so em came to visit me for a whirlwind weekend in london. sooo much fun was had. she got in to stansted from montpellier (flying the luxurious ryanair) at 10:00 thursday, and immediately realised, upon hitting the immigration checkpoint, that aside from my phone numbers, she had no other info.

immigration officer: “what’s the purpose of your visit?”

emily: ” i’m visiting a friend.”

i.o.: “where does your friend live?”

e: “ummm… i don’t know. somewhere in london.”

i.o.: “is your friend british?”

e: “no, she’s american.”

i.o. “is your friend a student?”

e: “no, she works.”

i.o.: “what does she do?”

e: “ummm… i don’t know. i know she doesn’t like it.”

all very fishy sounding, but finally they let her through, because well, she just has one of those believable faces and she’s tiny and cute. (if it had been *me*, i think we all know what the ending to *that* story would have been.) the stoopid stansted express was doing “engineering works”, so we raced to catch the last train, but missed it, decided “screw it, if it’s going to take hours anyway, at least we can get good’n lickered-up”, whereupon we had a much-needed drink at the very fashionable Stansted O’Neill’s Pub. em had her first (of many) stella artois. took positively ages to get home, but finally reached chez moi about 2 am, and crashed out.

unfortunately, i had to work friday, but snuck out early, and i *cooked* dinner for us. well, sort of. pre-prepared fish, couscous from a packet, and salad from a bag. tasty. em was sick with a cold and still really tired, so we went to a few local-ish pubs in clapham. missed meeting up with nick in balham, so after last call, we headed home.

saturday, we got up, had traditional british crumpets and not-so-traditionally-british dunkin’ donuts french vanilla coffee (dee-lish! thanks kate!), and went to hampstead heath, where emily was able to pay homage at the keats house, we sloshed through ankled deep mud along the foggy moors, and refreshed ourselves with some very fancy french pastry and “white coffee”. then we walked, and walked and walked to camden, browsed the markets, bought tacky junk and a fun shirt, hit a pub for some drinks, then decided to go eat. my infallible sense of direction provided us with a long and extremey circular walk around old street, then we went to soho for some yummy indian (de rigeur), went to the snooty “o bar” for a few cocktails, then “yo! below” for a few more cocktails, where there were lots of slutty looking pudgy british girls, no neck massages, and some tantalizingly hilarious karaoke which petered out abruptly.

sunday morning we headed for a lovely late breakfast/early lunch down at southbank, braved the hurricane winds of the thameswalk, then perused the sometimes-cool, sometimes-puzzling tate modern. suddenly it was time to go, so i dropped em at liverpool street station with 7 minutes to spare and we bid adieu.

the weather was crap (as to be expected) but i have now had opportunity to practice my hosting skills – we only got lost once, emily left my flat alive and only a little bit worse for the wear, so it looks like jen’s b & b is open for business and taking all future bookings… hint, hint

see what kind of crazy fun could be yours for the asking

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