London: Day 4

Day 4 - Draughts.  I don't know why I was at Draughts before the rest of the family....oh, wait.  I think I went to The Eye area to get coffee and a pastry, but the place I wanted to go to was closed.  So instead, I met up at the coffee shop near Draughts where we were going anyway.

I mentioned No Rolls Barred in an earlier post.  This is the place they meet for their podcast.  Not THIS specific place.  This is Waterloo and they meet in another one.  But this one is cooool.  I mean, look at it.  It's literally IN Graffiti Tunnel.

Here's Graffiti Tunnel Also known as Leake Street.

Inside is a lot of art.  While I was there someone was doing a sexy women on motorcycles photoshoot [I couldn't quite tell what to make of the photoshoot.  The women involved seemed very into each other per the shoot.  So I couldn't tell if it was a shoot for men.  A shoot for lesbians.  A shoot for the motorcycle.  I just didn't know the audience.  Very attractive suicide-girls style models draped over each other, however. So maybe I was the target audience.

They were also setting up a pop up music venue and drinking thing in one of the side halls.  It took me a LONG time to find Draughts because the map looked like it was pointing to another block when, in reality, it was "expanding" the view.  I felt sort of like an idiot when I figured it out after walking back and forth. I mean, Draughts is right there on a big sign....I just assumed the real entrance was around the corner where the blow out view seemed to be.

A bit more art.

The inside of Draughts.  We were early - e.g. opening - and I think folks were worn out from the bank holiday.  Super nice area.  However, I think the gaming fee should be waived if you buy a beer/food.

BRAVO.  So many of the breweries I go to lately have free period products.  The safety system is a seriously nice upgrade to the services for women [and men....I don't think you should exclude them.  They meet assholes too...just not as many cause, well, most of the assholes are men].

A different view of Draughts and all the games.

We played some usuals.  We didn't want to waste our paid time trying to learn something new.  I mean, we did.  Try to learn something new.  Some gods based flick game.  And we sort of failed and moved on to Carcassone.

Aeryn checking out Draughts.

Someone has been playing dirty scrabble.  Probably Adam and Scully.

Basics.  We played Dominion.  It's been a loooooong time since I played Dominion.  This is a GOOD game. I don't know why I don't play it more often given I own three variations.

Afterwords, we went next door to play Duckpin Bowling.  Lot of fun.  The pins are on wires - you can't rely on your usual bowling skills.  The waiter was great and we talked US/UK politics.  He gave Aeryn a free pin from the bar.  I looked up the salaries for new hires at this place.  Um.  Fuck.  How does ANYONE live in London without having five roommates in a one bedroom flat?  The "bucket of spit" as home ownership in No Rolls Barred's video regarding The Game of Life in London makes a lot more sense in the light of 15 pounds/hour as a salary.

This was neat.  The Waterloo bar has everything you need to queue up your podcast.  They were all being used at one point while we were there. I looked up Minneapolis, and it does exist here via Peerspace.  

On the far side of Graffiti Tunnel.  An opinion about the coronation that amused me.

Afterwards, we headed up to Piccadilly to check things out.  This gay bar auto tagged me in Facebook when I used their wifi.  Hilarious.  It was the first notification to anyone I knew that I was traveling.

Said bar was in the Chinatown area.  Which is also a theater area.  We headed there for some ramen [yum].  I don't know what's up with the opium signs, but they are amusing.

The baked goods in Chinatown were AMAZING. Not these.  These are good wife [red bean paste] pastries. I took a photo because Jen HATES them every since she got "good wife" red bean paste cookies at the cookie store over by Cedar Riverside in Minneapolis.

This....mmmmm...I wish I had just bought all of these.  I'm pretty sure I could have lived off them for the next ten days.

This place is a franchise with very amusing donut names.  I'll post a photo later of us eating the David Hasselhoff.  I took a photo for the donut lover in my friend group.