OK, people: I know that I've sucked about updating lately. You just have to try and understand that going to school to learn how to write the sitcoms, dramas and films that you'll all be talking about around the water cooler, building fan sites for, and memorizing lines from obsessively one day is keeping me real busy.

Try to keep in mind: I'm doing this for America.

Before I get on with my Further Adventures in London, allow me to get all tangential. My love for Sally gives me a feeling like drinking a hot cup of coffee very quickly. That's a good thing.

Ladies, you may now collectively sigh.

Anyway, I've managed to recruit a new diarist. Meet StarKatt. She goes to the same institutue of higher learning that I do, and she's all about fashion photography. Browse her up real good.

And now, on with the show:

London, Day 2

Saturday, it rains all day. All day. We wake up, still at the Generator. I go down for a smoke and a bad cup of instant coffee, and then we go to breakfast at the same Greek cafe across the street. English breakfast again, and I tell myself that when I'm eating a banger, I'm eating England. You'd know what I mean if you've ever had the breakfast. Anyway, today is the day we scheduled for lots of walking through parks and being outside. All of which I think about while I dismally note the rain. I ask a suit sitting next to me if he knows when the rain is supposed to let up. He cheerfully tells me "It won't last"

The bastard.

Sally seems to not understand the amount of coffee and newspaper time I like in the morning. Her face gets cloudy, and I know what that means, so I cut it short. So. We go pack up, and happily move our stuff into the St. Athans B&B. It's still raining, so we use the opportunity to go visit HM (which the English charmingly pronounce "heche n'm"). It's a clothing store where most stuff is pretty cheap. The one in the States is in NY, and since were not going there anytime soon, Sally decides we simply must go. OK. I like shopping too. Not for 2 1/2 hours at a time, though, like we did. They should call the place HML, and let it stand for How Much Longer. My total shopping time was about a half hour, and I got a lovely jacket, a lovely sweater, and two lovely t-shirts. Lovely. I couldn't blame Sal for trying on everything in the store. I mean, it was raining and we don't have one in Chicago, etc. So, she shopped like a pro, to the extent that she spent the tube ride back to the B&B in a stunned silence over how much she just spent. Trust me, though...it was worth it. She looks super-cute in her new gear.

Still. Fucking. Raining.

Hungry, we grab a 'cheese-salad sandwich' and an Aero candy bar (like a Nestle Crunch with caramel) from the local news stand and eat it while walking to our next destination, Regent's Park. Even though it's raining, the park is beautiful, perhaps even more so because of it. We stop a local and make her take our picture. Walking on, we reach the north end of the park and cut to the east, heading for the Camden markets.

Camden. Hmm. Do you have an area in your town where all the hipsters, cool kids, rock-stars and punks go to hang out and shop on the weekends? That's Camden. Lots of outdoor markets, tons of shoe stores (to my dismay), head shops, little booths with everything from clothes, to incense, to bootlegs, to pot paraphenelia. Lots of people, despite the shit weather. Hungry again, we stop at a little pizza place for a slice. Ham pizza. Trust me. It was good.

We say goodbye to Camden, and its shoe shops full of unjustifiably 'cooler-than-thou' shoe salespeople. Heading back to Regent's Park, we cut north and walk up Primrose Hill for a beautiful view of the city. We share a nice, romantic moment, a little smoochin' and take some pictures (which end up not so good, as it was night, and I guess you need a pretty big flash to take a good shot of a city's skyline). The last bit of our mission involves walking to the nearby Abbey Road.

So, we walk along, looking at buildings and fantasizing about renting apartments overlooking the park. I see a place with a balcony, and fantasize about holding barbecues for bewildered Londoners ("So, these are pork chops? Lovely," they'd say).

We get to Abbey Road. i take a pic of Sally crossing the street a la the album cover, but somehow it turns out to be not quite the same at night with one person. Now we desperately want a cab, as we both have to pee badly. Just as were about to give up, lo and behold, a cab appears. It's expensive, but worth it, as we are exhausted.

We go to a fish restaurant, which was nothing worth noting except for the lousy European service and lack of a concept called 'a glass of water, please.' Except for the apple cobbler desert, it was just a very expensive fish and chips meal.

Oh, good lord, this is long. When will I shutup? We went to a pub after that. We got really drunk on guinness, cider and whiskey at the first place we went. Met a nice South African named Alan. He was a cool guy, and Sal was so enamored she had me take her picture with him.

After that place closed, I somewhow in my drunken state decided we need more booze. You know how it goes. So i persuaded Sal to go to the bar at the Generator, conveniently located and open til 2am. We met some nice German guys (thankfully West German) who coincedentally were also TV students. Perhaps not too surprising as Germany has the second largest TV market in the world, after the US. I had their version of a Snakebite, which in this case was cider, grenadine, and fuck knows what else.

We went to sleep, very happily drunk.

And that was the second full day in London.