I woke up to an empty hostel room the morning I was leaving Amsterdam. I found a place that made cheap crepes used up the rest of my euros and headed over to the train station on the way to the airport. Next stop was London.
I had planned to meet up with the guys I met in Ibiza and we were going to do a weekend in London and see what it had to offer.
Luke picked me up form the airport and we went to meet the other guys for dinner. The plan that night was to go to Fabric. I’d heard stories about this place on my travels and heard that it was a must see.
We pre gamed at Jon’s flat which was an amazing set up. All of us are more into the music than anything so we tended to head to the clubs earlier than later. Arrived at Fabric at 10pm left it at 6am when it closed. Upon enetering the club you think your walking down to the deepest tube station. The atmosphere was dark and so was the music. I can’t really describe it in words, as it was nothing like dubstep and nothing like house. The combination of the two with really dark eerie melodies, along with heavy heavy bass lines. It was such a change from everything I’ve ever heard and yet there were a couple thousand people raging to it.
The next day we hung out planned to go to Annie Mac at Koko until I found her twitter and realized the show was sold out. We were all pretty gutted as we had our minds set on going there. We toured around Brick lane that night just to check it out. It got to 11pm and we decided to head back to Fabric as it was a tech house night so it would’ve been a bit different than the night before. Entering the crowd the music was a bit more uplifting but still so under-ground. I hadn’t heard anything like it. The cool thing about Fabric is there are different 3 different rooms, balconies and lounge areas. The other cool thing about it is that the building is over 800 years old and used to be an old meat market. If you look up the Smithfield Meat market you will see that plenty of animals and meat have made it’s way through this place. I think it added to that eerie dark feeling you got when you were in there. It accompanied the music perfectly. We didn’t leave that place until 8am slept most of the next day and it was off to Essex for me with Luke.
I decided to head to the coast with Luke just to see a part of the UK that many people don’t see. We met up with two other friends from Ibiza and just watched a movie. The next day went shopping around Clacton-on-sea and Coldchester.
I caught the 9:30pm train back to Liverpool St. and headed Heather Bijmans. I stayed with her for the last 4 nights in London. It was great because she lived in Camden Town. There’s always stuff going on there and the tube station was right by there. That was low-key as I was able to sleep in and go to bed at a reasonable hour. We went out for drinks and dinner for three nights and she brought me to a few art galleries.
Thursday night was my last day/night overseas. It had definitely hit me and I started feeling like I didn’t want to go home. That day we went shopping and met up with my buddy Reon who I’d met in Nice. We all parted ways in the afternoon and I’d met back up with Daniella and Vicky for dinner and drinks. It was such a cool feeling hanging out with them as the last time I saw them together was 6 years ago on a cruise. We’d all caught up on the last 6 years of our lives and that was it.
The morning before I left headed into Camden town one last time saw Vicky’s friend Alex at his shop called Speedball. Picked up a Rebel Eight shirt. Bought a piece of art from a street vendor from the famous artist Bansky.
I got on the tube and 26 stops later I was at Heathrow. Flew Air Canada again and had three seats to myself. I watched 3 movies and got cut off from the free alcohol. Same deal on the flight from Montreal to Toronto.
This trip was one hell of an experience and I didn’t think doing it alone would be that much fun. I met so many amazing people who I plan to stay in contact with and hopefully meet up with somewhere down the road.
It’s day 16 into my trip and I’m in Valencia.
Let’s go back to the start. I spent my last weekend in Toronto partied and went to Labour of Love. Monday Sept. 5th and Tuesday got to lay around all day and recoup before my Tuesday afternoon flight. I flew out of Toronto City Airport as it was just a walk away.
I get sent off by the lovely Jodi Taylor, walk through security and wave goodbye! Security is a breeze and I walk down to the lounge where I grab an orange juice and a water on the house turn on my laptop and enjoy the free WiFi. It’s time to leave and we’re on a small Air Canada Tango plane but there’s like 10 people on it. I’m in the back and I turn my iPod on and enjoy two free Heni’s and two bags of chips. It’s a short flight and now I’m in Montreal. I make it to my next gate in no time. Being a bit buzzed I buy six pieces of sushi and a Sapporo for $20 – the worst. I wait around for two hours and it’s go time. The flight is packed but that’s ok. I’ve got an isle seat and well I don’t remember taking off because I passed out. I wake up just in time for dinner. Throw on a movie and eat. By the end of the movie I was ready for bed again. I wake up and we’ve done two circles about Heathrow airport as we we’re too early to land.
Touch down in Heathrow. I walk out of the plain to the biggest custom line ever. The lady asked me nothing and I find my bag already of the carousel as the custom line took over an hour. Reality hits and now I need to figure out how to use public transit. I get some help from Brittany hop on the Heathrow express. I make it to the London train station, at this point I’m pretty hungry. I try and order a bagel from the bagel stand and of course they take pounds and not euros. I try my Visa, debit and American Express card and nothing works. Defeated I have to keep going. I hop on the tube (The Underground) subway. No clue how it works I ask the desk and they point to where I have to go. This is in the morning so it’s super busy and everyones going to work. I’m carrying a luggage and a back pack. I finally make it to my destination and find Brittany and her boyfriend Greg. We hit up a breakfast place and get acquainted.
I pull out my Visa and wonder why it’s not working here. I realize that it’s my cousin John’s Visa. Just great. I text him to get it shipped to where I’d be staying in a couple days. Finally sorted that out and it was in the mail.
We got on the train after breakfast and headed to Cambridge where Brittany and Greg live. I checked into a hostel to a room where there were already 5 other guys. I didn’t get to meet any of them as I took a nap then went out for beers and fish and chips! Didn’t get back until pretty late that night as we traveled around to a few different pubs and bars trying out some new beers and ciders. Woke up the next day around 10am as I needed to check out of the hostel. No hot water so no shower. Went for breakfast then Greg was kind enough to take us on a punt. This is similar to Venice where they take you on the gondolas except he was showing us al the old universities along the canal. Very cool!
The after noon came and it was time for us to part ways. I made my journey up to Northwood, Middlesex. I stayed with friends that I had met on a cruise when I was 18. Vicky who lives with her brother Danny kindly let me stay with them for 6 nights. I had a massive room fresh towels and we made some delicious meals. We didn’t get up to too much while I was there because I still didn’t have my Visa and it’s pretty far to tube into town. We made the best of it and went to Camden town a few days/nights. Vicky and a few friends took me out to some pubs and it was nice to just hang out with new friends! I saw the touristy things like Big Ben and Buckingham Palace but you can see those on Google anyways. It was good catching up with Vicky and of course my Visa didn’t arrive on the Monday I had to leave for Ibiza so again I left without it. It ended up arriving at Vicky’s place for 12pm, useless at this point she’d just have to forward it again to my hotel in Ibiza. I had to get a cab to the tube, tube to the train station then from the train station train to Stansted airport.
The line in Stansted are huge and I’m running on 2 hours of sleep here. Make it past the check in bag only a couple pounds heavy but the lady let’s me off. I’ve never flown Ryan Air before but it all seemed so sketchy. Walking on the plane was a free for all as there was no assigned seating and everyone is just wants to start pounding drinks back. I immediately pass out with my headphones on and I’m awoken by the sound of cheering and yelling. Touchdown Ibiza, here we go.
I’ll write Ibiza in a separate post.