UK Meetup, Winter '08

I woke up to a knock at my hotel door. It's Jenni and Craig (Jeeennnnniiiii and muffocation). They inform me that it's time to go. I ask if they're referring to the noon meeting for sushi. Nope. It's time for the 6pm BodyMod.org meetup. "Holy Shit!" I've been asleep for almost 20 hours. I guess my body needed some catch up sleep after being awake for 3 days =).

I needed to shower and change, so I told them that I would just meet them at the bar. They left me a map from the tube station and they left. Well crap. I was planing on going to the Dali exhibit and running around town this afternoon, so I guess that's not going to happen. Oh well.

I jumped in the shower, threw on some clothes and briskly walked to the tube station. By this time, I was pretty familiar with the underground, and knew of the station I was supposed to go to, Kings Cross. It was the same one I met Jenni and Shelli (sweetiehoneybab) at yesterday. To my delight, the line that ran to that station was closed for the weekend due to construction. I had to get on two different trains, and backtrack a couple stops to get there, but I eventually made it.

When I got above ground, I pulled out my trusty map and tried to make my way to the bar. The only problem was that the map wasn't lining up with the streets that were in front of me. Maybe I got out on the wrong side. Back through the station and out the other end, I pull out my map and check it. Nope, nuthin. Well, this isn't good.

There were a couple coppers (that's what they call 'em over there) hanging out front, so I showed them the map and asked them for directions. Apparently, I was waaaaay off. Wrong tube station. I was supposed to go to Charring Cross, not Kings Cross. Dammit.Back onto the tube. Now I had to go back the way I came and then get to another train to get to the Charring Cross station. By the time I got there, I'd spent a good hour underground playing around in the subway.

When I exited, my map fit with what was in front of me. Booyah! I made a couple turns and arrived at Jewel, the bar everyone from the site was meeting up at. I was about an hour and a half late. It's all good. I had to be fashionably late anyway. I'm the guest of honor, lol =).

The door guy didn't want to let me in right away. He was was a "list man". You know the type, "woah woah woah... are you on the list man?". Simple answer, "fuck if I know". This produces a frown from the "list man". Apparently, I needed to be on the list to get in. So I tell him that I'm there to meet up with a party of about 60+ people, and that I'm the guy they're all there to meet. It was a load of BS, but it's always fun to mess with them. He waved me in, but didn't turn that frown upside down.


Inside, I met up with everyone and grabbed a drink from the bar. I met a few new people that I didn't meet yesterday from the site and talked a little about this and that. Most of the girls were pretty shy, so I didn't get to talk to them much. They looked pretty in their dresses and gowns, but not too talkative. No worries though, I still had a blast =).

After my second cocktail, I was told that we were leaving to go out to dinner. Works for me, I hadn't eaten anything since the noodles from last night. We left the bar and headed around the corner to a pizza / italian place called "Zizzi". Obviously, they didn't have seating readily available for 12 people on a saturday night, so we plopped our names on a list and were tol