Yesterday was a massively busy day... I got up early, as I was supposed to meet the 6th graders and my former English teacher (who I will just call RSM from now on) at Mme Tussaud's at 10am. I was a little late, but so were they.
Someone I didn't expect: Uli, a good friend of my mum's, who is also a teacher at my old school. She now knows everything about my new life in London, while my mum still knows very little, which is weird. It was nice seeing her, though. I've known her all my life, but hadn't seen her in ages.
While the kids (who I repeatedly was introduced to as "Tara Abi'05", who lives in London now.*) were still posing with the waxworks I went for a cup of tea with RSM. Was really nice catching up with her and hearing about all the changes at my old school. She's two years older than my mum, but it did feel a bit like meeting an old friend. I spent a lot of time with her during my teenage years, afterall. She was my tennis coach for 2 years, my English teacher for 5, I was in one of her theatre plays and graduated from school with one of her sons. Plus she wrote me lots of references since, which I am very thankful for. Weirdly she also thinks quitting my English studies is a good idea. You wouldn't expect that from your very organised, very strict, very reasonable former teacher, but she seems to know me even better than I thought. She says if I want to she will write me a certificate saying: "T. hat das Lernziel erreicht.", which was one of the funniest things I had heard in a while. :) So yeah, I had a really good time!
And as I also wanted to talk to Uli for a while I decided to join the group on their walk from Buckingham Palace, past Downing Street 10 to the Royal Horse Guards and Chinatown.
That walk made me remember how horrible it is being a 13 year old and why not-becoming-a-teacher was a very wise decision for me to make.
I then even had some amazing, cheap Chinese food in Chinatown with RSM and Uli, who invited me.
After saying goodbye to them all I made my way to Newington Green to get Eva's keys from the bar. Resisted the temptation of having a pint at the Oak Bar and took a bus to Angel instead, where I met Rieke, who just moved to London the other day. She'd never been here before and is very confused and a little lost in the massiveness of the city. But she has an oyster card already and is very proud of it!
We had a few pints in some random pub at Angel and then headed to Tottenham Court Rd to meet Marcell, who begged me to go to a gay bar with him for distraction from his ex. The gay bar turned out to be a gay dance club in Soho, full of half naked gay men being very gay at each other all over the place. I quickly got the impression that Rieke didn't feel too comfortable, which is understandable, seeing as it was the first gay bar she's ever been in and not exactely the gentlest introduction to the scene.
So I left Marcell with a very short bald guy on the dance floor and took Rieke to a normal, quiet pub instead. I think she was quite happy about that, but also felt a little bad, cause she didn't want anyone to think that she was homophobe. I know she's not. She's one of the people who reacted best and in the most helpful way when I came out, for example. Anyway, I was a little happy, too, cause I was more in a talk-to-good-friend-who-not-seen-in-ages-and-drink-beer mood rather than a dance-all-night-with-sweaty-gay-men-and-sniff-poppers mood. By the time Rieke got on her tube and I had had talked enough and drunken enough beer I was a little in that mood, though and went back to the club. Then realised that I was in the wrong one (they all look the same and have very similar names and all!) and ran around Soho for a while trying to find the right one with Marcell in it. That is why today I have THREE stamps saying "G-A-Y" on my wrist. That made me laugh when I woke up very hungover this morning.
Well, eventually I found Marcell, who was still with the little bald guy and we did some sweaty dancing. Then decided to go to another horrible gay bar, where we did more sweaty dancing. The only other person who joined us was a very old gay man with a beard and a belly top, who was very interested in poor handsome young Marcell. He kept grabbing my arm and pushing me into his equally unattractive lesbian friend, so that was fun. When he screamed into Marcell's ear with his very high voice "I looooove your bitch**!!", we left.
Feeling very, very rough today. And very skinned.
*RSM made it all sound like "look, she came from where you are now and has made it all the way to London" as if it was a big achievement and I wanted to shout: "KIDS, DON'T DO WHAT I DID! I AM ALMOST 25 AND HAVE NOTHING IN THE WORLD APART FROM BEER DRINKING SKILLS AND 60 QUID A WEEK", but didn't, cause I like my life a lot right now and think they'd probably enjoy it, too. Also I think they might actually believe my surname was "Abi05".
**That is me.
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