I found out early last Thursday morning the friend’s house where which I was supposed to be staying for the remainder of my time in London had to postpone—and potentially cancel—her trip. This was because her wife had not yet received her visa from the country to which they were planning to travel.
I panicked for a minute and then went into action mode. Good ol’ Craigslist proved very helpful. I found a lead on an inexpensive sublet in East London and a few rooms to rent, too, in Kensington near where I was already staying in a cheap-o hotel. The first flat was a 3-story gem in Hackney occupied by a New York music journalist and her British boyfriend. Bingo! I took it on the spot, pending my friend and her wife’s situation on Friday.
Friday night it was a no-go for my friend’s wife. Hence, no secured place to stay for my remaining three weeks on London. Oh no!


Saturday I again trekked out to Hackney and the cute 3-story flat to swap some dough for keys to the place. The underground was royally messed up because of weekend work, but the signage is so clear and the Transport For London personnel so helpful that my four train changes and one bus ride were quite pleasant.

Sunday I trucked my stuff over to the Hackney flat: The young couple graciously let me crash on their couch the night before they left for the U.S. because I had nowhere else to go.
The next morning I picked up my girlfriend at Heathrow and we went back to our very own crash pad. We had a languorous afternoon of passionate sex, the kind of sex you have when you haven’t seen your gal for over two weeks. Raucous, raunchy, down ‘n’ dirty sex with mouths and fingers everywhere, biting, grabbing, sucking, scratching, fucking …
That first day we meandered around our immediate neighborhood, bought a Time Out London to see what was going on in the city and picked out a play to see the next night at a theatre on the end of our local bus line. It was a cute little theatre in a pub where we saw Christopher Durang’s “Beyond Therapy” and made friends with the gay box office guy who was thrilled to meet some queer New Yorkers.
More adventurous the next few days, we traveled into Central London where we attended another show at the Soho Theatre and had dinner at a posh local restaurant that sources local ingredients and serves local fare. Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller was sitting right next to us. It seems he was having some sort of dinner meeting. That’s been our only celebrity spotting thus far.
I’ll keep you posted.