A Rainy Day in Camden Town

On Saturday, my friend Jessica and I ventured to London to meet up with our friend Zach and his "buddies" who were visiting from FL.
After much, much debate on Friday (about 2 hours in person in the afternoon and then at least 3 phone calls in the evening), we decided that we would head to the tube station in the afternoon, meet up with Zach & his friends for dinner and nightlife, and stay in a hotel.
We ended up meeting up with two other people & following them to the tube station, and somehow I ended up being the organizer of everyone. I was totally nervous that we'd never find Zach, either due to a "too many cooks in the kitchen" type issue, or due to Zach's characteristic cell phone issues. Luckily, he answered his phone enough times to tell us which tube stop to get off at (Earl's Court) and he and his buddies were sitting right outside having coffee.
I've been freezing since I got here, but it turns out, all I needed to do was hop on the tube. It was a sweat-fest in there.

Jess & I and the other couple (well, Jessica and I aren't a couple, but the other people are a couple, so I'm calling them "the other couple") got checked into the hotel and we were off, back onto the sweaty tube to get to Camden Town.
I was kind of hoping for sightseeing stuff, but I went into the weekend with the understanding that we were just kind of tagging along with what Zach's visiting friends wanted to do, so I wasn't too disappointed. I can always go back for sightseeing later.
There were some pretty, uh, interesting sights to see in Camden Town. I really really wanted to get some Kanye West "sunglasses" (I don't know if they're called sunglasses, because a)I don't think they actually shade from the sun and b) I don't even think you can see through them), but I don't know if everyone thought I was just kidding or what, because we didn't stop to buy any.
We went to a Cuban restaurant (after all, these people are from Miami and had been on a EuroTrip for 10 days or something by this point so probably could've used a taste of home) and had Mojitos. Which are, of course, my favorito. But for 7 pounds a pop, it was only my favorito for one round.
I watched everyone do a shot (I refused, even though the round-buyer had bought one for me) and seemed to amuse them with phrases like "I don't smoke drugs" and "I'm actually afraid of beer bottles in crowded places". Apparently they had never encountered anyone quite as strange as me before. I ate a really tasty grilled chicken salad, which made me think of David because he almost always orders a grilled chicken salad.
We left to go to another bar (because I think that's what you are supposed to do in Camden Town) and much to my dismay, all the shops & vendors were closed...I couldn't get my Kanye shades! At the next bar, I saw someone with a Magner's glass and I really wanted to try the Magner's Pear Cider (I saw it on tv, and one of my Wednesday night friends orders it sometimes). Oh my goodness was that stuff delicious! It was so good that I didn't even mind that the only place for us "in" that bar was outside and it was raining!
We left there and went to probably 3 other places. At the last place we went to, "Dublin Close" or something like that, Jess and I thought that a band was playing and we were pretty excited. Until we got up to the stage and saw that there was no band! Probably the guy standing there looking like the band's bodyguard had us fooled, but it turns out, he wasn't even a bodyguard. And, even if he were, there was no band that needed guarding.
We went to the bathroom and said 2 words to a girl who said to her friend, "Oooh, look, they're Americans! I love Americans!" That was funny. She asked me where I was from and I told her near Chicago and silly me, asked her if she knew what that was. She said of course, she doesn't live under a rock. All this while, I was trying to dry my pants under the hand dryer because I sat in a puddle outside. I really did. When my pants finally dried, we went back out to sit down with our group, then the other couple were getting irritated with each other, so we all had to call it a night. We cabbed it back to the hotel, grabbed our coats and headed off in search of food. I was so excited to have my first kebab! I thought it would've come on a stick, but it didn't. I also learned that I LOVE salt and vinegar chips (and by chips, I mean fries). I gobbled up my fries, but couldn't finish my kebab. It was huge!

Jessica and I were both wide awake at 8 because it was burning up hot in our hotel room. Plus it smelled like kebab, which doesn't lead to the best sleep atmosphere. We headed out to walk around and look at nothing in particular, had breakfast at Maccers (which I decided that since McDonald's is called Maccers in Australia and fries are called chips in Australia, McDonald's should be called Maccers in England as well, but I haven't actually heard it called that here.), and then about 2 hours later, Zach and his friends were up and about too, so we went to breakfast again with them (but just had smoothies), said goodbye to the "buddies" who were heading to the airport for the next leg of their journey, and hopped the hot sweaty tube back to Epping, so we could get in the car and come home. We both smelled awful because we didn't want to be bothered with luggage, so we just had shorts in our purses and came home in the same outfits we left in. The rest of Sunday was pretty lazy for me...and in fact, the rest of the week has followed suit!