Hotel Nicole, pt 5

Kris and his cousin Maciek have been here the past few days. Kris is on his way back to Calgary -- but for how long?!?! -- after a summer slumming it in Geneva and Germany and Poland and Spain and Rome and Paris and yes I realize I'm mixing cities and countries. Maciek is finishing up a stint working in a Fish and Chips shop in a touristy town in South England, and is heading back to Poland to finish his degree.

Obviously, we've spent much of the evenings here in various pubs, which have sadly proved disapointing. The guys arrived from Poland Sunday night, and we couldn't find an open pub despite being in Waterloo at 1030pm.

And last night, we met up in Soho at a Slug and Lettuce pub for a few drinks with Mike Bowerman (just arrived to do is MA in some finance shiznit) and two Canadian girls Kris knows, Kat and Lauren. (How Kris knows more people in this city is beyond me.)

We were booted from that pub promptly and rudely at 11pm. We found another with a closing time of midnight... and got rather rudely herded from that one, too, as soon as the hour struck, leaving Kris and Mike to chug their Guinness. Terrible.

Thankfully, they have had one nice pub experience, at our local, which has the sweetest, most perfect English lady bartender in the world -- not to mention a very impressive selection of beer.

Not only does this lady -- whose name I shamefully have never asked -- know her beer, she's eager to let you sample them before you buy. Pair that with a sweet but sharp sense of humour, and a willingness to ignore the clock when 11pm approaches, and yeah, I think she wins my bartender of the year award. In the very least, she managed to salvage some of the UK's pub reputation...