ENTRY LONG DUE

the past two weeks have gone by like a whirlwind. i finally met old friends that i had expected to meet months ago. two sundays ago, rachel rath and i went for coffee to get reacquainted and deliberated for a bit on how it was possible that our lives were so tangentially related (u.s. history class, mutual friends, two younger siblings who are friends at stuy, similar obsessions with jarvis, mile end). we soon left for a pub that had cats with ruffle collars where her flatmate joined us. the cat was sans ruffle collar but we were just as amused by the portraits of cats found on the walls. i was going to meet dana that night at 93 feet east so when night arrived, we headed over. we hadn't eaten and made a quick stop at that 24 hr bagel place that i've been hearing about foreverrr, the bagel was disappointing but food is food especially in a stomach that's swelled with ale.

seeing dana was comforting in a way that i had forgotten could be felt. as much as i'd like to disown the notion of needing some sense of shared past or obvious connection to relate to another person, i really do miss having that sense of history and familiarity with others. so there was catching up with dana (whose birthday was fast approaching!) during which i got to hear about her life in london as well as more horror stories about mile end. we relocated to old blue last where her bfriend and his producer joined us. i do believe that night marked my longest drinking record, seven hours of feeling properly buzzed.

the next night joey came over since his moms was coming the next day to london. we went out with adrian to the end for durrr's monday night party. i'd been talking about them meeting for ages so i was glad it finally happened! there was a considerable amount of people there on a monday night, we ended it with fish and chips from dionysus in a phone booth where we had to stare at ads for post-op trannies.

thennn justine arrived in the morning from nyc! air canada lost her luggage so she arrived much later than i thought she would. we went for curry around bricklane and walked up to old street so she could see east london. it'd been raining (still is), so there was little motivation to explore. there was some sun the next day so we went around central london (british museum, lunch on charlotte st, trafalgar square, covent garden, leicester square). we also got tickets to see wicked which was good fun.



we didn't sleep that night since our flight for amsterdam was at six in the morning. we headed out at three but missed our flight by five minutes! we couldn't find a bus to gatwick and by the time we caught the train we were cutting it too close. there was another flight in three hours but we had to pay fees.

we finally got to amsterdam after a few hours, we hit the supermarket nearby and they had kitty crackers! cats are all over amsterdam, we found one in our hostel, one outside a museum, one in our restaurant. the city is definitely a haven for felines. they actually have a cat museum called the katten kabinet, but we didn't go.


the rijksmuseum where rembrandt's the night watch is exhibited


some square


up-and-coming de pijp


cute side street in jordaan


it was the weekend so everyone was sitting in cafes around the canals, i couldn't stop taking fotos of the canals and narrow houses!


though we walked around the red light district for a bit and went in a few coffeeshops, we didn't really go for the wild experience that the city can be known for. justine kept getting hit on and there was even a man who grabbed her hand as we were walking! so creepy. by the third day, we had our fair share of the place. but we did leave missing how things were spelled in dutch.

we got back last saturday night, spent sunday in london, and went for two days to dublin for st. paddy's. another post will come!