weekend at paulies

while my sister has been away in holland the last week, i got away and went up to birmingham to visit paul, who be-friended johnny letain during his year studying abroad at laval university in quebec city. i'd heard alot of stories about him and had a few drunk convos with the dude while calling letain. i was told to go up and visit the guy who i'd never met, but i figured i need a lil taste of the "real england" away from the pomp of the london cheese. i wanted to chill with the dudes who had the 3 lions tatooed on their arms, british bulldogs as pets and who rocked the st.georges cross whenever given the chance, people that were quite happy to sit in their local watering hole and talk about football, girls and tell stories of their last trip to greece. its kinda hard to let loose when you are chilling with your sister and students living abroad in a city and culture that they themselves don't really know. i went up on a tight budget but i wasn't keen to just chill and let the opportunity pass.

i bused out to birmingham met up with paul and we went straight to the pub and met a few of his mates, some of which i'd heard stories of already courtesy J.L. noteably the onion, spence and langston. i quickly found out that i would be hooked up to an I.V. that would prove to be a keg all weekend. i've never been one to drink alot of draft beer throughout my career of boozing but like the saying goes.... "when in rome". many of the pubs in england share the same 4 or 5 names: the crown, the golden, george and the dragon...ect. english pubs are pretty simple and not designed to be very aesthetic, built for one purpose: drinking draft while havin a laugh. it took me a while to get used to the accent and all the slang. the midland convos are heavily laced with slang and references, kinda hard to follow at first. this circle of friends that i spent my time with reminded me of back home with all the joking around, bringing up the best and worst times of eachother. storytime is always the best way to get to know people i find. i'm not gonna lie, having someone as entertaining as johhny to share stories about is about as good an icebreaker as you are gonna find.

paul, spence diamonds and truly

the first night we hit a couple pubs and ended up at a nightclub in redditch, the midlands of ireland and england are pretty similar i guess, the girls are bold, bellied and rock bad teeth. damn near every dude rocks the mid length eurohawk, some type of football shirt or golf shirt with the flipped collar, the low cut white shoes and the tight jeans. people are more open and friendly i found though. one of the first questions you get asked in every convo is who do you support? i'd be a manchester united fan, with my mum being born there and with their games always being on. its a kind of reluctant admission though because they are seen as an easy team to support and kind of a bandwagon team over here. but to tell you the truth, it wouldn't mean anywhere near as much to me as it does to them.

P, me and lang the ghost

saturday we headed up to liverpool to see the game. we got back and after dinner hit a couple more of the local spots, met some more of paul's boys, shot some stick and took it all in. sunday morning i went to watch the team that paul and his buddy's all play on, there was a chance that i mighta played because they were gonna be short players but they came through in the end and i didn't have to make my 2006 debut quite yet. i hadn't played since august but i'm sure there woulda been some devastating headers, barishnikov-type tackles and speckles of soft passes back to the goalie. it was div 1 of the local league, very similar to what we play back home, the guys were more skilled but less athletic. after the game i joined them at their pub and it reminded me alot of our post game sessions in kelowna... minus the cheetahs locale of course.
onion, paul and langston..... after a group spoon... hint'its!

we then piled into the cars and went road trippin to a city called leister, about an hour outside of birm. we stayed at paul's sister's place, about 5 of his boys came down and did the town real proper like. we hit a variety of spots across the town with her and her friends. me and paul shared stories about the friend and the sister quandry. he's got it easy with only one sister to worry about though. the guys weren't feeling most of the places we went. they weren't to interested in the trendy joints..... i was eazy, just along for the ride. damn draft makes ya piss every 5 minutes though... no kidney stones for me jacoby! i tried a shot of absinthe for the first time at 70+ alcohol% ... disgusting stuff especially considering i thought it was apple shnapps going into it. made a few people sick that night. it led to champagne bottle balancing acts. we ended up at a pretty standard club, lotsa smoke, techno and drunk bumpin'. tried to stay outta trouble but.... damn absinthe! woke up hazed and laughin about stories about the previous night and who slept where. we booked it back to the B and caught my bus back to london... so tired, so broke, so full of draft....

i had a sweet time! paul is definitely a sound dude.... showing me how the english do it. that pub lifestyle, he runs a mean hostel, its the canadian embassy out there. him and his boys gotta let me return the favor sometime.