The London weekend finally came together on the 19th. 
I
was the last one to arrive as flying out of Verona is not convenient.
There were only two flights, one at 07h00 in the morning and the other
at 17h00 in the evening. Needless to say, I took the 17h00 flight
instead. That was after catching the train into Verona 
as Trento has no airport. I ran into everyone at the hotel as I arrived
around 20h00. I checked into the Forte Posthouse on Wrights Lane
and dumped my bags into the hotel room.
Dave had made dinner reservations at Signor Sassi which is an Italian restaurant around the corner from his house. The food there was very good and it gave me a chance to practise my Italian. Although I've had my fill of Italian food -grin.
We ended up staying up until 01h00 closing the restaurant down. The wait staff and cook came out to talk with us a bit before we left. We headed back to Dave's apartment and smoked some really tasty cigars from Havana Cuba made by H. Upmann. I normally can't stand cigars and yet here was a very tasty and enjoyable treat. The Cubans do make the best cigars in the world.
Saturday morning I got up around 09h00, cleaned up and walked down to
Dave's apartment from the hotel. That was nice 2 km walk for me. 
Dave
called Dick up and he and Paul they said they'd be down around 13h00.
Dave and I walked over to a wine bar and set up reservations for tomorrows
brunch. We then headed over to a bistro and had a coffee and a light
breakfast. 
From
there we went back to Dave's place and Dick and Paul showed up soon thereafter.
We were waiting on Madavan and Mark to show up and they eventually called saying that they would not be showing up for lunch. So we headed out to SoHo to do some sightseeing and find some fish and chips. We finally found a pub that served fish and chips and sat down to a nice lunch and a few beers. After that everyone agreed that we needed to get some rest before the evenings escapades. Around 18h15 Dick, Paul and I met up in the hotel lobby and headed off to the Texas Embassy restaurant where we were to meet up with everyone for the private double decker bus party.
We got there on time and everyone else was fashionably late. We
ate the sparse and tasteless meal at the Texas Embassy. Then we all
boarded up on the double decker bus and headed out on the town!
The Partybus, as it is known, took us out to the first nightclub of the
evening. I don't remember the name but it was a rather boring establishment.
Little did I know that the rest of the people there were also on the bus(es).
There were three busses altogether. 
Time
came to leave this poor venue and the entire club emptied out as we left.
We headed off to the second venue.
Needless to say the people on this bus were intent on partying and we were having quite the time with girls dancing in the aisles as the bus made it's way to the nightclub Venom. Venom, pictured here on the left is a fabulous nightclub with very favorable male/female ratios that you don't normally see in a night club. Julian and I were debating whether to stay or not but we ended up leaving when the time came. We had, after all, 2 more night clubs to hit on the bus.
The
next two clubs, Cairo Jack's and Equinox, were alright but not nearly as
interesting as Venom. Julian did manage to get one girls phone number
in Cairo Jack's.
Dick and Dave bowed out after Venom. Seems Dave hit the Jagermeister too hard in Venom. -grin
BTW, I found two very tasty drinks, Hooch and Sub Zero, that are both alcoholic drinks but the former is lemonaide and the latter tastes like cream soda.
Paul and I being the last of the people to hangout from our hotel left and caught a cab together. Madavan and Mark caught a taxi to their hotel and Julian and his friend Peter disappeared into the Equipnox crowd. I was back in my hotel room at 03h00.
The next morning, it was slow getting up. Dick finally called
me around 11h30 saying we'd be meeting up with Dave soon for brunch.
We headed out and met Dave at his apartment. Madavan and Mark showed
up and we all headed off to the wine bar for brunch. 
Here
we had a good brunch. Dave ordered champagne and I had a tomato and
mozzerella plate. The rest had steak and eggs or some egg dish.
Madavan was having problems holding anything down and ended up not eating.
We all left the bar and Mark and Madavan had to go find another hotel to stay at. We agreed we'd all meet up again later that evening for dinner. Dick, Paul and I walked around a bit and I picked up some stuff the Irlaith back in Trento wanted (CDs primarily). Then we went back to our hotel rooms to chill for a while. Then around 17h00 Dick got me and Paul up and we headed out to find the place that Dave said we should meet at. It was a folk music place where some country western band was playing. But as it was, we had a hard time find the place. Dave didn't give us good directions and we eventually found the place by walking and asking people if they knew about the place we were talking about. But as it turned out, the show was cancelled. We walked around and found a french restaurant and had dinner there.
After dinner Dave wanted to go home, but Dick Paul and I were still fresh on the evening so we headed out looking for a live music venue. We found one at a place called Ronnie Scott's in SoHo. And were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the 10 piece jazz band. Fortunately the band started playing early, 21h00, and finished up at 23h00. We left the establishment after I purchased one of the CDs the band was selling. Then we caught a taxi back to the hotel and crashed.
Monday morning Dick, Paul and I met up for breakfast. We ate and
then Paul went off to try and find a motorcycle that he could buy for his
european tour he is striking out on. Dick and I got our bags together
and headed off for Gatwick airport. 
His flight left from the south terminal and mine from the north so we said
goodbye and I headed off to catch my plane back to Verona.
I landed in Verona around 16h30 and caught the bus to the train station. As you can see from the picture on the left, the Verona airport isn't exactly high tech!
At the Verona trainstation I had to wait about 30 mins for the train back to Trento. I got back in Trento at 18h45 and dropped by the Irish Pub to drop off Irlaith's stuff. I headed back and crashed at my apartment.
All in all it was a fabulous weekend. The company was great and the excursion on Saturday night was simply fun with a capital F! Some of our friends didn't show up for the weekend. They are Carmody Quinn and Mike Davenport. Their loss.
Copyright @ 1997 Alexandre POLOZOFF. All Rights Reserved.
