Initiative on the Dance Floor not welcome here

WEDNESDAY. I WOKE UP SMILING AND EVERYTHING IN MY HEAD WAS BEING THOUGHT OUT IN CAPSLOCK BECAUSE I WAS EXCITED. WHY WAS I SO EXCITED? BECAUSE I WAS GOING TO LONDON!

Strange, I’ll stop that now, as when I write in capslock it is almost like shouting going on inside my head as I read with my writing. And I already have a headache.

So Wednesday morning is FINALLY here. Jax takes me to Ascot station, and I am away. 50 minutes way from London. FIFTY. And the trains are about a gajillion billion times more comfortable then the trains I am used to. Or maybe I was so excited that everything looked and felt better. I checked my reflection. Nope, this was not the case.

Watereloo station. Oh God, Dad. I know you are reading this and have just started singing ‘Waterloo’ by Swedish sensations, Abba. I hope nobody is around you while you do so, because merely thinking about it is making me cringe yet alone the pain of actually having to be there while said situation takes place.

As I was saying, Waterloo station! Down to the tube. It was about this stage, in between singing London Underground and London Calling in my head, that I thought [quite possibly outloud], I AM ON THE LONDON UNDERGROUND. Or in the London Underground. Or Under London’s ground. Or something. I fell in love with all the coloured trails and rushing Brits immediately. It is by far the easiest and least homeless-person filled mode of public transport I have ever been on. And I felt mature and smart, as I was off to get my bank account and sim card set up. Great success! Minus the 2 hours at the bank setting it up and the fact that the LOVELY folks at Optus, Toombul had locked my phone so no other sim card would register. This lead to a pleasant 2 and a half hours trying to find somebody to fix it without losing all my songs and photo’s. Enter seedy back-alley store and a chubby Indian man who does not bathe regularily. £25 later my phone was unlocked, so if you need [or want] my UK number just ask me.

The Hilton hotel in Paddington was next. Hannah, a girl I worked with at Santaland last year, was staying there but was running late so I left a rather humorous message for her at reception. I laughed at how immature I was. Then I handed the message to a girl who’s name tag said ‘Fanny’, and I put more effort into not laughing at this than I have put into anything in my life.

Once Hannah was there and we had done our fastfood run and gotten ready for the night’s adventures, we were off. 6:00pm seemed a bit early to start, especially since the sun made it look about midday, but we did not care. Off to pub number 1. 2 pints of Stelle Artois thank-you. Went down a treat. We asked the bartender what there was to do on a Wednesday night in London, and while he suggest Picadilly Circus and Leicester Square, he told us not to get our hopes up as there was not much to do on a Wednesday night.

He was wrong.

Everywhere was open, kicking on and full of people. EVERYWHERE you went was full, and people were watching the soccer, sorry, football, anywhere they could. At the next pub we went to, in Leicester, we made the stupid decision to once again ask the bartender what they recommended, provided that it was cheap. Hannah and I came to the conclusion there was a chubby man out the back on a treadmill, and every 15 minutes he would remove his socks and squeeze the sweat into a glass, which was then served as whatever beer we ordered. I felt like less of a human being for being able to stomach it, but it was $3.41, and I was not about to let this go to waste. By the way, anybody who complains about having too many 5cent coins clearly has never been to England. 1 and 2pence coins are the most ridiculous thing in the world. It is like a text of manliness to seive through the hundreds and thousads of these coins that rest in your wallet, just to find the ONE £1 coin you have in there.

Oh wow, look, that girl on the table next to us has blue hair and very colourful clothes on. We should tell her this. We did. Tell her, that is. NEW FRIEND. Zaria. Zaria Mecheowsisjkakjekjanendkakaka. OK, so that might not be her last name but it was a buttload close to that. She was SO RAD. Not just her hair and the fact that she uses the word ‘joyful’ to describe everything, but her ability to talk to complete strangers and also give compliments when they were needed. To me. And she was British, which, bing in England, you would think I would expect, but I did not. And her accent made me giddy. But in a manly way... She was being stalked by an Italian man who also sat with us. His name was Luigi. I am sure many of you are thinking, ‘Oh yeah, right. I am sure that’s real. That is the most stereotypical Italian name in the world. Did he also have a chef’s hat, moustache and meatalls in his pockets?’ To answer your question, he had none of the previous mentioned attributes, which Hannah and I decided was a bit of a shame. But he was in fact real, however did not look anything like the Super Mario character, which was also quite disappointing. Luigi was a boring, seedy man. We ran. As did Zaria. NEW FRIEND.

Off to a bar this time, a bit classier than the previous pubs. More thirty-something year old men relentelessly hitting on Hannah and Zaria. How offensive. For all they knew, I was morman and married to both. Though I don’t think morman’s dress the way we were dressed... or drink. But this was beside the point! I insisted on another move, and we ended up in Soho. Which was a fancy area, and I am not too sure but I think... think... it might be a predominant area for the gay community. Was it my love for mystery and problem-solving teams like Scooby-Doo and Shaggy that lead me to such a conclusion? Yes. Yes it was. That and every corner had a different pair of men attached at the lips [see what I did there? Usually the saying is ‘attached at the hips’ but I put my own spin on it because they were kissing. Clever, really.] – either that or it was the same pair of men who kept changing corners on which they would frolick in each other’s mouths, as well as changing their clothes, body shapes and skin colour.

We found a nice pub next. As well as 4 Belgium guys. We weren’t sure if we got off to the best start as the names were difficult. Ok, one of the names was difficult. There was Jonas, Bastien [which lead to a shortlived discussion of the ‘The Neverending Story’ and several bad impressions of the princess screaming ‘Save me Bastien. Say my Name. SAVE US BATIEN.’] and Kaen. And then there was a 17 year old who was also enjoying the festivities. His name was... Vorte? Or Wortek. Or something along those lines. I insisted it must have been vortex, and then decided it was a good move to make the ‘whooshing’ noise a vortex makes [those football-type toys with a tail on the end] when you throw it. Vortex was not impressed. But he was 17, so who cares. I was, and still am, 19. I was his better.

The Belgiums decided they liked us. This pleased me. Acceptance!! In London!! And we went off to another couple of bars. Beer on you? Why thank-you Vortex. And he was back before you knew it with 5 crsip beers. I was beginning to see why they, or at least I, called him Vortex. Now, the next hour gets a little bit hazey. We accidentally ditched the Belgiums, which I am genuinely upset by, as I am going to Belgium next week and we had not yet exchanged last names or contact details. Our friendship would never be validated by Facebook, and that hurt. We ended up at a fancy bar which did not have a dance floor. It is here that I learnt a valuable lesson which I will now share with you.

If there is no dance floor in a bar, more often than not they intended it to be this way.

Having had a few beers throughout the course of the evening, I deemed it was necessary to start... wait for it... my own dance floor. Nobody joined me, not my friends and not the young hip gay couple we had somehow befriended, though none of us remembered how we met them or what their names were. Strangers looked on, but I kept on keepin’ on. And while my mother [bless her] had always told me I could dance, I can’t. I flat out cannot dance, especially intoxicated. I was a step away from doing the white man’s “step from side to side and click” move, but I thought I’d save that one for Amsterdam.

This lead to my first, but surely not my last, incident with an authority figure in the UK. I was being escourted out of here. They did not want a dance floor being created, and even more so, they did not want some pastey kid dancing alone in front of everybody. He informed me that this was not what people came out to see, which was news to me. He had also seen me ‘napping’ at a table a few minutes earlier, so thought it was best for all parties involved if I leave the premises. He, however, had not put it so kindly. He was not a friendly man, and I wish that one day he knows what it feels like to be removed for simply trying to show some initiative in a bar, club or other popular and recognized venue for nightlife entertainment.

A couple more pubs, then I blinked. I blinked, and when my eyelids opened for what I was sure to be the same image as what I had seen before I closed them to, as I mentioned, blink [which was Hannah trying to decline another 40 year old man], I was elswhere. I attempted to do the simple and everyday task of blinking, a task cavemen and protestants were even cable of, and I somehow failed. When the second part of this task took place,and my eye lids opened, I was in McDonalds. Sitting with a Middle Eastern woman and her son, who had some sort of a problem. I cannot remember anything about them, only that I kept insisting that the 12 year old was my best friend, and he was happy about it. Finally, somebody who is genuinely happy with my decision to instantly best friend them. Is that asking so much? Now, I maintain that either Hannah or Zaria were with me at the time – but neither remember this occuring. Either way, the middle eastern woman took her son and left in a hurry. At the time, I was offended, and a little upset that my new friendship was over before it really had time to flourish. Looking back on it, I understand completely why she took her son and got the hell out of there. It would have been bad parenting for her and her son to remain in my presence.

Next thing I know I am in a cab, alone. And I have run out of money. My racist cab driver kicked me out, and took what money I had. It is not the fact that he kicked me out that has led to me calling him a racist. That would not make sense, as we both have the same colour skin. It was the things he was saying. It was not a pleasant cab trip. I started walking towards Paddington, or at least where I thought Paddington was. 5:30am hits and I have finally reached the Hilton. I had requested a spare room key/card earlier, as I was pretty sure the night was going to end with Hannah and I seperated. I let myself in, and Hannah was not home yet. I took the bed, even though I said I would sleep on the couch. And woke up at 2 hours later nestled between Hannah and Zaria. I looked at the clock, and woke Zaria to tell her she was supposed to be at her cousins house [about 1 hour outside of London] in 10 minutes. She left, in a hurry. Back to sleep. And when I woke up much later on, I realized that hangover’s are quite possibly worse in the northern hemisphere. Either that or Barney the Dinosaur sat on my head. This was not a pleasant feeling.

And that, children, is the story of how Drames [Drunk James] met London.
The End.

OH and I successfully completed my FIRST load of washing just now. Great success! Accomplishing all these tasks like washing clothes and not waking up in another country after my first night on the town as feared, I was beginning to feel I could hold my head high. Pride was a good feeling, and a new one. But I had done it! Washing machine PASS. My whites were still white, and my colours were still coloured. I felt a bit of shame when segragating them though, and felt like I had set the work of Rosa Parks, Dr. King and Oprah back another hundred years, but sacrifices need to be made in the name of clean clothes.