Fellini, Orgies And Plenty Of Mustaches

I bought my ticket for London as soon as I cashed my paycheck. 45 pounds. That meant that I had only paid 30pounds for the ticket and 35 pounds for the hotel we were going to stay.

I arrived in London at 3:45 in the afternoon and sat outside Camden train station waiting for my friends to pick me up. A guy from a rally against child abuse was trying to start a conversation and hopefully persuade passers by to become members and donate some money. He had absolutely no luck. I decided to talk to him by calling him over saying that I was interested. He told me that they get 5000 calls a day at their call center from kids that are being abused or from neighbors who call to report a child abuse. Last case that was taken to court he says, was about a 5 year old girl who had to testify against her uncle who sexually abused her. My welcome to London.

My friends arrive and we go to KFC. I hate the way they treat animals but I love the way their food tastes. Maybe someday I'll manage to control myself and stop buying their goodies.

We walk through Camden in a market with stores that sell second hand everything. Books, coats, hats, shirts, tuxedos, shoes, musical instruments and aromatic candles. My friend expresses his fear that the guy at the shoe store won't let him change the shoes he bought yesterday and found out that they're small for him. I stand outside the shop as he explains the situation to the shop owner and he lets him choose another pair of shoes but his money are not returnable.

He starts trying all these different types of shoes as I walk up and down. Checking out second hand books, weird looking mirrors and mugs. A couple passes me by that looks like they just got out of a Motley Crue convention. Four girls stop next to me and start checking the second hand books. They all look pretty but when they start talking they become as ugly as Hunchback. I wouldn't mind going for a drink with them Hunchbacks though.

We get to our hostel room. The walls look old and worn out, the closet has 3 hangers in it and to unlock/lock the door you need to learn a trick. Lift- Pull- Turn- Press down- Lift again and push. My friend asks if we can smoke inside the room. The girl says “oh no you can't cause then the fire alarm will go off. “ I ask what about if we're beside the window? He gives a negative answer. After she leaves I look up searching for fire detectors. There's none. Guess she heard the expression from other hotels and she thought of using it to make the place look more official.

We leave our stuff, have a beer and make arrangements to go to a gig in Hackney, East London. But before we go to the gig we need to get something to eat. We get to a Turskish restaurant. The food there smells great so we give our order and take a seat. On the table next to ours, there's a girl in her mid 20's sitting by herself. She has her face painted similar to Kesha's make up and she wears her bra over her shirt sipping a cup of black coffee. A friend of hers arrive with a bottle of wine. She's a bit drunk, then 3 other girls walk in. They start taking swigs from the bottle and they talk really loud. The second girl that walked in turned to me and say “Oh sorry for being loud...” I say it's alright and wait for my food to come.

We start eating and then the girls in the same tone they start talking about trips to the United States, Fellini movies and lesbians and coprophagia in movies by Italian named directors. Once again, the same girl turns to us and say “Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realize you guys were eating...” Once again I say it's fine and continue eating my food. They don't lower their voices and keep talking about feces, orgies, lesbians, art and hopes for exhibiting their art in London galleries. I turn around and ask the girl, “so you're all artists?”. She looks at me and says, “uhm...no...” I ask what they do? Before the first girl has the chance to answer, a friend of hers jumps in the conversation saying “we're not artists but she is and she doesn't know it.”

I nod and I go to turn around when the first girl says “I handed in my last assignment today, I can finally say that I graduated... but we're all artists in our minds” I congratulate her and then tell her that what she said is pretty deep. She doesn't get the sarcasm. “Why what do you guys do? Why are you here?” she says looking at us. “We're trying to enjoy our dinner and just live I guess...” I say. “I can't enjoy food...I'm scared I'll get fat...” she says and my friend smiles and says “oh we don't have a problem with that, we can enjoy it just fine.” After a while they get up and leave. We finish our meal and go to the gig.

While having a cigarette outside the bar, it looks like everyone competes with each other for craziness and originality. Mustaches, tight fisherman's jeans, long coats, loud voices, weird theatrical acts for absolutely no reason. The show's inside but they're giving their own special show outside trying to amaze their peers or at least that's how it looked to me.

That was East London for me, next post will be about Soho, hopefully if I don't forget. L8erz