I can smell the chocolate from here!

After my last post, Deanna and I set off to Belushi's. It is the pub/restaurant off the hostel's reception area. We grabbed a late night bite to eat and weren't really planning on doing much since it was such an exhausting day. There really wasn't too many people in there but a few memorable things happened.

First of all, there was a group of older gentlemen on my left who were real Londoners. Infact we really couldn't understand them that well. There were two guys about 32 and 28, a friend and their uncle. The uncle was hilarious cause he was so drunk and we couldn't understand him. He would introduce himself every five minutes. They then bought us 2 zambooka shots (YUCK) and it turns out that the two brothers own a pub just off the tower bridge called Ships a Ground. They invited us to visit it the next day but we never got around to it.

The second interesting thing resulted from me being dumb. I got a corona to drink and was trying to squeeze a lime into it and did such a terrible job that it fizzed all over and I had to catch it all. Well this attracted the attention of this table of French guys on our left. They laughed so I was like "You think that was funny do you?" in French and we all started talking. Deanna doesn't know French and I get so nervous in front of real French speakers but they told me my French was pretty good and I didn't have to ask them to repeat too many times.

Meanwhile this American guy I met the night before comes back and is like stalking me as I talk to these other guys. Finally he sends his friend over to say "My friend wants me to tell you that he fell in love with you at first site last night and he wants to dance with you."... Oh boy. Later on he comes over with this note written on a napkin that reads something like "Do you like me? Check one of the following: yes, no and maybe". So I add a box that says "you are in grade 7". And checked it off. Then Deanna and I booted it out of there to change and we went to a night club with the French boys.

Holy crap, it was 17 pounds to get in... That's right... 34 dollars! Deanna and I wanted to leave but the boys paid for us amidst our protest. I wish they hadn't cause it was awful. Stupid techno music and I don't even think the guys had fun. There was also tons of security because of all the stabbings in London. I think most people were drugged out, otherwise how could you dance to that music? Anyways, we lost the boys as we went to leave and basically ran home.

The next day we went to the Tower of London and paid the 16.50 pounds (ouch) to get in. We spent four hours there and saw the crown jewels (including the biggest diamond in the world) and pretty much wanted to kill people because they were so pushy etc. That pretty much ate up our whole day. Next came the best part of my whole trip so far.

We went down to the globe theatre and waited in line for someone to return their tickets. We lucked out and got sitting tickets at 27 pounds a pop and we got to see the Merry Wives of Windsor in Shakespeare's own theatre!!! It was hilarious. I didn't know the play before hand but I actually understood most of it.

Deanna and I also saw this guy playing a drum set under the bridge. The set was made out of bucks and cans and bottles. It was so cool!

We got back and went for a night cap with the rest of the group then went to bed.

The next morning we took the train from London to Brussels and another one to the town of Leuven to meet Roy's girlfriend. We are staying at her place here and it is so quaint and cute. We did a bit of walking around, shopping and ate at a local cafe. Hanne made us a dessert, kind of like Tiramisu and later hot dogs. She also had tons of food for us this morning for breakfast. She is too kind!

The rest of the gang has gone to Antwerpen today and Deanna and I are going to stroll about, and try out the best hot chocolate shop in town. It is much hotter here than in London and it was quite a trek with our packs from the train station to her place... I think I lost 5 pounds in sweat. Deanna and I did our laundry last night as well. We are all so very tired!

A funny story to leave you with.... as we all settled into bed last night, most of us on the concrete floor, Donny was snuggled into a hammock hanging from the roof. Not 2 minutes after we all said goodnight this huge crash erupted and Donny fell to the floor with a roof beam on top of him. He was ok so that made it funny ;) We all said it would happen. Tomorrow we are off to Amsterdam via Antwerpen!