Bangers and Mash

Episode 2: Bangers and Mash

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, known universally to the alien races as The United Kingdom, a very long and exhausting trip was underway.  The Empire, also known as the British Empire, had made it quite difficult to travel in between its rival kingdom, The Netherlands, and the borders of the Empire.  The Queen of the Empire detected a disturbance in the force: a young, American, Jewish bloke who just wanted a nice, fulfilling first visit to the epicenter of the Empire: Londontown.  Little did he know the adventure that awaited him...

…

I had managed to fall asleep sometime around 2:30am local time, but not wanting to miss out on anything, I set my alarm for 8am.  My room in the hostel is a 6-person mixed-gender dorm.  There were three other guys in the room, two from Brazil and one from Australia.  The Australian guy had kept going on and on about his recent trip to the Great Barrier Reef, and the two Brazilians asked me as soon as I got into bed why I wasn’t going out to party.  Stereotypes. 

I decided to first get some British pounds (GBP) out of the ATM at Barclays.  When I arrived to the hostel, they asked for a deposit if I needed a keycard for the room (that might be helpful…), a padlock (because at hostels, you store your stuff in a cage under the bunk beds), and a converter (because leave it to the British to do things differently from the rest of Europe).  They held onto my ID cards (luckily I had three on me!) until I gave them 15 GBP… The map provided by the hostel did not make any sense, so I asked the guy at the desk for directions.  He tried to explain the ATM’s location to me, partly in Spanish because he very clearly came from the Rebel Alliance.  It came out as: “You just do a Z then another turn and you’re there”  *hand motion of a Z shape with an extended bottom line*  His explanation made about as much sense as the bus ride the day before.  As it turns out, wandering around a little bit can be easier than following misleading directions.  The Z+line translated more to an L shape when I eventually found the ATM.  The confusion didn’t end there.  Because GBP share in common with the Euro the look and feel of Monopoly money, it took me a minute to figure out exactly how much I had of each currency.

Money in hand, the first thing I wanted to do was get a transportation card.  London has a “journey day pass” which allows you to get around via the Tube (subway) and buses and costs only 7.5 GBP.  Unfortunately, since the only map that makes sense in London is for the Tube system, that card had most of the day off.  I think I saw it on a beach chair with a Corona at one point. 

Going off of memory, I proceeded back to the bus station (Victoria Coach Station) and noticed the road name: Buckingham Palace Road.  If most things so far on this trip have not made any sense whatsoever, at least the British thought to name the road leading to their cherished monarchy after the name of the palace.  The “map” I picked up at the hostel made the walk look like it would take 5 minutes when in fact it was a good 20 minute hike through throngs of tourists.  Once I managed to reach the palace, I went to buy a ticket for a tour.  I told the lady I wanted to see “the castle” instead of “the palace” and she seemed quite upset with me.  Well, retroactive-America-won-the-war-so-get-over-it to you, Madame Prissy Pants! 

After I smacked her in the face with a white glove, I noticed that my tour didn’t start for another 45 minutes.  I took a lot of photos of the outside of the palace, since you can’t take any once you’re inside.  I then wandered around St. James’s Park until I came across a bunch of horse shit.  That’s when I saw a bunch of horses shitting together outside of a museum, mounted by guys in old-timey military garb.  I took some pictures (not of the horse droppings) and proceeded back towards the palace.  On my way back, I saw some Beefeaters guarding a random gate.  I thought to myself: “I wonder if they’d survive eating that Quick burger I had.”  After I gave one of them a Quick burger and he ate it, he suffered instant death.

The tour of Buckingham Palace was actually very good.  The girl who gave me the audio tour guide said to me "Oh my god, your eyelashes are fabulous."  I looked at her awkwardly for a moment, then had to deal with the emotions of years of torment regarding my feminine eyelashes.  Anyways, I’ve been to a few royal accommodations, and this one is probably the most spectacular I’ve encountered.  It happens to be the 60 year anniversary of the Queen’s coronation, so they had a special exhibit set up with her coronation dress and other things from the celebration.  I heard a guy behind me ask “When’s the old bag gonna croak?”  Probably when she’s a frog, jolly good sir.  Ribbit.    

After the palace visit, I tracked down Big Ben and the Parliament building.  For some reason, I kept thinking of the Mission Impossible scene from there.  I’ve heard Tom Cruise roams the halls of Parliament late at night and guards dark bathrooms like a cave troll.  I picked up that information from the special edition Mission Impossible London Guidebook, sold only in the most exclusive non-existing stores.  Anyways, you have to appreciate that feeling of “I’ve made it” when you see a world famous landmark up close. 

Because I couldn’t quite understand the map, and by couldn’t quite understand I mean my map was drawn by a 2 year old who ate his crayons then regurgitated them onto a piece of paper in some obscure pattern, I walked in a random direction until I came across something with a bunch of tourists.  Turns out I had stumbled upon Trafalgar Square.  I still don’t know how exactly the name is pronounced, but I referred to it as “Truffleger” or “Tonguetwister” or “Truggleduggle” Square when asking where I was.  I hate crowds, so I was not the biggest fan.  However, I was intrigued by the presence of a giant blue rooster statue.  Legitimate scientists posit that aliens erected it as a sacrifice altar where the aliens, known as the British, would order KFC then leave a bucket filled with chicken wings at the rooster’s feet.  Or you might prefer the musings of one girl there: “I really like that big blue cock.” 

In an attempt to get away from the throngs of people, I ventured over to another area whose name I recognized from someone in my life or Wikipedia saying “_______ is a place in London”: Piccadilly Circus.  There was no circus.  There were clowns, however.  Like one guy who was walking around in a full Spiderman bodysuit.  Or the guy dressed as Freddy Krueger.  It basically seemed like Times Square without giant buildings or cawfee tawk.  I did find some good souvenir shops there, so I couldn’t resist getting a Mind the Gap hoodie.

I spent a few hours after that going around to different bus tour agencies to find out about Stonehenge.  Every single one told me either 1) no availability during the next 2 days or 2) the bus ride is about 2.5 hours long and there’s no bathroom or rest stops.  What is this, the Third Reich?!  Freedom includes the right to go to the bathroom whenever and wherever, including at police stations, children’s hospitals, right in the road, and inside the cages at zoos. 

I wandered a bit back towards Parliament and decided to go across the bridge to the London Eye.  Street performers on the bridge were running Ponzi schemes in the form putting a ball under a small cup and harassing tourists to pick up an immediate gambling habit.  Once I looked beyond the dejected musical homelessness and desperate attempts at survival via tourist harassment, I made it to the other side into a carnival atmosphere.  The area beneath the London Eye is filled with snack vendors, street performers, attractions, tourists stacking themselves up into pyramids, mass paranoia brought on by the release of that hallucinogenic gas from Batman Begins, and other typical city life.  They call it the London Eye because, like the Eye of Sauron, it watches over all the land and sends massive hordes of goblin-like beings at you. 

After checking out all the goings on, I crossed over the Westminster Bridge and went to see Westminster Abbey.  It was closed off, but I noticed that it was a building, with windows and a door, maybe even multiple doors, and other things that make a structure a building.  The gift shop had some Christian-y things, but I’m Jewish, so they kicked me out and told me never to return to this country.  I kept wondering why the church part was closed but the gift shop was open.  Keep Christ in Christmas, god damnit!  

At that point, I wanted to get some use out of my day pass, so I hopped on a bus and let it take me somewhere.  Where, I shall never know.  I roamed around many parsecs, crossing through the Andromeda galaxy, and ultimately arrived via the Interstellar Ultra Hyper Super Tube at Kensington Palace area.  It was already dark by then, but I pretended like I was a jogger so I wouldn’t get death-murdered or robbed.  Instead, I probably looked like I had just robbed a royal palace.  CCTV is tracking me down as we speak.  Anyways, it just so happened to be the day after the anniversary of Princess Diana’s death.  The gate to Kensington Palace was covered in pictures, flowers, teddybears, etc.  A few old British ladies who were camping out in front of the gate engaged me in conversation about what a wonderful lady she was, because as old ladies they had nothing better to do.  Their persistence and unforgiving passion for a dead lady instilled more fear in me than any possibility of death-murder or robbery.  So I ran away, back to the tube, and returned to Victoria Station. 

Before I went back to my hostel, I inquired at the bus station about buses to Stonehenge that have the-need-for-basic-human-functioning toilets in them.  Luckily, National Express had a bus leaving at 7am and a return around 3pm, so I booked it.  That meant guaranteed little to no sleep. 

So I decided to end the day with a traditional British dinner: bangers/sausage and mash, and a pint of Guinness.  I’ve had Guinness before, but it tasted so much better here.  More like a thick, chocolatey dessert than a drink.  The server didn’t understand when I said “bangers and mash” and thought I said “bang her smashed.”  She had a one-track mind.  The bangers and mash were amazing.  Three sausages atop buttery mashed potatoes, covered in onions sautéed in red wine.  After being thoroughly filled up with British fare, I headed back to the hostel, where the three other guys and good ol’ Banana Pancakes guitarist awaited me.  I’ve decided that bangers and mash perfectly encapsulates my day in London: a mish-mash of delicious and intriguing sensory overloads topped with a sausage-fest.

Next blog – Episode 3: Between a Rock and Another Rock