Walkin' 'round London town

Dedicated to the memory of Hu Fuzhou, the money-making player who was a ho fosho.


This last weekend I flew to London to meet up with my brother Flavio and his wife Jen (I don't think I have to convince you that I have used pseudonyms to protect their reputations, because honestly, who would name their son Flavio?...probably the same parents who named their second son Sergio).*

*At least this was my official reason for going, but really I would have taken any excuse to fly to where the love of my life Lily Allen lives and convince her to marry me. My plan was to run into her at a fish and chips stand or wherever British people congregate (didn't waste any time checking-out the dental clinics) and then be so aloof she had to ravage me. Alas, this meeting never happened and I never had the opportunity to use my foolproof plan. Apparently celebrities don't spend their weekends on double-decker tour buses checking out landmarks in their own city.

Having waited until the last minute to buy a plane ticket, I was forced to fly out of a cheap hub a couple hours south of Pamplona. On the bus ride there, a couple of other Americans sat to my right who were also on their way to London for the weekend. After only two hours of eavesdropping I learned several things about them: they were studying in Pamplona, the girl was very sloppy, the guy desperately wanted to sleep with her, and they were spending the last of their monies to go see Harry Potter in English (movies are dubbed in Spain). I would have taken the opportunity to meet these other fellow countrymen on the other side of the world, but hearing their convo made me realize they were twats. (Turns out that although being a twat may keep eavesdroppers from befriending you, it will not deter the same eavesdropper from defiling you later as masturbation material).

After taking a train from my airport in BFE, England into London, I was a quick 15-minute walk away from meeting up with Flavio and Jen at their hotel. It took me an hour. Memorizing the aerial view on Google maps failed me yet again. Having finally met up, our first order of business was to go scavenging for food. We spent a good deal of time walking around the area for a nice restaurant where they'd have some good British cuisine. There was no such place. We settled on an American-themed diner. The waiters there initially used American accents until they realized we were Americans (our teeth were a dead giveaway). We washed down the meal with some Starbucks. This night provided a nice simulation of being home, you know, minus the living in poverty part.

The next day we woke up at the buttcrack of dawn to do all the touristy things London had to offer. The most efficient way was buying a 48-hour pass to a double-decker tour bus where a tour-guide would point out all the sights we passed by, repeat awful quotes of Winston Churchill, and remind us every half hour why England is better than our country (I was fine with this until she said "Now although most of these landmarks you may know from the most popular version of Monopoly, it is actually originally from America"...this was unforgivable--England, we may have ripped-off The Office, but YOU STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM OUR BOARD GAMES!) We stopped at all the major stops on the tour, including Piccadilly Circus, which is the London version of Times square.

That's cute England, but I bet we can build one bigger and better, and that wastes a shitload more gas.

I wanted to be able to take the obligatory red phone booth pic, so we kept our eyes out for a decent looking one. Seems like only perverts use phone booths there as they are filled with tons of ads for prostitutes. Naturally, I had to make a call:

Escort agencies don't appreciate being called collect.

We were having a gay old time seeing all the sights, but this came to a screeching halt when one dude on the Thames River boat-tour made us go from Rock Hard Ten to flaccid in a second. Our 48-hr tour pass included a tour on some dinghy. Sitting on the boat was such a nice change of pace from walking around in the cold that it didn't matter that the guy giving the tour was doing a shit job. At the end he solicited tips saying that he would be holding a champagne bucket by the exit (champagne bucket = come bucket in England). Just as I was dropping a 10 pence coin into his bucket, my brother politely began to ask him "Excuse me, do you know where...." to which the d-bag responded with "Sir, I am talking right now," without even so much as making eye-contact with my brother and speaking in the most condescending tone imaginable. I looked at my brother--it was on. We went Tango and Cash on his ass --we kicked him in the dick so hard, he died from being kicked in the dick. His friends backed off but one of them called for help. A nearby police officer saw everything. We sprinted for the closest tube station, but the back-up the officer had called in was already blocking the entrance. We had to take our chances across a nearby bridge. The American embassy was within our reach. Only three officers were in between us and our safe-haven. We ran at them at full-force and drop-kicked them in unison. Marines at the gate were waving us on, an Apache helicopter starting up behind them. Jen jumped onto the helicopter first, but then I realized Flavio was missing. I looked back, he was on the ground, a Bobby tackled him about the put cuffs on him. Flavio yelled "Get on the choppa!!!" but I wasn't going to leave him behind. I ran back, kicked the officer in the dick, and released Flavio from the cuffs. As Flavio ran back, I stayed for a second like a badass and told the cop "The monarchy is outdated, stop wasting tax-payers money on the Queen." I then joined everyone on the chopper and we ditched England, yelling "USA! USA! USA!"

So that story was completely true up to the part where the tour-guide was an asshole, after that we bitched out and bitterly complained about him the rest of the night.

On our final day, we went to some museums and rode the Eye of London at night. It was cool.

A flight and a bus ride home, I was back in good old Pamplona. I have an amusing anectdote about a transvestite I sat behind and what he/she taught me about love. This will have to wait until the next blog post though.

Enjoy some more pics:

At the hotel.

England hires their smartest police officers to guard Downing Street.
 (I'm too politically correct to call these officers "special" or note that they are on "Downing" Street, a lesser man would point these coincidences)

Sweeney Todd.

Lions at Trafalgar Square.

Being awesome at Buckingham Palace.

The changing of the guard was overrated. Lots of people show up to see a group of dudes stand in front of another group of dudes to take their turn guarding a palace inferior to the White House.

Everyone was trying to check out the Rosetta Stone. I had to zoom a crapload.

A centaur attempting to kick a Greek in the dick. This is almost exactly how it went down with the boat tour-guide.

Westminster/Parliament/Big Ben from the Eye of London.

Awesome ad on a train car.