London Nightlife!

As it is nearing the end of my first week in London (and also because this is me we're referring to!), I went out on the town with some dear friends! Friday night, Randi, Brittany, Kara, Sarah and I hopped on the Tube to Leicester Square, the home to London's vast and lively nightclub scene. We checked out a club, Metra, that seemed to be an interesting juxtaposition of glamarous and ghetto. While the cover charge and drink prices were outrageously high, the music was great, some of my friends met British boys and exchanged numbers, and I made my first two British friends, an attractive, fun, and rather obliterated couple, Katrina and Mustafi. I guess we're getting together later this week and probably checking out some other places so it'll definitely be action-packed to be sure!

The real hassle though with the nightlife scene in London is that where the clubs will stay open until 4 AM, the Tube (subway) closes at midnight! That leaves two solutions to the transportation dillemma: cabs and the Nightbus. We attempted to figure out the Nightbus back to our hotel last night, as you can use your Tube pass on the bus. However, the bus stops were poorly marked, and when we approached bus drivers to ask where our bus line was located, we received very confusing and conflicting instructions as to where it was! So, what should have taken a half hour on the Tube took us two hours by bus between finding the correct stop and waiting for the right bus to pick us up. However, this is part of the charm of figuring out transportation in foreign country, and seeing many Londoners still well-awake at 4 AM was quite fun!

Tonight we were approached by this club recruiter who gave us a deal at this three-level club called Oxygen. The cover charge and drink prices were A LOT more reasonable than Metra, and the music was even a bit better. After some good fun, we took a cab back to our hotel in lovely Bayswater, and settled in for a long day of moving into the flat!

Cheers!
Chris