The Most Interesting Time

I was in London last night, and had the best time! Well, I guess the most interesting time.... My friend Ian and I nearly got caught in a riot/protest about the war in Palestine! We wanted to walk down Piccadilly Street, but saw literally hundreds of police arriving in vans, bikes, cars... We had no idea what was going on, but then a regular dude stopped us, and warned us not to keep going the way we were headed. He'd just been caught in the crowd, and said they were "really aggressive". Given the British tendency toward understatement (and 500 police massed nearby), it seemed that it must be pretty bad.
It's funny, usually when things are going down like that, there's a real sense of trouble. You can feel it in the air. But except for what we could see, we had no sense that there was anything bad going on. So we kept wanting to head over to check out the excitement, but then telling ourselves that would be REALLY stupid. To think of all the dangerous places I've travelled, but then I could find the most trouble in London???
So instead, we headed for Covent Garden and a drink. I chose this restaurant that looked really old and cool.... We had the MOST expensive cocktails I've ever had (10 pounds 50 pence plus 12% service charge = $22 CAD), but WOW, totally worth the huge cash.

Finished with dinner in the Admiral's local curry restaurant (incidentally, curry plus rice plus glass of wine cost less than the above cocktail!), and a long and pleasant chat with my mom.