fun night out! what started as a roomie date to the london eye and dinner turned into a spontaneous night of mayhem. haha. kathryn and i stopped at the internet café to get tickets to the london eye and the address of our restaurant only to find both were booked for the night so we headed off to the tube to find a fun stop to eat dinner at. we got of at picadilly circus where we stumbled upon that place of our favorite london past time—a casino. and quite a ritzie one at that! lucky thing we were dressed to the nines. we had to get registered with casino cards and be photographed by cameras- the whole shebang. the casino was beautiful with chandeliers and red furnishings. we tried to play roulette but somehow failed miserably at figuring out exactly what we were betting on so we switched to slots where much less strategy is required.

i put in 20 pounds and ended up winning 33. katryn spent about 50 pouns but won 83. needless to say we were ecstatic. i absolutely love being able to gambol here. [is the thrill in actually doing it or the fact that it would be illegal if i were home in the US?] we’ve come out on top every time too! so then we set out to celebrate our winnings and ate at a delicious hummus bar that was in my little tour of London guide book! i was psyched that we got to do something out of my book! it was the creamiest hummus with chicken, sundried tomatoes, green chilies, and lemon garlic sauce. that and a basket of warm pitas is the perfect celebration dinner. after the delicious dinner we wandered through little china to soho where the nightlife put Athens to shame several times over again. it’s extremely gay-friendly and the atmosphere was lively and fun. we hung out at bar 49 until we realized the tube would be closing down soon. not wanting to be stranded, we raced outside and flagged down a bicycle-carriage dude.

he took us on a near-death bike ride weaving all about with our screams only egging him on further. we rushed to the tube where we met a beautiful new zealand man who invited us back to his place. for some reason we declined. [we're still not really sure why or how that happened.] we were yelling our number to him as he tried to put it in his phone as the door of the tube literally closed on his head. maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

a little distressed from losing the new zealand dream-man, we set off to replace him immediately in order to heal our broken hearts. haha.

we walked into a pub to find the bar had just closed but met some austrailin guys there who took us down the street to the mango lounge [woot woot] where kathryn and i honored the phrase "dance the night away." we ended up back at their hotel bar talking and laughing until the sun began to rise. that was our exit cue and we wandered back to our flat, pumped to get up in a few hours for the stratford apon avon trip [highlights: it was beautiful, i got my hair cut, toured shakspeare's house, and saw an ab fab performance of the merchant of venice.]

whitney is in town!!!! hopefully i'll get to see her soon! maybe tonight...? and also meet up with some couchsurfers i've been talking to since before i left the US.

MY MOM, LITTLE BROTHER, AND KEATON ARE COMING IN TWO WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

gotta get back to work.
love katie