Country Roads in British Bars

10/16/09 - Afternoon

Had a great day yesterday with Hannah and David in London! We took a bus into London and did a tour on the double-decker bus. Got to take in all the London sights with little walking. Which was great, cause my shoe selection was more about looking cute and less about being comfortable. Not great for walking around but perfect for sitting on a tourist bus and taking pics from a seat. Ali and I talked about all the shoes we were going to bring...at one point we considered having one bag, between the two of us, dedicated just to our footwear. My boots are cute, but they weren't made for walking, that's for sure.

After our day long bus tour, we stopped by a pub, Three Tuns, for fish and chips and beer. Good stuff, I even liked the mushy peas. From there we took the tube back to Acton Town to get ready for our night out with local music and friends. Ali had sent me a link to the guy we were going to hear perform, Jayson Norris (http://jaysonnorris.com/main/). He plays at The Chatsworth (a bar David frequents) every Thursday night and it was an incredible show! He has an album, but for the show he plays cover music from Rage Against the Machine to Jason Mraz to Kings of Leon, and everything in between. He's a one man show but records each section of the song with his guitar up on the stage and then loops the sections back and puts it all together to cover the song.

We danced for hours to Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling", Oasis "Champagne Supernova", Prodigy "Breathe"...all incredible. I was drinking a pink beer I swear they were calling the Stinkbutt but learned later they were saying Snakebite. Silly accents! Not sure if we have that in the U.S. or not but it's lager, cider and juice. Yummy. Danced all night long and will have to buy Jayson Norris' CD before I get home.

My favorite part of the night, by far, was when Jayson stopped the show to say he was playing this next song for the Texas girl visiting her friends in England. The singer and David had chatted in between sets and David told him the story and requested he play a song for us. He played "Take Me Home,County Roads" by John Denver and the whole bar sang to the song. It was surreal to be singing that song, in a pub in Acton, hugging Hannah and David, wishing Ali was there.

"Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads"

Today I'm heading to Canterbury and tomorrow will hit up some London sights again with the UT vs. OU game as the highlight for the evening. Hugs and love to everyone!