Esports and England

My first stop was in London to see none other than my friend Susan Kim aka lilsusie. Being the baller that I am London decided to have some fireworks for me as soon as I arrived.
+ Show Spoiler [fireworks] +
(It was actually their Remembrance Day similar to Veterans Day in the USA)
This is where I met up with Flicky, Frida from Gosu Gamers and her boyfriend Will. Flicky and Will are the quintessential American hating Brits...actually everything hating Brits ... and I fucking loved talking with them because I hate everything too!

After that we went out to a bar for Susie's classmate's 30th birthday party and that crew was so cool to hang out and chat with all night. Needless to say we drank the night away and it was a blast.
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The next day Susie and I went to do a little bit of sight seeing around London. The first place we stopped by was the open air markets of Camden. This place is...interesting to say the least. I think the best part about this area of London is the amount and variety of food that is available you can have almost any cuisine you can think of there and every booth is crammed right next to each other so they continually try to persuade you to buy from them and not their neighbors. We also watched these river tour boats go up and down a “hand operated” loch.
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After we left this area we took a while to admire a billboard which has become one of my favorite memories of the trip. STEEL PANTHER! (pay attention this comes back later in my tale)
+ Show Spoiler [Prepare yourself for this picture] +
From there we went off on a mystical journey down Oxford street to see all of the marvelous shopping centers and I even rode on a double-decker bus for the first time. I got to admire some of the christmas lights that were strung out along the streets.
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We also drove by Trafalgar Square and got to see the famous Lions there. I took a picture but the bus window had a lot of glare on it.
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I also had to take pictures with Big Ben unfortunately they all turned out awful so I'll share only the LEAST awful one.
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After that we proceeded to the final activity of the night. Going up on the London Eye. This thing is...quite possibly the coolest tourist attraction I've ever seen. It's actually somewhat pricey to go on it but I think it was worth it for the view you get.
+ Show Spoiler [The London Eye from the streets] +
+ Show Spoiler [Truly breath taking scenery] +

Now it's Monday, the day I leave London to go see the one and only ToT)MidiaN( out in his stomping ground ^.^ *FANBOY FACE GO* but there is a little bit of sight seeing left to do before I go. I still have to walk along the Themes and see the London Bridge Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. On top of that I wanted to go stroll through Tate Modern since it's free and I'm all cultured and shit .

First stop, London Bridge: Protip IT ISN'T COOL AT ALL IT'S JUST A BRIDGE
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Yup the placards are cooler than the actual bridge.

After that we kept walking down the river towards the Tower Bridge when I stumbled upon this lil' guy
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*refuses to make a “you sunk my battleship joke”*

Then we were there at the sickest bridge in the history of bridges. This thing is cooler than Michael Jackson in the 80s man. SRSLY
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Then we were off to go see some art. I've never really been a HUGE fan of modern art but I really liked my time there it wasn't all paint slung at a canvas haphazardly like I expected it to be. One room in particular had drawn my interest though and spawned an anecdote.
So I'm looking at this painting while Susie is wandering around behind me looking at other things.
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Then I hear Susie go into a fit of Laughter and I turn to my right to see whats up:
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I've literally never seen someone laughing so hard at anything I was afraid it might cause her to go into cardiac arrest. Then she pointed to my left and I turned around to see this
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I was a little confused at first then as she gasped for air she uttered Steel Panther and I ALSO went into a laughing fit.
After being stomped in some trivia game at Tate by Susie we went outside and took a picture together because we hadn't in 3 days o.O just for proof of my visit I guess.
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My only regret from my London visit was not going to see a play in this bad boy
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After that it was time to leave for MANsfield (the only place fitting enough for MidiaN to live IMO)
So I hopped on this BAMF train to take me to Newark all wiggly and jiggly I'm going to see this kid who's kind of a big deal in Starcraft (no one tell him I think he's good or anything don't want it going to his head).
So I get off the train and I'm waiting for Jamie to pick me up at the station and after around 5 minutes I start to get...concerned a bit, thinking he might be the worlds greatest troll, but then he shows up in his sick fucking Ford Focus (NOT SARCASTIC THOSE THINGS ARE SWEET IN THE UK) and I'm like zomg sweet. We did this like awkward turtle hug nice to see you thing then I threw my bags in the “boot” and we took off towards his house, all the while I'm telling his mom about myself and such. Did I mention I loved his car I'm pretty sure he knew it by the time I left...it had so much pep.

After we got back to his place and I admired his huge friggin house he introduced me to his brother, Lee, and we went out to a pub to eat and I got to talk about all the shitty things that America is known for with Lee. Then we played this Video Game Quiz machine thing at the pub. All I have to say about that is British trivia is actually COMPLETELY different than American...go figure.

After the Pub we went back to MidiaN's for the night and I experienced some...less than funny British comedy programs...they were awful, followed by some REALLY funny british comedy from one of my new favorite comedians Frankie Boyle.

The next day consisted of one baller ass time. I got this kid to start smurfing ICCUP and crushing nerds pretty hilariously. He played a game on the account lilsusie and some kid just randomly happened to have been at a TL meetup and started asking all of these questions about it to see if he was the real lilsusie. We had quite a laugh at his expense then at the end of the game as his corpse was being burned and pissed on(thats how I'd imagine he felt after the thrashing) he went “THIS IS FUCKING MIDIAN ISN'T IT?” and we both laughed about that quite a bit too. We also broke out the sticks for some PS3 action in which I flogged him in MvC3 and he Tiger Punched the shit out of me in SSF4 (I got my revenge playing Vega which made him rage quit and turn off the PS3).

Then we went out to a pool hall with his friend Chris who was extremely cynical but his cynicism was quite appreciated me, our humor was definitely on the same wave length and by the end of our pool hall experience he said I was his new best friend (I'd assume because my wit was far sharper than he'd expected from an American) coupled with the fact Jamie had just beaten him in pool.

We then went to grab some lunch and stopped by a Subway (the American embassy according to Mitch Hedberg). When asked what kind of cheese I wanted I asked them what was available and the girl said “Plain Peppered or Shredded”. THOSE ARE NOT FUCKING KINDS OF CHEESE so I went with plain, the actual type of cheeses they had for the record was American, Pepper-Jack, and Monterey Cheddar. Later that night he introduced me to Jim Beam's Red Stag and that shit is tasty but I think I prefer whiskey that puts hair on my chest. I drank it anyway ~_~ nomnom. I also finally managed to get MidiaN to start playing HoN after months of nagging him about it.

It's now the Wednesday of possibly the best week of my life and I pretty much don't want to leave at this point no matter how much MidiaN doesn't like the town he lives in. I started off the day with Mortal Kombat 4 which I had yet to play. The single player reminds me of playing through all those awful movies of the past. After many hours of gaming and tom foolery we go out to the Pub again this time I get to meet his friend Ste J. I really liked this guy he was very intelligent, well read and had an awful haircut. I also had him start the campaign to make Bag of Dicks a prominent curse in the UK. After that we headed back to the pool hall and I lost every game that day ~_~ I'm like D--- at pool
The rest of the night was filled with more booze and drunken gaming. This is the kind of vacation I really needed. Little did I know what the next night had in store.

So I'm on my last day/night at Jamie's place and to be honest the beginning of the day started out pretty normal just playing some games and such waiting for the night out that was in front of us. We end up picking up another one of his friends Jordan and we go to a pub to meet up with some more of his friends to start the night.
+ Show Spoiler [Christmas Lights in Mansfield :)] +
This time Jamie isn't driving and we're getting a cab back so WE GETTIN DRUNK YO. We get some food and a few drinks (Magners for me as much as possible thank you very much Strongbow was my backup plan)
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A little while after that some of Jamie's friends leave to go to some other Tosser filled bar and we stick around the pub for a bit and have a couple more rounds then we start feeling a bit mischievous so we leave the first pub of the night and wander around downtown Mansfield (not quite as big as London). This brings us to a club/bar called the Cheeky Monkey which is as MidiaN put it full of tossers. Jordan MidiaN and myself took this opportunity to do some shots and gtfo so I bought us all 3 shots (2 mint flavored things and 1 chocolate) right before we get them the bar tender asks if the one with glasses has ID (MidiaN) which for me was a nice surprise as I ALWAYS get carded but it's fucking hilarious because MidiaN is the oldest in the group and when he offers his ID the girl turns bright red and starts to apologize profusely. We slam our shots saying cheers to the night or something like that and get the hell out of the Cheeky Monkey (I like saying that for some reason). It's at this point where we start to move toward another bar.
+ Show Spoiler [this kind of sums up our night] +
We walk in this third place and grab MOAR alcohol and at this point I'm just way way way too drunk to be in a foreign country on my own. In fact I don't think I've ever been that drunk without vomiting or blacking out. We head up to the top level of this bar to look down on the underlings below us and make snide comments about all of these bar hopping tossers (which at this point we've been assimilated and choose to ignore it) and I start kind of dancing to the music by myself and MidiaN just looks at me like I'm a tard.
Eventually we leave that bar and head to ANOTHER club because fuckin A the night is young. Some douche bouncer turns us away because I have Adidas shoes on “trainers” is what the Brits call them so we head next door to a MUCH classier establishment. The minute we get in the door Jordan rushes over to this tall blonde woman to try and strike up a conversation. Unfortunately for him she's from Poland and speaks almost no English lololol poor guy. So we head over to the bar to get more drinks. I think this is when I realized how blasted I was because I recall drinking a pint of Guinness...like slamming it. I don't drink much beer and ESPECIALLY not stouts so it was the drunken light bulb popping up over my head. Meanwhile Jordan finds another girl over in the corner and he seems to be hitting it off then he calls me over and my “American Accent” steals the show. I tried to talk Jordan up to the girl but she'd have none of it then she asked me for my facebook and I was so drunk I gave her the wrong account info lol oh well. The girl then leaves and gets in a fight with what we're presuming was her boyfriend or something and Jordan and I hit the dance floor while Jamie drinks more and is being a Wall Flower. After some coaxing we FINALLY get Jamie to get out on the dance floor. Apparently this is rare like SUPER rare like according to himself he's only danced maybe 4 times in his life (probably exaggerating). Let me tell you something watching this kid dance is like tongue kissing Jesus. He's at least Olympic Rings PGT rank at dancing. I mean if I had those kind of dancing power and skills I'd probably not dance often either for fear of the number of people who would end up dead mostly due to orgasmic seizures from overloading the pleasure center of people's brains. Anyway we continue drinking for a while longer and dancing at the club then it starts to wind down. At this point we're pretty worn out and decide it's about time to call it a night. We flag down a cab and I strike up a conversation with this cabby asking him about his thoughts on Americans. Towards the end of the conversation I've decided for him that he hates all of us in a playful manner. Then Jordan turns to Jamie and says “Where are your glasses?”. None of us had realized he didn't have his glasses anymore and we just kind of laughed about it.

The next day was my last day in england and somewhat sad to be honest. We did some more lounging about before I had to be put on a bus to leave. I gave Jamie some money for new glasses (lolol) and said my goodbyes to his brother and dad then we drove out to the bus station to bring me back to London.
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It was quite sad to leave for me as I had just had one of the best weeks of my life. Not to mention it took around 37 hours of travel layovers and spending the night in the airport until I was finally back stateside at my apartment where I now type this.