London Stag-Do

I hopped on the Eurostar this weekend for the 2.5 hour train ride to London for Bernhard's bachelor party. It was the first time I've traveled to another country for one night with the sole intent of getting exceedingly drunk. Even my runs to Montreal during college would last two nights (well, except for that time when Emu had the crap beat out of him -- literally! -- and we all got kicked out of our hotel and had to drive back home at 5 a.m. But none of that was intentional, and besides, it's not like Canada's really a different country. But I digress.) You can do these kinds of things when you live in Europe.

I can't quite describe my unexpected relief upon arriving at the Waterloo station into a cacophony of English. Generally, I consider it good advice to shy away from Americans abroad -- and even the English -- because my fellow countrymen tend to be unruly and lured-in by tourist traps. But after a few weeks of pointing at menus and muddling my way through pleasantries (Heather tells me that bonjour does not, under any circumstances, rhyme with car door), it was relaxing to know that I could walk up to almost anyone and just speak. Not that I had a lot to say to a thousand total strangers in a foreign train station. But still.

Another surprise: London didn't offer much of a relief from the heat. Paris has been on a serious sun bender for the last couple weeks. 90s every day. No a/c in the flat, and when you seek relief in a movie theater or museum or, um, a food court, you're more likely to get a warm breeze than the frosty cold that comes blowing out the doors of a Manhattan department store. Knowing a lot about dreary July days in San Francisco, I've always empathized with Londoners who complain about their summers. And I was rather looking forward to some of that fog. No such luck. 85 and humid when I arrived. I'd have to make do with the inner chill that came from oh, about 14 bottles of nice Portuguese rosé.

Bernhard's friend and former colleague, Jim, arranged the night for about a dozen of us. We met at a pub in Notting Hill and walked to a nearby "vegetarian unfriendly" restaurant with a two-item menu (they could have reduced it to one simple question: do you want meat?) and a dozen-page wine list. You don't order food, really. You just get a plate, fill it up with whatever vegetables and rice you need to build a foundation, and then the circling waiters continually carve various types of rotisseried animal flesh off their swords and onto your plate. Sausage, beef, lamb, pork and, among other things I couldn't recognize and so politely refused, chicken hearts.

The night ended back where it began, outside of the Notting Hill Bar with Bernhard and several other American expats railing to the polite locals about the inefficiencies of the English subway, the crookedness of Italian government, the self-righteousness of the French ... You know, the type of stuff everyone talks about in Europe. It was a thirtysomething-style bachelor party whose biggest crime was inducing a profound grogginesss the next day. Which was OK by me. Sometimes you just have to find your inner fog.