London is brighter on the dark-side

So my second week-end in London turned out to be much more fun (and far seedier) than my first - and I have a whole new outlook on London Town now.

On Saturday night we wrapped up the sprint, and even had time to change before dinner - a first at any of the Canonical events I have been at (and why I ended up going clubbing in Montreal in an Ubuntu t-shirt, I was hoping I looked cool, but sadly I think I just looked lame and geeky). We then headed off to have dinner at Tartufo Restaurant in Soho. It was a nice, if not slightly cramped restaurant. I had Gnochi with mushrooms and a creamy blue cheese sauce, which was nice and tiramisu, also yummy.
Afterwards we walked the streets of London looking for a pub, but being after 11pm these were not that easy to come by, after a while and a bit of group confusion I split of with Jeff, Scott and Tollef in search of a suitable club instead. Scott being a local UKer knew the lay of the land and took us via the London Millennium Footbridge, where we saw lots of the London sights by night. Very pretty. I am glad I got to see it all. Big ben, Tower Bridge, The London Eye, Houses of Parliament, Canary Wharf etc.

After our London at midnight sightseeing tour. We were taken to Heaven , which according to the website is the most famous gay club in the world... It certainly had it's share of yummy boys. I think Scott was amused at watching me watching them ;P
It was rather pricey (in Rand terms) to get in, and cost 14GBP including coat check - that's over R150! I hadn't realised the evening was going to be so expensive and had only taken 30GBP along with me. Scott very kindly bought us a couple of drinks - which I will make up to him next time I see him.
We had a great time there and danced for several hours. The club itself was pretty impressive and I really liked it. I have the feeling that it would really ROCK if recreational substances were involved... I may just need to go back sometime and test that theory ;)

After experiencing a ride in a London taxi we ended up back at the hotel at about 3am. I got to sleep at about 4am after thoroughly convincing myself that there is NOTHING to watch on TV at the time. I got up again at 8am, because we had agreed to rendezvous in the lobby at 9am to leave, I had arranged to take my bags to the office (in South Kensington) where I could collect them again on the way to my flight.

It took a while to get the group out of the hotel. After consultation we discovered, and then all decided, that we could leave our bags at Paddington Station so we headed there. I can see how poor Paddington Bear got lost there!

I then tagged along to the office. Only after some time did I realise I really didn't need to be there and was just wasting time, so I said my farewells and left on my own and made my way to Camden Town.
W-O-W. Is how I would describe Camden. It pretty much blew me away. If you have never been to Camden, or worse never even heard of it, you can find out more about it here.

More in the next post...