Thank-you London and Europe! in Adventures in paradise

I think I’ve written three entries in the entire four weeks I’ve been overseas.
I’m currently in my hotel near the airport. I booked a late checkout of 5pm for 10 pounds extra, as my flight leaves around 8:50pm tonight. I figure that’s a fair amount of time to get myself organised and there and such. I just looked it up and I’m about a 15 minute bus ride from the terminal I need - which is 3. Heathrow has 5, so I had to double-check which one my flight leaves from.

I’m watching BBC here at the hotel. Channels I’m not used to seeing. The news is on and they are talking about voting on whether to airstrike Syria or not, and it looks like it’s probably going to go ahead.
It makes me glad that my flight appears to be leaving slightly before they start doing this, although I don’t see how I’d be affected anyway.
The US and France are already doing it.
It just makes me sad. I guess a hell of a lot of people have or are trying to flee Syria, but for anyone still there, they may be bombed in their own homes. I just hope the intelligence is spot on and they know where these terrorist fuckers are.
Anyway, world goes on I guess.

I’ve been so busy. Barely time to write. I’ve been out every single day. I think this final day here is the only day I haven’t been out yet and it’s 1:15pm. I will probably go for a bit of a wander though, but not too far. Technically I should be sleeping away the afternoon to change my sleeping pattern so that the jetlag isn’t as bad when I arrive home. But since I’ve worked a mix of day and night jobs, I’m not really that concerned about it. Most people sleep on the night flight (tonight) going back, but I think I will try to stay awake and maybe just have a nap and sleep more on my second flight.

I’m not looking forward to the flight back. It seemed to never end. I guess I was in commute for something like 28-30 hours all up, with arriving at airports way too early etc because I was overly cautious for my first trip. Even now, in my final few hours in this country, I’m staying nearby the airport I need to go. I haven’t even bought the damn suitcase I planned to because carting it around would have still been annoying. I will have a look today but they will probably be expensive around the airport.

It’s been crazy. I think I last wrote in Berlin airport? Since then I flew into Manchester where I took a terrible snapchat selfie whilst I was waiting for Andrew lol…

Andrew arrived and he showed me around the gay village.

I still can’t believe I was on Canal Street, the street where the original Queer As Folk was filmed. If it wasn’t for that show being on TV when I was a teenager, I don’t know where I’d be. I thought I was so alone for many years out on the farm in country Queensland.

Andrew took some photos of me haha.
He captioned this “Guys that hang around canals!” (insinuating I’m a hooker lol).

I took some touristy photos too.

The first night we were there it was pouring rain and windy as fuck (typical England!).
We ate at a Chinese restaurant to escape the weather briefly, and earlier on we went to look at a famous church and ate at a tea place nearby. It was fabulous and very British :)

The tea was great, but the scones were cold and brittle. They could really do so much better, but Andrew was complaining more than I was, because he’s a perfectionist.

The second night was less windy and less rainy for a while but we got drenched finally going home from the clubs.
My favourite club was by far KIKI. All of the barstaff were attractive twinks and the music and crowd were really pumping.
G-A-Y was alright, but nothing really special. Andrew reckons it’s really been overtaken by the lesbians over the years lol. There was a real mixed crowd there.
We first went to ‘The Thompsons Arms” which had really cheap drinks, which was way cheaper than a restaurant we ate at earlier who charged us 15 pounds for two basic spirit drinks. It was like 2 pounds at the gay bar.

I have to say that I loved Manchester, despite the weather. A girl swore at a car that went through a red light, “Ya twat!” (SO British) and then apologized when she saw me and Andrew haha.
Andrew reckons that the northern British guys are so much more down to earth and you don’t get the pretentiousness of the London guys.

I guess I haven’t been around long enough here to make a definite decision, but from what I saw from the friendliness of the Manchester guys, I have to agree.

I took a train from Manchester back to London, and eventually found my hostel. I realized that there was a night I hadn’t booked accommodation for (LOL) so thankfully there was a cheap hostel called ‘Generator’ that I managed to book a cheap room at. I’d misjudged that there was an extra day before I was due to leave haha.

Anyway, that was a pretty funky hostel. Comfy beds. The only issue was that I had a top bunk, which was difficult to get a power-source to without an extension cord. I’d probably request a bottom bunk if I’d stay there again.
I was also sharing the room with a girl and a guy. Which I guess was fine.

But would you believe this? I went on Grindr there, and turns out there were quite a few other gay guys in the hostel, all like 8 meters etc away. And it’s not even a gay hostel.
I hooked up with a really friendly redhead guy in the showers on the top level (as he decided they were the quietest LOL) and guess where this guy was from?
Manchester.

I’d gone to a heap of gay bars IN Manchester and didn’t even hook up with anyone there haha. Oh the irony. He was lovely.

Let’s just put it out there and say as soon as I got back to London, I got my slut on. On top of that guy, I met up with another absolute cutie who was muscled and short (he must have had like 5% body fat, if that) at his apartment nearby and he gave me an incredible edging session on his bedroom floor and then after that he later went down on me in the shower.
Fucking unreal.

AND, despite those two guys, because I had the extra day and it was a Monday, Andrew suggested that I finally get the guts to go to Sweatbox, since Monday are ‘Under 25’s get in free’.
So, I did that. I was there for a few hours, and it was okay. I got there early and made use of the gym, so I FINALLY managed to do a bit of a workout. Because I’ve been on the go so much, and gyms here seem to think signing up is mandatory (fucking useless for tourists!)

Then I (obviously) went into the sauna, and (don’t read this if you’re eating), as soon as I opened the door from the locker room to the cruising area, I got the unmistakable scent of dick. Ergh!
I couldn’t even go in there to begin with. Andrew had warned me that there are a lot of sauna’s that aren’t clean, and that was definitely one of them. Nothing like the Amsterdam one. In fact, nothing like any of the one’s I’d been to on this wild trip.
I took a pic of this sign in the locker-room. They are big on stopping GHB-use, as it’s high among the gay community. There are also signs saying you can’t sleep in the private booths because if someone on GHB slips into a coma, they could die. Pretty full-on. I hadn’t seen these signs in other gay saunas.

I braved it and just held my breath and eventually I got used to the smell.
But as for ‘twink night’, I probably saw maybe two or three all night. I had this Irish guy keep trying to get with me and I wasn’t interested. He’d be very bold and just sit near me in the spa and just grab my hand and try to put it on his dick, and when I’d take my hand away, he’d just grab it again and try again. Not cool dude. It got to the point where he was becoming really fucking annoying. I wanted to punch his lights out, and I’m not violent at all lol.
There were a few other guys who tried playing with me in the spa, but at least they were respectful. I let one guy for a while, who was a bit alright, and I stopped him after a few minutes and he thanked me and smiled, so that was nice.
An old guy felt my leg up and I gently pushed his hand away, and I immediately saw the expression on his face. It was like a punch to the gut, to both him, and I upon seeing it. I felt like he probably gets the response I gave him a fair bit.
I don’t know sauna-etiquette, other than respect and condom-use always, and I guess in those places you have to leave your feelings at the door. I dunno.
I chatted to an Asian guy for a while who gave me a bit of a blowjob, but to be honest he wasn’t that good at it. Another guy joined in with us (the annoying thing doing it in public areas in saunas) and I just moved his mouth onto the other guy and walked out.
I ended up leaving the sauna,not even getting off with anyone!
Crazy, right? The London sauna on twink-night, and nothing.

I suppose the hottest part was when I just happened to be in the sauna with a hot muscled Italian-looking guy and another guy followed him in and started sucking him off. So there I am, legitimately just trying to dry off from the spa in the sauna, and a million other guys all crowd around the door, getting a look at the hottest guy in the sauna getting sucked off. I was kind of trapped in there for a bit to the left of him, but I had the best view as no-one else could get in the door. Of course, he had the perfect dick to go with the body and face.
He enjoyed that for a while, but then made a move off somewhere. Probably to find the second-hottest guy in the sauna and get it on with him. I figure that’s probably what happens.
I did notice three attractive guys in a private room together and they were all introducing themselves before closing the door. I thought that was really nice!

Anyway, so I finally went to that one. To think when I first arrived here, I wasn’t game to go in. At least they had a gym. And a chill-out room. I watched an episode of Little Britain in there on a bean-bag. I thought that was fabulous. Watching Little Britain in Great Britain, in a gay sauna.

So it wasn’t my favourite experience, but it added to the many that I’ve had. I can’t imagine when I arrive home in 20-30 hours time that I’ll be doing or able to do anything like what I’ve done over the past four weeks here and in some of Europe. It’s definitely eye-opening seeing other cultures and speaking other languages and I’m thankful this has brought me out of my comfort-zone.

Now, just this ‘horrible’ long flight to go. I’ve booked extra-legroom seats, so I’m hoping that softens the blow a little.

I am looking forward to not going outside wearing a beanie and scarf and layers. And I miss my own bed :)

Last updated December 01, 2015