Experiencing The Famous Sights, The Pubs And The Black Cabs – And Lorainne
Sometimes the best trips aren’t planned around landmarks or bucket lists. They’re planned around people. Mine began with a girl I met in a Los Angeles bar and a plane ticket to London.
Sometimes, you’ve got to take a chance.
That’s what I did when I booked a flight from Los Angeles to London. Just a few weeks earlier, I had met a girl – at a bar, go figure! – in L.A. I went out with her the next night and then she left, for she lived in London.
She invited me to go see her and since she was blonde and very good looking, I e-mailed her and told her I was coming to see her.
I had never been to London and did not know what to expect of the city or her. Heck, being used to the flakes of the Los Angeles South Bay Beach Cities, I half expected her to forget all about it and leave me stranded and alone in a big, new city.
With this in mind, I wanted a backup plan, so I talked to someone who had been to London several times and he told me to head to Piccadilly and look for a room in that area.
Lorainne told me she would meet me inside the airport, but when I arrived there was no Lorainne. So I just hung out for a few moments, being cool. And after a few minutes later she came up to me and gave me a hug.
Turns out she was watching me from a short distance away, testing me to see if I would panic if she were not there waiting on me. She actually said she would have left if I acted like a dweeb. “Hey, I’m way too cool for that,” I told her!
So off we went, and let me say I had a blast with Lorainne. She took me to a really cool pub called Waxy O’Connors. The front was just a bar but in the back was a large and tall room that looked like something out of the Knights Of The Round Table.
She also took me to a hilarious play put on by fellow Yanks who moved to London. It was called “The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare In 90 Minutes” and it has us laughing the entire time.
She also took me to several English pubs, so many that they were quickly a blur and I don’t remember the name of any of them. We went to so many because I wanted to go into an authentic English pub, but I could not quite explain to her what that might be like to me.
So everyone we went to she kept saying “is this one, is this one?” To which I replied, “well, not really.”
Now is a good time to point out that Lorainne was an Irish lass and could – if she wanted – even drink me under the table. (Yes, a blonde Irish girl, and with a nice California tan, too.)
Lorainne also put me in a black cab and that was a real blast. First of all, they look like staff cars for WWII generals. I pictured myself as Eisenhower being driven to an important invasion staff meeting.
The driver also made sudden turns, which continually thrust Lorainne and I into each other in the back seat. This I liked very much.
When Lorainne was off working during the day, at her suggestion I did the hop-on/hop-off bus (which doubled nicely as free transportation, she pointed out) and went to Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and several other tourists sites. As well as a to a few pubs on my own.
I had a blast, both in London and with Lorainne.
So you see, by taking a chance on Lorainne, I had a memorable, fantastic trip to London. The distance between us proved far too great to overcome to continue any relationship (and I do miss her from time to time) but I will always have a few glorious days and nights to remember because I made that trip.
And didn’t act like a dweeb when I arrived there.
Cheers!
The Nightlife Blogger is the bar columnist for PubClub.com, is an award-winning journalist and expert who has covered destinations, events and bars for more than two decades.
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