London to Stonehenge to Bath and back again!

To spice things up and to wipe off the dust from this blog, I introduce to you my first guest blogger: Roy!

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Brilliant! So far, my senses have been stimulated to the point of saturation with a few days on the loose in London.

With Chris's visiting friend Mike with me, we arrive at Chris's flat late Thursday. Now with Chris in tow, and briefly exchanging pleasantries, we immediately embark into Old Street for a couple of pints. At this bar called 333, we stopped in and mingled with the punkish crowd. A wasted, but well-dressed British fellow named Richard bought Mike, Chris, and myself a few pints for a mysterious reason. After he stood around quite unsteadily, Richard kept covering his mouth with his hand in a strange blend of welling up with tears, falling asleep, and puke prevention. It turned out he was in Thailand during the tsunami and he was impressed that the Thai people saved his life without regard to their own safety. So voila! We get free
beers and British tears.

It's Friday now, and all of us head out of London toward Salisbury to see Stonehenge. It took a few hours but we got a few decent photos of these old rocks - a UN World Heritage site.

Trivia: The audio guide told us that Stonehenge means Hanging Rock. Ooohs and aaahs follow.

Of course, like any silly American would, I suggest getting a Salisbury steak in Salisbury. No such luck as it was Lenten Friday. We ended up stopping at a
few pubs and had fish and chips in a haunted bar.

Upon reaching London at night, we headed to Koko - a five level rock club reminiscent of the Metro at Chicago. A quite fashionable girl accused me of throwing beer at her with the charming

"Did ya just chuck a pint at me yeah? Coz I got hit by two beers just now!"

I explained that beer's waaay too expensive to be tossing about at strangers. After that exchange, I resisted the temptation to actually chuck a beer at
her when she walked away. That would have been fun.

Now it's Saturday, and we take the train to Bath - an ancient city with a big Roman bath in the center of the city - a UN World Heritage site. Oohs and aahs follow. We saw the Royal Crescent - the most perfect crescent in all of Europe, we were told. Dunno what that means though.

After walking around the charming city, we were accosted by this fat, crazy teenage girl who started mumbling things we couldn't understand. The cafe owner saved
us and threatened to call the police on the poor girl.

After we returned to London that night, we had awesome Indian food in Bricklane. We see a fight outside our restaurant again (I saw a fight between waiters at the
restaurant last year, too). It was fun dinner entertainment, despite the violence.

Later, we walk about five steps from Chris's flat when Chris says that he
always wanted to go to this bar called "Bavarian Beerhouse" but he was hesitant since the entrance which led to a dark underground tavern that seemed quite putrid outside.

Inside, a cute waitress, dressed in Bavarian outfit, began chatting with us - we find out she spent a few years in Michigan and always went to Chicago for the weekends. She kept clapping her hands with excitement when she found out we were from Chicago - her favorite city in the US.

After a few massive steins, a loophole in Chris's Lenten sacrifice of giving up "Pints", Chris was getting wasted so he divulged that he had a date the next afternoon with a young Portuguese woman ... so Mike and I began plotting for his success.

To be continued ...