fourhundredandthirtyeight.

Fastlane - Motion

Oh my lord. I've figured I'll review the Brand New gig seperate to this as I have lots I want to talk about and don't want a massive post.

So, I went to LONDON at the weekend for good times and a gig with Candice (HIYA). The journey to London on the train was pretty uneventful, I spent it listening to Say Anything on t'Pod and generally annoying Candice.

London Waterloo Station is gigantic. There are about six hundred train platforms and tube platforms and as soon as we arrived I felt completely overwhelmed by how BIG it all was. We had no clue as to what tube line or anything to get on so we asked Tube Man (some old chap near death sat at a desk) and were told the stuff we needed to know so headed off in the right direction.

Heading down into the Tube area was daunting. I'd never been on the tube before and Candice hadn't in a while so we were slightly worried what ticket we needed and stuff but after slight deliberation we sorted it out. I was still massively confused and didn't really know where we were going but followed Candice's lead. Once we got on the tube train I almost immediately understood. It's really quite simple and the colour coded maps and signs are a massive, massive help.


We arrived in Victoria (where our hotel was) and realised we didn't actually know where our hotel was, so, eventually, we asked an Irish lady in a shop who gave us directions. We made it to the hotel and after all the hoohah at reception with the foreign woman and not being able to use our key properly to open the room door, got into our room. It was an alright room. Bit small though and I couldn't fit on the bed without my feet dangling off the edge. Still, it served it's purpose of providing a place to sleep and leave our bags.

We decided to hot foot it to some shopping centre to find something to eat in the restaurants located here. We settled on Garfunkel's (pretty much because of the name) where we both had some form of chicken which was grand.

Then back to the room to get mooch about and then get ready to head to Brixton for the gig. We got the tube again and it was unbearably hot. We didn't know whereabouts in Brixton the gig venue was, so we followed the crowd of people with fringes, tight jeans and converse. The queue was massive and actually circled the venue, we queued for about an hour before we got inside and up to the balcony bit. GIG REVIEW ABOVE (I'll do it tomorrow). Needless to say, it was stunning. I got myself a Say Anything t-shirt with a pretty cool design (dinosaur stomping around a city).

After the gig we made our way back to the tube station to head back to the hotel. The Tube was the dictionary definition of HEAT. I was already sweaty and all hot from the gig but the tube was pretty much like an oven. Anyway, soon enough we got off and decided (in our slightly drunken states) that we were starving, so headed to the Burger King in the Victoria Train Station. We paid a tenner but the bloke ended up giving us about fifteen quids worth of food. Result! We quickly got back to our room and ate like kings. Burger Kings. We spent the rest of the night having an awesome chat about loads of stuff until we eventually nodded off on the tiny bed of woe.


We got up kinda early as we had to be out of our room by 11 and realised we had left our key in the door ALL NIGHT, hah. We decided to head to Leicester Square for the day to have a look around, get some food and maybe watch a film. So, off to the tube station again! We were getting the hang of all this tube malarky. We got off at Leicester Square Station and headed up into the streets. We found a sign telling us Leicester Square was down a road, so we followed it and ended up at Trafalgar Square! Turns out Leicester Square was just over the road from the tube station. Silly, The Sign. Anyway, we messed about at Trafalgar Square for a bit, with the fountains and taking pictures, and then headed to Leicester Square.


Now, at Leicester Square there are about 5 cinemas all, pretty much, in a row. Three or four of them are Odeon cinemas! Madness! We looked in a few to see what was on, we wanted to see Severance but it wasn't on in any of the cinemas until later when we were going to leave, so we opted to see Pulse. We bought our tickets (TWENTY SIX FUCKING QUID FOR TWO TICKETS. Scandalous!) and, as the film wasn't on for a few hours, went for some food in Pizza Hut.

Upon entering Pizza Hut, Candice took it open herself to throw herself to the floor (tripping over a step) which brought huge amounts of laughter from me. Actual tears.
Anyway, we sat down and the waiter (who I think was on crack or something) zoomed over to take our order and zoomed off again. He was fucking nuts. We ate fucking loads and Candice amazed me by eating an extra slice, hah. After Pizza Hut, feeling slightly queasy and high on cheese, we went and sat in Leicester Square park. We had mad laughs there drawing eyes on Candice's chin and taking photos of it upside down. Ah, immaturity.

I decided we should go for a walk, so we did. And found a HMV! I bought Dog Day Afternoon on DVD and The Shins - Oh, Inverted World! on CD. We then saw ANOTHER cinema, and lo and behold, it was showing Severance. We decided we'd go watch that after Pulse. We headed back to the other cinema and went to our screen to see Pulse. Which was utter tripe. Headed outside and had about half an hour to kill before Severance started, so we rode escalators with faces of amazement and sat outside the cinema being amazing. They finally let us in to see the film, so in we went. Up more escalators. How many escalators are there in London? We must've rode about four hundred and twenty nine.


Anyway, Severance was utter brilliance. Us brits know how to do horror SO right. It was quite funny too. Massively recommended.

After that, we trekked to the tube station again and headed for Waterloo to get our train home grabbing a bagel and baguette respectively before boarding our train and cussing the general public and their lack of manners. HOME. Then another ace late night chat before falling asleep. Good times.

Morning came and Candice had to go to work, so after lots of cuddling and a tearful goodbye, she was off. I had a few hours to kill before I had to leave for my train, so I went back to bed for a bit, then got up, tidied up and left. Got train home.

What a weekend.

Oh, I forgot to mention, for my birthday Candice bought me LOADS of CD's and surprised me with TWO MORE in London. Thank you for my presents and thank you for a literally flawless weekend lady. x

FIN

x