England: Day One, London.

Bob *Did the United Kingdom* zegt:
yay, I give boys erections
Kev (good music / i dance / no good music / i not dance) zegt:
congratulations!

Okay, I decided to blog about the trip Tim and me made to England, but it seemed a bit too much to put it all in one post, so I'm doing it day by day, which should also make it easier to remember stuff.

So, day one!

After a sleepless night (the universe had ordained my plan to start the week fresh as a bedewed daisy would not come to fruitition) I was up and ready on time to meet Tim (who'd gone out and still got more sleep than I did, lucky bastard) early in the morning, and our travels were kicked off. We took the train at Central, which is like, duuh, but I only mention it because I got to see the 'new' station for the first time. Not too shabby, though getting to your train now takes a good long while, won't be managing to storm in 2 minutes before, buy a ticket and still catch it. Luckily, we were neatly on time.

The train ride over went smoothly enough, though there was a bit of a scare when I tried to check in with a knife in my back-pack. I'm blaming tiredness for not realising that bringing a big, sharp knife might be a bad idea in these troubled times. On the other hand, after making me take it out and asking me what it was for (uh, it's to cut bread, sir...), they just let me take it along anyway, so terrorists, it's not that hard as long as you're lightskinned enough!

We got to London, managed to untangle the complex rates of the Subway, and even faultlessly found our hostel (I credit Tim with that). As we had decided before, our first item of business was to have a pic-nic in Hyde Park, so we went to the Tesco (sort of their Aldi, except they also have Aldi in England, so it's not really and uh, supermarket, cheap, whatever) where Tim and I argued over mayonaise (trust me, it gets important later on), but finally settled on mustard. Which ew, I just remembered is still in my back-pack and probably kind of gross by now. Anyhow, we were off to Hyde Park after that for a sumptuous feast and did I mention how great the weather was? It was like being in ff-ing Greece, I practically got sunburn on the very first day. A positive effect of this: shirtless boys! And nearly pantsless boys, though that one looked a bit odd to my tastes, and I'm a fan of low-rise jeans.

After lounging and relaxing and quite frankly shamelessly reducing the men around us to pure objects of sexual gratification, we decided to head into SoHo and do some shopping. We went over to Prowler, a funky gay store, where I bought some awesome underwear and was neatly helped by the attendant with fitting form suggestions and the like. Nice people, them Londoners. After that we went back to the hostel to get into our rooms, and this, ladies and gentlemen, is where we were bowled over by the sight of an Italian God. I had actually stayed behind a bit to finish my smoke, but when I got to the room, I didn't think Tim was in yet, so I sat down right in front of the door, when it was opened and behold, there stood a tan, dark-haired, angel-eyed, six-packed cream of a man in front of me, wearing only a towel around his waist. Somewhat taken aback by the unexpected apparition, I managed to mumble some form of hello and we exchanged names, his being Marcello, which I honestly didn't catch, but Tim informed me later. Once inside the room I could easily tell Tim was also in the thrall of delightful admiration. We also met Marcello's friend, our other roommate, whose name I didn't catch either, and for some reason Tim didn't find it necessary to remind me of it.

They were both very nice boys, though Marcello was the only one was spoke some English, and he not a lot and not very well at that. I'm quite certain that I barely understood half he said, so I just agreed to all of it. However, they would only be in our room for one night and then they would move to a cheaper room, which became available only then.

After having refreshed ourselves, we went back into the city, this time to go see Avenue Q, the musical which is described as a sort of adult, graphic Sesame Street. It's pretty goddamn funny, and its two hours flew by in no time. Some absolutely listenworthy songs are Lucy the Slut (I can make you feel special), The Internet is for Porn, Everyone's a Little Bit Racist and You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want When You're Making Love.

The set-up of the show is a street, Avenue Q, very low-rent, with young educated people whose careers are nonetheless not quite so fabulous. Humans, puppets and monsters live together and sing a lot about being gay and masturbating and the turmoil of grown-up life. The actors who do the puppets are actually just on stage while doing their bit and their interaction is at times hilarious. Also, two of the actors, one in particular, were smoking hot. I mean, climb on their lap and be their puppet hot, I think I fell in love/lust a little bit with the main actor, who voiced Preston, the newcomer on Avenue Q. So much even that I had my picture taken with his poster, how very fanboy-ish of me.

After the musical we set out for a bite to eat and ran into an Indian restaurant in some side alley, where a very crafty waiter somehow convinced us to order more than we'd planned. It took about 1 minute before we regretted out choice of dining accomodations. Not because of the food, that hadn't even arrived yet, but all three waiters had the revolting habit of loudly and gruntingly sucking the snot back into their noise and then swallowing it. They did this while you ordered, while they served your food, as you ate, continually. It sure did put a dent in my appetite. Right across from where we were eating there was also an adult sex shop, kinky boobless lady harness in the window. Right next to the shop, was the Christ Church Centre, which I found mildly amusing. I can just imagine the neighbourhood squabbles (what store is moving in next door? A what? Oh Good Lord!)

It was at this point that I was also confronted with the fact that I speak in English without realising it way too much. Being in a foreign country gives you the luxury of being able to talk about anyone and anything in as derogatory, objectifying or admiring a way as you'd like (as long as they don't happen to be Dutch, 'cause those are everywhere), but it sort of defeats the purpose if you start doing these things in the native language of the country. While we were on the terrace, some people passed us and Tim said something like 'wow, ge kunt die vrouw haar tepels keihard zien', to which I loudly responded 'Who's showing her nipples?' . Luckily the 50something woman with the rockhard nipples didn't hear me and her husband seemed more amused than anything. I think I did that a dozen or so times over the entire trip, prompting Tim to alarmedly remind me: Nederlands! Nederlands!

Anyway, we wandered around some after that, and then we decided to go to some gay bar, but having gotten confused about the way to go, we ended up in quite another place and had to backtrack a long way. When we passed the building where Avenue Q played, we noticed the two hot guys standing at the artists' door. A very bold Tim went up to them to ask for a picture, which he got, and then it was my turn, so I put myself in between the two blokes, held on tight, possibly more tightly than would be assumed decorous, but hey, blame me. Unfortunately the camera wouldn't go, and as Tim and Some Girl wrangled with it, we just stood there, locked into each other's arms. Hottie main actor even said: It's quite interesting how there's no picture being taken, yet we're still holding each other tightly. It's quite cosy though. To which I sort of swooningly replied: yes, the experience of a lifetime, and they had a good laugh at that. In the end the camera turned out to be out of juice, so I never did get my picture, but I can content myself with the memories :)

We did eventually make it to the bar on Charing Cross, a crowded dark place, where I was ordering Stellas when a 50something grey haired man accosted us. It took me a while to realise what he was talking about, but it turned out that he was a truckdriver who worked for Tesco and he'd seen us in the store that morning. As a matter of fact, he knew absolutely perfectly which way we'd gone through the store and that we had briefly stood arguing about something, to which I spontaneously replied 'oh, that must have been the mayonaise', forgetting momentarily that you should never give gay men gooy thick white stuff to use as a joke. He just went on and on about it, and I just stood there smiling politely and nodding, barely listening, but Tim afterwards told me that I sort of politely smiled and nodded to his suggestion about a tube of mayonaise and that he could always make me some or something along those lines. After that he scurried off. I suppose it's not a turn-on when you offer your semen to a boy and he just expresionnessly smiles and nods vaguely.

We stuck around the bar a little longer, but soon got bored and decided to call it a day, it had after all been a long one. We returned (roommates AWOHL, they would return only at 6.30, which I know because I was awake at 5, because a damn bird made a damn nest above our window).

All in all, a very good, very sunny, very funny, thoroughly enjoyable first day of vacation.

Next time: Day Two, London