London - Day 5

In which relaxing happens and games are played.

Today was a relax and be on vacation day. We hung around his hood and just chilled. We practiced riding Mike’s bike. Mike has a bike that goes left when you steer right and vice versa. It’s bizarre and ridiculously impossible to ride. You may think you know how to ride a bike, and even though you know that everything’s opposite, too many years of knowing how to stay balanced on a regular bike takes over. Mike is practicing until he’s a pro at it and then will work ip a show around it.

That night we had a great Indian inner and some great guy talk – you know about girls and stuff! Then we spent the rest of the evening playing board games. This was a blast. We played some of the games that Sen and I designed and Mike seemed genuinely impressed with each one as he expected that he would be playing some sort of Monopoly variant over and over.

London - Day 4

In which the old and new are compared.

Oops – I totally slept in! Hey I’m on vacation right? Today was the day that Mike had to work, so I was on my own. I rode the Tube all by myself! I decided to trek over to the British Museum.

The double-decker bus experience is actually quite fun. You have to sit on the top level of course, and if possible, right in the front. It almost feels like a roller coaster as the bus swerves and careens around the corners (adding to the sensation is the whole driving on the left thing. It makes turning around corners exciting as it always feels like you’re heading into the wrong lane!)

On my way, wouldn’t you guess, but I found a board game store! It was a good store too. They had many games not out in Canada yet. They even had the English version of Agricola which is the hottest game to come out since that game about sliced cheese. It’s not in Canada yet – but I decided not to get it here as I had it on order in Canada already. I did get a different game, one called Monastery which had great review on BGG.



For lunch I stopped at the White Hart, which is the oldest licensed pub in England. It was first licensed in 1218! It was nice but I think I was expecting to be served by a wench or a Viking or something and got neither, so in the end it was just like any other pub.














From there I checked out the British Museum. H I got to see so much Greek and Egyptian sculptures, vases, coins, tools, weapons and sarcophaguses. I had taken a Greek Art class in University but that was so long ago that everything only seemed vaguely familiar. A highlight for me (being geeky as I am) was seeing some ancient board games, including the first ever known rule book!

One thing that really surprised me was just how many people there are in London. Whether it’s people jammed into the Tube or even how big the crowd gets as they wait to cross a normal downtown street in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon.

For dinner I had a very tasty doner (we call them donairs). One thing I haven’t mentioned was the prices of everything. Pretty much everything has the same price as in Canada (maybe a bit cheaper) – but – it’s in pounds instead of dollars! That means everything is pretty much double!! Yeah, it’s pretty expensive.

Saw some cool street art. I've seen some of this guy's stuff online. Not a Banksy tho (yet).

Next I went from one extreme to another as I met up with Mike (again by using the Tube all by myself!) and we went to a rock concert. We saw a band called Mars Volta at a venue called the Roundhouse. The Roundhouse used to be an actual roundhouse (a giant station where trains can be turned around). It has since been converted into a concert space. It was definitely a cool place to see a show. Now I had never heard of Mars Volta before but they were a favourite of Mike’s. Unfortunately it just wasn’t my cup of team. It seemed like a lot of noise (yikes, that makes me seem like an old codger or something) with no discernable lyrics, rhythm or melody. Still it was an interesting adventure and provided some stark contrast to the first part of my day in the museum!

Here’s another Mike the Playa story for you. After seeing two girls taking pictures of themselves, Mike offered to take a pic of both of them with their camera. Nice. Later that evening, during the show, and without having any more contact with these ladies, Mike enters into his cell phone as a new name entry, “Cutie with great taste” and hands the phone to one of the girls, implying that she should enter her digits. It seemed to work (he hadn’t called her yet to verify it was her actual # tho). Pretty smooth Mike.

London - Day 3

In which we become groundlings, fully geek out and visit Avenue Q.

Tons more walking and Tube-ing today. The highlight had to be the tour of the Globe Theatre. This is the theatre where Shakespeare’s plays were put on. Well not this specific building as the previous two Globes had burned down. The roof was (and still is) thatched and therefore very flammable! This Globe is as much a replica as the original as possible with the exception of: health and safety additions, extra lighting, and modern toilets! We paid to get the 40 minute tour and we had an amazing tour guide who was so energetic about everything it made everything that much better. She said thy could fit 3000 people in the Globe back in the day (now it fits about 1700, which still seems astounding as it doesn’t feel that big). 1000 would stand on the ground kinda below the stage and the would be called, appropriately enough, groundlings.


She said back then, the English came to ‘hear’ the play, which is why the best seats – the gentlemen boxes where Royalty always sits – are right on either side of the stage. This also allowed them to be seen by everyone in the theatre. This is similar to a celebrity getting their picture in People magazine today.


At the conclusion of the tour I couldn’t help but purchase an ‘Out damn spot” tea towel.




After this we headed over to the Tate Modern. What’s cool about museums in London is that they’re all free (or donation). We walked around and saw some Picasso, Monet, Pollock and numerous other works of art. At the gist shop I purchased a copy of the Banksy book that I had read at Mike’s. The photo the right is a painting on the outside of the Tate Modern building. Reminded me of Banksy!

From here we made our way to Geek heaven – a gigantic toy and comic book store! It’s a great store that has everything geeky. We bought a few things (including some Indiana Jones things not available in Canada!) and then met up with Mike’s friend Chris for dinner. We ate at a cozy pub nearby.

After dinner, Chris left and Mike and I went to see the musical Avenue Q. I’ve had the soundtrack for years and have always wanted to see it and lo and behold it was playing in London! The theatre was cozy but large as there were three balcony levels. The play was just hilarious. If you don’t know, it’s kind of like Sesame Street for adults. Highly recommended. During the finale a banner didn’t unfurl properly at first which was no big deal, but the actor incorporated it into an upcoming line which caused great laughter from the audience.

London - Day 2

In which Jay rides the Tube and does the tourist thing.

Up and at ‘em as we tried to recall anything from the night before (not that we were that drunk – but that we couldn’t quite remember all the funny things that made us laugh so hard). Time to hit the town. We strolled to the Tube. On our way I learned that there aren’t too many grocery stores as we know them in London. Mostly they do all their shopping in convenience store sized grocery stores. This means that Mike has to shop more often – but because there are a lot of these sprinkled throughout, it is easy to do. It made buying fruit on the go very easy – but what wasn’t easy was trying to discard anything in London. There are no trash cans anywhere! I had to carry a banana peel around for half an hour. Damn terrorists.

I was tickled though to see painted on the ground at every crosswalk the words, “Look to the right” Being one of the last places on earth that still has people driving on the left, they decided to continually remind pedestrians which way the traffic will be coming from!

Now the Tube. The most complicated transit system I had ever encountered was in Toronto – and that’s dead simple. I had no idea that there were so many routes! You can get to almost anywhere in London via the Tube. To keep the flow moving, most people use what’s called an Oyster card. Basically you prepay $X onto this car and then simply press the car at the entrance (and exit) every time – simple and quick (and you can load up your Oyster card online!). A famous phrase in London is Mind the Gap. Many of the Tube stations are on a curve and when the subway stops, there sometimes is a pretty large gap between the train and the platform.

Day 2 was a day of walking though. It was unexpectedly blue-skied that day too! We saw a lot of the mandatory tourist-y things like London Bridge, Big Ben, the Eye and 500 works of Salvador Dali. Ok that last one isn’t mandatory – but we did see that. It was very interesting collection of Dali paintings, drawings and sculptures. It was great to learn about his influences and even some of the meanings to his art.









We walked all over. I saw a small peek at Buckingham Palace, but had no interest in getting closer. It's so neat walking around and everywhere you look it's interesting architecture! Every street seemed to want me to take a picture of it! In one park I found this weird floral arrangement dedicated to those worshipful barbers...weird.

Mike had to duck into work for a couple of hours so I meandered around by myself. I stumbled upon a really old cemetery Some of the graves had people that died in the 18th century. It was a bit creepy but mostly interesting as I tried to read the faded epitaphs.

After meeting back with Mike, we headed home and Mike made a truly fantastic meal that included herbs from his mini potted garden outside his back door.

Mike had a ticket to a see a band that night that he wanted to see – but he only won the one ticker from iTunes. I stayed home and read a book I bought that day about jokes and why they’re funny. I also read this book that Mike had about a London street artist named Banksy. This guy is amazing! He does stencil paintings on public walls (so yes, graffiti). All his works are either funny, have a social message or both (mostly both). I was mesmerized by the talent, humour and audacity that this Banksy had. Mission #2 now became the quest to find an actual Banksy in the streets somewhere. Here are some examples of what Banksy does (found on the Internet - not in real life...yet):

London - Day 1

In which Jay flies to London, meets up with a long time friend and finds some knickers.

After being on planes for a ridiculous amount of time (here’s a tip: don’t book online for flights if you’re inexperienced with international travel!), I landed in Heathrow and did my best to follow the directions my friend, Mike Wood left for me. His directions were perfect – up until I got off the plane. Having accomplished none of the instructions put forth to me, I still managed to find his flat (oh yes I learned new words...be on the lookout for bollocks, footie and especially knickers).

I know Mike through a mutual friend. We did many comical things together like acting in plays, performing at busking festivals and even performing stand-up together under the moniker, Mike and Jay: the Famous Comedy Trio. Mike moved to London a few years ago and when I decided I was going to visit another friend in Greece this summer – I found out that I could tag a week’s visit in London with Mike.

Mike’s flat was small but also very nice. We chatted and I mentioned that I had a goal to hear someone say the word ‘knickers’ while we were here. Mike nodded and accepted the challenge. Mission #1 was afoot. We decided to do a bit of a walk-around, but before leaving he wanted to demonstrate something pretty cool about London. He pulled out two beers from the fridge and said, let’s go. We walked outside with the beers and I was surprised to learn that we could walk around with open alcohol anywhere in London! I felt like I was in Vegas again (editor: Jay Cormier: International Man was in Las Vegas Spring 2007)!

We journeyed throughout his neighbourhood and he did his “duty” and pointed out quasi important landmarks and explained certain historical significances of the surroundings.

Here’s an aside (warning: there might be learning here). Back in ‘the day’ (this is an easy way for me to recount a tale without the accuracy of facts and dates!), when literacy was very low, the pubs (which, incidentally, got their name from the word public, as opposed to more exclusive establishments) would call themselves some sort of noun. They would put a picture of that noun out front, along with the word pub and that’s how people knew which was which. “Meet you at the Fox” for example. Then, wouldn’t you believe it, pubs became popular and more of them opened. Apparently they ran out of nouns as they started repeating some of them. This of course, caused a bit of confusion so they had to add a second noun. And so was born the English pubs as we know them: The Cat and the Mutton, The Fox and the Hound etc.... Neat!

We explored Brick Lane which was full of crafty stalls and edible treats. He also pointed at how business, having run out of space anywhere else, started opening shops underneath archways of the train bridges.

For dinner we went to the Lauriston – a nearby pub that served great tasting thin crust pizza. After eating we chatted and drank some British ale.

As the place became more and more packed, two ladies/girls/females asked if they could sit at our table. But of course, we said. Instantly the famous comedy trio of Mike and Jay returned as we were both on fire, humourously as we chatted up the ladies. It was times like those that Mike and I wished it had been recorded as there were so many funny things said that night!

At one point, one of the girls, Sian, mentioned something about her trousers. Immediately Mike pounced with, “and what’s underneath your trousers?” She responded as if it were obvious, “...my knickers.”

Well, any onlooker might have expected a footie match was on the tele and our team just scored the winning goal. Mike and I rejoiced with a huzzah and a high five. Mission #1 accomplished.

As the night continued, Sian’s friend left while Sian, Mike and I kept yammering away. It was possibly the funniest time I’ve ever had in my life. What a great day to start my vacation!