DAY ONE

sunday I arrived around 8am exhausted from an inability to fall asleep on the flight whilst having two old men to the left and right constantly in my personal space. i hate sitting in the middle and so i slept one whole hour on the flight. we met up with ben at his terminal and then headed into the city. it was easy to find our way in but difficult to maintain our hysteria as the automated female voice on our tube repeated the terminating destination of our tube at cockfosters. laughing ensued on our parts over and again but, for some reason the brits were not equally amused. delirious, we stumbled to our connecting train and made it to our hostel in the swiss cottage area. it's right off the jubilee line which was nice as it helped us get to some off the big sites already. after check in, we headed down to the waterloo stop where i attempted to get ben and john to eat at "fishcoteque" with me. no takers. side note: i am aware that there are many different ways the british say things and i love it so will be documenting some of my favorites i.e. the fruit drink at mickey d's called "fruit shoot." genius. next, we walked across waterloo bridge as the combination of delirium, lack of sleep and sustinance started to take its toll on us. the worst jokes started to become funny as we walked under the shadow of Dirty Dancing the musical, lion king and Buddy, the buddy holly story. i wondered how they pulled off the plane crash scene in the end of the play. we walked to the masonic temple so john could peer in only to have john declare after the fact that "of course they are not open today, it's sunday." we ate fish and chips after all, ben found bones in his and mysteriously stopped touching his fish. i ate mine but started to get paranoid that i had a bone in my throat. the day began to really take it's toll. we walked to get coffee, found a TV in a trash bin and ben said look at that tele in the bin, and i muttered the telebin. you had to be there, for sure. after a cup of coffee that didn't help, we stumbled onto hundreds of "fruit booters" in-lining down charing cross road. we laughed and took photos, then, headed into trafalgar square and eventually the national gallery. saw that anamorphic perspective painting that reveals a skull when you stand to the right. that was cool. some some gilded stuff which ben said more people should "gild." i agree. we walked to buckingham palace where i was literally falling asleep standing up. it was bad, real bad. i bought two red bulls at the tube which also didn't help and began to scare me. we made it to piccadilly circus, found ben's casino, registered, and found out they don't even have hold 'em. an old sickly looking asian dude coughed on me. should i get a TB shot? Bird flu? finally headed back to the hostel, took a nap, had a pint, realized how tired i was and went back to bed around 7pm. i now can't fall back asleep as john's snoring keeps waking me up and i've slept eight hours already. so, i write, i'll smoke a cigarette, watch the sun come up and have breakfast on the house. hopefully more fun and less sleep tomorrow. i am not known for being the party pooper. what's the deal? love, ryandale.