Claire's 30th Birthday and Champagne Breakfast 20/2/3
Today's plan was to finally do some decent exploration of the city. I charged around Tokyo and screamed around Singapore to make the best use of my time. Since being in Oz though, i've taken things a lot easier, but feel like I haven't done much.
I was up and ready to go by about 10.30 when I saw Claire (who I met at Neighbours Night) and who said "Come down to the pub next door as Im having a Champagne Breakfast for my birthday".
Nice, I thought. I'll just have one then head off into the city.
By about midday I'd had a few glasses of champagne and a bacon sarnie and was still probably planning to do something at somepoint today as i'd only moved 10ft since this morning. At which point, they brought out the rich chocolate birthday cake which Tori made, and a tub of whipped cream.
By about 3 o'clock we'd drunk them out of all 12 bottles of champagne they'd ordered for us and most people wandered off for a drunken siesta.
I was totally let down by the girls from Benfleet (Tori and Nicola shame on you) and felt it my duty as a Romford Boy to keep the Essex end up and switched to Vodka Lemonade.
This was about 5pm.
(I will admit I had some lunch about 4ish. I had a chicken pastry with a coke, then a coffee afterwards. I'm striking an hour off my overall drinking time for being such a wuss)
This is Claire. Happy Birthday Bird.
Night fell and we spent another couple of hours in the bar, before moving onto 'Vinyl Lounge' down the road. It played pretty cool chill out house music but didn't have many people in it which killed any atmosphere. We left and went to 'Sunset' over the road instead where we stayed until about 2am. Sunset is a bit like Opium Lounge in Romford on a Thursday, and plays similar music which is good.
I asked for extra salt in my kebab on the 5 minute walk home as Ive been getting these cramps in my calf muscles in the middle of the night (it certainly isn't caused by exercise!!) I spoke to one of the girls earlier in the day who works as a physio in the UK. She said "drink plenty of fluids today and up your Sodium intake". Do you know what? I didn't get cramp that night.
***
To recap. We started at 11am in the bar next door to the hostel and then, effectively drunk right through until 2am, moving very little while doing it. For most of the day, a Samuel Johnson quote kept going through my head...
"As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy."
Johnson: Idler #1 (April 15, 1758)
I kept thinking of all the crappy days I had at work where I just bit my tongue and thought one day...