Traveling by the Seat of my Pants...

London was steller. For the most part the weather held out for when we where is the city. The hostel we (ben and I) stayed in was a shithole. The bunks where 3 High and only 6 feet long so when I layer down my head and feet just touched end of my bed. As well as someone shitting in one of the showers. When in London we went to the imperial war museum, the Tate modern, blues fest (that was held out in croyden), and a music festival called L.E.D held in Victoria park where I got to see 3.5 hours of Skrillex, Deadmau5, Nero, and DJ Fresh.

Let’s start with the museum. The imperial war museum was sweet an I did a shit ton of reading up on WWI and WWII. The Tate also blew me away I got to see a few John Heartfield’s up close and personal as well as some gorilla girls poster and more that I know I should remember but can’t. I love that for the most part every museum in London is free. This really helps bc everything is fuck all expensive.

Now we move our way onto blues fest and the how I got to see music. Friday we took the over ground out to Redhill and got dinner and a few pints with Fish then Ben, Fish, Krissy and myself took a cab over to the field and Set our tents up and proceeded to drink. In the first night alone I saw a piss drunk naked guy stumbling around looking for his cloths. Apparently after he got naked to go streaking his “friends” stole all this cloths so he was wondering around in a random sweatshirt holding his balls trying to get us to give them back. It took us a few minutes to explain to him that until he started taking to him we had no idea he was even naked and that if we see his cloths we would come find him (because the last thing I need is a naked dude trying to fight me for something I don’t have). I also saw a kid piss into the window of this own tent thinking it was someone else’s, this place was a complete shit show. Saturday we had a show to see so we left the feild around 2 and took the train into london. We saw an advertisement in the tube for this show and we bought tickets 20 minutes later. I have wanted to see live music this whole trip and being able to see 2 sets of Skrillex, DJ Fresh, Nero and Deadmau5 was well worth the the 42 quid for the ticket. The show ends around 10:30 and we are back at the field by 12:30. We hitchhiking our way back from the train station to the field and walked in on an under the sea fancy dress party. 250 piss drink Brits dressed I scuba suits and Hawaiian shirts was priceless. The weather the last day of blues fear was fucking miserable. It was like 40, raining and windy it was a typical early summer day in english. We end up leaving the field around 3 and heading back to a friend of a friends apartment where ben and I crashed that night. We spend the night watching chick flicks and eating pizza and I have to say I completely enjoyed myself. We caught a train to the station for an 8:10 flight and almost missed it through shit timing and general poor life desitions. London ended up being a bunch of fun but so expensive. should have saved the modern Europe for the beginning of the trip but screw it off to Amsterdam for 3 days. Goodbye pubs hello coffee shops!

Getting into the airport was fine we walked about 15 minutes in the wrong direction trying to find my checked bag then having to backtrack back to get it from the proper baggage pickup. It took us about 45 minutes to take the Metro from the airport to the hostel and we got in around 11 and met our roommates a few hardcore/goth from melborn. They went on the bar crawl and we went and got a tapus style meal and then went back to the hostel and went to bed.

The next day we woke up got a makeshift breakfast which was ok but shitty. We walked by a place that did breakfast and imeditaly regretted buying the shit we did. We ate our meal in the park where I fell asleep with my sunglasses on and got a fantastic raccoon burn, go me. The rest of the day was spent at the prado looking at sweet artwork and getting pregerasivly hotter under the collar from the sunburn. That night we went out with our goth roommate and there 2 Koreans they met at the pub crawl and got proper fall down drunk. And made plans to be up at 9 to go to Toledo in the am.

Toledo is a walled city about an hour from Madrid that was super pretty and sells the most edged weapons out of any place I have ever seen. Seriously every shop sold swords, axes, helmets, and every type of knife u could ever want. Walking around was great and we made a bunch of new friend out of it. That night was spent (surprise, surprise) sitting around the hostel and getting blasted. Having a great group of people to go out with makes traveling so much better. Paul and Jimmy (the goth guys) where the best they added such color (metaphorically not physically because they where goth kids and pretty pale), I knew as soon as I met them try where going to be the shit. We also met Okay and Ken the 2 Koreans, I now need to make I honest attempt to make it to Korean within the next 2 years. Okay (works for samsung making computer chips) and is by far and away one of the friendliest people I have ever met. There us also Chris from Melbourne and anaka from Germany that have been apart of our group all week. We where up till about 3:30 as it was Paul, jimmy, Ken and okay’s last night.

The next day was a blast we didn’t leave the hostel till 3:30 and I didnt get up till 1:30. Fish and chris got percings. Fish got an industrial and chris got his tragis done. It took every ounce of my will not to stretch my ears again. I love when drunk ideas become sober promises. We then tryed to go to a museum but it was closed so got some tapas and the later got more tapas from my favorite place in Spain. You buy 3.50€ beers and get a sloppy plate of food, and after 2 rounds ur completely full and in ur way to a cool buzz.

The next day we went and saw the plaice as well as a donated Egyptian temple, took another nap in a park this time without burning myself and bought a cheap watch because mine broke because it was also cheap. That night we got drunk with the fellowship (what we started calling our group) and met these 2 Callie chicks that got there’s laptops, cameras and wallets stolen from the hostel. I’m so glade I didnt travel with my laptop because if it got stolen I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. That was also the second night chris squatted in the hostel (he slept on out floor) we where having so much fun together that he stay 3 extra days.

The following morning we woke up at 9:30 and hit a flea market and I bought some sunglasses and we had a lovely family dinner and went out clubbing for a hot second (drunks where 2 for 15€ and I didn’t have any rhinestones on my shirt so I didn’t really fit in) then bought 32 beers off a guy on the street at 2:30 and where up drinking in the hostel till 5.

Monday was the day that the fellowship disbanded. Both Chris and Anaka left. Chris went on to a new place in Spain and Anaka went home to Germany. These 2 where some of the greatest people we met and the ones that we spent the most time with. It amazing how close you can get with people when u spend 12-18 hours a day for 6 days with someone traveling. After seeing them off fish, Brett (a guy from Callie we met 3 days ago who has an open ended ticket and a massive will to party) and I waited around till 7 so we could go to the modern art museum for free. I got to see Gornica and shit ton of Picaso’s and a few Dali’s but since it closed at 9 I didn’t get to see nearly as much of it as I wanted. That night I was Brett’s wing man as he hunted down a massive pack of British girls following them to a Spanish club and we dancing till around 5.

That lady’s and gentleman brings us up to today. We woke up at 12 to a crazed dog barking outside our window that not even ear buds could keep out. I almost threw a trashcan at it from 4 stories up by the time I got to the window it had stopped. We made an attempt to go back to the modern art museum but it is closed on tuesdays. Our next idea was to chill in the park but it started raining like crazy so we spent the day in a dunken coffee (which is branded the exactly the same as the dunken is back home) drinking an iced espresso late and playing crazy 8’s. I’m at the airport currently waiting for my flight to Gatwick where I’m gonna sleep on nick’s girlfriends floor and we get to meet up with ben (one of my best friends from home) in London tomorrow. Friday starts bluesfest a 3 day drinking tournament with a little lacrosse thrown in for a reason to get together. I hope all the drinking I’ve been doing in Madrid have prepared me for what’s coming this weekend. I think that because im not British I have a sever disadvantage ahead of me. I’m super pumped to get to see a bunch of the guys from Prague again with those guys it’s sure gonna be one crazy party.