Day 51 - Another Late Night

This post is actually going up the day after. I got in last night at 2am.

It was another adventurous day to say the very least.

I went out to Tottingham Hale yesterday to meet a friend to go to Ikea. If you don't have an Ikea store near you and have never been before it's an interesting place to go so you should check it out. Basically it's a Scandinavian furniture store with accessories for the house as well. The store is full of cheap furniture designed for those with minimal living space in mind. It has quite a few neat items there and many many bizarre items there as well. You can check out their webpage if you'd like to see some of the sorts of stuff that they have for sale.

After Ikea we went to a little town called Wood Green where we grabbed some food at a Portuguese Restaurant called Nando's. The food is extremely good there. We had marinated olives, chicken pita w/pineapples, chips & spicy rice. It was really tasty albeit one super spicy little bit on my chicken wing actually made my nose start running. It was still pretty terrific. I would recommend the place to anyone looking for a good meal on a lowish budget in London.

After dinner it was time to head back to Central London. The train was 14 stops away from my destination. Somewhere on that ride I decided to bypass my house and go clear to the other side of London and play poker in Acton at The Western. If you're curious about the distance. Under the streets of the city. If you were driving there it would be 13.5 miles from one place to the other but the train takes you through the city so it takes even longer. Poker was a lot of fun. I ended up finishing the tournament in 6th place and basically just making back my buy in plus 5GBP, but the fun of it was that when I play I get a chance to socialize with the locals which is really the reason I like to play so much. Toward the final table I was seated next to a young Polish guy and we talked about Poland and he asked me questions about Florida and it was nice. He suggested that if I go to Poland for a weekender that I go to Krackow. Now I have to find a way to work that into my plans...What I really wish that I could do is just come back to the US a week or two later than I originally intended and travel around Europe a bit after school is over and before I head back to the US. I am definitely coming back to Europe now that I have been here. It's so cool.

After the poker tourney was over, I realized that I missed the train so I had to find my way back to London via the bus. The part that made me slightly nervous was when the bus for Park Royal ended and I had to find the bus to connect to Central London.
It was about 1am and the streets were darkish and the only folks out in the street (it wasn't super crowded out there in this neighborhood) were young folks who were drinking and hanging out and some iffy looking characters. A couple of guys tried to talk to me/hit on me but I just kept walking and pretended that I didn't hear them. It turned out to be cool though. The bus came and I took it to Oxford Circus and then walked the rest of the way home. There are many clubs on Oxford street so it is always crowded with party kids walking down the streets. I ended up meeting a friendly French kid who was walking near me on the streets and I talked with him for a couple of blocks and then I went to McDonalds which was full of drunks. Very interesting again. On the way out the door the African Security guard started hitting on me. Stuff like this really doesn't happen during the daytime so I don't know whether it's just that the friendly folks come out at night or that I was looking better than usual. Either way, it was funny.

Ok..so that's my long drawn out commentary on last night's adventures. Today I am supposed to go with Sowmya to tour the Palace. If they let you take photos inside I will have them here to post! We're also going to Harrods and this time I will take pictures there too!

Have a great day!
~Jenn