Circus of Shame

Last Friday ‘hm’ bought us tickets to go and see the ‘Circus of Horrors’. Her boss is a groupie, follows them around the country for years, and we decided to go and check it out. I didn’t do any research (first mistake) and I was hoping for a rock show with some circus acts from a slightly naughty, gross point of view.

The theatre was mostly full and it did present some Goths, Punks and Emos, people that you’d most likely see hanging around in Camden Lock market. Don’t get me wrong. I love that area. I used to live close by for 2 years. Before the show began, we started chatting to the girl sitting right behind us. She was dressed in the 60’s fashion. Something that Julianne Moore would wear in ‘Hours’ or ‘Far from Heaven’. She told us that her sister saw the show and she loved it besides the fact that she found some acts gruesome.

So, the show began.

the 'piercing' guy...

I’ll have to try to explain what happened and what we watched…

There was nothing even remotely related to ‘The nightmare before Christmas’ as stated in the IndigO2 website. The first act was of a guy who put a hook through his nose and lifted some weights with it. He then got a bit undressed and revealed two big rings coming out his back. The girl behind us was ecstatic yelling: ‘Oh, he will try a full suspension!!!’ which he did! They lifted him up and made him twirl around, hanging only by these two rings! I knew that something like that would be presented and I dreaded it, as I mentioned in my last post. I was slightly happy however that it was in the beginning and over.

'the amazing acrobatics'

Some of the following acts included a woman hanging from the ceiling by her hair, a pair doing silly dances on a table wearing roller blades, an elastic girl, a guy balancing inside a huge wheel and some other very childishly performed magical tricks like cutting a guy in half, although you could still see him wearing black underneath. All these were performed in what was supposed to be a mental hospital with the leader of the psychotics singing hard rock songs which weren’t very good either.

'the lead singer'

The last drop was the last act before the intermission. There was a midget who was pretending to be Dr. Frankenstein, trying to revive one of the patients. He put on stage two big metallic pillars and had for helpers two women dressed like nurses in very (very) short uniforms. After some very bad acting he created some electric charge between the metallic pillars, producing visible sparks like the one you can see in a ball like this! Yes, that was the main attraction of the act.

That wasn’t the end of it though. Just before reviving the patient which would be the end of the act, he introduced to us two straight long neon lights that he gave to his helpers. He pulled his pants down and made one helper put one light in his eye and the other helper to hold the second light in his bum. The lights were supposed to go off. The one in his eye did flicker a bit but the other one didn’t. They weren’t even capable to pull this off correctly!

Then, it was time for intermission, when the four of us agreed on leaving. I had never left in the middle of a play / movie / show. Ever. But I was more than happy to leave then. Overall, it was the worst thing I have ever seen. It was a mixture of a very bad unprofessional jackass episode, abysmal music and humour destined for antisocial, immature 15-year-olds.

I have to admit that we laughed so much on the way home, for all the wrong reasons though. We just couldn’t believe how bad it was. ‘hm’ was worried about her boss and what kind of feedback she should give! At least we watched ‘Harry Potter’ on Sunday that I generally liked.

Copenhagen

I’m back from Denmark! We flew on Friday really early in the morning to arrive yesterday night! There were 5 of us in total: me, ‘JJ’, my housemate, her sister and a friend of her sister. 4 Greeks and a South African! Poor ‘JJ’ didn’t stand a chance… I tried of course to take care of him as much as possible and also to separate us from the rest of the group a bit. There were times while wandering around in the shopping area or in the amusement park called ‘Tivoly’ that I tried to steal some ‘us’ time.

Copenhagen is nice and we had a really nice time. We walked a lot around the beautiful centre, the old city and the massive shopping high street, we visited the National Gallery and the Danish Design Centre, we took the boat around the small islands, we saw the mermaid and we had our fun in ‘Tivoly’. Unfortunately, in general I wasn’t very impressed by the city. It reminded me a lot of Goteborg with a touch of Stockholm and Amsterdam without being near as pretty or impressive. Copenhagen has elements of all these other central European cities but I have to admit it doesn’t stand out like them.

Walking around 'the Castellet' area

Don’t get me wrong though. For a much needed weekend escape it was brilliant. The people are very friendly and polite. There are many nice shops and I liked the Scandinavian design and architecture. The ‘Statens Museum for Kunst’ (National Gallery) is an amazing building with lots of interesting pieces of art. ‘The Castellet’ (The Castle) is a really nice area to walk in. The food we had was really nice and in abundance (steaks, hot dogs, pastries, bacon, cheese etc). ‘Tivoly’ was already in full Christmas spirits and we saw all the dwarfs, Santas and Rudolfs we could. The things I brought from there were a wild boar and a deer salami made traditionally by a Danish family…

'The Royal Café'

What I also have to comment was the lack of people and cars in the city centre. Apart from some people walking on the main shopping road, the rest of the city seemed empty! OK, the weather was a bit cold but on Saturday morning I would expect more people to walk around or cycle! What I found amazingly funny was the fact that some places didn't allow prams in them! Imagine our surprise when we saw a buggy with a baby in it, alone on the pavement with seemingly no people around! We then found out that it was ‘parked’ in front of the café where the parents were enjoying nice coffee inside a warm environment with the baby alone outside in 2 degrees Celsius! I know that crime levels are not high in these countries but I was quite surprised! I was even more surprised to find the prices in Copenhagen as well! I expected it to be expensive but not that much! To give you an example, I paid in the hotel café for a single espresso and a cup of tea 52 kroner (= £5.9 = 9.6 US$). In some places they even charged tab water for more than a pound!

'The Danish Design Centre'

Anyway, we had our laughs and we had our fun! These are some more of the pictures I took:

'Barbie riding a condom in a condom shop'

Playing with reflections in Tivoli

The mermaid being placed back in position after spending some months in Shanghai.

Coffee time

National Gallery

National Gallery

Interesting looking restaurants

Open Water Diver

I am a certified PADI Open Water Diver (POWD) from the London School of Diving (LSD)! Yes, I’m a POWD from LSD! It sounds bad, doesn’t it? I loved it so much though…

We went to the headquarters of LSD (me, my housemate and her sister) on Saturday early in the morning. People were already gathering from different ages, sex and background! You could see that some of the students were slightly stressed. Having to face the same difficulties made us all connected in a way and laughter and discussions were easily shared after a while. I have to say that I met some really nice and interesting people during this weekend.

Our first task was to find suitable gear. We needed a fitting wetsuit, BCD, mask with snorkel, fins, weights and hood (I had my own boots). Trying on things like the wetsuit can really be a struggle. You have no idea how tough it is to put it on. It’s so tight! I must have lost a couple of inches around my body wearing that wetsuit for two days.

An hour later, after we’ve been all sorted, more than 5 cars started their way to a diving centre in the south west of London. I didn’t know these kind of centres existed. I don’t know how the other ones are but ours was a small hut by a not very big lake. In the hut you could get your air tanks refilled, eat lunch or have a cup of tea in a very reasonable price and buy equipment. There were many cars with families, groups or individuals wanting to dive as well. The centre provides some underwater platforms in 5 meters deep for training purposes and some interesting things underwater for recreational diving like a taxi, a car, a ship etc. We managed to see the taxi twice, it was very cool!

When we arrived there, we were allocated instructors and groups. Fortunately, the three Greeks (us), we were one group with a very good instructor and a safety diver that we met on our previous trial dive. We managed to stay slightly separated from the rest of the group by our instructor’s choice. We weren’t taking part in the large group discussions. In the beginning I didn’t really like that but after a while I saw that we were quicker in doing the debriefings, the dives and sorting out our gear. We were the first in the lake and the first to come out. The time to finish the training took less time for us as well. So, I didn’t have any reason to complain.

So, each day we did two dives. I really didn’t like much the very first one though. I wasn’t familiar with the water’s temperature and “visibility”. You could only see two meters around you which was our visibility for all of our dives! The rest was just a colour of green / brown! Also, because I was wearing an extra wetsuit jacket that was really tight on my chest I couldn’t breathe easily. That made me feel very uncomfortable going down to the platform for the first time. I felt claustrophobic and panicky. I had to resurface to catch my breath and relax. With my instructor’s help, I unzipped the second wetsuit and I was able to join my team on the platform in 5 meters.

The rest of the dives went much smoother than the first. When I was diving, I knew what I had to face so I was relaxed and ready. So nothing else dramatic happened during our dives. Me and the rest of my group, we finished all our challenges fairly quickly and easily. All of the stuff we did underwater was stuff we’ve already done in the swimming pool for our ‘Open Water Referral’, although the lake was giving it a different level of difficulty. We had to so stuff like having our air supply cut in order to get our dive buddy’s second regulator, we had to remove and put back on our mask or maintain for a certain amount of time neutral buoyancy etc.

One girl of the group didn’t finish the course because she couldn’t handle not having her mask off. She felt that water was going through her nose without the mask, so she panicked (worse thing you can do) and tried to dash for the surface. What she did was extremely dangerous for her lungs and blood pressure. Fortunately, nothing bad happened to her. Her (poor) instructor must have gotten a real fright going after her, reaching her on the surface, checking that she’s alright and trying to make her calm down. After a few hours she did try going into the water again but wasn’t able to continue her training. She then made her boyfriend (also in the group) to abandon his training. They mentioned going to Maldives for holidays, so they’ll try to do it there.

At the end of day two, we had successfully completed all the tasks needed by PADI, so we were granted our certifications of ‘Open Water Divers’. We celebrated (of course) by going to the near pub to drink with our instructors talking about our future as qualified divers!!! There are many more courses I can take and many options of where to go and dive. However, what I will do next is go and dive in Rhodes. I want to experience diving in the sea, in warm waters, where visibility is good and fish swim around! I hope that the experience will be much more gratifying!

Here are some pictures of the weekend: You can see me in one of them:

It looks so peaceful like that

Getting into the lake (I'm on the far right already in the water)

I'm in the centre (visibility was not as bad as it looks)

A person from the group (but yes, visibility was not great either)

People getting out of the lake!

Reading (totally different kind)

Lately, I’ve been worried a bit about the increase of my waistline so I decided to do something about it. I totally blame JJ (and he knows about it)… My housemate and sister are members of the weight watchers and they’ve been quite successful dropping off some pounds each. So, I decided to do something similar by buying myself a good scale to keep track of my weight weekly, trying to see the numbers go down.

So, I visited my local branch of Argos to see what’s on offer. I’ve found a really nice, flashy white scale with lots of buttons and memory that calculates weight, body fat, muscle mass, body water and BMI in a few seconds! Apparently it lets small electricity current to run through you to check all these different things. (Yes, I’ve even created a small excel chart for every one of them – I am that geek)!

Although I am happy that I drop a few kilos (the first ones are always easy to lose) I can’t exactly figure out the rest of the numbers. Take the body fat for example. I weighted myself two days ago. Since then I ate a burger at a nice restaurant (bad) but I went to the gym (good), ran 6 miles (good) and only had a salad with tuna in brine for dinner yesterday (very good). As expected, my weight was down for almost half a kilo (I don’t expect miracles) but my body fat had increased by 4%! Why? In such a rate the majority of me will be only fat! At least I’ll float better when I go swimming…


On a very different matter but still in the same category, I visited the doctor the other day. I wanted to check about the muscle pull I have. It’s been three weeks and it is still causing me some discomfort. The (very good looking) doctor told me that there is nothing to worry about. He told me that it could take up to 6 weeks to heal. Also, if I had any problem with my ribs I would definitely know. He fell down the stairs (poor thing) and he cracked 4 ribs. He could move for days…

Anyway, while I was there I had a brief health check. Frau Freida (the nurse) checked my pulse and blood pressure. Unfortunately, the reading of my blood pressure was very high that frau was very surprised. I expected it to be high (it runs in the family) but not that much. Since you can’t really tell from just one reading, I will go again in a couple of days to double check.

I have to admit that I am slightly troubled. The past year I’ve been living quite an active life, I don’t add extra salt to food, I don’t usually eat red meat (excluding that burger I had two days ago) and I like my veggies, fish and fruit. The only sin that I can admit is my love for feta cheese. For those of you who haven’t tried it, feta is a quite salty goat cheese. It’s good for the bones though...

The Reading…

I had quite an interesting weekend. I totally loved mine and JJ’s visit on Saturday morning to the spa. We spent more than 1.5 hours going in and out of the long swimming pool, Jacuzzi, sauna and warm relaxing pool of the gym before having our massages at the spa. Although it was my very first aromatherapy massage and I don’t have something to compare it with, I quite enjoyed it.

I was right there two days ago

What I would like to comment more though is the tarot reading I had on Saturday afternoon. I arrived at a block of flats somewhere in Northern London in time, and I was let in to the reader’s kitchen. I had to wait there for a short while since the previous client (my housemate) hadn’t finished. The kitchen looked pretty normal to me. There weren’t any jars with bat’s ears, rabbit legs or lizard skin. There weren’t any small weird tubes and pots, or cauldron with steam coming out of it. The whole place looked quite normal. The only thing I did notice was the fact that the place needed some dusting…

After a short while, my housemate and psychic (can I call her that?) exited the room they were in. She was a little bit short, barefoot dressed in jeans and simple blue t-shirt. She had short brown hair and a nice, welcoming, smile. She informed me that she needed 5 to 10 minutes to clear her head so I chatted a bit with my housemate and her prognosis…

After those 5 minutes were up I said goodbye to my friends and I followed Emma (let’s call her that) to a nice, spacious, warm sitting room. A large triple window was making the room quite bright and the deep orange colour on the walls made me feel relaxed and at ease. There were two massive sofas, a big bookcase with books, DVDs and CDs, a big plasma screen TV and big woofer and speakers. There were also various decorative bits and pieces left around like small candles, decorative puppets, wooden boxes etc. We sat there for a while chatting a bit. She asked me about the part of Greece I’m from, how I met my housemate and how I decided to join her for a reading since I never had one before. Following JJ’s advice not to give in too much about my personality to check the accuracy (?) of the reading, I didn’t say much but replied to her questions normally. JJ wanted to see whether Emma would find out that I’m gay or will start talking to me about wives, children, football and stuff. Anyway, after telling her what kind of reading I wanted, I shuffled the cards and we started. I decided to ask her more about my professional life and a little bit about my personal life. I had spent the whole morning teasing JJ that if Emma would tell me something bad about him, it would mean the end of our relationship…

The first reading I had was about the present and a little bit about my future, mostly about my professional life. The first cards she opened were indicators of my personality. She told me that according to the tarot cards, I liked having stability and security in my life. I also had problems at expressing my feelings. From some other cards she saw that I might have some issues with my personal life. She asked me whether I was single or in a relationship and that me and my partner were probably not in the exact same page. I was very cautious not to tell her that I had a boyfriend but I was in relationship. She was kind of vague at her reply as well and we left it at that.

Then, she started checking the cards for my future. She said that she saw changes coming. That in the present I feel restricted at my current job. It doesn’t have any prospect, it’s not mentally challenging and it doesn’t pay well. She said that I am not materialistic but I want to earn a good amount of money to feel secure and stable, which is true. In the near future however, a card called ‘the hermit’ appeared. She told me that that is not really a good card where it appeared. She fears that I might give my month’s notice before finding something else (not likely) or that I will be made redundant in the very near future! She did apologise for that (bless her) but she said that I will probably stay jobless for a short while, maybe doing something part time or contracting to keep me going. She saw however that I have the means to support myself for that short period of time (this autumn). She suggested me doing some kind of training and I mentioned to her that I am doing something at the moment. Luckily, in the future (late autumn, beginning of winter) I will have a new job and I will be happy. She got that from the cards ‘the hanged man’ and ‘the lord’. She told me that ‘the lord’ is an authoritative figure, most likely my new boss and ‘the hanged’ man means content and happiness (don’t ask me why a, upside-down man hanged by one leg is happy).

The hanged Man

That first part of the reading ended. She told me to create a new question to ‘ask’ the cards. I think I told her to check whether the quest of finding a new job will be successful or not. She started opening some new cards. Funnily enough, some of the same cards appeared again. The first card which appeared, in the centre, was the card of ‘Death’. Death is not a bad card. It has nothing to do with physical death but with change and new beginnings. Unfortunately, that change might not happen in the best possible way and it could mean having problems along the way. So, in general Emma told me that I need to change jobs and that now is the best period to do so. She also said that the way I am trying to learn Java (I told her a bit about my in house self training) is not the best and that I should find some days to do a course. She saw me with other people / a teacher being taught during the autumn. She then mentioned that I will be in a dilemma of jeopardising my need of stability and try doing some contracting job instead of trying to find a permanent job.


While I was doing that reading, ‘The Lord’ appeared again and Emma wanted to check who that guy was. She wanted to see if he was my new boss or a teacher. She opened 3 or 4 cards quickly but couldn’t get a clear reading. She simply mentioned that possibly the choice I would make would be to play it safe and not take risks.

She then asked me, since we had some time left what else I would like to check. I then told her to check about my relationship, since she previously saw some dark clouds. She agreed and started opening some cards. They were completely different than before. She saw that me and my partner would end up having a fight. She saw someone being very angry and maybe trying to give up. However, she saw that good communication would set things right and that this fight is nothing to worry about.

Finally Emma asked me to open a final card to end the session and I opened ‘the lovers’. She told me that apart from the obvious the lovers, symbolised by a man between a young and an old woman, indicate a crossroad…

the lovers

Before asking me, I need to say that I do not generally believe in all that. I will not make any decisions or continue my life differently. Going to see her was out of curiosity and for fun. It was something I wanted to try. I will not keep on having my palm read or studying the art of tarot reading. However, if I will be made redundant the next couple of months I will be VERY amazed and I will pay Emma another visit next year…

Arrivals…

I’ve always enjoyed having people over. My house is always open for my friends. I love to have them staying for dinner, coffee, just a movie or a board game. I loved the fact that while I was studying my house was right in city centre, close to the university and I had people passing by all the time.

I’ve been trying to do the same while I’m in London. I always invite my friends from Greece to come. I believe it’s an opportunity not to miss since I can accommodate and provide free tours of the city.

So, this weekend I have one of my best friends coming to London with her sister. Her sister is quite younger and has never travelled outside Greece. I hope it will be as amazing for her. They had this trip planned since before Christmas.

Lovely London in March

I have mentioned about them coming a while ago. What I think I haven’t mentioned before is that my housemate (‘hm’) also have people coming. She’s having her brother, his girlfriend and their two-year old daughter with them!!!!

OK, I’ll help you count:
Two of us already living in that house: 2 +
My friend and her sister: 2 +
The family: 3
Total: 7!

So, we will be 7 of us living in the same roof. My flat is not that big. Thankfully it’s a two bedroom, two bathrooms flat. Having two bathrooms I hope means less queues. The family will go into one room, the sisters will go to the other and the permanent residents (us) will stay in the living room.

Different version of a Full House

I’m not worried as much for the number of people living with us as I am worried with the two-year old. I’ve heard that she’s pretty spoiled and can be a pain in the ass. She’s used to do things like waking up in two in the morning screaming demanding her milk or toys. I know how to handle adults but I am not used to spending so many days with a toddler. Please tell me you have some tips to give me!
(I just hope that not knowing me and the beard will scare her a bit to be more well behaved). OK, don't get me wrong. I love children (as long as we keep our safe distances)...

My friend’s been here before but her sister hasn’t and she would like to see as many London sights as possible. That means that their day will start early and they will try to cover each day as much “distance” as possible. I’ll be going to work as normal and I’ll be meeting them after that. I might only take one day off next week for a day trip or something.

I’ve booked tickets for them to go and see Priscilla – Queen of the desert. They wanted to see a big West End musical and I haven’t seen this one. I heard it’s quite enjoyable.

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On a slightly different subject following my birthday,
I bought yesterday the UK based gay magazine called Attitude. The theme of this month’s issue is about getting old. There is a huge article about how a ‘gay man’s life starts at 30’! I haven’t read it yet but I’m quite interested in going through it. Knowing the magazine I know it’s not going to be top journalism or something to think about for long. However, I’d like to see their point of view.

Even before reading the article I know that this statement contains true facts. I truly believe that the next decade of my life will be great. Let’s wait and see…

I survived the experience

I had the most amazing weekend!On Friday night I went out with ‘JJ’ to the local ‘Ballans Café’ for dinner. It was nice seeing him after a few days apart and sharing our latest news over a nice dinner.We woke up really early on Saturday morning to go to get the rented car. Fortunately for us they didn’t have available the type of car we booked (Vauxhall Astra) so we got upgraded for free. We had the option between Ford Mondeo, Vauxhall Zafira and Renault Scenic. For no particular reason we picked the Scenic and drove to Windsor. The day was wonderful, slightly cold but sunny. We walked to the castle and took some photos. We spent the rest of our visit enjoying breakfast in the high street and then walking all the way to Eton to take a look at the famous Eton College which most of the royal family attended. It was fun watching the (filthy rich) pupils running between classes.

The crooked house of Windsor

The Windsor Castle

Eton

Next stop was IKEA. It is like a tradition we have now. Each time we have a car we HAVE to visit IKEA. ‘JJ’ wanted to buy a new bookcase and as always I was able to find some little bits to buy as well. I got some funky pillows for my living room. The day ended with us having large portions of pasta (to get some carbs) and watching 'Run fat boy run' which was appropriate for the occasion. (I love this movie)…

However the major event of the weekend was the trip to Bath and my half marathon on Sunday. My housemate (‘hm’), ‘JJ’, me and ‘gb’ (also doing the run) left London around 7 o’clock in the morning. It’s a little bit more than 2 hours drive. We made our stop for breakfast and coffee where I only had some fruit and nuts. I was feeling a bit nervous but the journey itself was pretty nice. We were singing, dancing and laughing in the car (as usual), making a fool out of ourselves to the other cars. We arrived there in time to find a decent parking place within a walkable distance from the center and we headed to the starting point.

The place was packed. There were 15,000 registered runners. Imagine all of them accompanied by family and friends. It was simply awesome. Bath was overwhelmed. I left my housemate and ‘JJ’ to find a spot between the spectators and I headed with ‘gb’ to our starting point. When we registered for the run, we registered our target time of finish. That information placed each runner into a specific position separating the runners from the joggers. We were in the last group to reach the start line but of course we didn’t mind. The weather was amazing, a bit cold but very sunny. We were so excited about the whole thing.

And the race began.I stayed with ‘gb’ for the first 5 miles. We then separated with him running ahead. He is in a better shape than I am and he has a natural talent in running. He used to compete when younger. I finished the rest of the race running on my own.

There were so many spectators however cheering, yelling and clapping their hands in the freezing cold that made it all bearable and much more enjoyable. It was sunny but very cold (around 2 degrees Celsius) and there were people outside their houses for more than 2 hours trying to cheer the runners! It was an amazing experience. I had my name written on the front of my t-shirt and I could hear people calling me, trying to encourage me. I can’t explain how empowering that was.
I also managed to see ‘JJ’ and ‘hm’ in both laps. They were ecstatic trying to get some pictures of us running and also cheer for us!

I still remember a guy holding his baby in front of his house next to the river, yelling: ‘Hey Nik, keep it going son, you can do it’! There was another guy playing a guitar in the cold for more than two hours! I can’t really explain what it meant for the runners.

On a very funny side, there were runners dressed as supermen, batmen etc. There was a guy dressed in a medieval armor, another dressed as PacMan and two guys running with massive fake boobs for the breast cancer foundation. I was told that there was a guy running with a stroller and his child in it (I missed that).
The route was very beautiful since it included parts of the city centre and parts in the nearby wooded area. Unfortunately it was a bit hilly making it a bit tough for me. I was really struggling in the last mile but I was so happy and proud when I reached the end!
I did the 13.1 miles (22 kilometers) in 2 hours and 33 minutes. I don’t know if it’s too slow but to be honest I didn’t train that much and I was ill the past week.

Overall it was an amazing experience and I will do it again. I don’t care that I have muscle pain and walk funny for a few days…

The medal