Saturday Night's All Right Woo Hooooooo

Saturday, September 23

Coincidentally, my friends Sheri and Keith were in London this weekend so they invited me out to have a few drinks. They were staying with Keith’s college friends, Julie and Callum, who live in Maida Vale.



In honor of Keith’s visit, Julie and Callum had assembled a bunch of people from their days at “Uni” to hang out at the flat before going out on the town. You know how that goes- you get there at 8 for a drink and the next thing you know it’s midnight and you haven’t even thought about where you want to go.



I was having a great time catching up with Sheri and hearing all about her trip so far. (She and Keith had been to Scotland to visit his family and see the sights.) Keith’s friends were a lot of fun. (You know how much I love the boozehounds. I seem to find them everywhere I go.)





We finally got moving, but by this time Keith and Sheri were tired; they had to get up early the next day for their flight back to the US. They bailed on going to the nightclub, which in retrospect was exactly the right thing to do. I stayed on with the gang – about 8 of us – led by a guy who was later revealed to be of the “not one of our friends – we don’t even know him!” type. He apparently was on the guest list of “absolutely every club in London” so we went along with him to Cafe de Paris.

CdP is exactly what you’d expect from a club- loud, crowded, and filled with scantily-clad, but somehow overdressed women and men who skulk around surrounded only by a heavy cloud of aftershave. The cover was £15 (about $28) and drinks were £8 (about $15). Despite these and other horrors encountered at CdP, I was up for a good time – especially when I found out that none of them really wanted to be there either. But when you’ve already paid almost 50 bucks you figure you have to stick it out.

The crowd started to thin out at about 2am, and I new I needed to get to bed soon since I was due to fly out on Sunday for a business trip to Mexico. The gang showed no signs of slowing down; when I left them, the girls were about to infiltrate the VIP room (wooooo!).





The one good thing about the club was that they were able to put me right into a cab. The guy actually walked me around the block to make sure I got there in one piece. Nice!

It wasn’t until I got back to my apartment at 3AM that I remembered that I would still need to confront what will surely become the bane of my existence and possibly the grounds for my inevitable eviction from Notting Hill… the alarm.

Julianne Slept Here

I arrived, safe and sound, in London on Friday afternoon and went straight to my new flat in Notting Hill. Great neighborhood, posh digs, more space then i know what to do with (with the exception that there is only one tiny dresser with a couple of drawers. where will i stash my dainties??)

Here are some pics of the place:

The "drawing room." That's real art, people!

My bedroom. Where the magic happens. Ew.

A view of the living room. I'm considering putting in a bowling alley.

Maid's quarters. Or for guests -- book early for cheap flights!

The garden. There's a lock on it. I have no key. Why must they taunt me??

Looks aside, I have (of course) uncovered all sorts of flaws to the place, too dull to recount here. Except I will vent about the fact that the place boasts "high speed wireless" and "SKY satellite tv" yet here I sit at Starbucks using their wireless and last night I watched an old and very fuzzy rerun of Columbo.

I put a call in to the realters in charge of letting the place and got put through the the wrong person. The guy said: "I haven't put anyone in that flat since I placed Julianne Moore there three years ago." La-di-da!

So Long, Farethewell, Pip Pip, Cheerio

It's Thursday, September 21 and I am about to embark on yet another international adventure. My faithful readers (both of you, ha ha) may remember the good old days when I would post so faithfully and regale you all with my tales of victory and defeat in the Land of the Rising Sun.

This time I am off to more familiar lands -- moving to London on a business venture. I won't bore you with the details - same company, same kind of job, different city, blah blah blah.

The exciting part is that I will be travelling extensively (should we take bets on how long it will take before that doesn't sound so exciting any more?) I've already been to Switzerland several times (my client is based there, so I'll be spending a lot of time there), Paris, and Philadelphia. OK, Philly's not so exciting, butI was there on business and I did see a guy dressed like Ben Franklin so it sort of counts.

In the very near future: Mexico and Budapest!

Right now, I am sitting in the departures area at JFK, waiting to board my flight to London. I'm annoyed because I was randomly upgraded to first class (yea!) but this is such a late flight that the Lounge was closed (boo!) so I'm sitting among the mere mortals. That's OK. I plan to mock them later as I sip fizzy wine and abuse the flight attendants.

Ugh - annoying cell phone user to the right. It's almost time for my Ambien.

Cheers!