwbacks” in the third club/bar that aren’t even that old.

Outside of one of the bars (the 2nd one I think), I started chatting with “Steve”, who actually opened the conversation with “my wife just left me for someone else”. Of course, the only right response to that is, “was it for a woman”? He did not find that funny… Then, someone else asked him when she left, to which he replied, “what month is it right now?” It is at this point that I’m starting to understand why she left him. Then as we got to the door of the club, we found out that he didn’t bring his ID (another point against this guy) even though the pub crawl instructions EXPLICITLY said MULTIPLE times to bring a photo ID. It was then, when he was trying to plead his case with the security, that we found out that he is 20 years old. TWENTY!! What a life to have led to be married then divorced by age 20. We all have some catching up to do compared to this guy.

At the 3rd club/bar of the night, I met a couple of French guys. One of them is named Hussein. He was definitely older (>30 year old) and very tall. I asked him what he does for a living, and he said that he works for the government. Then, he elaborated that it was to physically make guns and followed that up with showing me a picture of someone holding what I presume to be an automatic rifle. If that wasn’t odd enough, I find out later from Daniela that her interaction with this guy consisted of him being dodgy about what he did for a living, then tried to lure her into going outside with him where he’ll show her a picture of what he does “in private”. LOL GIRL WTF. Why wasn’t I invited outside too? Apparently I wasn’t hot enough to warrant being kidnapped and/or murdered 🤷‍♀️

Daniela is alive and still with us today thankfully. As I type this, she’s living her best life, traveling Edinburgh with Emma. Someone needs to tell Hussein that it’s creepy to try to get a girl to leave the club with you like that.

This felt like a lot to read; it certainly was a lot to type. And, it’s only the first 3 days of my time in London! It’s now Day 6 of my day here, and I hope it’s a lot less eventful. My heart is going to give out from all this activity.

Before I sign off on this post, I will leave you with this cultural gem from Germany. When drinking, you say “Prost!” instead of “Cheers!”. But the key is to make sure you are making eye contact with your friends. Otherwise, that’s 7 years of bad sex. You’ve been warned.

Until next time, prost! 👀