After getting in at around 4am the night before, we amazingly only slept until shortly after noon this day. Even more amazingly, I awoke with the tiniest of hangovers, and even that went away after a cup of strong tea! Awesome! However, both of us were simply starving. Time for some grub... even better - some all you can eat grub!

But it wasn't going to be that simple. The Tube strike was scheduled to run from noon the day before until noon today. By the time Lisa and I showered and dressed, it was around 1:35pm or so. We walked directly to the Bakerloo line station, only to find it still closed from the strike... Which seemed odd, as it was supposed to end at noon, right? Oh well. Since the Edgeware Road Bakerloo station is located in a different location than the main Edgware Road Tube station (see? the map lies!), I made the executive decision to walk eastwards to see if we could find Baker Street or some other station. And after walking ten blocks or so, it seemed as if I was leading us to nowhere. Magellan I'm not, OK? We turned around to go back towards the main Edgware Road station, only to find that the Bakerloo line was now open.

Which was great, except that the Bakerloo station is one of those tiny Tube stations that uses lifts (elevators) to go from street level down to where the trains are. The station has stairs, but there are 137 steps to those stairs, and a sign next to the staircase suggests that you use them only in an emergency. Why am I telling you this? Because sirens were going off on both of the lifts! Within seconds of our reaching the lifts, a London Underground employee stepped around us, opened a panel in the wall and pressed a few buttons. The siren on one of the lifts got louder as it approached us. The lift door opened, and the LU guy looked at us and said "well, you can try it", but - quite frankly - he didn't seem too enthusiastic about our chances.

Luckily, nothing happened. Our ride in the lift down to the platform was uneventful, and so my dreams of suing London Underground for five million pounds and one of those spiffy blue conductor hats went down the drain. Heh - that's kind of funny! Imagine one of those deadly serious barristers in a crown court, mustering all the decorum he can:

"My Lords, my client suffered terrible mental anguish after being stuck in a lift at the Edgware Road station and he demands compensation in the amount of five million pounds sterling... oh and yes, one of those blue London Underground conductor's hats as well."

Our good luck was to be short lived though... As a result of either the Tube strike (or last night's London-wide party), the Piccadilly Circus station was closed. Which meant that we had to get off at Oxford Circus and walk 35 miles to our destination:

I've gotta tell you a little bit about Mr Wu's, 'cos it was pretty damn funny.

First of all, the size of this place was something else. You've been in an average American apartment, right? I'm not talking about some 5,000 square foot loft or penthouse dealie... just an average 1100 square foot, 2-bedroom American apartment, OK? You know how big the bedrooms are in those apartments? Imagine cramming 20 tables and a small buffet line into one of those and you've got Mr. Wu's. The place was tiny! Going from your table to the buffet line required the sort of grace normally had only by the finest ballet dancers.

And Mr. Wu's was filled with people from all over the planet. The first time I was in line, I was unfortunate enough to get stuck behind the two slowest German women on the planet. They had to stop and discuss each individual dish, Ebert and Roper-style. There was curried chicken, a sort of "Mongolian Beef" style dish, sweet and sour chicken, lo-mein, fried rice, egg rolls, a soup and a couple of other dishes (including chips of all things). The slow-ass German women finally got to the end of the line... and then I saw the damnedest thing ever: one of the German ladies took a ladle-full of sweet and sour sauce (which was to the side of the actual chicken) and poured it all over everything on her plate! Yep, her curried chicken, Mongolian beef and lo-mein were now covered in sweet and sour sauce. And before my jaw could hit the floor, she got another ladle and dowsed her plate yet again! By this point, she had 13 ounces of food and 25 ounces of sweet and sour sauce on her plate! Blech!

But wait - there's more! The second time I was in line, I was behind two guys speaking some type of Germanic-style language. Maybe they were Dutch or Danish, I dunno. But they weren't German, that much I can tell you. What these people did was to carefully layer everything on their plate. They started with a base of fried rice, then on top of that they carefully put a layer of lo-mein. As they stopped at each main dish, they carefully added yet another layer of food until by the end of the line they had some sort of hellish "7 Layer Chinese Dip" thing going on. My eye followed them back to their table and yep... they ate their food like that, just digging in as if it were all the same.

The Brits fared somewhat better, although half of them seemed to put their rice on the side as if it were just another side item at a buffet. In the end, it was mainly the Asians and Americans that ate their Chinese the "right" way. It was rather amusing, to be honest.

What's not amusing is the way English restaurants handle drinks. There are no free refills in the UK, folks. When the menu says "Coke: £1.30", that means every glass of Coke costs you £1.30. And only fast food restaurants have fountain drinks; most restaurants just bring you a can of soda - or, in the case of Mr. Wu's, they just open a 2-liter bottle and pour you a glass - with no ice, naturally.

Now hopefully your drink will be Diet Coke, but it can just as easily be "Coke Light" from one of those satellite countries of the former Soviet Union. Yeah, that's something else they do: apparently the exchange rate is so good between the UK and say, Belarus or the Republic of Georgia that people can apparently make money by driving a truck all the way there, loading up on soft drinks and returning home and selling them to restaurants. And it must be cheap to do, 'cos almost every takeaway place has "Coke Light" instead of "Diet Coke". What a wonderful world!

*     *     *

After getting completely stuffed at Mr. Wu's, I went across the street to buy a Diet Coke. After all, there's no sense in giving Mr. Wu another £1.30 for a glass of lukewarm Diet Coke if there's a store across the street selling ice cold 500ml bottles for 99p, is there?

Lisa and I decided to walk off the Mr. Wu's, this time heading in the direction of Theatreland. It was on one of those streets that Lisa saw one of those little cars she loves so much:

I dunno what it is about those cars. Maybe she's so used to her huge Jeep Cherokees that she finds these tiny cars so amusing. Maybe she likes cars because they are so small that she can pick one up by herself. I have no idea, but it was so sweet hearing her get all excited every time one of those little deathboxes drove by. I love making that girl laugh, so every time we saw one I'd do my best "Poindexter" voice (imagine Mort Goldman from Family Guy, only more pathetic):

"Beep! Beep! Excuse me, sir, may I please get over, sir? Pllllllleeeeeeaaaaaaaseeeee?"

We kept on walking around Charing Cross Road. Lisa stopped at a gak shack to check out the scarves they were offering. This particular gak shack was located next door to a sex shop, and next door to the sex shop I saw some... interesting flyers whilst waiting for the missus:

Classy!

Which reminds me of something Lisa and I noticed a couple of days earlier whilst walking around Soho. You see, they have tons of strip clubs in that part of town. And I guess because of so many tourists wandering around (or so much competition) the owners of these bars like to put girls in the doorways to entice the customers in. But there are just a few teeny, tiny problems with their implementation. First of all, almost every single one of the girls Lisa and I saw were simply unattractive. They weren't hideous or anything, but they were a long, long way from being mistaken for Rachel Weisz, Helen Baxendale, Elizabeth Hurley, Kate Moss or any of the hundreds of attractive English actresses and models you might be familiar with. But that's not so bad, right? After all, with the exception of the upscale "gentlemen's clubs", most of the girls at American strip clubs aren't anything to write home about, either, right? So who cares if they're not so attractive, so long as they're dressed all sexy-like, right? Well, no. For the most part, these girls were dressed in plain ol' street clothes. I even remember one girl dressed in jeans and a powder blue "midriff exposing" shirt... with her belly hanging over the top of her jeans. But that shouldn't matter, right? After all, the sexiest part of the body is the brain, right? Even if she's not the prettiest girl in the world, and even if she's dressed more like Victoria Station than Victoria's Secret, she can still be sexy, no? Wrong again, Jose. Most of these girls just stood silently in the doorways of the clubs all glassy-eyed, as if they were waiting in line at the DMV or the post office instead of trying to get punters in the place. And it wasn't that sad, "stripper that just got into it to pay for college and now she's addicted to coke" kind of glassy-eyed, either. It was just boredom on their faces. And just to put a fine point on the Ironymeter, most of these girls were standing in front of beautiful pictures of gorgeous models, too... as in "professional-quality black and white photos taken by a real professional photographer with a real model taken in a real studio". The girls in the photographs were far too pretty to ever have to lower themselves to stripping for a living. Maybe the girls at the clubs have stared at those beautiful pictures for so long they just can't take it any more. I dunno, but it was both funny and tragic at the same time.

OK, so at this point we're both tired of walking and our bellies are rumbly with "Mr. Wu's Revenge". We both decided to go back to the room and start packing... which we did. This was no fun, as our suitcases - which were chock-full on the way over - were now literally busting at this point! No matter, it was all done. And when it was done - a couple of hours later - Lisa and I decided to head back to Star Kebab House for one last meal in heaven. I got one of Star Kebab's glorious doner kebabs. Being American it's always funny ordering a "doner kebab". It's pronounced "donner". This makes me think of not only the Donner Party, but makes me wonder exactly what kind of meat it is that I'm eating here. "Josiah, is that you?"

Anyway, after the kebab stand, we went to the nearby Internet café so that Lisa could call her Dad and I could check out the football scores. STEELERS WIN! Woo-hoo! I also tried calling my parents but again they weren't home. My family doesn't care about me!

Lastly, I stopped at my favorite little corner shop next to the Earl's Court station to buy some drinks. I still hadn't emailed my friend Holly's postcard, so I asked if they had stamps:

"Do you guys sell stamps?"
"Yeah. How many do you need?"
"Just one please."
"We only sell them in books of four..."
"OK, I'll take one."
"But we only sell them in books."
"OK, I'll take one."
"But I can only sell you a book, not just one!"
"OK, I'll take one!"
"You don't get it... We only sell them in books!"
"OK, I'll take one book."

Sheesh! Maybe it is time to go home!

There's not much more to comment on about today, except that once we got back to the room I decided to eat the "cannabis lolly" I picked up a couple of nights ago at a head shop. Before you go all judgmental on me, I wasn't the one that wanted to stop there. Lisa saw some cool cigarette cases in the shop's window and thought she might pick a couple up as gifts for friends. As it turned out, they cost a little more than she wanted to spend - as was just about everything in this shop! The guy working there reminded me of Apu: "One pack of matches? £5.50, please!" Anyway, while she was checking out the cigarette cases I busied myself  by checking out the other stuff the store had to offer: incense, edible underwear, "love cream", thongs with the Union Jack on them... and other classy stuff like that. I ended up buying some Nag Champa incense and an ash catcher, as well as one of those cannabis suckers the city of Chicago is trying to ban.

How did it taste?

*     *     *

We woke up around 7:30am. Both of us... even me! We showered and dressed, and I pounded a cup of tea before we headed downstairs to check out. This was (thankfully) a painless process. Lisa and I had expected some interference from the front desk, as the room had one of those mini-fridges that charges your room whenever you remove something from it. We had used it for a day or two for drinks and leftovers before figuring out that it was charging us for stuff we weren't eating or drinking, and as a result there were a crapload of minibar charges on our bill. Thankfully, the front desk removed all the charges without complaint and we were on our way!

Down into the Tube station we went, lugging 75 pounds of luggage each with us. Last night I had had the foresight to ask an Underground employee which rail station was better for catching the Thameslink back to Gatwick. We came in through the King's Cross station, which was a twelve mile walk up and down stairs and underground tunnels... I was hoping that the Farringdon tube station would be easier to negotiate... and it was! Just one flight of steps up and one flight of steps down! THANK YOU, JESUS! Seriously - THANK YOU, JESUS! I don't think we could have dealt with King's Cross again!

The ride back to Gatwick was uneventful, as was checking in. Going through security was fairly interesting, as they apparently don't care about cigarette lighters on your person but they won't let you through with an open beverage. WTF?!? I had to pound a Diet Coke I had saved from the night before before going through the security line.

After we went through the security line, all the "fun" of the trip ended. We were treated like cattle from that moment forward. It was simply amazing to see the difference in how U.S. Air's staff treated us now that we were coach passengers instead of first class ones. Instead of "Yes, Mr. Cofer, we'll be boarding shortly, sir" we now got "Hey, just shut up and get on the plane, OK?" Well, not really. But it's not that far off from what really happened. The seats were tiny, the food was vile and the flight crew in coach seemed as bitter as a barista with a PhD in philosophy working at a Starbucks. Thankfully the flight was pretty smooth and I had my Archos player, so I was reasonably content (see the latest update to my Archos review to see how it did on the trip).

The landing was amazing. All you could see out the window was grey sky, grey sky, grey sky... and then we were suddenly 100 feet off the ground and over the end of the runway. The back wheels hit smoothly and the front wheels hit so smoothly that I never even felt them hit the ground! Nice!

Aside from some long lines, the trips through Immigration and Customs were uneventful. Lisa had made the executive decision to take a taxi instead of asking her friend Bette from work to give us a ride, but when she called the showroom to tell Bette not to come, Lisa found out that she was already on her way. Which was nice in a way, 'cos those two talked up a storm on the way home. It's strange how close they are. On one hand, they're not "friends" at all. They don't do things together on the weekends or go to the movies with each other or anything. But on the other hand, they're just so close... It was nice seeing two buddies get back together again. I mostly just sat in the back seat and listened to them talk.

Home at last! I gave Lisa the house key I had been holding onto for safekeeping... but she couldn't seem to fit it into the lock! She asked me to have a go with it, but when she handed it to me I noticed those ominous words stamped on the side of the key: "DO NOT DUPLICATE". Lisa had given me her work key! Our house keys were locked inside the house! She called her dad, hoping he might have a spare key at his house, which is only a couple of miles away. As luck would have it, he had the spare key on him, and he was working in south Georgia at the moment, hundreds of miles away!

Luckily our neighbor had just gotten home. She hooked us up with a phone book, and a locksmith local to the Belmont area was on his way in no time. He said it would be "thirty minutes to an hour" but he was thankfully there in around twenty minutes. Which was good, as Lisa was about to bust a gut because our little kitty was on top of the refrigerator laughing at us. Of course, the locksmith had the door open in less than a minute, and Lisa happily paid his bill... I always call locksmith bills "dumbass charges", 'cos you always feel like a dumbass calling him in the first place.

Lisa was so apologetic about the key, but it didn't matter. We were inside now and we were home. Both of the kitties were safe and all of our stuff was still there. Our blessed shower was waiting for us to wash the "coach funk" off of us, the HDTV was there waiting to entertain us and the big, comfy bed was waiting for us to put our heads upon its pillows and drift off into sleep.

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