Archive for January, 2008

I am finally starting to recover from all the partying and sleepless nights during my short visit to London for CAP Euro.  All I can say is WOW, what a trip!  I had an amazing time meeting up with some familiar faces, along with some new ones, but enough of that, I am sure everyone is eager to learn what happened on the trip.

Wednesday, January 23th, 2008

I meet up with JohnG, winner of the PAP Contest (see his report here) and head over to the airport where we meet up with Kyle.  2 hours later, we are on our way to London!  Some old Indian dude seems to fall in love with Kyle and keeps staring at him on our flight.  About an hour later he switches seats with his mother who also continues to stare at Kyle – it was really funny, they wouldn’t even blink.  Turns out alcohol is free on the plane… this thing is off to a good start!  I fall asleep for a bit, only to wake up and find that the old lady that was staring at Kyle is dying somewhere in the back and they are rushing to get her pills.  I don’t know if it was Kyle… so I am a little cautious with him for the rest of the trip

Thursday

We land at Heathrow around 7am.  Some dude tries to roll us immediately as we walk out and tells us its like 60 quid (slang for: British Pounds) to get to our hotel.  Our thoughts are, “WTF that is $130 CAD which translated to ”this is gonna be an expensive trip”, or “fuck this guy – let’s take the tube”".  We opted for the 2nd option and got on the tube.

When we arrive at the Hotel, our rooms aren’t ready, so we decide to get some breakfast.  By about 11:30am they still weren’t ready, so we figure, screw it, we are in England, where’s the pub!  After almost falling asleep while drinking our beers we decide to go back to the hotel… FINALLY… the rooms are ready!  We get the first key only to find out the room is still being cleaned.  We then head downstairs and after a 30 minute wait are told that the room is fine and to try again.  I do that, only to find out that there are now 2 people in the room…. serenity now!  I restrain myself from jumping over the desk and strangling the girl at the front desk and finally get a room plus 4 comped drinks at the bar (that helped ease the stress a little).  The room is crap for a 4-star hotel, and the bed cracks when I sit on it… this day is off to a bad start!

Fortunately this bad luck does a 360 and we meet up with the PAW/PAP crew for the dinner that I organized at Gaucho.  The room we got at the restaurant was seriously balling… I have been in a few private rooms before at some really amazing restaurants, and this is probably up there as one of my favorites!  Here are some pics:

PAP Crew at Gaucho (from left to right): Darko, Nick, Carly, Jeremy, Boarderman23, themike537, Beanie, Greg Powell, GoodKarmaKid, Kyle, Brandon and WAZ.
Missing: JohnG, Myself, ArnoldPalmer

Gaucho Grill Appetizers

First Dish of the Main Course

In total the bill came to about 1600 quid (approx $3500) and everyone seemed to have a really great time.  (special thanks to the PAP guys for covering my portion of the tab – you guys really did not have to do that!)

After dinner we headed over to the Hollywood Poker Party at Cafe de Paris.  This was fun for a bit, but kind of turned to disappointment as we were cut off from drinks after only being there for around an hour.  Regardless, we still had a blast and I got to meet Chris (lifeofsports), scrawnybob and many others at this event.

Here is a pic of Picaddilly Circus:

After a bit more partying, we decide to head over to the Casino where they held the WSOPE.  I played a little roulette and ended up around $120USD.  It was really scary betting in UK Pounds as you quickly forget that they are really double and a bit in my own currency.  After the casino we cabbed it back to the hotel and called it a night.

The rest of the report is still to come… I will try and get it done in the next few days.