Boatgirl #2: London Delays - London, England

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1: London Delays

Kirsty with Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell at Madame Tussaud's in London.

February 16, 2002

Well, my trip is off to a resounding start. I arrived at LAX to find my flight delayed by FIVE hours. When I finally landed in England, I was told that the boat is also delayed... by two weeks! So, my friends Darin and Anna may not be able to join me on the Oslo-London leg of the journey.

But besides that, I feel much better than I normally do after that flight. It might be that the later departure, around 10:30pm, made me sleep more. I usually can't sleep on planes at all. Most of all, this is the first time I actually did everything you're supposed to do on a long flight (e.g. drink lots of water, take vitamins and Echinacea, not have five gin-and-tonics).

I hate to admit it, but it seemed to work much better than more normal methods of drinking too much and watching movies on those tiny Virgin movie screens until my eyes bleed. The only nod to my traditional mode of travel, was a very hot Prawn Vindaloo on arrival, washed down with several Shandies (a mix of beer and 7-up). Darin was supposed to meet us for dinner, but unbeknownst to me, our mobile phone was turned off in the restaurant. I assumed he had been caught up at work, but when we got back to the house, there were several shivering messages from him standing on the platform of East Croydon station, hoping to be picked up. By the time I rang him back, he was already on his way back into London. Oops.

So, now I'm on the train into Charing Cross, with tea in hand, to meet him for an apology brunch. It's a shame I didn't get to go into the city with him last night. Apparently I missed a fabulous flight attendant drag performance by Miss Pam Ann. The mind reels. Hopefully, we'll get into some mischief tonight instead. And figure out what we're going to do with the additional time until the boat sails. Amsterdam beckons. Maybe we'll drive there instead of fly...

Feb. 18, 2002

I did have quite an adventure on Saturday. We had lunch at a Middle-Eastern restaurant called Sofra, with lots of little veggie things. Then we went and had 15 massages at "Relax". This place is great, they do acupressure chair massages with no appointments necessary, and in a storefront window. It's not Swedish rubbing/relaxing sort of stuff, but it's amazingly effective. It definitely helped with the jetlag, and there's a gym and a health food store right next door.

We spent most of the day just wandering around, but we ended up in the Soho area around dinnertime. We walked around trying to find something not too touristy or expensive, but exhaustion started to set in. Everything in London nowadays is a coffee bar or a pizza/pasta place, it's amazing. We ended up in Topo Gigio, an Italian basement sort of place with Chianti bottles hanging from the ceiling and a cute little mouse as a logo. That should have been a warning. My Linguini Vongole was in a sauce made from Campbell's tomato soup, raw garlic and clams from a can. Shudder.

The whole meal would have been a complete waste, if it weren't for the bachelorette party at the next table. This girls were BADLY behaved, drunk and cackling at the top of their lungs. We were annoyed for the first 15 minutes, and then they just became really funny. They were intent on humiliating the bride-to-be, so they'd all dressed up, and she was wearing fairy wings. Then they made her put on the largest pair of granny panties I've ever seen on over her clothes.

At some point, we realized that all of them had written rude limericks about this poor girl. So, of course, Darin and I decided we needed to write one as well. That amused us for the rest of the dinner, giggling and arguing over syllables. When we perfected our masterpiece, Darin went over to their table and read it out loud to them in his most dramatic baritone. It went like this:

There was a young lady in wedlock

Whose ring sported an enormous rock

She looking at her ring


Then looked at his thing

Deciding it belonged on his cock

The girls gave him a standing ovation.


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