11/30/09 The Garage London

We wake up. We get in car. We drive straight to London. This is our longest drive of the tour, and when we tell peeps from the UK that we are driving ALL THE WAY from Newcastle to London, they go blank as a sheet. They tell us there's no way, that we can't make it, that it's JUST TOO FAR. People reading, fyi, it is a six hour drive. That's it, just six. I can handle it. Now Fargo to Seattle, THAT'S a drive. But I digress.

As far as the drive goes, I see why some English settlers just coming over to the new land hundreds of years ago came to settle in the Midwest- because instead of driving from Newcastle to London, I could have just as well've been making my way from the Twin Cities to Madison. The only differences were that I was on the left side of the road and you couldn’t stop every 50 miles for cheese curds. And there was no Wisconsin Dells to alert me that I was almost at my final destination for the day. Even the bathrooms along the way had a kinda Heartland feel:

So yeah, the drive was full of rolling hills and green. I was all worried earlier this week that the UK’s historic flooding the previous week would make traveling up north hell, but instead we just saw a couple flooded fields (today was actually our first time driving in the sunlight since Stonehenge). Not everything looked like the Midwest though:

London is nowhere near as heart-palpitating to drive through when there's light out. That's right UKers, I made the treacherous drive AND finished by 3 in the afternoon. Hoe bour them apples? And at the venue and it is already a party:

Balloons from the night b'fore still fill the 600 person venue, so we make the most of it. AND we get to hang out with our friends and tour-mates from the US- HarMar Superstar. We were actually so busy hanging out that we forget to take any pictures together. Ashton would be disgusted with us.

At some point BBE does an interview with a subsidiary of the BBC and someone calls in on Charlie's phone. She of course ends up an unwitting part of the interview. Zach loves it.

While HarMar is on stage, BBE dresses up like him and his band.

Then of course we bumrush the stage and sing the chorus of Tallboy with HarMar. T'Nealle ends up high enough on Denver's shoulders that she gets vertigo and falls off into me. Charlie has a seizure of glee. It's awesome. I'm sure there's pictures on the internet somewhere.

We end the night at the Lex. It's great to hang out with friends and get tags of love.

After a couple martinis, Charlie gets all band crushy on a Libertine member at the bar. In true fashion, a sign of affection is misread and Charlie almost gets punched. So, we decide it's time to start making our way back to where we're staying, The Walrus. But not without a pitstop. I got a picture of T'Nealle using her failsafe McLovin id to get booze. She's so happy!