Dimitri's European Adventure: Easter to June 16

Well quite a lot has happened since my last post (I do apologise for the long gap in between especially since all that has happened will most likely result in an extraordinarily long post There are four parts because I started writing this about 3 weeks ago. I didn't have the internet up until 2 weeks ago and I haven't really been bothered in updating it :-).

I’ll start with the most recent of major revelations in the past month as this has to be one of the most intriguing stories to date – and the craziest. Haha yes the craziest especially as it involves everybody’s favourite alcoholic lunatic... Trell! I’ll give you a sneak peak into where this is heading, I’m currently writing the post in the backyard of a house in a council estate in Fulham (equivalent to a housing trust home in Aus – however in London every council is obliged to have at least one estate. Quite strange when even the most expensive areas in London, i.e. Chelsea which is next to Fulham, has crazy pikies running around lol). I’m writing it here because I’m currently technically homeless :-)... pleeeeease don’t mention anything to my grandparents!!! Let me take you through the story as it happened:

Last Thursday (21/5/09) morning I was leaving the house for work and I noticed the front door was open and the doormat was wedged under it. Although this is strange for most people, it was no surprise to me to find Trell standing out the front (probably a bigger surprise seeing her with her mobile phone in her hand at 8am rather than a glass of wine hehe) and two guys at the gate. One of the guys was standing there staring at me which was strange but knowing Trell was there I dismissed it, said hello to him and walked off for work. After I got on to the train I totally forgot about it until at lunch time I saw I had 7 missed calls from my housemate (Jolyon). Obviously something was up so I called him and asked if he was ok, “not really” was the response. Naturally I asked why and he told me we had been evicted! He told me around about 10am somebody was smashing his door (he was dreaming and thought it was me being pissed off at him for something) but then some massive bald bloke with an East London accent smashed the door open. Jolyon grabbed a piece of wood next to him because he thought this guy was trying to rob us and started hitting him with it (however he was sleeping naked so he was trying to hit him while also trying to cover himself with his quilt – you’ve got to love privacy, until of course a 6,4” bald bloke smashes your door down). The guy ran out and yelled into the room at Jolyon that he was a debt collector and that the house was being repossessed. After explaining everything, Jolyon was given 10 minutes to collect his shit and get out so they could change the locks. I’m not quite sure what happened to the girls because I think they had left for work. Soooo, after I finished work the Real Estate agent who had been commissioned by the bank to sell the house promised to wait at the house for me so I could get some stuff out before he locked it up. Jolyon and the girls were there earlier and thankfully Jolyon rang me in front of the agent so he could feel guilty and stay and wait for me haha. After I grabbed as much stuff as I could carry the house was locked and I walked down to the nearest park to set up camp for the night. I had been watching a show called Bear Grylls Ultimate Survival so I was a little bit prepared for camping out and scavenging for food. Hahaha nah just kidding, I walked down to the main area of Fulham (a bit like a Jetty Road in Glenelg. Most good suburbs here have a “high street” or “broadway” where everything like pubs, clubs, banks, tube stops etc are located) and down to the house of a family friend of Jolyon’s. I’ve met her a few times before, lovely lady. Even better considering she’s letting me stay here as well. Jolyon and I are sharing her youngest son’s room who thankfully has a bunk bed. The kid is sleeping in his mum’s room so that Jolyon and I have a place to sleep, very generous people. I’ve bought food for them and cooked quite a few times as a thank you :-). Anyway so I rock up to the house and settle in and the lady (whose name is Sonia) had already planned a night out with her friend before this whole Big Brother Eviction shit happened and invited us to come along, so we did. Not knowing where we are going and not having a very big wardrobe to choose from I chucked on an Ed Hardy top (hehe :p) and some jeans and off we went. I thought we were going to a pub in Chelsea but when I got out of the cab there were no pubs in site. Sonia’s friend walked up to a door and pushed the buzzer. We go in, she signs in and the guy at the door tells us to turn our phones off. I’m thinking where the fuck are we? Go through doors out of the entrance way into the hallway and all of this awesome art is hanging everywhere and Jolyon tells me we are in the Chelsea Arts Club, a really exclusive private members club full of posh mega wealthy Londoners. Interesting. We have a few drinks and talk to all of these people (most of whom think they are the shit with their noses so far up their own ass they can smell what they just ate for dinner lol). One old lady was telling me she grew up in Australia and was telling her grandson she hadn’t seen “coloured” people until she was 20 (she’s really fkn old now though). Oh the horror when she did! Anyway the place is filled with these wankers and also really great artists. Later on in the evening we were drinking and having a really cool, down to Earth conversation with some painter. Jolyon eventually worked out (and told me later) that he is practically a “national treasure” in the UK. His paintings hang in the UK National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar square for fuck’s sake! I walked through Trafalgar square a few weeks ago and next to the gallery that this guy is featured in is the National Gallery, which currently has a Picasso exhibition hahaha. One of his portraits is the only painting that appears on a postcard for the National Portrait Gallery, so Jolyon asked him to sign one (if you’re interested and know anything about artists in the UK the guy’s name is Peter Brock, lol nah it’s Peter Edwards). Towards the end of the night I was talking to a friend of Sonia’s friend who is a curator for a lot of the top galleries in London (i.e. a bit of a snob). He was trying to give me shit and those of you who know me well when I’m pissed would know I can give it back better ;-). He was paying me out about Australia and saying the best thing we’ve produced is Barry Humphries and even he takes the piss out of Aus and lives in London. He wouldn’t have a bit of the fact I’m Greek Aus and was disputing the fact there is such a as Greek Australians. Even disputing the fact that the modern western world was founded by Ancient Greeks pfff. He didn’t take kindly to me telling him to read a proper history book. He was trying to wind me up and was trying for the lowest blows he could to ensure his “superiority” over me, a guest in this private members club. He kept going and saying shit but I gave everything back lol. Sonia’s friend came over and joined in on the conversation which turned into an art convo. He was talking about some shit about art and said he could still perform (picking quality art or something however I would not let this opportunity slip!!!). I butted in on their convo, put my hand on his shoulder, looked down at his crutch and said: “What, you can still perform?” He didn’t get it so I said: “you can still perform, as in get it up at your age” hahahaha. He got really offended and said: “You should feel privileged to be in here! This is a very exclusive club and you’re very lucky to be here so act like it. We even have people as famous as David Bowie come here!” I simply explained to him the psychological phenomenon of mirroring and explained I was just giving back as much shit as he was giving me, he couldn’t take it and walked off to play billiards with some other white haired snob. One point “commoner”, zero to limp dick toffee nose wankers :-) lol. The paradox of London, becoming homeless in the morning and mixing it with millionaires, famous painters and the general who’s who of the art world at night! So, I’ve been staying at Sonia’s house for the last week in her son’s bedroom under the covers of Whiney the Pooh.

It’s been about a week since I wrote the first half of this post. Nothing much has happened really apart from having my first BBQ in the UK. It was killing me not being able to eat BBQ food. Maybe it was withdrawal considering Dad cooked T-Bones every Tues and we’d have a charcoal BBQ at least every fortnight lol. The BBQ was great, Jolyon and I shared cooking responsibilities (I marinated the meat Greek style while he use Thai flavourings). We even bought a Heineken 5 litre keg which I pretty much finished on my own haha :-). We ended up finishing at 2am on Sunday night so lucky I started work at 12 on Monday.

PREVIOUS to eviction:

Can’t remember too many things as it’s been quite a while now but the major highlights I can recall mainly involve the football. A few days before Arsenal “played” Man Utd in Manchester I thought stuff it, why not go. So I bought tickets online (don’t even worry about asking how much they were!), bought bus tickets and on the Wed of the match I went to Manchester. The bus ride was about 5hours but thankfully I had this elephant sized African lady behind me singing (but whispering singing if that makes sense) about Jesus – at the start I didn’t mind, you know being religious and all, but after 3 hours it really got on my nerves. Especially because she was whispering it! Anyway checked into the hostel, had dinner and off I went to the match. Unfortunately I couldn’t get tickets for the away section with the Arsenal supporters so I was sitting with the Man Utd members. The spot was awesome though, in the middle of the pitch but right up the top. It was such a fantastic experience, the stadium was absolutely roaring. Too bad Arsenal weren’t – and for any manc supporters you can shut your face if you’re laughing :p.

Another match I went and saw was the match against the chav favourite, despicable and debt laden Chelski. All I need to say about this match is that the walk home from the tube station was interesting. Especially since I’m in the middle of Chelsea country. Walked past a pub and one bloke said “Oi, you’ve got shit on your shirt”, later on another guy said “hey mate, how was your day?” to which I simply replied with a big grin on my face “yeah pretty good actually”.

I also went to the last match of the season against Stoke. Now that was fun (we won 3-1) and the goals were scored in front of me. It was also pretty special because I was sitting 2 rows back from the Stoke bench, so close that I could smell the deep heat they had on. One of the players (who faked injury and later won them a penalty) was subbed late in the game and everybody was booing him and people near me were yelling abuse at him. So he started scratching his head with his middle finger which incensed the crowd even more, but just made me laugh. He sort of acknowledged me laughing at him (he was then again 5 meters from me). What made it even more special was after the match the players did a lap of honour right in front of me, was awesome to see them that close! Pictures of all games are below.

Was going out quite a bit and made some new mates through Jolyon, these guys he grew up with in Spain. Good blokes, and they’re parents are loaded. They have a house in Knightsbridge (a very expensive area) which is across the road from Harrods pretty much. They stay there when not living in Spain i.e. not very much. They’re parents bought the guys a bar in the south of Spain where they live in the summer. I’m going to go visit them during my travels.

TRELL:

yes there can’t be a few stories (well, a few more that is) in my blog without her. Unfortunately for sake of entertainment she’ll probably not feature too much anymore, but for the sake of my sanity it’s a good thing. I had a pretty big go at her when I got back from Greece. As I mentioned in the last post there was dog hair and her hair on the sponges to wash the dishes. Every time I saw one with dog hair on it I would get a clean one however if she or any of the other dumbasses in the house washed they would use the hairy sponge. It got to a point where a few days after I got home, I cooked some pasta for lunch and as I was eating it there was a dog hair on one of the Penne. I was pretty pissed off but didn’t see her to say anything. I think I had already said something about the sponges but not sure. Anyway at dinner time I was chopping up some chicken breast and I turned it over and it had minimum of 10 black dog hairs on it. So, I yelled at the top of my lungs “you fkn bitch!! I’m sicking of these fkn hairs!” I knew she could hear me. Half hour later she went to leave the house, as she walked passed me I stopped her and told her I was “fkn sick of the dog hair everywhere.” She denied the dogs go in the house but it was quite clear they did, that and she was covered in them. Which reminds me, every time she’d wash her clothes (one pair of jeans, probably one pair of underwear, a shirt and a jumper) the washing machine would be full of dog hair. YAY! Anyway I continued having a go at her and when I finished she had nothing to say (because everything I said was clearly correct). She came back later and said (after planning on what she was going to say), “the reason the dog hair is everywhere is because I’ve been cleaning and moving things around the house so all of the dog hair was disrupted and went everywhere.” I said “I don’t give a fuck what you think you’re reason is, the fact is there’s hair everywhere and everybody in the house is pissed off with it! Plus you were moving shit around 3 weeks ago and I heard the dogs running around downstairs a night earlier.” She then started blabbing on about some crap which didn’t make sense so I did what I usually did and switched off/walk off :-).

Not much else interesting really happened with Trell apart from the fact that she had the nerve to call me last week. Half an hour before she rang I was organising with her bank a time we could go and remove all of our belongings from the house so when I received another call I assumed it was them. Nope, I was wrong. It ended up it was Trell, I asked her what she wanted. She had the nerve to call me to “check her finances” etc and was telling me the date I had paid her last – inferring I owe her money. I told her I was due to pay her the day we got evicted so obviously there was no way I was giving her any more money. She was then inferring by the way she was speaking that I should help her persuade Jolyon to pay her the money he owes her because she owed the girls staying in the house their rent and bond they’d paid her in advance. The best is she said “it would be unfortunate if I left them out of pocked” (ummm like the hundreds of thousands of pounds you owe the bank???). I replied “that’s not my issue and what’s unfortunate is the fact that we all don’t have a place to live in.” She ignored that bit and said “that would be on your conscience if they’re out of pocket.” Hahaha you can’t be serious, the nerve of the bitch. That really pissed me off. I asked her if she knew the house was being repossessed, she swore no, no of course not. However she was literally lost for words and sounded like she was about to cry when I explained to her that one of the girls saw her packing the day before and that we all saw that she got her car out of the impound the day before. I explained “that surely can’t be a coincidence.” She was still stuttering and was trying to make up some excuse. What’s interesting is that she said she received a letter from the department of transport about her car. But that is even funnier because she told us she didn’t know she was getting evicted even though a letter was hand delivered to her stating the repossession of the house on that date. Her excuse that she didn’t know was that she doesn’t read any of her mail. What a load of shit. Stupid bitch. I was pretty pissed off at this stage so I said “thank you for the house, good luck, and fuck off” and then hung up. I’m not expecting another call from the bitch lol. She’s been ringing the lady we’re staying with and trying to blame Jolyon and I – he owed her some rent and I didn’t pay her a deposit/bond. That couple of hundred pounds would have surely saved the mortgage!!! Not the 450pounds or so she got per week from rent, ohhh no! Fkn reject.

This is the third addition to the story since I started writing it last week. There’s no internet here so I haven’t been able to upload it until now (got the net working yesterday). On Friday night I went out with all of my work mates and it was one hell of a love triangle let me tell you! Last week I went out with them for a birthday and a hippy Italian chick was trying to crack on to me and wanted a relationship until I left saying 4 weeks with me was better than nothing, however I disagreed. I thought nothing was better than 4 weeks with her hahaha – not into the dreadlocks thing lol. Anyway on Friday I was after this hottie from work (lots of flirting going on for a few weeks) but a friend of the chick that organised the party was cracking onto me (even though she had a boyfriend) but I thought I had set my sights on the hottie so I wouldn’t take the easy option – that and assist someone in cheating on they’re partner. Afterwards a few of us partied on and went to a club just behind Trafalgar square. The dickhead from work was really pissed at this stage and was forcing himself onto all of the girls. He grabbed hottie’s arm really hard and dragged her into him to force her to dance together but Jolyon got worked up and grabbed his arm and pulled him away. Dickhead got shitty and was saying all of this shit so we told him to go outside to calm down. Us three went outside and he started smoking, he went to go back inside the club smoking but the bouncers wouldn’t let him (as it’s illegal to smoke in pubs and clubs here). He started freaking out and they grabbed him and threw him out on the street lol. That wasn’t my problem so Jolyon and I went back in. Later on the bouncer was telling us that dickhead was saying shit to cops that walked past and tried to start on them so they cuffed him and took him away hahaha. Will be interesting to see if he turns up to work on Monday :-). We then hit another club (which was absolutely fkn shit, a bit like Crib in Adelaide but with a few more crackers lol) and we danced away and didn’t get home until 5am.

Apart from that I’ve been organising the week when Karl (one of my closest mates) comes over to London to visit me. I’ve booked dinner at Giorgio Locatelli’s restaurant the first night Karl’s here (for those of you who don’t know who Giorgio is, go watch the Lifestyle Food Channel on Foxtel, he’s one of the best Italian chef’s in London). We’re off to Edinbrough for a day, Wimbledon the next, Liverpool on Thursday for a Beatles tour (goes to their childhood homes, places they performed at, where John Lennon met Paul McCartney, one of the famous roads in their film clip and a lot more), and going shopping. Can’t wait.

FOURTH UPDATE 16/6/09:

Ok, ok, I’ve been pretty slack lately and haven’t been bothered to update the live blog site :-). Not much has been going on really, went out a couple of times and that’s about it. Sonia, the lady we’re staying with, gave me an invitation for lunch with her family for the 7th of June. Her mum told her to take me along (Jolyon was in the country visiting his parents) so Alex – Sonia’s son – and I caught the bus to the house for lunch. Sonia’s parents live in Kensington, a very expensive area in London, in a grand old 3 storey home plus basement and attic :-). It was quite an experience as her family were a bit upper class, however still down to earth and very nice. It was a pleasant afternoon :-). We had heaps of food and was great to have a proper home cooked meal in a family environment.

That same week I was walking through Trafalgar square last week (week of 7th June) and saw a few cops on their bikes stopping traffic. A little while later a small procession of cars with completely blacked out windows drove past with more cops in the procession. I assumed it was either someone from the Royal family or somebody else quite important. In the afternoon I was reading the London paper (free newspaper that get’s handed out every afternoon) and I realised that it was Michelle Obama and her daughters. They had been in London for a few days and where taking a bit of a site seeing expedition through the city. I also spotted the guy that played Reece in Home and Away a few years ago, I couldn’t quite work out where I had seen him until some lady said he was from Home and Away. It’s quite big here along with Neighbours. Of all the people I could’ve seen it was that dickhead, great!!! Anway that’s the 4000 word mark surpassed so I guess I should stop there. Not much else really. Karl is here in just under a week and I can’t fkn wait!! I’m off to Greece on the 26th with him and then my other closest mate John arrives in Greece on the 1st. Will be really good seeing some familiar faces! We’ll be staying with John’s dad (he’s awesome) in his holiday home he’s got in Greece. Right on the beach apparently. I heard it’s getting cold in Aus and raining............. hahahahahahahahahahahahaha :p

On that note, peace out mofos :-). Speak to you soon xoxoxox

VIDEOS:

Kick off at the Arsenal v Man Utd match at Old Trafford