london calling

Ahhh London...

The Andy has landed, and I currently sit in an internet cafe beneath a hostel. Oh how this reminds me of the good old days. I remember when we'd be sitting in Queenstown at some internet cafe playing World of Warcraft for hours. And by playing I mean me hating every moment because I sucked at it and am a devout Command & Conquer fan. What was I talking about again?

London. What a busy city, my god. Even as I sit here not I peer over to a subway map that appears to be a sprawling maze of twists, turns, and diagonals. We've mostly avoided using transportation, as it has caused mass headaches and confusion. Millions of people walk the streets, and most of them are dressed better than the last. So, so much money here. Every bloke has either a Ferrari or a BMW Z3, and a brand new Civic is considered below-grade.

My hotel is situated right outside of Kensington Park, which has been such a bonus because every morning I treat myself to an hour walk through the park, past the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, past a few palaces with swans on the lawn and through the park, which makes Victoria Park look like a grass stain on a pair of jeans. Just to get an americano.

From there we've been doing a lot of bus tours and a bit of shopping. The fish and chips are boombastic, and again, the ability to roam the streets with a beer is ever-present. The cans of Foster's here have the widget in the can, which ups the quality so much from a carbonation point of view.

The city is massive. At least with the other cities I've visited, when you walk somewhere you actually feel like you've made some progress. Here, you walk for an hour and barely make a blip on the map. The cars drive on the other side, so I've been in a few close-calls already. All buses are double decker,and I've seen every major monument in the city there is to see (save for a few musical monuments and addresses that I wanted to see but won't).

Seeing as I have six minutes left, I will conclude the final Spreken Ze Talk from overseas. I will still continue to update this blog once I return home tomorrow, so if you feel like a good read (and one that hasn't been quite so rushed), tune in and I'll throw a lot more content up.

All I can say for now is that I'm sad to be going home, but am pleased to know that I'll see most of you when I get back. Thank you so much for the feedback and the nice emails and kind words. It's been a positive (and stressful) experience, not only to document for myself, but to let those who are interested know what's been happening.

Thanks again and stay tuned for more

kisi, kisi

Here is a rough itinerary of the trip. Seeing as I am a few days behind in writing and currently reside in Budapest, you can see that I have some catching up to do. I am a bit slow when it comes to writing entries, not because I don't know what to say, but because I set high standards for my writing and take pride in good quality posts.

So by taking a peak you should have a good idea what's in store. We've also added four days in London after our Frankfurt departure. It would also be pretty sweet if one of you could see if there will be any good live music shows in London between May 2-5th. I'll even buy you something! (depending on how good the show is).

the scarlet exit

Finally, after hours over hours of flight, layover times and copious amounts of medication I sit in bed overlooking a beautiful courtyard in the largest city in Germany. Yet there were some stories along the way.



The flight out of Toronto went off without a hitch. I slept on a bench in the terminal and apparently twitched and snored like crazy to the point where onlookers were laughing. If this was something new to me I would be embarrassed, but it happens all the time.

We flew with British Airways. Forget anything I've ever said about any airline company, because BA was the shit. Highlights included Steak and Yorkshire pudding for dinner, on command movies and music with touch-screen televisions, awesome bathrooms and incredible service from charming old Brit fucks.


After an hour in the air the dinner service rolled around. The ladies in front of me ordered wine with their dinner. I said "say what? free wine?" and the mouse began to run on the wheel in my head. I quickly thought to tell my mom and aunt to order a serving (almost two full glasses) of California red each. I asked for a serving myself of French Bordeaux and got two bottles. The man mentioned that if I needed any more to just holler. Oh, I hollered.

I spent the next four hours watching Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace (I had seen neither at the time, so I thought it suitable to drink tons of wine and watch both back to back). Long story short, I drank about eight of those bottles of wine and thoroughly enjoyed Casino Royale. Quantum of Solace was good, except it was a bit watered-down in comparison to the super-fresh approach to Bond filmmaking that was Casino Royale.

I've never been that drunk on a plane before, so I wasn't ready for my usual drunken antics and ideas. One idea occurred to me when waiting for the bathroom while standing near the emergency exit. I really, really had the urge to pull that big handle that lets the door fly open in case of emergencies. I decided not to only because the lady came out of the shitter.

I never really considered the time zone changes, but about an hour after I drunkenly passed out I was awoken to a sunrise and was served breakfast. What!! I was just about to have the nap of my life and I was being stuffed full of strudel. At that point it was 1am in Toronto and I was already up again to start another day. Lest we forget, I only slept for four hours the night before to wake up for the stair climb at 6:30, so I've been running on fumes ever since.

On the way down my sinuses really began acting up to the point where I couldn't even pop my ears to relieve the pressure. So, from about 10,000 feet and descending, the pressure began to build and there was nothing I could do about it. When we landed in Heathrow I couldn't hear a thing out of my right ear. Combine this with a red wine hangover and you've got yourself a cranky ginger cunt. I snapped back at a security lady when was asked to empty my pockets and I threw bills in, to which she snapped back with a gnar-Britch accent. I kept my temper to a simmer and walked away.


We waited for our next flight into Berlin, and the entire time I was yawning and chewing gum in hopes of popping my ears, to no avail. The nice thing about traveling with my mom and aunt is that they have a medication for everything. My prescription relieve my pressure was Tylenol Day Cold, Gravol, and Buckleys De-congestive washed down with a ton of orange juice. So here I was again ascending to 11,000 feet with so much pressure it felt like somebody was popping popcorn in my face. My ear drums were constantly cracking by themselves, along with my nose and throat. Remember how I mentioned that getting my hand re-aligned was the most painful thing yet? This was a close second. I wanted that plane to crash so badly just so I could get out. Even as I sit here now my ears are still full of fluid. Hopefully this will be gone by morning.

Aside from flight, everything has been peachy. Germans are cute and the English were annoying. A one hour layover was good enough for me. Germans just seem to float around in their own little bubble and smile a lot. The English have annoying accents and a "fee-fi-fo-fum" mentality about them.

I went out for dinner with Charlie and his wife Nancy. I've known these two Yanks for a while so it was nice to meet up with them again. At the restaurant I decided to go for the most German-style dish I could possibly find. I settled on a Pork-Knuckle with Dumplings and Sauerkraut. That's about as German as it gets, along with a dark beer. I lay here in bed now at the Hilton Berlin. Somewhat of a rough start but there's no more flying the another two weeks so I'm sure I'll be all cleared up by then. I'm also sure that the reason this entry is so long is because I've taken off my splint and can type like the wind blows.