We're going on a bear hunt- I'm not scared!

London; the capital city of Great Britain, the cultural hub of the known universe, the place that people from all over the world come to live out dreams and fantasies is a fucking hole. A soulless purgatory of people hurrying up to get nowhere against a backdrop of paranoia and overcast skies. It's beautiful, don't get me wrong, it truly is a beautiful city, but the atmosphere of casual indifference is unbelievably claustrophobic. Maybe it was a lack of sleep on my part that made me feel like this, I don't know, I'm not a doctor.
There was one saving grace however. Dave and I dined in a little restaurant called Borgia (the namesake of a similar establishment in American Psycho) and witnessed the greatest battle of wills since Kennedy and Khrushchev.
The restaurant walls were adorned with huge ornate mirrors. At random intervals alabaster busts of nude women and cherubs stared at you with cold, dead eyes and no arms. It looked like the set of a Monty Python sketch. A man next to us took pictures as, in his words, "I couldn't describe this place to my friends, they wouldn't believe me."
The waiters had been told to adopt Italian accents; presumably to maintain a sense of authenticity that the food sadly lacked. While we were eating our questionable meals (Dave opting for a seafood dish in what can only be described as a "red" sauce and myself choosing a delightful beige dish) a woman stormed into the restaurant with the grim determination of a deaf woman trying to complain about not being able to make reservations. Her main gripe seemed to be that she attempted to make reservations earlier and was denied the privilege as the restaurant did not take reservations. There were tables available; nothing was stopping her from colonising one of the many tables with her band of merry men, but this did not make her happy. She wanted reservations. She proffered her argument in a way that only a deaf woman can; by shouting. She shouted alot. She shouted at the waiters, she shouted at the manager, she shouted at the customers and in her hilarious deaf accent she probably shouted at me. It was hard to keep up with the focus of her rage.
The waiter, whose admirable handling of the situation was reflected in his tip, tried to placate the woman by shouting back and telling her he was going to call the police. His Italian accent gave way to a much more natural cockney one each time he raised his voice.
To recap; we watched a deaf woman arguing with a man pretending to be Italian.
It saved an otherwise soul-destroying day.
Instead of sightseeing we adopted a different approach to exploring London. In a daring and handsome move we decided to buy an all day rail ticket and head towards anywhere we recognised. It was liberating and refreshing. The people of London were also surprisingly friendly, but I suppose in a city where you have to assume everyone is a nutter the only way to survive is to adopt an air of cautious politeness.

Right now we're in Luton airport.. Dave is listening to the new Hot Leg album and I'm contemplating my Nth coffee of the day. We're approaching our last few hours on British soil.
The laptop is running out of batteries, I should wrap this up.
We've said in every post that we'll miss people and that is still very much true. The next time you hear from us we'll probably be in Timisoara, although it still seems too surreal to be true.
We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

And so it goes.