London: Friends, Pinatas, Gay parties, Fortune-tellers

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I don't think I realized how much I loved London until I came back. As I left any of my decent presentable clothes back in Paris with Fred, I came with a backpack of clothes for the Middle East. I didn't party like it was 1999 or anything of that sort, these three days were really more about paying long overdue visits to friends, in my Havianas. The rest of this will read pretty random, but that's more because I just fit friends into certain times of the day and did whatever we went with then. That's how I ended up at a Mexican pinata party with a bunch of gay men Saturday night.

I got in late Thursday night from Paris and first thing after dropping my bag down at Jose's he asked me what I wanted to eat for dinner. Only one thing came to mind... "Is there any Mexican around?" You can only imagine how poorly Asian people know Mexican and it being my favorite food and me being from Texas, I have been undeservedly deprived in Hong Kong for nearly two years. That night Jose, Kris, and I down chorizo quesadillas and carne asada tacos like it's our job. We then crave ice cream so I endure my first ride in the famed SmartCar to the grocery store at like 1am where we pick up bars of ice cream. Fortunately both Jose and Kris had been able to make it out to Hong Kong to visit me about a year ago so catching up wasn't that big of a shock, yet it still really felt so good to see two of my best friends finally back in London where I left them in 2006. It was again, really like no time had passed. I miss Juan who is home in Spain this weekend.

I'm staying with Jose in Notting Hill, he lives with this British girl Jessica who is actually now dating another one of our crew from the summer, Javier. I digress, anyways, Jessica was a pleasure and completely so much to hang out with. She's lending me her jackets for the chilly London weather as I obviously packed for only the summer in the ME. Friday I spent all day with Jose, hanging out with Jessica at the flat before we made it out to meet Rafa, another Spanish friend of ours whom I hadn't seen for two years, for lunch. Rafa is such a great character, did a year of banking then left to work in a mezz fund, with amazing plans for the future which I really cannot put on the internet. I again was pretty bad with the picture taking on this trip (they just don't happen anymore unless i have my SLR out to take pictures) so I will add a picture of Rafa from our times in London. We're going to meet again in half a year in South America.

We meet up with Kris and Luis, another Spanish guy in Jose's crew from Madrid, and shoot the shit for awhile in the afternoon, and then Jose and I went just walking about the city. We passed by Abercrombie and I thought maybe it would be a good idea to get in there and get some backpacking clothes. Wow, Abercrombie is seriously hilarious in London. You can take your original American Abercrombie, turn the lights down even lower, the music even louder, the employees so out of this world fake, same shirtless guy at the door, but add the employees actually DANCING to the music along the balconies etc. I mean is this a new addition to Abercrombie or something? Maybe they have added this worldwide, but seeing as how they don't really have these in Asia I haven't been in an Abercrombie in 2 years. I still remember when I met an Abercrombie manager while I was bartending a few summers ago who said with a glance up and down, "You know, you could work at Abercrombie you know?" I think I was supposed to be beaming with the highest of compliments bestowed upon me.

Friday night takes me back to my Eurotrash summer in 2006. We meet up with a bunch of the Spaniards in South Kensington, and of course all I hear all night is rapid Spanish flying by me. I need to learn Spanish. This is like when we used to go to Quixote, this unmarked underground Spanish bar, and I had to rehearse a single line of Spanish to say 'Hola, que tal?" for entrance each time and still sounded horrible. The guys would remember to revert back to English because I am around, but then inevitably the Spanish gradually sneaks back in and I am lost again.

Saturday my plans were to meet up with Joe for lunch, but another long story short Joe got into a pretty serious bike accident a couple weeks back and he was stuck in some xrays and physio, and I didn't have anything planned until I was supposed to meet Dave at 4 or 5. So I found myself back at the Tacqueria getting some tacos to go, when Kris called me in a frantic huff "Hey do you want to come golfing with me and some Norwegians up in North London? I need to pick you up RIGHTNOW." OK sure. I am forced to eat my tacos in a very ungraceful way in the car while we proceed to get lost because Kris literally had no idea where we were headed, already late for the tee time. We stop about 10 times so that Kris can yell out in a creepy way to every single passer-by where Cockfosters is. We finally get to the course, luckily everything is running late anyways, and much to my pleasure I reunite with Axel, whom I went to school with and hadn't seen since I want to say July 2006 when we had dinner at some sushi joint in London. They're with their friend Christer (I just kept thinking 'It's Twister with a K') and I find myself again in a flurry of some foreign language, this time Norwegian. The sun comes out, the air is warm and we have grass under our feet and nothing else around. Life is good.

Dave is stuck in the office til later than expected but is heading to a party somewhere that night, and on the way back into town Kris drops me off at his office and we take a company taxi from there to the party along with his friend Matt and another friend of his (unnamed) who is visiting Dave as well. Let me say, she was pretty dull and I am glad I didn't end up staying with her at Dave's for the weekend. I find out later that Dave is being forced to 'entertain' her at night for 4 days because he just doesn't have the heart to tell her that he wants none of it. I find this hilarious. She is not attractive and not interesting whatsoever. Poor Dave, nice guys finish last. We arrive at a HOUSE party (when was the last time I did this?) somewhere in North London, and it turns out to be a Mexican themed sombrero party with margaritas and tequila, pinatas, nachos and bean dip and all. Also, 70% of the men there were gay. A few of them absolutely flaming gay. Now I have nothing against gay people but I have never found myself in such a high percentage of them! It was amazing! I had never felt so safe at a party in my life! I obviously go there and knew nobody but Dave, but mingling ensued and I met some of the most entertaining and fascinating people ever. One gay couple stood far above the rest. I don't even remember their names anymore, but they were from Jersey and New York, and the one from New York was part Jewish and a huge anti-Semitic, and Dave is Jewish and standing right there. It was hilarious! He told me he found his Irish grandfather attractive or something, I can't really place it anymore. The other one had made excellent chocolate peanut-butter cookies. They taught me about 'spitroasting', I am a little less virgin now, and we discussed all the people they wanted to have sex with. I learned about different kinds of gay attractions, they separate them into distinct categories: Pretty, Older, Sexy, Hip, HOT (which supercedes all the rest) etc. Eurotrash fit into Sexy, not necessarily Attractive. You learn something new every day. Another noteworthy character was this half Chilean-half Israeli guy named Danni who is an actor here and also apparently films commercials. When I first saw him, I was convinced he was gay, but apparently he is just completely bizarre and very good looking. He ran around in his briefs the whole night. Veronica is I don't remember how she is related to anybody I know but this party was at her flat. She is Italian-American, and something like me worked in NY banking for 2 years and quit to travel the world, when she fell in love with this Israeli guy somewhere in Asia then went to live in Israel for awhile with him afterwards. She is now a journalist in London and I spent a good amount of time swapping stories with her. I mean I guess I have yet to fall in love with some guy traveling and then move to his amazingly interesting home country, but you never know. She raved about Israel and now I am really looking forward to that in two weeks time. By the time I get home, I am shot and I fall asleep while chatting with my brother. =( Sorry Steve.

And of all things, I met Becca for lunch today (Sunday) at a dimsum place in Chinatown. One of the guys there, Richard, I realized I had actually met in Hong Kong a couple months ago at Dragon-I, what a small world but he lives here in London. We walk all around after lunch and Richard takes us to an American candy store - complete with Jelly-Bellys, Whoppers, Reeses cups, TWINKIES. This is stuff I haven't seen in two years. We stock up like pigs and Richard actually does become our Sugar Daddy. We check out a wine bar near Embankment while we wait for the showing of the ballet Romeo and Juliet in Trafalgar Square, and Becca's friend Cristina has joined us. One amazing person after the next, Cristina is actually Korean but was born and raised in Paraguay. She's worked Finance in NY, Brazil, HK, and now London, and speaks both Spanish and Portugese. She has just done what I am trying to do next in South America, I am jealous of her life and can only hope to imitate something like that. She very confidently tells me it is completely possible for me to learn French, Spanish, Portugese, whatever I want as long as I live in the country and really put my mind to it. That makes me feel good about my ambitious plans. We head to Trafalgar Square and the whole place is packed, Becca yells at some people standing in front of our picnic blanket - I think nine months so far in London has hardened her after all.

I need to skip out after half an hour though to meet Joe at Hyde Park. Basically about 3 weeks to the day ago, he was riding his bike from Marble Arch back home to South Kensington (several blocks) and he was hit by a car (which fled and they still haven't tracked.) His colleagues found him back at the office holding his bike in pieces and not remembering a thing. Over the next couple days Joe went through surgery, he suffers a dislocated shoulder, a shattered collarbone, broken nose, some nerve damage above his eyes, a shattered wrist? Thank god nothing permanent for now though although the cut above his eye went straight through to the bone and has severed a nerve, right now he hasn't gotten feeling back on the top of his head. He can't remember anything from those days following the accident either. I am really happy to see that it seems he is recovering and still the awesome person we knew in HK. This guy is one of the most interesting people I have ever met. American, spent two years in Nicaragua with Peace Corps, almost stayed to manage a shrimp farm company, moved back stateside and went into Finance, I meet him in HK but since then he has moved to London last fall. He lived a year in France and took around tour groups on bikes. He speaks French and Spanish. Why am I not this interesting?? It's great seeing him, we amble through Hyde Park for the next hour or two and witness some of the debating at Speakers Corner.

On my walk back to Notting Hill today, I was stopped by this strange, but kind, looking man who asked me for the time. He was bald and had big eyes, Buddhist, in a zip-up sweatshirt, and jeans, something of I want to say Bangladeshi or Nepalese features. I'm not really sure what his background was, or if he was looking for something from me or just being nice, but then he proceeded to analyze me standing in the middle of the sidewalk. He tells me I have a sort of aura about me and that I have a rare energy. "What are you doing now, studying or traveling?" That I was in a job that didn't recognize this 'energy' and that I had gotten unhappy, I should find something creative and free. He told me he thought I was in a state of confusion and that I should not stress so much, I have been recently under a lot of stress lately and that I need to believe in myself. "Your love life, you have no boyfriend?" This whole time I don't even say anything, he just rambles while looking at me. I half expect Ashton Kutcher or somebody to jump out screaming 'YOU'VE BEEN PUNKED!' "You offer something special with your aura to people", etc more things like that. I told him I was in investment banking before, he shook his head profusely at me. To be honest I was getting a little weirded out because I only stopped to tell him the time, but then again he was oddly accurate about some of this so I was intrigued at what else he had coming. He told me to travel as it was the best education, and he was happy to hear that I actually was traveling. At this he shook my hand, smiled and was on his way. Uh, what was that?

So those were my few days in London, they were random to say the least. This does really make me appreciate my friends of all backgrounds and I feel lucky to even know a third of the amazing people I have met so far. This really is a small world, London is fabulous and I am certain I will be living here in the next couple years. I'm back at Jose's and I'm supposed to see Dave and some South Africans for Indian food or Indiana Jones I don't know, and supposed to have dinner with Kris to wrap up the weekend before I fly to Istanbul at 7am tomorrow. But this weekend nothing seems to go through as planned so let's wing it, I'm relaxed. See you guys in Turkey.

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Photos

Kris, me and Axel
Norwegian reunion

Jose, Kris, me
Floridita London, my 22nd birthday, Aug 2006

Rafa, Fred
London, Summer 2006

Stressed out Kris
Getting lost while eating a quesadilla

Danni
really flaming bizarre

Joe, me, Ben
Labor Day weekend, Hong Kong, Fall 2007

me, Rafa
Floridita London, my 22nd birthday, Aug 2006

Axel
Kensington Roof Gardens, Summer 2006

Rafa
Quixote, London, Summer 2006

me, Kris
London, Summer 2006

Javier, me
London, Summer 2006

the Anti-Semitic
nobody got his Darly Strawberry t-shirt