Third Day: Demonstrations, Along the Thames and the Glocester Arms

Today was more of a resting day because all the walking has kicked my ass, plus it was 25 degrees or colder and really windy. I slept in, made some eggs and toast, had some tea, watched some TV. It was great. As I was eating breakfast at around 10:30 with some other people in the common room, we hear a loud racket outside. We look and they're blocking off the street and unloading this ginormous TV screen from a semi-truck trailer while people were starting to gather. Apparently today was the Palestinians day to protest what Israel is doing. The demonstration went on all day and there ended up being at least 50,000 people involved if not more. All happening just about in front of where I live! GEEZ!

At around 3:00pm, Liz, Becca D, Mike, Jimmy, and Molly had to walk to the tube station to head over to Westminster to see Big Ben, the London Eye, etc etc. Well that meant we had to make our way through the crowd. When we walked in front of the big screen they were showing a Palestinian man giving a speech and bashing Americans. Great. We walked faster. Later that day while we were gone, protesters were throwing rocks and bricks at Starbucks and the surrounding businesses. Glad we missed that go down.

When we got to Westminster we just walked around, took some pictures and saw the sights. It was really too cold to do anything and knew we'd come back later so we didn't even bother going inside Westminster Abbey, etc. Then we headed back to Kensington.

Once back there the protestors had died down in front of our place and there were still tons of people around and bobby (cop) was injured and laying in a heat blanket surrounded by other cops directly in front of our window. Thought maybe it was a body bag at first...Anyway, we got inside and tried to figure out what to do that night.

The first plan was to go to Camden, but that was too far, especially if we were drunk. Then we decided to go to the Imperial College Pub with a good portion of the group, but our bartender friend Jack said half of Wisconsin was there. So that was a no go. We want to meet Brits, not people from Wisconsin of all places! The next decision was to head to a pub we saw in passing called the Glocester Arms. It was really nice inside and there was a great mix of crowd. Old, young, middle aged. It was pretty busy so we had to wait around for a table but in the mean time some of us has Snakebites (beer mixed with black currant, MMMMM!).

After a while we had found a table and Jeanette and I decided to go for a tequila shot. When we walked over to get the salt, a guy asked, "Starting on the shots already!?" Turns out his name is Amas (spelling?) and he was a really nice British guy that was actually involved in the demo earlier in the day. He was a peacekeeper between the protestors and the policemen. It was great fun talking to him, he had a shitload of stories, especially about the angsty 20 something anarchists who were the ones throwing shit at Starbucks. He brought us a chocolate rum type drink and we talked and then it was time to go. Liz, Mike, Jimmy and I decided we wanted to be a little more drunk so I bought two Stella Artois beers and we went home. That was followed by some TV watching and laughing at weird shit.

The End.