Prince Harry

Thursday, April 12^th: This day deserves its own blog post.

In the morning time, we had our last GST tour with Sean Boyle, which is pretty sad. It’s theme was “21^st Century London,” and it was really about the modern buildings that are up or are being built. We focused on 2 famous architects. They like their bizarre names and nicknames like the Gerkin, Darth Vader’s Helmet, the Cheese Grater, the Walkie Talkie, Shard, the Quill (aka baby Shard). So no more Thursday tours!

Now Thursday night: I expected a super chill chill night. I was feeling lazy, and I knew Friday was going to have to be a productive day. I’m sitting upstairs just reading a little after 8 when Ginna Claire comes in.

GC: “What dress should I where?” (holding 2 fancy dresses)

Me: Where are you going?

GC: Same place you are. Put on a dress.

And so the spontaneous girl’s night began. Emma, Lindy, & I got all dressed up and blindly followed Ginna Claire on our adventure.

Stop 1: the Madison at St. Paul’s

This is a fancy restaurant and café on the rooftop with a beautiful view of St. Paul’s and London. GC really wanted to get dressed up and have some sticky toffee pudding. We made friends with some of the waiters who were so friendly and helpful because apparently the Madison restaurant and bar is the place to be for “suits” on a Thursday night, so it was busy! But we made friends, enjoyed the view, and decided to go to this Piano bar on High Street Kensington.

Transportation #1: On the tube after the Madison we met Tom the Banker. He was laughing at us talking to some other Americans about living here, so we struck up a convo with Tom. He was super nice, and it was just fun to meet people. We also met another guy on the tube who was very interested in Lindy the country girl, but that doesn’t need to be a part of this story.

Stop 2: Pianobar at Kensington.

This place is so nice! Pretty swanky again, but also so chill. I definitely want to come back because we weren’t there for more than 10 minutes when GC friended Ben. Basically, he said hi, and not to long after that he said “get your stuff and your friends we’re going to boujis.” Now if you don’t know, because I didn’t before London, bouji’s is known as Prince Harry’s nightclub. Talk about swanky. I guess technically you can get in some line and pay some cover charge, but you don’t really get in unless you’re on a VIP list. But Ben told us we’d get in with him, and there was no charge.

Okay at this point I know it sounds a little sketch, but there were 4 of us, he’s American, GC met his other friends, the club was nearby, and we heard him tell the cab driver to go to bouji’s.

Transportation #2: In this short cab ride, we quickly learn that Ben must be from old Manhattan money, and he has made more than his fair share of new money as a nightclub founder in Edinburgh, as a nightclub and restaurant owner with his brother in Restaurant, and as a precious stone trader in London.

“What kind of stones?”

“The kind you want on your ring.”

So we also learned he’s a bit arrogant, really only wanted to talk about himself, and was loaded. Fun fact, he’s been to Tokyo, Hong Kong, and three other places all in the last 6 weeks. For business? Nope. For pleasure. On the weekends. I think you’re learning what type of guy Ben is…

Stop 3: BOUJI’S!!

Again, you only get in if you’re on a guest list, but Ben and his friends walk up to the bouncer. He greets them, they chat, he chats up some hostess type person, and they send us in. Now once we actually get in the club, we only briefly see Ben once, and he even leaves before us. So we’re pretty positive he does this a lot…just lets guests in because he can.

Let’s pause here for a second….how do you even get to that status where you are a regular at a VIP club, Prince Harry’s VIP club?? The bar sold bottles of drinks, bottles!, that were like 500pounds probably on the cheapest end. I’m pretty sure it was more like 800 all the way up to 2,000 pounds. That is not how I’d spend my money if I had that much to just toss away…Someone could spend all of the money I've spent all semester in one night easily. Crazy! Later one Emma was looking up private membership, and of course it's super exclusive not to mention expensive. Feel free to look it up... http://www.boujis.com/

Anyways, back to the night.

So the 4 of us girls are in bouji’s, and it’s 80s "Material Girl" theme. Quickly one of the girls working there comes over to us, hands us little hand lace things (it’s 80s), sunglasses (not cheapy plastic things), pins, & like lollipop/dum dum candies. Someone else comes back later to give us more pins and beaded necklaces-again, not cheap plastic necklaces. WE MET PRINCE HARRY! Just kidding. We didn't. But it's still cool that we were in "his" nightclub:) This is not a life I would enjoy living long term...not even consistently short term...but it's definitely so cool to experience as part of the London nightlife! The 4 of us just enjoyed our spontaneous girls’ night- we were pretty chill just hung out and danced, and then tackled the night bus system to get home.

I can’t even believe this night happened. It’s definitely going down as one of the top nights in London!  It was so chill too, just a spontaneous adventure to dress up and get sticky toffee pudding….