Argos, O'Neill's and Stowford

So after crossing "the pond" (Atlantic Ocean, my piss-poor attempt at being clever), I was obviously exhausted.  I slept until 2pm on my first full day in London.  It was quite uneventful.  I literally just lounged around my friend's flat in Earls Court until it was feeding time.  I did do a few productive things: set-up this wonderful blog, looked for things to do in London, read sports articles and checked/responded to email.

Tangent: Okay, so my two friends live in London.  One lives in Earls Court/Kensington (the one I'm staying with for fours days in the beginning).  The other lives in Farringdon/Islinton (the one I'm staying with for two days at the end of this trip).  Their locations are completely different.  E.C. is like a wealthier part of town with loads of young professionals.  It's most similar to Wriglyeville or Lincoln Park in Chicago.  Everything is a town house, and there are tons of BMW's, Mercedes, etc. on the streets.  There's also this amazingly old church down the block from where this friend lives.  It looks so out of place with all the other updated buildings, but it's still beautiful.  The other friend lives in a more urban area.  They both definitely look European, but the other friend lives in an area filled with many more apartments/shops/pubs.  The architecture is more varied and more aesthetically pleasing.

Before dinner, my friend and I went to this store called "Argos".  It's the strangest store I've ever been too.  It's basically like an Ikea without any of the productions built and displayed throughout the store.  Let me explain.  You walk in and flip through a 2,000 page binder to find what you want.  You can get like anything there: bedding, clothing, jewellery (they spell it with two l's), appliances, electronics, etc. After deciding what you want, you dial the number into this box phone thing and see if it's in stock.  If it is, you write the code down on a grid.  Then you go pay for it and wait for a conveyor belt to deliver your items to you.  It was so creepy, yet efficient.  However, there is no impulsive buying.  You there get exactly what you need and that's it.  There are no tempting displays for some unnecessary shopping. At Argos, I got a huge duvet, pillows and towels for my stay in the flat.  Those seemingly small comforts were life-savers.

For dinner, my friend and I went to O'Neill's in E.C.  My friend described the fare as "pub food", but I wasn't really sure what that entailed.  It was my first MEAL in a pub, but this pub was also a chain.  It's kind of similar to an AppleBee's or TGI Friday's.  I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of stews and burgers on the menu.  There was the typical British dishes of "fish & chips" (chips = steak fries) and "bangers & mash" (sausage and mashed potatoes).  I didn't get either.  I decided to order the "Steak and Guinness Pie" (pictured below, my first attempt at spicing up this blog).

Inside that pastry puff thing was steak, onions and light brown gravy.   I guess a lot of the British meals are served with peas.  That sounds great to me, as I love peas.  The fries to right would be described as chips, and the dark brown gravy in the back is supposed to poured all over the pastry puff.  That gravy was made with Guinness (thus the "Guinness" within its title).  The meal was so friggin' good!  It was the first truly substantial thing I had eaten all day, and it was heavenly.  I came  in expecting the food to be bad, but my expectations were more than exceed.

After dinner, we took the Tube out to this little pub out by Euston Square.  It was called "Jeremy Bentham's", and it was famous for something.  I had the most tasty cider in the world their called Stowford something or other (it was the best of the four ciders I've had, and I need to figure out its name because I need to order it again sometime).  I should have just stuck with it, but I had to get fancy and tried an Old Rosie.  This cider was disgusting.  It tasted like vodka mixed with a cast iron pot.  It was not smooth or tasty!  It was just unnecessarily alcoholic.  Also, this pub had a bit of an older crowd.  There were a number of tables filled with older men in their 40's/50's, but again the pub only had a handful of tables.  Of course, like clockwork, this pub closed at 11pm.  It was probably good that the night ended there because we had to get up early the next morning to head to Oxford for our planned day trip.  After getting back to the flat, we booked our tickets to Oxford and went to bed.