London Summer Weekender
The scheduling of my trip to California provided an opportunity: I'd be flying into London the day before the London Furs' big summer weekend party, which consists of a four-hour ride on a "party boat" up and down the Thames river, followed by an extra long furmeet at their usual pub venue. I attended regularly during the first few years after I moved to the UK, but I knew very few furs that attended. After the pandemic was over, I had made enough friends in places that were closer to home, and so I haven't bothered in years - but the event is a lot of fun (it's the biggest furry event in the UK outside cons). Perhaps more importantly, Riff was in the process of making plans to attend himself as part of a broader UK tour - indeed, he said he was considering getting a central London hotel and asked if I wanted to share a room, which sounded pretty good to me.
My flight arrived midafternoon (a little late, due to the IT fiasco that messed up computers worldwide while I was in flight) and I quickly met up with Riff and headed to the hotel. This was a small but almost comedically fancy place in the vicinity of London's financial district, and because he has fancy hotel status (and told the hotel staff that it was his birthday, which was almost true) the desk staff was hilariously over-helpful on arrival, placing a free bottle of prosecco on ice before we arrived, showing us to the room in person, and then taking our bags up to the room for us after. We didn't need any of that, but once getting settled we headed off to the day's excursion.
Unfortunately, the furry boat cruise had long sold out by the time we made these plans, and so Friday evening we had to come up with an alternative activity - which mostly involved walking around London a lot (he used to live there and knew the nice places to go in summer). Just a few minutes' from our hotel I spotted what seemed to be a weird art exhibit behind a window along some minor side street, and it claimed to be some sort of musueum (the "Mithraeum") offering free admission, so we went into check it out. It turned out much more interesting than I'd expected: the art exhibit was just a sideshow, and the museum was actually a ruin from a Roman temple built by a cult dedicated to some secret war god. (The ruin had been built over and forgotten until during cleanup work after WW2 it was rediscovered.) After that we continued to a rooftop terrace along the Thames, then went to a fish and chip shop near where he went to school for his PhD that he used to frequent, and then headed over to a nearby bridge to watch the furry party boat (which was live-updating its location) pass under. By that time I was getting tired after the super long day and ready to crash, so we headed back to the room (at this point we finally drank some of the prosecco) and I soon passed out.
Saturday was the furmeet day, so after a lazy morning we headed over to the venue, which is the same venue it used when I used to attend pre-2020. As usual, I knew only a handful of furs there myself but Riff (despite having been gone from the UK for 10 years) knew a lot, so there wasn't much downtime and I was introduced to quite a few fun people in the process. Unfortunately I didn't have my fursuit with me (I considered it, but one meet didn't seem worth the hassle of hauling an extra suitcase to the US and back) but Riff had his partial, and I was able to at least play handler during the usual walk to the park and back. After dinner we went out with a group of his friends (and one other person they know, who turned out randomly to be a long-time acquainance of mine as well) to a ramen restaurant. From there we stopped by a pub, and fter that we ended up at the apartment two of them lived in for more drinks (although I opted for Coke at that point) before Riff and I headed back to the hotel, getting in around 1am.
Today we had a bit more time for some exploration before I headed home, so after breakfast we went to the famous Tower of London, probably the most significant tourist site in the city I've not visited yet. This was bigger and had more to do than I expected: having been the country's most important castle for nearly 1000 years there was a lot of history there to explore, and of course it also hosts the exhibit containing the famous Crown Jewels (which Riff joked we were there to reconnoiter to plan a raccoon heist...)
When that was over, it was time to return to the hotel to grab our bags and head separate ways (for a few days) - he to visit his parents and me to finally return to Liverpool for the second of my two short interludes betwen the big trips I'm making this summer.
My flight arrived midafternoon (a little late, due to the IT fiasco that messed up computers worldwide while I was in flight) and I quickly met up with Riff and headed to the hotel. This was a small but almost comedically fancy place in the vicinity of London's financial district, and because he has fancy hotel status (and told the hotel staff that it was his birthday, which was almost true) the desk staff was hilariously over-helpful on arrival, placing a free bottle of prosecco on ice before we arrived, showing us to the room in person, and then taking our bags up to the room for us after. We didn't need any of that, but once getting settled we headed off to the day's excursion.
Unfortunately, the furry boat cruise had long sold out by the time we made these plans, and so Friday evening we had to come up with an alternative activity - which mostly involved walking around London a lot (he used to live there and knew the nice places to go in summer). Just a few minutes' from our hotel I spotted what seemed to be a weird art exhibit behind a window along some minor side street, and it claimed to be some sort of musueum (the "Mithraeum") offering free admission, so we went into check it out. It turned out much more interesting than I'd expected: the art exhibit was just a sideshow, and the museum was actually a ruin from a Roman temple built by a cult dedicated to some secret war god. (The ruin had been built over and forgotten until during cleanup work after WW2 it was rediscovered.) After that we continued to a rooftop terrace along the Thames, then went to a fish and chip shop near where he went to school for his PhD that he used to frequent, and then headed over to a nearby bridge to watch the furry party boat (which was live-updating its location) pass under. By that time I was getting tired after the super long day and ready to crash, so we headed back to the room (at this point we finally drank some of the prosecco) and I soon passed out.
Saturday was the furmeet day, so after a lazy morning we headed over to the venue, which is the same venue it used when I used to attend pre-2020. As usual, I knew only a handful of furs there myself but Riff (despite having been gone from the UK for 10 years) knew a lot, so there wasn't much downtime and I was introduced to quite a few fun people in the process. Unfortunately I didn't have my fursuit with me (I considered it, but one meet didn't seem worth the hassle of hauling an extra suitcase to the US and back) but Riff had his partial, and I was able to at least play handler during the usual walk to the park and back. After dinner we went out with a group of his friends (and one other person they know, who turned out randomly to be a long-time acquainance of mine as well) to a ramen restaurant. From there we stopped by a pub, and fter that we ended up at the apartment two of them lived in for more drinks (although I opted for Coke at that point) before Riff and I headed back to the hotel, getting in around 1am.
Today we had a bit more time for some exploration before I headed home, so after breakfast we went to the famous Tower of London, probably the most significant tourist site in the city I've not visited yet. This was bigger and had more to do than I expected: having been the country's most important castle for nearly 1000 years there was a lot of history there to explore, and of course it also hosts the exhibit containing the famous Crown Jewels (which Riff joked we were there to reconnoiter to plan a raccoon heist...)
When that was over, it was time to return to the hotel to grab our bags and head separate ways (for a few days) - he to visit his parents and me to finally return to Liverpool for the second of my two short interludes betwen the big trips I'm making this summer.