Getting lost in London and Dancing to Reggae!

My cousins are serious party animals. Jeyvonne had warned me about how late she goes out at night. Usually she leaves at 12:30 and stays out till 5:30. This is my 45 year old cousin with a 14 y/o daughter and a partner at home she refuses to marry because "once you get married, men think they own you!".

When I got to her place on Saturday, I was completely exhausted from the day. I spent the morning finishing my IRB and submitting the scholaraly project proposal. Thus I got a late start on sightseeing. The main thing I wanted to do was to spend the day at the British Museum and go on the various tours they have. These are 30-45 minute free introductory tours done at the various rooms, like Roman (which I went on), Asian, African, etc.

Getting there turned out to be a nightmare!  My tour book told me to get off at Totternham Court Road, which I did, but I got so lost I ended up walking passed 3 tube stations before I realized I was going in the wrong direction.  I was wearing my healed boots since it was raining and my feet were aching when I got there.  Not what you want for a museum!  When I got there, a tour was just literally about to leave, and it was the 2nd to last one of the day. 

When I got back home, I wrote in my blog, mostly just because I needed to rest my feet before heading out to my cousins.  When I did leave, it was another traveling nightmare.  The Barbican station, which is just blocks away from me, was closed this weekend (every city is plagued by annoying transit closures!).   I had to get on at the St. Paul's station, which doesn't take that long to walk to, but since my feet were killing me, I decided to take the bus. The bus driver told me that the St. Pauls stations was closed to buses (WHAT??) and I'd have to walk back from the next stop. She dropped me off told me to pass 2 lights, but as I was walking, I had no idea where I was.  As rain started to trickel down, tears began to seep from my eyes.  My feet were aching and I was carrying duffel bag of dirty laundry.  After circling around, I finally found St. Paul's station.


When I got to Lewisham I made another silly transit mistake. I thought I was on the bus that stopped right outside my cousin's flat.  So when I didn't see it, I assumed I wasn't there yet and went down 2 more stops, to the end of her street, which happens to be down a hill.  I had to walk all the way back. It was not my night!

When I reached my cousins, she, her partner Micheal, and Jada (their daughter) were eating dinner and watching this crazy UK show called "Take me out".  Its sorta like the bachelor.  A guy has 20 girls to choose from to date. As the host introduces the guy, girls can switch off there light (lol, I love the drama) to say they are not interested. This poor guy worked in a fish market and I think that turned off a lot of girls!   I told them about my traveling mishap but that even if I had to sit the whole night in the club, I was determined to go.  Jeyvonne said that there weren't any seats there!  Even the shoe-box of a club I went to with the girls in Dalston had seats!

Jeyvonne told me to have a nap before going out, which I thought was hilarious since it was 10pm. But I did manage to snooze and was woken up by her alarm clock. When she got out the shower I told her my feet were killing me and I didn't think I could manage.  But as I thought about it, I realized I quite simply was not going to die from pain, so I decided to suck it up and go!  I'm glad I did!

We were very lucky to get parking right by the club. As Jeyvone entered first, the bouncer searched her bag, as he does everybodies, and I though also checking ID. When I came to the bouncer, and showed him my ID my cousin was like, "What are you showing him that for?!". I said, "I thought you were doing that!". They all had a good laugh at me.

So this club plays only reggae music. I like the first bit of it. I knew one song, Tempted to Touch, but easily was able to dance to the rest. It felt soooo good!!!! Especially after my last clubbing was entirely Techno. I felt like I was in the Carribean dancing on a beach somewhere. Jeyvonne got me a gin and tonic and both her and Karen made fun of me for liking it.

Then the DJ changed and the next one was awful. He kept talking and screaming over the songs. 
My cousins kind of just stood on the wall, not looking like they were having much fun. I wondered why they tourture themselves to stay out if they aren't going to dance. I kept looking at my phone's clock.. 3:10, 3:23, 3:50. I was quite ready to go but wasn't going to be the party pooper. There was one guy who was actually sleeping, standing up!!! My cousins and I kept watching, waiting for him to topple over but he had remarkable balance, lol.  Eventually, they had enough of the music and we left around half past 4.

I had made tenative plans to go to a flower market with Jess on Sunday, so I got myself out of bed when I got up, and put in some laundry.  Jada was up already making banana fritters and tea. I was so impressed! She really can cook. In fact, she was laughing at me when I was trying to tell them I knew how to cook ackee and saltfish, a dish I'm planning on making for Jess, since I thought you are supposed to boil the ackee, which your not! If you do, it'll turn to mush! I was so exhausted that I went back upstairs, got into bed and didn't get up till 3:30.   The flower market didn't happened.

When I got downstair, Karen and her daughter Leah were there, chatting away. They come by Jeyvonne's every Sunday. Its really beautiful how close there family is. Karen made it to church that morning!

Usually on Sundays we sit chatting around the table. Leah is very outspoken and starts a lot of the banter. At one point today she was telling Jeyvone how she lying that she can go to Jamaica and retire without brining Jada with her. We also look through British tabloids and comment on things like prince Harry dancing to reggae music when he visited Jamaica a couple of weeks, and the controversy over having so many non-British people competing for the UK in the Olympic games.

I brought up how buddy-buddy Obama and Cameron appear, and immediatly they staring talking about what an awful dresser his wife is.   They showed me a picture of one of her lastest fashion failure's in the tabloid (below, last picture).  It looks like something my grandmother would wear to church. They said that Michelle Obama always looks so stunning and why is it that Cameron's wife has to go all the way to America looking so awful. 

The first dress looks like it should be on a 5 year old.   The red outfit looks like a hand me down that has been stretched too much in a washing machine.  No sense of fashion, whatsoever.