By Lucy

Days in England: 0

There I was, newly decanted into London, having not slept for 24 hours, hungry, carrying heavy bags, and the first thing I did was lose one hundred dollars.

Rich asked me what I wanted to do first, to which I only reply that I was surprised I was still conscious and was hungry. The only way out of the airport was the train, so we headed that way. Rich handed me this small paper ticket with a credit card strip on it to get onto the train. He instructed me to hold on to it, and tired and not thinking, I shoved it into my pocket with my phone.

When we got to where we were getting off at Tottenham Court Road, I was informed I needed to tap off the train as well, which was information I wasn’t given before. I went into my pocket, but the ticket was gone – I assume it stuck to my phone and fell off when I went to check it. Then I was told it costs roughly a hundred dollars Canadian for a day pass, which meant we were sort of fubared. Did we buy another ticket, or call it a day?

I needed food, and Damocles messaged us to tell us he was on his way, so we wandered down the road until we found a place called “Eggslut”. I ordered the sandwich with sausage, which came with a side of tiny round hashbrowns fried in duck fat, which were the most delicious hashbrowns I’ve ever had. If there were an Eggslut in Rich’s town I’d walk there for breakfast!

The sandwich was good too but nothing worth writing home about. I noticed the yolks are fluorescent orange as opposed to the mild yellow I’m used to. I did read online that some farmers feed their chickens marigolds to make the yolks a more vibrant colour. The breakfast came with black coffee and they had neither sugar nor milk or cream to jazz it up, and it was not good enough coffee to drink black.

We ended up loitering around the Eggslut for a couple of hours waiting for the one, the only, Damocles! Because we lost him, somehow, despite neither of us moving and him being the most familiar with the London train system out of the three of us.

I mean, his real name is Kevin, but I think Kevin is boring compared to the majesty of Damocles, and Rich’s brother’s name is Kevin, so we shall just call him Damocles henceforth.

After a bit of light mocking for me losing the ticket, we had to decide what to do next. Should we buy another ticket, when I was already pretty shattered by the sleepless night? At this point I popped open my luggage and handed Rich the stack of 50 pound notes I had brought with me, and he deposited them in his bank, so at least we were solvent. We wandered down the road and found a random pub to sit in, which was my second bit of culture shock. Cuz in Canada, we’d find a Timmies and order coffee and maybe some Timbits, but in England you find a pub and order a pint, cuz beer is cheaper than water!

I gifted Damocles the above poster because that’s how we met; he had minted a new Dragon Age Discord server and was popping into random Dragon Age streams to invite people. At the time I believe I was newly single, so I had voids in my social calendar to fill, and both of us are quite gregarious, so we just talked a lot. Dragon Age 2 is his favourite, in a small portion because it’s the most contentious of the games. Then we chatted in the pub for an hour or two before I was obviously nodding off in my seat and they decided they should haul me home.

Since everything exists within a five minute walk within London, we wandered down Charing Cross Road to an intentional stop: Duck World. There’s been a inside joke about rubber ducks between me and Rich, so we keep buying each other random rubber ducks and the rubber duck store was a natural stop. My personal favourite is the giant Balrog duck I couldn’t justify in cost or size.

We wandered down the road some more, Damocles having taken my bags away from me over my protests, and they led me to Trafalgar Square.

Now, I’ve been to England before, but I couldn’t tell you all the places I’ve been because I was 12. Ironically, I think it’s the last time I was on a plane. My parents had us put together a scrapbook, but they didn’t let me take it with me when I moved out (or more accurately, lockpicked the shackles in the middle of the night), because mother dearest insists my childhood is for her benefit and not my own.

When I saw the lions I recognized them instantly. Logically I’d been there before, but it was a watershed moment. I wasn’t just sitting in a bar having a drink with a couple of friends, I was in England! I think I remember being unimpressed by the towering monument as a child, but as an adult it struck me dumb.

Onwards we went, down Parliament Street. There was a place with some redcoats on horseback and a good amount of tourists standing behind some bollards. As we approached, I suggested we should go behind the bollards with the tourists, but Rich declined until a guard waved him down and told him to [Rich: well you see when a man with a gun tells you to do something you bloody well do it, especially since guns are so rarely seen in the UK]. So we stood and watched the horseguard change for a minute.

Damocles dubbed the above buildings “little Ben” and “the snake building”, respectively.

The last leg of my journey was taking down Victoria Street to Victoria station, at which point my mental faculties were too exhausted for picture taking. We got big hugs from Damocles and hopped on the train to Kent, arriving around 4.

Now the dilemma. Do I sleep, knowing I’m messing myself up for bedtime but being too exhausted to function, or do I force myself to stay awake? I split the difference and had an hour nap on the couch. When I woke up, Rich ran to the chicken shop around the corner and got us some fried chicken and fries (chips). We made some hot chocolate with salted caramel liquor, in the two mugs Rich bought specifically for my visit, and watched Sherlock Holmes again. Then I fell asleep for ten hours.