At Jounrey's End

I find myself thinking that there's really nothing quite so depressing as the last day of vacation. I'm sitting here in an internet cafe with my luggage (had to check out of the hotel at 10 this morning) with nothing to do until I have to head to the airport. It's an absolutely glorious day in London. Not a cloud in the sky, warm...sigh.

Anyway, all maudlin self-pity aside, I had a fantastic trip. I met tons of cool folks and pretty much had a blast. My last couple of days in London (this is where I left off on the last post) I kept it pretty mellow. I'd done so much walking and site-seeing in the days before that I felt I had a well-deserved break coming (plus my feet were KILLING me!). I had found a pub the day before called the Queen's Head. It was very much a neighborhood pub with both friendly bartenders and clientelle. The other thing it had was this bar game called Buzztime - sort of an electronic trivia game. The game is a great way to pass the time although many of the questions were quite England-centric (I mean really, how am I supposed to know who Liverpool beat the first time they one the FA Cup or who was the first African cricketer to play in England??). It was fun none-the-less, and I got to chat to some very cool folks. Later that night, I went to a place called the Water Rats Theatre and watched a bunch of bands play. The bands ranged from spectacular to brutally bad, but it was a kick in the head to watch some live music.

The following Monday, I hopped on the train at King's Cross Station and headed up to Rotherham in Yorkshire. There I met Mark and Coreen, the first two of many from the music website I've been on for the past few years. Mark had generously offered up Coreen's sofa for me to sleep on for the week leading up top the Komodo Kommotion (my real reason for coming to England in the first place). Both are very gracious hosts, and I greatly appreciated thier hospitality. The funniest part of staying there is that, while I'm still pretty much on my work-week sleep schedule, i.e.: up at 6:00 am, Mark, being the vampire that he is, was not. Coreen, though initially a bit shocked at my early morning habits, handled it with relative aplomb. Mark basically had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the dawn's early light where he suffered flash burns on his vampiric skin ("Bloody 'Ell!! I'm Pink!!"). Mark, being the trooper that he is, soon adjusted...well...sort of adjusted. Anyway, we did some touristy stuff with Mark taking me to the Leeds Armory; a very cool museum full of weapons and armor and such. After that, I just had reached saturation point with museums, so Mark and I went back to Coreen's house and settled into what turned into two days of relaxing drunkeness in the backyard (I wanted to take Coreen's backyard with me when I left, but I couldn't fit it in my pack and probably would have raised some eyebrows going through customs).

The next post will be about our adventures at the Kommotion in Bellerby over the past weekend, but I need a smoke and something to drink.

THANK YOU MARK AND COREEN FOR THE GREAT TIME AND HOSPITALITY!!!