Episode 28 - Twickenham
Pints, chit chat, and good people 🍻
And so it is here at last — arguably the most highly anticipated, earth-shattering, world-changing, eon-turning blog post so far. What is it for, you ask?
It is for…
MY VISIT TO TWICKENHAM! Oh my!
This episode is special for 2 main reasons:
Joe’s mum is reading this. Crazy. Caroline, welcome to the show!
After long last, the mythical land of Twickenham has been visited by me.
Imagine a mythical place you have heard so much about and the insane feeling of visiting it for the first time. The first step into the halls of Hogwarts, arriving into Middle Earth, or falling through the wardrobe into Narnia. All are comparable experiences to this.
Twickenham. It is finally here!
Friday 12/15/2023
I flew into my beloved Gatwick airport on my non-beloved easyJet plane, and before I knew it, I was back in the UK.
Jolly, innit!
It was quite funny to be looking out the window the entire flight and seeing sunshine and pretty landscapes over Iberia and southern France. Then, we crossed the Channel, and it was a sea of clouds blocking the entire horizon.
Clearly, we have arrived in England!
Once I picked up my “that needs to be checked in but actually it doesn’t and we’re just easyJet and want to take your money” backpack, I transferred terminals and took the wonderful Southern line to get to the world-famous Twickenham station. I had been to Gatwick when I first flew into Paris, so I was kinda an expert at navigating the airport terminals.
I bought a ticket to Clapham Junction and then was heading into central London. How exciting!
When I got to Clapham, I was surprised to find that the train transfer was free and I was able to get on the train to Twickenham without needing to buy an extra ticket. That’s strange. That’s also called… foreshadowing!
Before I knew it, I was at Twickenham Station. The most famous train station in the world! (not really)
And who was there to greet me on the platform, roses in hand?
JOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEE!
I could not be more excited! He was very shocked about my lovely Moroccan sun poncho (he might’ve just been jealous), and then we proceeded to exit the train station off into Twickenham.
And of course, my ticket didn’t work. I was super confused as to what was going on, and Joe asked me where I had bought my ticket to.
“Clapham Junction, obviously.” That’s where the train was going!
Turns out, you have to buy the ticket to your final destination, not the final destination of the train you’re on. That is quite a strange system, and I clearly missed the memo about that.
The Twickenham security guard was preparing to write me up a ticket (for 50 pounds?!), but Joe was able to seduce him with his British charm, and the security dude let me buy an additional ticket from Clapham to Twickenham.
Honestly, the fact that I was wearing my Moroccan sun poncho, had two huge backpacks, and looked like the very definition of a tourist, also probably helped.
And just like that, I was in Twickenham. Hooray!
Joe insisted that we head to the grocery store next door to get what he said would be a life-changing “meal deal”. Apparently, you can get a sandwich, drink, and chips (crisps in this country) for “just” 3 pounds 50.
The root of the matter is, nevertheless, that I had to spend 3 pounds 50 when I otherwise would’ve spent nothing. That’s how they getcha!
Joe and I walked to the Thames to eat our rather average but Joe’s favorite meal deal, and we caught up about Morocco and his time back home. Compared to Paris, Twickenham is tremendously quiet, but Joe said he was enjoying being back home. :)
After our yummy pre-dinner, we walked down Twickenham High Street to get main-dinner at the Casa de Joe. It was quite surreal to see the famous Twickenham I’ve heard so much about with mine own 2 eyes, especially considering this is where Joe grew up.
At Joe’s, I met his lovely mother Caroline (hi Caroline!), who was so nice, motherly, and so, so British! So British, in fact, that I was offered tea within the first 5 minutes of being in her home.
Thank you, Caroline! Yes to the tea!
I met Dotty (the dog), we had a delicious lasagna for dinner and chatted a lot about Morocco, and then Joe and I headed out for drinks with his British friends.
And British, they were! We hit off instantly, and it was so funny to see Joe in his native British environment, which is quite different than Joe in his French habitat. Even funnier was calling cap on the version of events that Joe was telling his mates from back home. The differences between how Joe was describing events and how I remembered them were vast, and it was tremendously exciting to be sharing what actually happened with them. The highlight of the night was sharing Joe’s goth look when he tried to get into the Burghein club in Berlin (unsuccessfully).
They could not believe it.
Dotty (the human) stopped by for a bit, and it was so lovely meeting her in person. If you’re reading this Dotty, hi!!!
Dotty 21st birthday party was the next day, which was the main catalyst for me coming to Twickenham. It was also really funny to have people guess where I was from since most people knew me as Joe’s friend from Paris. As a result, some guessed that I, Dennis Gavrilenko, was… French?!
Me! French! Who would’ve ever thought of that! I am about the most non-French person I know. I could not stop laughing.
I also got a few guesses that I was Dutch. Now that is hilarious!
Joe has such a lovely group of mates, full of cheer and so much laughter. There are a lot of dentists, doctors, even a chemist, in that group! And then there’s Joe, the legal scholar. This group of friends would be a good one to get injured in, that’s for sure!
We hopped around a few pubs, I called Mama, then we all dipped home around 11. Big day, and an even bigger party, tomorrow!
Saturday 12/16
Joe and I woke up around 10, and then Joe cooked us a lovely English breakfast to start the day off strong. That instant coffee was delicious, too!
After chilling for a bit at Joe’s, it was time to head to the bus station to pick up Gibbles, who had just flown into Heathrow to join us in Twickenham.
We also discussed our favorite colors. Up there for me is green. What shade?
Twickenham Green! The best shade of green there is!
We picked up Gibs from the Twickenham bus station, and we headed back to the casa de Joe, Gibs dropped off her things, then I donned my amazing Moroccan sun poncho, and we headed into town for a day of tourism and to eventually pick up Verbeek, who was Eurostaring into London later that afternoon.
Gibs was a bit shocked about my Moroccan sun poncho, though I think that she may have been a little jealous, just like Joe.
And so, the gang of 2 (me and Joe) had become a gang of 3 (me and Joe and Gibs). We took the train into town (London is robbing me at this point with these outrageous train fares), got off in the middle of town, and then walked along the south bank of the Thames all the way to Borough Market.
I have to say, I have been enjoying London a lot more than Paris. London architecture is much more beautiful to me, with a mix of old, historic British buildings with modern, beautiful glass ones. London is thus a mix of history and capitalism.
Paris, on the other hand, is socialism through and through.
Along the way to Borough Market, Joe kept on bringing up that we were approaching the bridge that Voldemort destroyed in Harry Potter. He said it so many times, that I decided to have us all watch the clip of the destruction on YouTube so that he would finally stop telling us about the bridge that Voldemort destroyed in Harry Potter. Plan worked successfully.
Eventually, we made it to Borough Market, where there was both a sea of people and so many delicious food options. Joe and I settled for some Iraqi food, and Gibs got a burrito. We found a tiny plot of land where we ate our food, and I performed a minor public service by getting a nearby baby who was sobbing to be quiet.
The way I did it was simple. I stared at the baby, made a massive sad face, and didn’t break eye contact or blink until the baby stopped crying from sheer confusion.
Borough Market, you’re welcome.
For dessert, Gibs and I got chocolate-covered strawberries, and there was also a sea of people getting these strawberries, generating massive revenues for this strawberry stand. Like they were legitimately having an assembly line of credit card readers and people passing out these strawberries. I was tremendously impressed by its efficiency in getting money out of people!
We took the metro to eventually pick up Emma at St. Pancras, and we stopped by Kings Cross along the way so that Gibbles could check out the Harry Potter Platform 9 3/4. I had to navigate here since Joe (the Londoner) kept insisting we go down some random side street to get to Kings Cross despite me literally having been there less than 2 months ago.
The humiliation on Joe’s face, when he realized that I, Dennis Gavrilenko, who is so American that he shits red, white, and blue, correctly navigated in Joe’s home city when he couldn’t, was a site to behold. :)
The line for Platform 9 3/4 was quite long, so we just headed over to the Harry Potter gift shop and then to St. Pancras to meet Emma.
And met her, we did! Verbeek is in town! And now our gang of 3 had become 4. Hooray!
Us 4 took the train back to Twickenham (at this point I had learned that you can just tap in and out with your credit card to pay fares, removing any possibility of the Clapham Junction fiasco I had the day before) and it was time for girlie prep for Dotty’s party. Iona and Skye (Joe’s Bristol flatmates) pulled up too, we all had dinner, about 27 of Joe’s guy friends pulled up to pregame, and before we knew it, it was time to head to Dotty’s.
One of the best parties I’ve ever been to. There are too many things about it to say, but here are the highlights:
Sparkles. So many sparkles. The theme was sparkles, so that makes sense, but still. Some of the sparkly outfits I saw were insane.
So much alcohol and lots of pretty British girls. I have noticed that British girls tend to be very pretty or very orange (from some quite horrendous spray tans). Just go to Morocco, or move to California.
Dom. I met Dom the night before at the pub crawl with Joe’s mates, but we had so many great conversations at Dotty’s and it was a lovely time. We chilled around the campfire, he beat me 3-1 in foosball (good game, though the table was on a slight hill and I was on the down-sloped side), and we overall just vibed. He also subscribed to this blog, which I believe is the first time someone has done that drunk. Hi, Dom!!
People were guessing that I was Dutch (I even got an Irish and an Afrikaans) and that Emma was American. Lol!
Finn + Emma. Lol!
Some other things that happened were that I had to pop to the loo around 1 am, had a lovely semi-drunk conversation with Dotty’s mom, took an impromptu 30-minute nap on the floor and almost got stepped on, great fudge, silent disco, and quite possibly, the greatest Irish exit known to man.
I was tired and wanted to go home, so just left around 2:30 am without telling anyone and walked back to Joe’s in the cold alone.
Joe’s mum had left a key for me outside (I was the last one to leave Joe’s at the pregame and she told me where the key was in case Joe lost his), but I couldn’t get the door to open for some reason with the sticky key. Joe’s mum came to the rescue, opening the door for me (thanks!!), and I fell right asleep at 3 am diagonally in Joe’s bed, leaving him plenty of room to join me when he came back. What a night!
Sunday 12/17
I woke up at 10 to find Joe sleeping on the floor. So much for me leaving him room by sleeping diagonally in the bed!
I headed downstairs and proceeded to chat with Joe’s mum for the next 2 hours. We had a delicious English breakfast again (I could get used to this!), and what didn’t we talk about! The conversation wandered from the Bank of England to British politics, the Royal Mint, and her tremendously interesting job. Apparently, the Tube station Bank is called that because it lies under the Bank of England. How cool!
Everyone woke up around 12:30 and we proceeded to have a crazy debrief about the night before. I was completely not hungover and had had a completely productive morning. Emma, clearly, had a great morning as well:
Eventually, everyone got their shit together, and we headed over to Dotty’s to debrief with her around her extremely robust, perfect-for-rage-cage dining room table and large cups of tea. Tea! Tea! Tea! So British!
Their family is honestly so lovely. So much cheer and joy in that household. I hope to have such a jolly home one day.
After debriefing, we took the red bus to the beautiful town of Richmond, grabbed another meal deal with the entire group (what is it with these meal deals), and then took the train to central London once more. We headed over to Brick Lane with me navigating. I got there shortly and turned around to find no one there.
The rest of the gang eventually caught up to me, and we walked up the cute little street with tons of lovely little shops and whatnot. We grabbed bagels at this delicious little spot (which is apparently really famous), and we then proceeded to head over to the bus station to go back to the central part of London.
I had to pop to the loo, so headed to a nearby Pret because I knew they had coffee there. However, I felt bad just going straight to the restroom, so decided to buy a coffee as well.
Me: “Hello, could I please get a filter coffee (the cheapest coffee available).”
Barista: “Unfortunately, our filter coffee machine doesn’t work.”
Me: “Great, I’ll have a latte then.“
Barista: “What we could do is I could give you an Americano for the price of a filter coffee.“
Me: “Great, let’s do that.“
Barista: “Wonderful, would you like black or white coffee?”
Me: *not knowing wtf a white coffee is* “I’m sorry, did you say a white coffee? What is that?“
Barista: “A coffee with milk in it.“
Me: “Oh sure, let’s do that.“
Barista: “Wonderful! What kind of milk would you like? We have coconut milk, soy milk, almond milk, pea milk, semi-skim milk, skinny milk, semi-skinny milk, and whole milk.“
Me: *momentarily stunned by all these milk options* “Uhhhh, could I please just get the regular milk.“
Barista: “Great, that’ll be the semi-skinny milk.“ *looks at me strangely* “Have you ever been to a Pret before, sir?”
Me: “I have, but I went with my friend Tatiana and she just scanned her subscription QR code and we got the normal latte.”
Barista: *laughs at my confusion* “Don’t even worry about it sir, this one is on the house!“
And the best part is, their bathroom didn’t even work.
I walked to the restaurant next door with Pret in hand, walked straight to the back without talking to anyone, used the loo, and left. I wasn’t about to have a repeat of the Pret conversation here.
Our group made it onto a double-decker bus (on the second level!), and we took it all the way to St. Paul’s cathedral. We said bye to Iona (who was heading home) and checked out the organ performance inside the grand cathedral. So grand! So lovely!
We then headed to the lovely Bank of England (the oldest central bank in the world!) and walked around the City of London, where all the massive skyscrapers were. The mixture of old historical buildings and capitalistic masterpieces was amazing. It was like Boston, only more grand. I loved it so much, but Joe was not a fan (he dislikes capitalism and everything it stands for, lol).
We headed over to the Liverpool Street station to grab a pint with Gibbles’s Australian friend Allegra, what a great chat. Allegra headed home after about half an hour, then Gibs left too to meet up with some more Australian friends in London who were studying abroad there.
And there it was back to just me and Joe! We took the train from Liverpool Street over to SoHo, where Emma was grabbing a Thai dinner with 2 of her high school friends from back when she lived in Stockholm. One was an extremely Australian rower, and the other was a super buff, semi-stern Korean veteran. Both were wicked smart. Good stuff. Good chat.
After they had finished dinner, we headed to a really cool neon bar arcade disco place, where we got a lot of student-discounted drinks, played some arcade games, and drew on each other’s faces with neon pens. The best part of all of this was hearing about Emma’s wild side from her Stockholm days, especially the firsthand accounts from her friends who saw it all happen themselves.
After a bit, we migrated over to Blue Spouts, a lovely British pub (Joe’s mum’s favorite, in fact), that had cute pints and an even cuter bartender. We had a great time chilling them, then headed outside when the bar closed around 11. We met some guys who said they were from Hamburg (the city in Germany where I got stuck about a month ago). Joe hits them with this masterpiece:
“Do you speak German?”
Nice one, Joe!
When the German guys revealed that they do, in fact, speak German, Joe tried out his “One person, please” in German that he tried to use to get into Berghain.
The German dudes were not impressed. Neither was the bouncer at Berghain.
After that fiasco, our gang moved over to a pizza shop to cure our famishness, which was actually a lovely spot with massive pies and really fancy bathrooms that had sinks made out of massively carved quartz blocks. Sick.
After pizza, we headed back to the train and hopped on a choo-choo machine back to Strawberry Hill, walked back to Joe’s, chilled for a bit in the dining room, and then headed to sleep for the last time in Twickenham (on this trip, I’m sure I’ll be back!).
Monday 12/18
I woke up around 9 and just chilled with Joe in the living room, where we just chatted and petted Dotty (the dog).
I woke up Gibs and Emma with some light opera around 10 and told them we were dipping to London at 12. Plenty of time to get ready and pack!
Joe and I, in the meantime, went for a lovely 4-mile run down a trail near his house (which we actually ran really quickly, sub-8 miles), which even featured a super muddy trail-running section!
We made it back around 11, showered, packed, and before we knew it, it was time to head back to central London and depart Twickenham for the last time. How bittersweet indeed. Caroline, thank you so much for your amazing hospitality!
We walked to Dotty’s again, had some more British tea, looked at the gallons of alcohol Dotty got for birthday presents, learned about the crazy stamp method card of British parking, and then we departed back to the train to head into town.
We made it to central London and walked over to the British Museum, where we met a very British, very Ben, Ben. British Ben is so different than French Ben, and it was hilarious to see him in his native habitat. It seems that he is more comfortable roasting people and the jokes flow smoother in his home country. Hilarious!
At the British Museum, we checked out the Rosetta Stone and Algin Marbles (the two things I really wanted to see there), then we dipped pretty quickly for lunch at a ramen place. It was the Rouen gang, all back together! Me, Joe, Ben, Emma, and Gibs! Together again, at last!
The ramen lunch was delicious, and we shared lots of jokes and stories like always. And all too soon, it was time for us to go our separate ways. Gibs took the metro back to Heathrow to fly home, and Joe, Ben, and Emma walked me back to the train station for me to head to Gatwick. I gave Emma her housewarming Christmas present (a fully stamped Urban Grill card for when she moves into Norma Jr.’s after New Years) and said goodbye to everyone for the last time this study abroad. The end of an era is here.
And so, the magical trip to the mythical land of Twickenham has come to an end. Thanks to everyone I met, and Dotty especially for turning 21 and giving us all a reason to visit. Here are some more pictures!
