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---------------------------------------------- Tuesday, October 29: Waking up, I had absolutely no clue what adventures the day would bring. Everything seemed prime to go so smoothly. I just had to finish tossing my things into my bag, and copy down some telephone numbers stored in my email account. These magical digits would enable me contact to ABBAMAILer Frank Horstmann upon my arrival in London and thereby avoid wandering terrified around London, searching for some frightening "budget" accommodations. These fantastic sequences of numbers would also put me in contact with ABBAMAILer Cliff for a Friday night rendezvous and enable to find my friends in Oxford when I headed up that way. Normally, I would have simply loaded everyone's phone numbers into my mobile phone, but my service provider in Austria demanded I provide an Austrian credit card for the privilege of paying them outrageous sums of money should I dare actually use the phone. These phone numbers were very important. Sometimes I learn very slowly. Tuesday morning after I woke up, the first thing I did was check my email. Or rather, attempt to check my email. I cheerfully typed in my username and password for my university webmail account, only to be informed that my inbox "could not be reached." Shit. I tried it again. And again. And again. Still, my inbox could not be reached. PANIC!!! After an hour or two or frantically trying to log on every three or four minutes, I decided to buck up and call Graeme, figuring he would certainly have everyone's phone numbers. After all, he is The Guru. I probably sounded quite panicked when I talked to Graeme that morning, but if your well being for an entire week counted on calling Sydney from Austria to get the number of a German living in London, you would probably be a little panicked, too. Graeme said he didn't have the phone numbers, but after uttering some calming words, he promised to hunt them down. Approximately forty-five minutes later I had Frank's numbers as well as a good bit of motherly advice from Graeme. "Great!" I thought. "Now I'll go out to lunch and leave my mobile phone to charge." When I got back from lunch, I had a voice mail Graeme with Cliff's numbers, which I wrote down in a hurry because it costs a fortune to listen to your voicemails in Austria. This haste is important later. I had random giggling fits on the airplane, and wondered if I would speak English or German with Frank. Fast forward a few hours, and suddenly I was descending into London Stansted airport. During the beginning of the flight, I was giddy with excitement-I gazed out the window at the gorgeous weather in Austria and had random fits of giggling as I thought about the endless wonders awaiting me in London. But as the plane descended, different thoughts began to intrude. It seemed as though I'd departed from an idyllic city surrounded by snow-capped mountains and filled to sunshine to visit a dark, dreary, rainy wasteland. Still, I was optimistic. Who cares about the weather anyway, right? Upon arriving in London, I bought a phone card and called Frank immediately. Or rather, I tried to call Frank immediately. Even though all payphones in England are phone-card ready, I never actually found a shop that sold British Telecom phone cards, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm absolutely wretched with numbers, and between typing in a toll-free number, a PIN number, and the correct combination of zeroes, country and city codes, and phone numbers was just proving too much. I finally managed to get through to Frank's landline, but just got his voicemail. Undaunted, I simply left a message saying I'd be in Liverpool Street Station in approximately 1 hour, and that I hoped he got my message. I popped down to the train platform, secure in the knowledge that the trains ran from Stansted to Liverpool Street Station every twelve minutes. It was approximately 6:35 PM. When I looked at the monitors at the train platform, though, something was amiss. They informed me that the next train, the 7:00 PM, was delayed by 10 minutes. Bloody hell. Since when does having zero trains run between 6:35 PM and 7:00 PM constitute "one train every twelve minutes." Furthermore, I was completely mystified as to what could possibly delay a train. That's the magic of trains. They don't have to wait for air traffic control. They don't have to be routed around lightning storms. They don't have to sit in traffic jams. What the fuck could delay a train? Last summer I spent two weeks in Germany, and when one train was 7 minutes late, I was looking at my watch and shaking my head in bewilderment. But I digress. I decided to call Frank again, and somehow I managed to figure out that I needed to drop all the zeros from the various country and area codes when dialling his mobile number. At least that was one worry out of the way. When Frank picked me up at Liverpool Street Station, we had quite a history. OK, actually, we'd exchanged two emails. All I knew about Frank was that he was a friend of Cliff's, that he was a massage therapist, and that he originally came from Germany. Oh yeah, there was also that ABBAMAIL connection thing going. Ted also mentioned that Frank was "kinda cute for an older guy." Ted dear, only two of those six words apply to Frank. My friends all thought I was totally insane. I was staying with a total stranger. I've always depended on the kindness of strangers. Well, not really... Riding the London Underground made me feel like a cowboy. Just like a cowboy, I was carrying an incredibly heavy pack on my back, while simultaneously maintaining my balance as my mode of transportation lurched, bounced, and jolted its way along. Once at Frank's flat, he demonstrated the operation of the approximately 10 locks securing the front door (hint: this detail is important later), and I took a quick shower while we awaited the pizza. Once the inhalation of pizza was complete, I dove into Frank's ABBA collection. I'm not using the verb "to dive" metaphorically, either. From every crevice of Frank's living room came CDs, posters, pictures, record albums, and scrapbooks-all kinds of things I'd never dreamed of seeing. Amazingly candid pictures: Frida in her private garden, Frida with Frank, ABBA looking relaxed and completely natural. I was also impressed with the numerous autographed items. Frank assured me that even though he occasionally signs his traveler's checks with Frida's John Hancock, most of the autographs were in fact from the lady herself. As the night wore on, we went through two bottles of red wine, and began working on the bottle of brandy that I brought up from Austria. It tasted like Christmas, and was probably strong enough to burn a hole in that ugly sweater you got from you grandmother. The next morning, after a breakfast of toast and coffee Frank and I ventured into the city. The weather started out gray, cool, and drizzly. It was the kind of weather that makes you feel like The Day Before You Came is stuck on repeat in the heavens. I was a good little site seer on Wednesday-Frank showed me St. James' Palace, which too me looked rather plain, Buckingham Palace, the Royal Opera House, Piccadilly Circus (obscure ABBA connection alert!), Chinatown, and Soho, where I saw My First Red Light District ®. Despite all the sites what I really remember about Wednesday is that it really started pissing rain. We got soaking wet. My jeans got that nasty clammy feeling as they stuck themselves to my legs. Water soaked its way into my shoes, and the black dye from my socks blackened my left foot. After four days, I still haven't managed to scrub that off-it looks like I should just chop the blackened bits and be done with it. As much as I hate to admit it, the absolute insanity of London traffic intimidated me. In Graz, there is no traffic to speak of in the middle of the city-it's almost entirely auto-free. Each roundabout looked like the scene of an impending fatal collision as cars zoomed through on the "wrong" side of the road. I also have to admit that I was hardly enchanted with London, its rain, and its traffic. At least I enjoyed a delicious Chinese lunch. The Chinese food in London's China town tastes different than that in Conway, Arkansas. I think it's because real Chinese people don't load up their meals with potentially carcinogenic chemicals. HMV, Tower, and Virgin were also big treats for me. I could spend days in HMV combing the sale racks for bargains. As it turned out, I picked up a few bargains: Kylie's 50 + 1 for 6.99 pound sterling, Hazell Dean's Greatest Hits for 3.99 pound sterling, and Mel and Kim's Best Of also for 3.99. Even with the current frightening exchange rates, those were excellent deals. I was quite chuffed. Frank also directed me to a store selling Bright Lights, Dark Shadows: The Real Story of ABBA for 5 quid. After a healthy dinner of spaghetti and a cute movie featuring Goldie Hawn and Russell Crow, we called it a night. Thursday morning, Frank woke me up before heading off to work. I was planning on joining London Walks for an "Explorer Day" through Oxford, and the day certainly seemed to be starting off right with some coffee and some new music. I was also excited about seeing some friends of mine studying abroad for the year in Oxford. I had lost their phone number, but, feeling resourceful, I called British Telecom and got the number of the director of the study-abroad program in which my friends were taking part. Knowing that getting anywhere in London means getting enduring a one hour tube ride, I approached Frank's front door with plenty of time to get to the meeting point for the tour. When I twisted the doorknob to gain access to surely wondrous day awaiting me in Oxford, I noticed a slight problem. The knob was a wee bit stiff. I worked on that knob with my hand for awhile. I twisted it this way and that. I jiggled it up and down. I paced around the flat, then tried it again. I jerked it back and forth. I did everything that once does with a stiff knob in one's hands without getting satisfaction. Shit. Finally, I decided to swallow my pride and call Frank's cell phone to ask if there were any tricks to getting the door open. I dialed the number and waited. Within seconds, I heard his phone ringing in the kitchen. PANIC! At this point, I knew I was going to be hard pressed to make that tour, but I was determined to try. I thought that perhaps I could toss the keys down to a passerby and ask them to open the door from the outside. Trouble was, I didn't see anyone. I gazed out the second story windows in horror, imagining a gloomy day trapped in the flat, when I noticed the soft, full bushes below. Sometimes I'm quite a practical person. Upon noticing the bushes, I decided to look out each window for the optimal exit. Finally, I decided that Frank's bedroom window offered the best combination of full bush and privacy. I scooted a few items out of the way, and opened the window. Before doing something potentially risky like jumping out of a window, I figured I should have some sort of test run to gauge the energy-absorbing qualities of those oh-so-inviting bushes, so I tossed out my backpack. Satisfied that the bushes weren't filled with thorns or reinforced underneath with testicle smashing wire, I swung my legs over the window sill. I then slowly lowered myself down, trying not to kick the window below, until my arms were completely extended above me. At that point, I still could have pulled myself back up, but that would have defeated the whole purpose of the exercise. Besides, just about the only thing more suspicious looking than something chucking shit out of a second-story window, then jumping out of said window would be someone clambering up through the window. Convinced that the neighbors were already calling the police, I realized that I had very little time to make my escape. I ran back to the flat to shut the window, then stood trembling at the front door attempting to secure all 13 locks. Once I managed that, I made haste to the back gate, which I had to jump over, then continued on to the tube station. Any hopes I had of actually making the tour were dashed when I rode two stops too far on one tube line. Naturally, it couldn't be just any tube line-it had to be the "express" one that zips past 6 stations at a time. All these difficulties made me even more determined to get the hell out of London. Upon arriving at the train station, I marched up to the ticket counter and requested a one-way ticket on the next train going to Oxford. The ticket counter man found my request rather amusing. Once on the train to Oxford, I began to calm down a bit. Arriving in Oxford was, errm, interesting, as I had no idea of where to go or how to get there. I dialed the program director's number, but it was busy, so I figured I'd just find my way to the city and try again. I did exactly that, then after more phone-card struggles managed to reach a very nice British gentleman, who informed me that I had the wrong number. He helpfully supplied another number, though. I dialed the second number, only to discover that it was also the wrong number. My back up plan was to call the study abroad coordinator at school and the number from him. The only problem was the time difference. It was noon in Oxford, so Dr. Oudekerk wouldn't be in his office for another 3 or 4 hours. I wandered around the Oxford feeling glum and stressed. How could I be so stupid? I could I be so close to seeing my friends and being completely taken care of, when instead I was more or less completely lost? I went into Starbucks for coffee and a sandwich and tried to relax, or at least get some food in me. I tried again and again to ring Dr. Oudekerk's office. This meant forever redialling the toll free number, PIN number, and phone number. I got really sick of dialling all those numbers. I was really sick of travelling. Thoughts of my idyllic, safe Graz, surrounded by mountains and filled with sunshine, kept taunting me. I took a walking tour of Oxford, which went to several colleges. It was actually fairly boring, but it killed 2 hours. Afterwards, some American girl studying in Italy gave me her contact info. Yawn. At 4 PM I finally got in touch with Dr. Oudekerk. He was thrilled to hear from me, and immediately gave me the Oxford director's number and address. Rather than dial a gazillion more numbers, I simply walked to the address in a state of bliss. No one answered the door. Could anything else possibly go wrong? I trooped back towards the city centre and tried calling. After another hour's frustration, I finally got the number I needed. My joyful reunion with my friends from school, Ryan and Robyn, occurred around 7 PM. We ate dinner and caught up. It was great to see them, and we all agreed that we where thrilled not to be at Hendrix in Conway, Arkansas this year. Still, their experience in Oxford definitely made me realize that I made the right choice for myself in going to Graz. I decided that even though the ticket man in London had talked me into buying a return ticket, I really didn't want to go straight back to the city after finally meeting up with my friends, so I decided to stay with them in Oxford for the night. After dinner, I called Cliff and set up Friday night at the London Eye. We decided to meet in front of McDonalds, because who can miss walking pass a McDonalds? Then we went to the Jolly Farmer, a gay bar. It was, ummmm, interesting. It was also Halloween night. Some of the spookiest people weren't in costume, though! On the bus on the way back to London, I had something of an epiphany: I would enjoy London a lot more if I concentrated on what I enjoyed about visiting the enormous city rather than all the reasons that I wouldn't want to live there. In a way, I was having the opposite problem of many travelers: I was concentrating so much on the gritty realities of day-to-day life in the big city that I wasn't allowing myself to simply enjoy it. As the bus pulled up to the Victoria station, I decided that if I came to London to meet ABBAMAILers, visit my friends in Oxford, and see H & Claire at G.A.Y., who gives a shit if I missed a bunch of the "important" sites. It's not like any human could possibly soak up all the tourist attractions in London in a week (or even a month) anyway. I basically gave myself to like London for whatever reasons I chose-even if some of the reasons were completely strange and banal, such as great selection in the HMV and the British car magazines that I find so interesting. Feeling refreshed by my new positivity, I wandered around a little by Victoria station, soaking in the wonderful madness of the city before heading over to Waterloo station via a stop at a bookseller, where I purchased virtually every car and gay magazine title I could get my hands on. I strolled over to the London Eye without much trouble-a miracle really, considering my problems with directions and maps. I was supposed to meet Cliff at the McDonalds in the area at 6:45PM, but I figured that since I was already at the London Eye, I would just ring his cell phone and let him know where I was. I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I had immense trouble reaching Cliff. I simply couldn't get a hold of his phone. Sometimes it made weird ringing noises, something I got a busy signal, and sometimes the call simply didn't go through. I exhausted the phone card I'd bought, then started shoving money into the phone. Finally, I decided to hurry back over to the last McDonalds I'd seen, which was in the Waterloo station. Naturally, once I got there, Cliff was nowhere to be found. Honestly. What kind of hell did I raise as a child to deserve such bad karma? Did I mention that I was starting to freak out because I thought that the last flight on the London Eye was at 7PM and I knew that Cliff had already purchased the tickets? I bought another phone card and decided to try phoning other people for the number. Alas, I couldn't reach Frank or Graeme. Suddenly, I hit on the idea of calling Cliff's landline. I doubted he'd gone home, but I had a distant hope that he put his mobile number on his answering machine greeting. Bingo! I recognized the missing digit in the phone number as soon as I heard Cliff say it. When I finally saw Cliff in the flesh, I had no trouble recognizing him, because of all the pictures on ABBAMAIL. Cliff's a really interesting guy. He's a fantastic tour guide in London, because he has the scoop on all the interesting buildings in the city. It's also very interesting to contrast his soft-spoken nature with his sometimes (often) naughty mouth, especially in emails. The flight on the London Eye was very relaxing. I highly recommend it. London really came alive for me as I got a good look at Big Ben and the River Thames for the first time. After the London Eye, Cliff and I walked over to Soho and met up with Michael Kyriagis for a delicious Thai dinner. It's really amazing how I've always felt this instant bond with ABBAMAILers when I meet them in person-even if I've never had personal contact with them before. As Michael commented that night, often that bond is very loosely related to ABBA at best-we get together and talk about anything and everything. On the way home from dinner, Cliff and I stopped by G.A.Y. to get the tickets for H & Claire the next night. Need I say it? That plan didn't work out either. The completely clueless bouncer told us that they weren't selling tickets that night, that no tickets were being held for the night of the show, and that we should call Ticketmaster for tickets. Not a single one of those statements was true. Each one of them, though, did have an unsettling effect. Seeing H & Claire at G.A.Y. was one of the only three things that I really HAD TO DO in London. I put you out of your suspense now: we had no problems getting tickets the next night, once we **finally** got there... Saturday morning, Cliff picked me up at Frank's house and accompanied me to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was really magnificent. Naturally, I insisted on climbing all 200 some-odd stairs to get the highest observation deck open to the public. Cliff, bless his heart, stopped ¾ of the way up in the whispering gallery. The view from the top of the church was quite enthralling, and naturally I lost track of time. That combined with British Rail's lack of punctuality meant that Cliff and I arrived, errrm, fashionably late at Sara's house for the ABBAMAIL gathering. Finally meeting Sara in person after knowing her through email since the pre-ABBAMAIL era was a real treat. She's just as sweet, charming, and fun in person as she is on the internet. I was also a pleasure meeting her husband Paul and dog Joey. Also there were Steve, Ice, Chris. Steve and I immediately began talking about what I can't remember, then as I made my way to the Sara Special to gorge myself, I landed in another conversion. For me, highlights of the afternoon included seeing the ABBAMAIL Clips + video, hearing Chess Pa Svenska, eating birthday cake (there were two varieties-fudge AND carrot!), seeing Joey give Ice some good ol' fashion lovin', and trying to convince Chris to teach me the dance to Bananarama's song I Heard a Humor. He **claims** that he doesn't remember it. I also claimed to believe him. Hey-it was his birthday, so I had to cut him a little slack. I also heard stories of how ABBA fans communicated in the dark ages, just after debut outside the womb. Apparently it involved lots of "letters" and "stamps". I'll have to remember to look those words up in the dictionary sometime... I simply have to make it to another London ABBAMAILer gathering soon. Despite Chris' birthday pleas, Sara and Paul were unable to dig up the video of Karin Glenmark saving the performance of Chess In Concert when Barbara Dickson misses her cue. Ok, ok, it was actually my request, but every once in awhile I do like to pretend like it's not all about me ;->. Cliff and I reluctantly left Sara and Paul's early enough to give us time to make it back to London to change before heading over to G.A.Y. in time to get tickets. Or so we thought. British Rail had other ideas, like delaying a train for 45 minutes. <sigh> Travelling is sometimes so frustrating. Understatement of the month. Never fear: your intrepid ABBAMAILers persevered, and we met a very hyper Frank Horstmann near G.A.Y. with plenty of time to knock back an espresso at Starbucks at try not to dwell on how hot it would be wearing long sleeves in a club, or the necessity of stuffing $225 worth of digital camera into my coat before handing it over to the coat check. Anyway G.A.Y. is my favorite club. Full stop. No other that I've been to comes close. It's full of gay people, but it's not trashy. They play **dance** music, but not all that boring techno, which I'm convinced was developed to numb brain cells. I didn't even end up drinking much at all because I was having to much fun simply dancing. Usually, I have to have a drink or two to avoid complete boredom in clubs. I really started to love London when I was in G.A.Y. I don't really understand why there can't be clubs like G.A.Y. in other cities. Perhaps there are, and I just haven't encountered them yet. The fact remains, though, that when I was in G.A.Y. dancing, I got that "oh, I must come back as soon as possible!" feeling for the first time during the trip. H & Claire hit the stage around 1:40AM and mimed six songs. It was actually a rousing show, although they did not perform Another You, Another Me. I found it refreshing to notice, for example, that both of them really tried to connect with the audience. It's also nice to see recording artists who don't look like they were chosen simply for their looks. They're not unattractive, but H would never catch my eye in a crowd, and Claire simply doesn't fit in with the anorexic teeny-bopper singer crowd. She's certainly very pretty, and the fact that she doesn't look like she spends her entire day in the gym is great because it makes her more real. I have to say, though, that she came off as a little less than smart. Sunday afternoon I strolled through Camden Town and checked out all the funky markets. It was a perfect complement to my relationship with London. Frank actually told me that I absolutely had to see it, which it why I went. On the way there, I listened to No Doubt's Rock Steady album, because it's funky, eclectic mix of sounds really captured the vibe of London as I felt it. After lunch, I went out for a drink with Frank and a friend of his. I had planned on going on the Jack the Ripper walk, but the weather was a little nasty, and I just didn't feel like it. I wanted to relax and wind up my trip to London. After the adventures in Camden Town, we returned to Frank's flat for a relaxing evening. I got a fantastic new haircut, courtesy of Frank, and ate some lovely Indian food. It was soooo satisfying. We also watched 5 or 6 episodes of The Vicar of Dibley, which was really funny in a non-nasty, non-mean way-good, camp comedy. When the alarm clock buzzed Monday morning, I didn't want to wake up. I didn't want to leave London. I felt swells of emotion as I walked towards my gate in Stansted. The whole week had just been so overwhelming. After a trip full of telephone debacles, delayed trains, horrible weather, and lots of stress, I'd grown rather attached to London and had learned to love it's funkiness, variety, openness, and excitement. I can't wait to go back. Next time, though, I'm writing down everyone's phone number well ahead of time. Andy Andrews, Graz, Austria
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