Day Twenty One - Alcohol Is Bad, Mkay?

Well, I sure had an interesting night last night. It started out at a club and ended with me being robbed, I think, and having blood all over my face. Check it out!



Good times, huh? I woke up this morning trying to piece together what memories I was able to retain. The night started out grand. Being Saturday night I thought it would be fun to go out and have a few drinks. Apparently by a few I really meant a lot. I was at a club called The Walkabout, an Aussie hangout here in Shepherd's Bush. I figured it would be nice to be around my people. I met a bunch of Aussies there which was awesome. Fortunately for me, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, they had a deal going where you could get a can of Victoria Bitter, a tasty Australian beer, for only two quid. What a deal! I thought.

So after a while the club started to close down. It must have been either two or three in the morning at this point. On my way out I started talking to this girl and her friends and we went walking, where we were going I have no idea. This is about where my memory gets really foggy. Next thing I know I'm in a neighborhood somewhere trying to find my house. A police car pulled up and a couple cops got out walking my way. I'm fucked, I thought. Here I am, drunk as a skunk, in another country about to get thrown in the drunk tank. To my surprise and delight they were real nice blokes.

They asked me what I was doing. I told them trying to find my house. The next question was, where is your house? I answered with in Shepherd's Bush. They informed me that I'm about a mile away from Shepherd's Bush. In my drunken idiocy I had wandered into a random neighborhood thinking it was Shepherd's Bush but in reality I was way off. The cops then asked me if I knew that I had blood all over my face. I touched my forehead and, sure enough, there was blood. What a surprising thing to discover! I must have fallen over, face first, at some point. I also had scrapes on the palms of my hands. Boy, did I feel like an idiot. The cops gave me directions to Shepherd's Bush and said I'll be home in fifteen minutes. I apologized repeatedly to the police officers and thanked them for helping me out. I then made the shameful walk back to my flat.

On my way home I realized that my pockets were empty except for my house keys. That was weird, I thought, because earlier there was fifteen quid as well as a prepaid public transport card that had ten pounds on it. I tried to remember what may have happened to it but my brain was utterly useless at this point. I had done too much damage to it in the course of the night. The most plausible story I could come up with was that I got robbed at some point during my wanderings. It would have been very easy to take advantage of me in that state and it seems that someone noticed that and seized the opportunity. Lucky for me all I lost was twenty five pounds. A bummer to be sure but not the end of the world. And besides my forehead injury, which I believe was self-inflicted, I was unharmed. I am very grateful for that.

After getting home and taking a good look at myself in some light I realized I really did look like shit. I washed up and ate a bit of food then immediately fell into a deep sleep once I laid down. In the morning I was able to take a look at myself with sober eyes and reflect upon the lesson I learned the hard way: don't get drunk and go out late by yourself, you'll get robbed. Really, I already knew that. But after a bunch of pints my judgment is a bit skewed. I just need to exercise more caution when going out at night by myself.

And to top it all off, I ripped a hole in my pants.