Weekend in London, again

So I managed to make it to London again. This marked my fourth trip to the city since the end of November (and probably marked my last visit, unfortunately) but the trip wasn't on a whim, rather, was planned in December. Much like my first visit to London I was making the weekend jaunt to see a concert on Friday night, play tourist on Saturday, and then head back on Sunday to Bonn but this time around I wasn't travelling alone. I left Bonn with Dave, a friend from Uni, and was meeting up with Samson who was wrapping up a giant European tour. Now I was a seasoned traveler to London and corrected the mistakes made in the past; instead of arriving into Stansted airport and buying a bus ticket on the spot at an egregious price, Dave and I bought train tickets a week in advance (and at great prices: for any so-to-be London travelers, check out the Stansted Express). Pluses from the train include timely departure and arrival, drop-off at the hub tube station in London, and speed. What I learned, painfully so, during my first trip to London in November was that the National Express bus from the airport to the city, although helpful, ran into huge traffic delays on a Friday afternoon, had no wifi for communication purposes, and created many headaches. It was all due to the bus in the first place that I almost missed the concert my first weekend there! But I digress. The train was great because it got Dave and I into the city right on time to connect with Samson before heading straight to the concert.

We three were staying in south London for the weekend at a friend of a friend's flat. Samson became 'mates' with one of the roomies during a previous trip to London and got us the hook-up for the weekend, which was super appreciated. Meadsy, thanks so much man! It ended up being a 5 minute walk from the concert venue which was crazy awesome. Dave and I reunited with Samson outside of the tube station, gave each other huge hugs and caught each other up on all of the crazy travels since the last time we had seen each other. That included Samson's trips to Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Torino, and south England, Dave's trips to Switzerland to ski and Ireland for St. Patty's, and my trip in South Africa and Namibia. So many side-splitting stories (mostly when Samson was storytelling) and great times.

Friday night we headed to the concert almost immediately after meeting up and had an absolutely fantastic time. We saw Flying Lotus in concert, which is a producer I've been wanting to see live since 2012, so this really was a dream come true. We strolled up to the venue around 8 pm, Samson and I sporting our banana costumes from Karneval and Dave sporting his chili pepper costume as well. Everybody loved us.

Let's goooooo! 

The place was sold out, and I mean to tell you, hundreds if not thousands of people there. Whether we were the chosen ones, or more likely because we were wearing outrageous outfits which everybody loved, we made our way all the way to the front row no problem and just took it all in. We danced a bunch ( I woke up the next morning with my abs sore??), sang along to the raps and lyrics, made friends with our neighbors, and just had one of the best concert experiences of all time. Once the encore had finished everyone started heading out, but we staked our spot in the front row, and sure enough Flying Lotus came out to greet the fans. Surreal!

"I shook hands with him! He likes the banana suit!"

Once the concert wrapped up we walked back to the flat, dumped the costumes, and headed out to Ronnie Scott's, London's best jazz club, for their "Very Late Show" which started at 1 am and ran through 3 am. That was out in Soho, and far away from south London, so we three hopped on the Boris bikes and biked through London. Really, it gets me every time. Those Boris bikes are always so much fun, especially with friends when you make a little "biker gang" and whip through the streets and in and out of taxis, city buses, pedestrians, and stop lights. It was about 30 or 40 minutes from A to B, but the whole time I'm leading the crew with my Google Maps pulled out, constantly checking the route. All of a sudden I look up to double check and THERE is Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey all lit up! Honestly we couldn't have planned it any better. Trying to navigate through the back streets of London on a Friday night, needing some reassurance of the route and there we go stumbling upon the most iconic aspects of the city. After that, all was well, we zipped over to the jazz club, docked the bikes at the station, and after a little persuasion from Samson to the doorman (who was "not impressed" with our attire), found a booth at the club and settled in. 

This show was killer! It reminded me how long it's been since I had seen good live jazz. I saw some in Cologne when I first arrived, but it wasn't the same kind of hard-bop, intense improvisation, energetic jazz I was spoiled with back in Louisiana. This show was the epitome of the great live music I gave up by leaving Louisiana for a year, but hey, at least I got to see this show. It was a quartet with a drummer that was just killing it on the solos. Great sense of timing and rhythm and a quiet but strong leader who gave the other players direction and structure.

They played some jazz fusion covers of Billy Cobham, Freddie Hubbard, and Herbie Hancock...I mean the set list was just great! After the concert we biked back home on a high from a night filled with great music and great company. We got back and I crashed, but not after receiving a congratulations from Samson for staying up until 5 am. Samson knew as well as anybody that I just can't (or couldn't) hang past midnight or 1 am, as evidenced through our nights at Karneval and my time spent in Nottingham. But I did it! I made it!

Saturday started off late, but by no means was dull. Although Samson and I had been to London several times, this was Dave's first visit. We rented the Boris bikes again, rode into the city, and tried to hit as many big attractions as we could in the few hours that we had. We biked across the Westminster Bridge to a view of an approaching Big Ben and Parliament (super touristy but necessary), hit Buckingham Palace, Regent's Park, and Hyde Park, Downing Street, rode our bikes through the roundabout at Charing Cross, and made our way to the British History Museum. We actually saw the Rosetta Stone. Again, the Rosetta Stone, there, 12 inches away from our faces. It was absolutely unbelievable to see it up close. Then the museum closed abruptly so we had to leave, but on to the next adventure, right? I had dinner reservations with Josh and Marta and had to peel, but Samson took Dave to Camden Town and killed a few hours there. 

Meeting up with Josh and Marta for the, seemingly, last time in the near future was weird. Weird in the sense that it finally hit me, the finality of a year abroad, coming to an end on July 30th. Up until this visit to London everything I had previously experienced wasn't so distant that it couldn't be experienced again. But having dinner with Josh and Marta signaled the numbering of the weeks, the hyper-organized structuring of my remaining weekends so that none go to waste. It was nice enough that they took time out of their studying for final exams at LSE to meet up with me though! We had a great dinner at Il Portico, a restaurant recommended to me by my London advisers in the Campbell family, with wine and dessert. We even met the owner James. All in all, a great send-off meal filled with conversation, laughs, and memory sharing.

Cheers!

After dinner I met back up with Samson and Dave where we were again going to Ronnie Scott's for round 2. One night of poppin' jazz just wasn't enough. The quartet swapped out the lead trumpet for a lead saxophone, changed the set list around, but still wowed the crowd. Another great night of jazz. When we got out of the club we were greeted with a stiff London rain and a 40 minute bike ride back. We biked back, in the rain and gusts of wind, but had the streets of London all to ourselves at 4 am. Cycling back at top speed with Samson yelling "LONDONNNNN, LONDONNNN, LONDONNNN" at the top of his lungs made us all crack up with laughter. Not to mention he was riding a defective Boris bike whose seat wouldn't raise, so Samson looked like he was riding a tike's bike whose knees kept hitting the handlebars. So jokes. 

We didn't get a lot of sleep that night due to early departure times but boarded our buses back home just fine the next morning. Dave and I boarded our 9.5 hour bus ride from London to Cologne, and luckily we both slept the majority of the ride home. We made it back to Bonn Sunday night, ready for class the next day. London: all in a weekend's work.