The Best Two Weeks of my Life
Colds, Old Friends and Taye

Day 5 - New Years Eve

I went to church, then had lunch with my aunt, uncle and cousins and then headed to my bed for a much needed kip as I'd only slept a couple of hours the night before. After I woke up, I went to watch the fireworks in the park with some of the VGC massive. The highlight of the park experience was seeing my 30 year old friend running around the park flying a remote control aeroplane - which he wasn't great at, he kept flying it into trees and having to shake it loose - that he had bought for his two year old niece. After the fireworks, we went round to Noni's house where we ate eba and efo ruro (I have no idea if that's the correct spelling), then had Toblerone for desert and drank champagne while we saw in the New Year. Then I made my excuses and went home. To be honest, I wasn't too bothered about not going out on New Years Eve because I think it’s kinda overrated. My ideal thing to do would have been to go to a house party but there didn't seem to be any going on this year and the only other option was The Boat Club which would have cost 7000 naira and I've heard is way too pretentious to really be fun.

Oh did I mention I had a cold? I'm pretty fit and hardly ever get ill ... that is, except for colds. I get every single cold that ever goes around. A couple of nights before New Year, my air conditioner was really cold during the night but I was too lazy/deep in sleep to wake up and reduce the power so I slept through it and ta daa, woke up the next morning with a cold. So by New Years Eve, I was more or less constantly high on some cold medication and only able to function for a couple of hours before needing to conk out again.

Day 6

I met up with some of the VGC massive at the Nicon hotel for some lunch (or so we thought). We sat outside by the pool, ordered Chapmans (yup, I know, I was becoming a bit obsessive by this point. Oh by the way, does anyone know how to make a good Chapman? And while I'm on the subject of recipes, I'd really appreciate a puff puff and okro soup recipe). Anyway, I ordered goat meat pepper soup and they came back to say they didn't have goat meat peppersoup but they had chicken peppersoup if I wanted. I was cool with that so I ordered. Then my friend wanted the starter basket which they didn't have. Fine, she was a bit annoyed but she looked at the menu and chose something else. They didn't have that either. After making about 4 different choices on a menu which only had about 20 items only to be told each time 'I'm sorry ma, we don't have that one', she finally asked what they did have. The guy pointed to the sandwich side of the menu and was like 'ennn, we have most of the sandwiches.' Sandwiches?? Sandwiches??? Needless to say, she didn’t really feel like a sandwich so I cancelled my food order and we decided to go and get the great chicken from the Chinese restaurant on our way home.

A few chicken wings and some full bellies later, we got dressed and went to meet some friends in Churrasco. It was my first time there and I have to say it lived up to the rave reviews from my sister. I was even more impressed with the number of dirty cocktail names - Slow comfortable screw against the wall with a twist and Pornstar to name a couple. We talked, drank, chilled and generally made merry.

Day 7

This was probably my favourite day of all the days I spent in Lagos. I met up with Onada and two of our friends; O and D at Chocolat Royale to catch up. It was the first time I had seen O this holiday and it was really nice catching up. I keep in touch with Onada and D by email but O and I have never been great at keeping in touch. But more so with her than anyone else, it literally takes a couple of minutes before we go back to exactly how we used to be. It's really nice. Her boyfriend had dropped them all off and since I had heard so much about this guy she had been dating for about 2 years, it was nice to finally meet him. He was so different to everything I expected; he was really nice and friendly and soooooo in love with her. Sorry O, I have no idea why I thought he wouldn't be like that! After he dropped them off, his car broke down and he set about trying to fix it, but not before getting his cousin to come and pick us up and take us where we wanted to go. Altogether now - awwww. We had ice-cream, cakes and biscuits and were planning to go to M Cafe in Silver bird but that was full, so prompted by my musings about how I hadn't yet eaten my favourite meal of pounded yam and okro, O's boyfriend and his cousin took us to Yellow Chilli. We went upstairs to the bar where we could be as loud as we wanted, taking loads of pictures (Onada is such a tourist) and eating our very scrumptious food. Me, I ate my pounded yam and okro with my hand the way God intended it. We were joined by another large group of people, and about half an hour before we left, another large group came in. In this group were LondonBuki and T.Minx and it was the first of many times I saw them.

From there, we went to Soul Lounge at the Palms. I like it, I think it has a great atmosphere but it’s kinda small. It wasn't too busy that day so it was nice. We drank wine and did Tequila shots and danced for a while and then I had to go home around 10:30ish because I wouldn't have been able to get a ride home later. It was just such a fun day, you know one of those days where everything you do is spontaneous and impulsive and yet you couldn't have had a better time if you had planned it.

Day 8

I went to visit my cousins and just spent the day with them, chilling and helping them cook. It's really nice to catch up with them even though it's only once a year. Halfway through the day, I got a call from this guy (we'll call him Taye because I think he looks like Taye Diggs) asking me if I wanted to do something that night. I said yes and hung up really excited. I had met Taye in London in April. He lives in Naij and was on holiday. A friend had mentioned he was cute (and he is actually very hot) but since I knew she was making her move, I stayed away. However, he spent the whole night trying to talk to me and I spent the whole night trying to get him to go and talk to her and dance with her and so on. When I was leaving and he asked for my number, I thought, 'you know what, I haven't encouraged him at all and he still wants to see me. Plus I also think he's cute and she only just met him too' so I gave him my number. He was going home in two days and wanted to do something the next day. He never called. Turns out that even though he didn’t ask for my friend’s number, he asked around and called her and asked her out. Anyway, I bumped into him in Lagos at the party on the 30th and he was being very nice. He'd say things like, 'there are some great places in Lagos, but it's not the places everyone goes'. To which I replied, 'Tell me, it will be nice to go somewhere that's not as crowded as the places I usually go.' And he replied, 'I'm not telling you, but maybe I'll take you'. He asked for my number and when he was leaving, he asked what I was doing the following week. Anyways, judging from my experience with him in London, I wasn't sure if he would call and had given him three days because I'd decided if he was going to call, it'd be within that time. So I'm at my cousin's house, it's the fourth day and I'd mentally made my peace with the fact that he wouldn't call, and then he calls. I can't lie; I was looking forward to seeing him. I got home, had a nap and was about to hop into the shower when I got a text from him saying he had car troubles and couldn't make it. Then he called to apologise. I don't know why but I had a feeling that we wouldn't meet up and I felt like it was an excuse. But then that left me all confused; why would he call to ask me out if he didn't want to go out in the first place??? Anyway, I said it was okay and ended up going out with Noni and a few of the VGC massive. We first went to News Cafe where we were treated to champagne by this guy trying to impress a girl (Nigerian girls can enjoy oh!) and then we went to Bacchus lounge because everywhere else was pretty dead. I won't go into it again because I already went on and on here about how it was the best night I had in Lagos so I guess it’s good that Taye cancelled on me otherwise I would have missed out.