Thursday, July 9 2009, 0:13

Hay una discoteca por aqui?

One week into the holiday and it's been muy bien so far. Flying the twenty-four hours to London with an onward journey to Madrid was always going to be pretty loathsome, especially doing it on my birthday, but a plenitude of leg room and no babies make for a tolerable trip. I sat stinky in Heathrow until Grant, Chris, and Luke showed up, and a couple of gin and tonics later, and we were touching down in Spain, where we met up with Chris H and Mike.

Orgullo Madrid (or Madrid Pride) shits all over London's efforts. With tummies tanked up with tapas, we squeezed our way back into the streets of Chueca, which were overflowing with chicos and chicas in a massive street party spilling out from every bar and club, people dancing and drinking and laughing and waving their litre cups full of beer or sangria or mojito. This went on every night of the weekend! But I'm no big drinker. One litre was enough for me, and my jetlag beckoned me home to bed.

Day One dawned hot and sunny, so we rolled our towels out on the wet grass around the municipal pool at Lago, which was shortly about to reveal itself as a secret gay mecca for hot men in tiny shreds of swimsuit. Relaxing in such congenial and attractive environs is definitely up there in my top ten; a glass of sangria in one hand and a book which I'm only periodically looking at in the other, and two eyes full of Mediterranean tan. Bliss. And I only sustained minor sunburn in unnoticeable places. Clearly a good result.

The Parade didn't start until 6pm, so I threaded my way alone through the crowd to find fellow Sydneysider on tour, Johnny, encamped on the Gran Via, but I didn't stay out for long. My siesta was calling, and the paraders were taking their own sweet time about it. I took a couple of snaps and returned to the comforting womb of our hotel room until night fell.

Pride's big party of the weekend was Infinita. 20,000 party people in Madrid's Telefonica Arena. Marred slightly by the immense DRAMA of just getting there though; the box office which should have been open for an hour and a half by the time we arrived took a further hour to open its windows for us to collect our tickets, and then our taxi driver (who didn't know the arena or its nearby metro station) deposited us at the edge of the Casa de Campo (Madrid's largest park) and we spent 40 minutes on an unplanned nature ramble trying to find the venue. Hmph. But once we were in and settled we had a fab time :)

Somehow, the others managed to gather the energy on Sunday to go sightseeing around the royal palace while I nurtured some more dreams in bed; I joined them for a bit of Mexican late lunch, but it was back to bed again for a pre-party siesta. Sunday's party was the much-talked about Supermartxe, held in a club on the riverside.

Not nearly as big as Infinita, but certainly very impressive, Supermartxe was RAMMED. It got busier and busier, and hotter and sweatier, and lamentably smokier until I had to abandon the main dance floor altogether and hide out in a smaller, better air-conditioned room. There were frequent shows which I mostly didn't see, but there were 'dancers' on stage constantly. Enormous brick shithouse types in spangly pants, glumly serious while posing in time to the music, and a constant source of amusement; I'm not sure if they were harvested from the gyms of Madrid or failures from So You Think You Can Dance España or a mix of the two. Unwitting parodies of themselves, they flexed and kicked and jiggled their muscles for hours while maintaining a mask of serene boredom, and were a stark contrast to the drag queens who were striking, vivacious, and sensational. The bar was jaw-droppingly expensive - €10 for a coke ($17!), getting to the toilets was like navigating the third circle of hell, there was broken glass everywhere, and the music was a bit on the dull size. Yet in spite of all this, I quite enjoyed myself and had LOTS of laughs with the guys, and even stayed until the end, because that's the kind of diehard I am.

Our last half day was spent trying to get some sightseeing done... We strolled down through the city to a little restaurant that ticked all of our "quaint" and "continental" boxes and ordered some cheap lunch, which turned out to be mildly unsatisfactory for most of us, but the sangria proved to be dependably slurpsome. Bolstered with vittles, we strolled around the park behind the palace before daringly dashing around the gargantuan palace itself in short order. Chris braved the wrath of various attendants by taking repeated forbidden photos in the lavish apartments, while I chickenly made do with some exterior snaps.

And that was it. Another dash, this time to the hotel to collect our stylish valises, and on to the airport and our Iberia flight to London...

Monday, July 20 2009, 0:13

London madness

Hereford is always peaceful. Or maybe it always seems peaceful compared to where I live, but it was great to relax in the quiet surroundings of home and spend time with my family. My new nephew, Liam, started crying as soon as I picked him up, but apparently he screams when his aunt Sarah touches him, so I don't feel too rejected ;) Aside from my brother trying to get me drunk and strolling through countryside, I spent a bit of time handpicking 12kg of books to send back to Sydney, and scanned some atrocious photos from university, which may make their way onto Facebook one day.

The tranquillity evaporated as soon as I stepped off the train at Paddington, although Craig & Greg's gorgeous pad in Elephant & Castle was my oasis of calm throughout the week (although I had to walk though unlovely Elephant to get to it!). I'm going to take a leaf out of Craig's book (blog actually) and summarise eleven things that you ought to do in London.

1. Dine out at Metro in Clapham for Chris' birthday with former Sydneysiders and Sydneysiders-in-waiting (Luke, Chris H, Greg). And Mike. And Craig (ok, that didn't quite work). Follow it up with a brief visit to the Two Sewers and remember why you shunned Clapham when you lived in London.
2. Enjoy a Saturday stroll around lushly green Hyde Park with Tony, Debs, and Beth, before retiring to Carluccio's for lunch and then a Kensington pub for an afternoon beer.
3. Fortify the tum for a weekend of clubbing at Nando's overlooking Elephant's beautiful [read 'eyesore'] traffic circus with Craig.
4. Catch up with chums at your belated birthday party at Soho's Enclave bar before heading down to dirty Vauxhall for a reminder that, even in London, clubbing can be hit and miss. Rescue the party with a trip to Later @ Fire and finish off with the bad taste humour of the inimitable Dame Edna Experience at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.
5. Explore the shopping paradise that is Westfield London in Shepherd's Bush, but sadly lacking any enthusiasm because you used it all up the day before, and emerge with only a few choice items.
6. Eat out. A lot. At Andrew & Andreas', at an Indian in Kennington with Craig & Greg, in Soho with Beth, in Balham with John and his mum, in Kensington again with John and his dad...
7. Go and be amazed by Matthew Bourne's amazing production of gothic fable, Dorian Gray, at Sadlers Wells - modern ballet with incredible (slightly confronting!) choreography, with Vicki, Lisa, Andrew & Andreas. Then eat out again, but this time in Clerkenwell at fabulous gastropub and former gin palace, the peasant.
8. Attend the gay event of the year - Paul & Ben's wedding in rambling gothic pile, the Royal Victoria Patriotic Building and push on past the reception to the Two Sewers again with Scott (will I never learn?).
9. Absorb some culture in the National Portrait Gallery at the gay icons exhibition with a gaggle of gays and girls, including schoolchum from wayback, Nikki. Repair to Rupert Street bar to mull over the profundity of the exhibition with pints of Strongbow.
10. Eat out (again!) at Stanza on Shaftesbury Avenue with Andreas, Lisa, and Vicki, before crossing London to Wayne & Dieter's joint birthday, and then party and party on and on and on and on at Juicy, Beyond, Later, Barcode, Horsemeat Disco, the RVT, and Horsemeat Disco again, with Beth, Adrian, Steve, Dan, Oliver, Marty, Ross, Neil, Craig, Greg, Jez, Richard, Dale, Christopher, and quite frankly a cast of thousands.. Have a deleriously happy time and collapse into bed until it's time to pull oneself together and pack.
11. Marvel at how time flies like an Airbus when you're having fun, stoically farewell my wonderful hosts, Greg, Craig, and Dylan the Dachshund, travel far too slowly to Heathrow with Ross and Neil, make check-in three minutes before it closes, and goggle at the impertinence of the BA woman who takes my luggage. Harrumph!

Monday, July 27 2009, 23:29

Perishables

After the gayhem of Madrid and the bustle of London, some well-deserved rest was in order - but instead, we went skiing for a weekend! Before I moved here, I didn't even know there were places in Australia where you could ski. I imagined Aussies all decamped to New Zealand to hit the slopes, but I was wrong. Mount Kosciuszko National Park sprawls over the Snowy Mountains in NSW near Victoria. Love that name, don't you? Breathtakingly original yet descriptive at the same time. Australians love to call a spade 'a spade'.

Vicki's annual family ski trips seemed to always result in a casualty, and one year she came back with crutches herself, so I've never been that excited about a holiday in the cold, attempting something that might turn out to be deeply unenjoyable or worse, injurious to my unpoised self.

Nevertheless, I bit the bullet mere days after returning from London, and John and I joined a busload of likely lads and ladettes on a fun-filled journey down to the snow. At least, it might have been fun-filled if the bus hadn't turned out to be a rickety old thing with a hole in the back. Before long, the party atmosphere had subsided as the gang, some now wearing all the layers they could feasibly attire themselves with, shut down all non-essential activities in an effort to conserve body heat.

Our arrival at Jindabyne, our home for the weekend, was way after pumpkin hour, and we queued in the chill night to be fitted with equipment and dashing ski outfits, before snuggling up like bugs in bunkbeds in our spartan dorms. 6am seems a little early to be up after a seven hour frigid bus journey and five and a bit hours' sleep, but sadly our timetable was set. With hot food in our bellies, we boarded the brrrr-bus and drove to Thredbo.

Some in our little coterie were seasoned ski barbies already, and they sashayed up to the ski lift to begin the day, while the rest of us mere novices stumbled and struggled and attempted to achieve some kind of ski-clad stability. I hadn't realised how tough it would be to actually stand still on the slightest of slopes! After a two hour lesson, we were let loose to do our worst on the powdery snow, and finally I was tempted to try a wee green run despite hearing the cautionary Tale of Chris McGillivray and the Slope of Terror... By turns exhilarating and terrifying, and involving lots of gracelessly colliding with the snow, it was a mixed beginning.

I very nearly didn't even dare a second day on the slopes, but something pushed me to give it another go, and I'm so pleased I did. The space for novices at Perisher made practising so much easier, and Adrian, Chris, and I were soon emboldened enough to venture higher up the mountain, riding the ski lift up into the freezing higher altitudes where I could feel the adrenaline pumping, but not the blood in my fingers or toes. We had a whole morning and early afternoon of it, with Mikey and Chris joining us later; Chris' superior skills provided a starkly amusing contrast as he effortlessly zipped around me, skiing no-handed while taking photos and shooting a video or two while I tried with every movement to stay upright and moving in the right direction...

Check out the photos from the weekend on Facebook.