Berlin Part 1 (the first 2 days) July 31st- 30th, 2006

(Margaritte)

We arrived in a fuzzy state: awaking at 2:30 am to catch our 7:30am easy Jet flight into Berlin. I was taken out of my fuzzy state by the sounds of birds chirping loud like insects. The sun was hotter and there was an ad on the metro against homophobia, showing two football players kissing. We took in our new surroundings with the ease of Brazilian music on my disc-man. Elliat was confident in Berlin; we were going to her other home, her other life with all the little secrets to reveal. She pointed at graffiti/street art that she loved, told me the direction we were going to Liebigstrasse. I started to get a taste of the German language. Berlin is spread out in large block buildings creeping with stairways and ally-ways, long Avenues with red brick bike paths.

Elliat's house X-B, a fraunen.lesben.trans (womyn, lesbian, trans) housing project, is where we were headed. Housing projects are gigantic communal apartment buildings where people can live communally for cheap. Since squatting became illegal in Berlin many former squats have been bought and not developed; the occupants pay little rent and live similarly to how they did before. The housing collective is in the process of trying to buy the building so it can be even more collectively run. To find out more info visit http://squat.net/liebig34/. When we got there we were greeted by a phone call from our friends in Leeds, Helena and Bob of the band Gene Jenet. They were considering doing our Travel Queeries theme song! Familiar British voices in a land of new. It’s funny how Britain started to feel like home.

The housing project was set up like a typical apartment building except everything was open. You walked up a flight of stairs to a hallway leading to a kitchen and toilet for that floor as well as 2 living rooms. The people living on that floor shared the communal space. Another hallway led to the bedrooms—generally large rooms with big windows overlooking picturesque European cityscape—with a big coal-burning furnace in the corner. I had already fallen for Berlin. It’s a somewhat quiet city with the rich smell of trees. Its concrete for sure but there is so much public DIY art on the concrete, it’s as if the flowers were painted in.

We headed to Schwartz Canal, a frauen.lesben.trans (womyn, lesbian and trans) wagon platz—the squatted land by the river where people live in caravans. This wagon platz is under threat of eviction. We did an interview with a womyn living at the squat when we came back to Berlin the second time. On that fresh summer day they were having a small secret café. German vegan food is rich and filling. We ate hearty bread with 6 different kinds of spreads ranging from light gray to bright yellow and tasting of curry, garlic, eggplant and beans, chocolate cake and chocolate musslie for dessert and apple juice and tea to drink. We sat down outside with a group of new friends as I was introduced to people I had been hearing about for 6 months. The new friends—happy polite faces all—came into my head with the stories I had listened to many Thursday mornings in Seattle, while waking up to conversations with Elliat.


That night we went to The Mitmoch Drag Show (by Kings of Berlin) at AHA Café in the Gay Museum. Yes, there is a Gay Museum in Berlin. We were greeted by another large building with a grand stone archway. Elliat was performing in the show so I was in charge of shooting. We brought visiting Seattle friends Savvy and Roscoe to see the performance and help with the microphone (thanks you two!). We walked up 2 flights of stairs (everything in Berlin was up a few flights of stairs) to a crowded hole-in-the-wall room of sweaty queers. The room was full of moisture and German. Elliat was whisked to the back room as soon as we walked in. I squeezed myself in-between people, completely forgetting the word for “excuse me” in German, and set up the filming equipment on top of 2 people’s heads. The show began.

There was a trans womyn doing male drag with a fake mustache on a split stage. She stripped in front of a mirror, put on a strap-on and proceeded to gyrate onto the mirror with her dildo. On the other side of the stage a womyn doing male drag with a huge sock cock covered in xmass lights punched a balloon ball sac hanging from the ceiling. There was also a bio gay man doing boy drag to a song from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, “Touch me touch me, I want to be dirty.” Then there was Elliat’s shower curtain performance “Exactamente ganow”. It was overall one of the most genderqueer cabarets I have ever seen: only what I would expect from Berlin.

The next day we had to do errands like picking up the tickets to Poland. Elliat made it fun by having us stop at an outdoor B&W photo booth to take pictures, eating dripping fresh nectarines, and later, Gelato when we were really tired. We had the Gelato by a Poseidon sculpture fountain at Alexander platz in Mitte, the city center of Berlin.

On our walk home we went past the Berlin wall. This really affected me; I did not know such strong feelings would come up. I remembered watching it fall with my parents on TV in the 80’s. It meant something to my Czech heritage family and I: watching people liberate themselves; thinking at the time that one of our greatest feats against oppression was being accomplished. I remember learning later that it just paved the way for more capitalism. I still think we need to break down boarders between each other, but I don’t think the story was painted in the most truthful way in the USA, as usual.

I thank the Berlin wall for bringing all this up in me. The wall is now covered in murals: some about the struggle, some just beautiful art pieces and some tag graffiti. There are hole pocks marking the crumbling cement. My favorite Mural is one of the more famous ones of two men kissing. I got into the middle of the street to take a picture of it. I peeked my head out one of the holes, examining the canal beyond. This made me think about oppression and land and property. I started to think of all the times in history when a wall has been erected to keep people away from each other. I thought of Dr. Seuss’s “butter battle book,” a fixture in my young life, about keeping people away from one another and making them believe others are having a better or worse life then them. I thought about Palestine and Israel and how walls are still being built today to separate people.

After puzzling over boarders all afternoon we returned to X-B for a delicious dinner with all our new Berlin friends and old Seattle friends, Katinka, Roscoe and Savvy. We all went to play our second game of Queer footy at a park near the house. The game was fun and more of a close match than last time, with all the good players. I got more confident in my playing and even tried out being goalie, while Elliat kicked butt as usual. It was so nice having a break from talking to people, connecting instead on a purely physical level. Afterward we all got club matte—the drink of Berlin, a non-sweetened carbonated matte tea drink that keeps you buzzing all night—and hung out in front of X-B.

Our first interview in Berlin was scheduled that night with Lotta, a Swedish activist friend who had lived at X-B for the past 2 years. We interviewed her in the room that she was moving out of in a week, that we would inherit when we returned. The interview went smoothly, discussing the history of X-B and how the collective was trying to buy the housing project. We went to sleep that night knowing we would be in Poland the next evening.

Londonia Part 2 July 23rd-30th 2006

(Margaritte)

We left Leeds in a flurry of goodbyes and kisses and headed for Londonia. This was the city’s original Roman name.
Oh scattered chaos of people and bundles of luggage,
Trash and aching shoulders from too much equipment,
Australian/South African friends,
Bethnal green and east London.

We found ourselves in a historic gay neighborhood. East London may not seem like the place, with all the Lezzies in Stoke Newington and Gay boys in Soho but when we discovered Jennette Winterson’s deli within two days of arrival we knew we were in the right place. Our lovely Australian friend Kate, the lesbian librarian, gave me the book tour of her neighborhood taking me to Quilter street the historic street in Sarah Waters book “Tipping the Velvet” the main character in the book is always trying to go back to Quilter street. The modern Quilter Street is lined with typical English row houses, complete with skinny trees surrounded in rot iron. The only distinguishing factors of houses like these were there doors. One was painted bright pink; we deemed it the flat (the girl in the book) was looking for.

Our first interview was planned to be with some Polish queers living in England, 2 on a farm close to London and one in London proper. This was an interesting element of interviewing Poles; most Polish people have to leave Poland to get work. There are tons of Polish people living in London and other major cities across Europe. Goisa and her two roommates lived in a squatted apartment complex. We had a yummy vegan dinner and discussed the political climate in London for squatters.

In 2010 the Olympics will be held in London. Because of this fact city councils in all the neighborhoods are currently looking at land to develop to make way for the money that will be coming into the city. The first places they are targeting are squats, the only sustainable form of low income housing in London. This is a classic battle of the rich verses the poor the only new twist is these homes are facing being torn down for luxury hotels and condos to house people for the games. This is all about sports! Goisa and her roommates are not the only ones looking at eviction; a similar experience was happening at the Clifton mansions where we stayed in Brixton the first time in London. Squatting is becoming harder and harder but people are not going down without a fight. Since squatting is legal still in England they can take there cases to court and a lot of people are choosing that. Goisa and her roommates are trying to save their homes and be a voice for the illegal immigrants that cannot speak up for their rights to housing.

After are big talk we did not feel like interviewing so we set up an interview with Goisa to talk more later in the week. The next day we got more acquainted with the city and prepared for Elliat’s first performance in England at Bar Wotever. The bar was a gay mans bar in a cute older part of town, it looked like an old brick pub. I filmed while Elliat prepared and friends we had made trickled in to watch. After a lovely show there was an open DJ booth and some hot queer dancing to good good music.

The following day we did an interview with Paisley an ex-pat Drag queen from NYC who just moved to London from Berlin. Elliat knew him from performing in Berlin and the organization he started there called the “Black Girls Coalition.” We conducted our interview in a club that he was performing at under a light that changed from blue to red throughout the interview creating a new cinema graphic shot for the film.

After this it was time for my first game of London queer football. Sometimes called “ Queer Footy.” I had forgotten how much I liked group sports with people who keep the competition light and are flex about the rules. At first I sat out and used filming as the excuse to watch the players and see how competitive they were. I gathered that with this crew I could join in even though I did not really know any of the rules. There were many gay injuries in this game, including an Italian bloody knee, an almost dead 10 year old boy with a hurt leg and head injury, and a limping lesbo named Nemo, but we were able to enjoy ourselves with tons of laughing from excessive bad moves and too much running down hill to get the ball. In the end we all “Won” and celebrated by rolling around in the grass and getting bug bites (namely Elliat getting another especially scary spider bite in almost the same spot as the week prior)… and exchanging contact info and chatting on the bus ride back to our respective homes.

On Thursday evening we had an interview with Scratch our queer footy buddy, who was djing this night called Qrush. I met up with Elliat and Scratch and we did our interview in the Qrush basement space before the evening began. Scratch told us about trans-culture in London, growing up in the city and watching it change, Djing and doing art projects with youth for his work. On Friday we went to the queer squat Dolston lane. After taking two buses we found ourselves at an old storefront that looked closed down. Luca one of the two French people living in London that we planned to interview greeted us in the doorway. He offered us French cheek kisses, everyone in London seem to kiss on the lips, and brought us up the stairs to a cozy and hot kitchen. Cueva was making breakfast in the summer heat with a cigarette and black nightie on. We helped clear the back yard table for breaky. We had potatoes, cheese, bread, juice, coffee, and veggies. The interview was done in the pink living room where Cueva dressed as a French cancan girl complete with little cardboard fan and Luca played a USA football star. The interview was long and covered all aspects of their lives, queer identity, and performance, being a femme, being a fag and healing work. We all got closer and uncomfortably hot so we made our way to the back yard again after the interview. Elliat, Cueva, a friend PG and I discussed femme and butch dynamics in London verses the US and the ever-present drama of our community until the sun had scorched us enough.


Our final day before going to Berlin had arrived. We did our interview with Gosia as planned in a park in Bethnal green. Goisa talked about growing up in Poland and being queer, moving to London and the conservative political force running her home country right now. She also gave us some good contacts for our trip to Warsaw in a few days. After the interview we walked her to work and went home to grab Kate and visit one of London’s info. shops. Kate had been at home starting the design for the comic she wants to do of us for Travel Queeries! We took the long bus journey to the borough Elephant and Castle. I love the names of the boroughs. After our outing we went home and prepared for our 7am flight to Berlin the next morning. This included us getting up at 2:30am to catch a taxi to a bus to the airport, where we caught a flight and two trains to our final destination, X-B the queer/trans/womyn housing project in East Berlin.

Leeds, England (squats, queer mutiny north, and the hobbit homeland…) July 19-23, '06

(Elliat)
About an hour away from Manchester England Northeast by bus is Leeds, England. We passed through the hills that were spotted with wild flowers and green pastures with cows, sheep and horses. The hills would part to show us valleys with lakes and old stone farmhouses with amazing views of the landscape and it’s expanse.

As the National Express bus pulled into the downtown station of Leeds, Helena and Melanie stood awaiting our now 15 min. late arrival. Margaritte and I were very glad in deed to see these friendly faces and to know that we were going to receive some help in transporting our now a bit excessive amount of luggage to the squat we were staying at with folks we had met at the queer film fest in Manchester.

After greeting, Helena led the speedy way to H.S. where we would spend the next 4 days (which felt like more than a week at least). The address for the squat was in “little wood house,” which we thought was a description of the actual house (how quaint we thought) but in fact it is the name of the district. The space its self was a large brick building that was once an old Sunday school that was then renovated into student flats that had about 30 rooms. The space had been squatted for about 1 year, but when they moved in there was already some furniture and even old food in the refrigerator. The squat included common space of kitchen and living room, an internet lab, 5 bathrooms (including one for dress up), a free shop, a dungeon/workout room, canning/brewing kitchen, art room, library and last but not least the lavender ‘healing room’ with prayer flags, drying herbs and crystals where Margaritte and I would be staying. We got a mattress from the workout room, set up our stuff and got ready for the film screening that evening where ‘Travel Queeries: Queeruption, Barcelona’ and the new ‘Gean Jennet’ video “Piss on yourself” would be screened along with others.

People began showing up and we helped to cut garlic and onions outside in front of the building to make a big bean curry diner that was being cooked up in a fire pit in the front of the house where about 20 people were gathering. On a bunch of different kinds of chairs in various states of dis-repair people sat and ate next to piles of potted plants and veggies that needed a bit of watering. We ate and went inside to watch the films in the now transformed living room turned Movie Theater with our plates of food and glasses of cider.

The next day we wondered around the kitchen gathering up breakfast from the dumpstered (or ‘skipped’) bread and tea with amazing homemade soy milk made by a guy at the house from El Salvador. I wanted to get out of the house so I borrowed a bike and rode to the new squat in town with Jack It was so nice to be on a bike again I have to say, and I was also very glad to be riding with another person so that I didn’t get hit by a car. I was still confused about which sides of the road cars were driving on. The new squat in C.T. had a path of black berries leading to the front door where the locks had been replaced and where there was a post put up by the new inhabitants declaring this space theirs now (this is an actual legal posting since squatting is legal in England). They had been there for less than a week and were still moving in the necessary things like dishes and different pieces of furniture. We had skipped (dumpstered) some veggies on our way back and presented them to Sasha who had opened the door for us and was the person on ‘squat sitting’ duty at the moment. Sasha made us some red bush tea and the three of us talked about trans movements in different cultural context (a.k.a. UK and US). It was nice to hear what people were thinking about in other places, to have a fresh perspective to some degree, people talking about being more gender queer and between genders. After finishing tea sasha and me rode back to H.S. since she was late for kickboxing class and I had to return my borrowed bike.

We got back to the H.S. squat and Margaritte and I proceeded to the park across the way to do interview check-ins with each other. We ended as the sun was setting by filming each other prancing through the lawns of the park with pre-teen boys half watching while playing football and finally we left when a drunk man talking to himself went into the bushes near us and started undressing. Soon after we left with Anarchy Bob on another speed walking adventure (the people of Leeds walk like New Yorkers) to a friend of a friend’s house to watch the new UK lesbo TV drama ‘Sugar Rush’ (which is available on DVD… for those interested in lesbo trash TV!!!). We finally went back to the squat again after discussion turned into strange tech. stuff and we were getting tired. The rest of the evening was spent obsessively e-mailing people about interviews in London and talking to some people from the house, eating too many ‘crisps’ (chips) and finally going to bed at 3am, way after Margaritte had already put herself to bed.

Friday we got up a bit early (before 1pm) and got ready for our first Leeds interview with Anarchy Bob. After the interview we spent some time wondering around looking for food and finally came back to the house to eat some soup and bread before catching a bus to C.T. squat for our next interview with Sasha, Jack and G. While we were on the bus a woman in a beaded orange and pink dress got on with a group of random folks and began to talk very loudly on her cell phone to a friend. She was talking about her son who I guess was a toddler or so. He was asking to wear dresses and telling her about how nice her shoes are. Margaritte and I looked back at each other with big smiles. The woman proceeded to say that people could fuck off if they thought certain things he wore were ‘gay’ and how our society was so homophobic and people were “excepting of gay people” unless if was their child, etc. It was a beautiful bus eavesdropping conversation moment!

We finally got off the bus and I found myself back in the blackberry hedge garden front of C.T. where folks were hanging out on mattresses among the brambles. We waited for about half an hour and then finally started our interview of Sasha, G., and Jack. After we went up into the house and interviewed Sasha a bit more about her visual art and ‘The Screaming and Kicking Collective’ (a radical artist collective that puts on shows in squatted spaces, example- an old Nunnery). We put away some of our stuff and headed over to a garden party down the street at a housing co-op where there was a bbq with amazing salads and stuffed peppers and pies and vegan ice cream. We made jokes about being gay, kept on asking ‘what?’ ‘What did you say?’ because we couldn’t understand Sasha (or more that Margaritte and I had trouble understanding the northern dialect, admittedly I had a harder time with it). We went back to the C.T. squat; some folks went back to the garden party, I stayed behind for some bonding time of my own… We spent the night there, becoming better acquainted with our Leeds friends and then woke to an egg breakfast in the morning.

We had planned to go to a waterfall outside of town the next day but in the night there was a big lightening and thunder rain storm, making us less enthusiastic about the treck out to see nature. We compromised and decided to go to a potluck with the ‘Screaming and Kicking Collective’ kids and go for a walk along the ridge in the woods with Sasha.

We began to walk in the light rain the same direction we had gone for our ‘Sugar Rush’ evening and walked through a park that at the entrance had the gayest statue ever. It was a man with a little jacket on (some kind of military uniform) and little tight pants with his hand saucily placed on one hip. With the other hand he held a large feathered hat. His boots, although he was made of gray stone, were painted bright red! He was the faggiest statue Margaritte and I had ever seen and we instantly deemed him one of our main T.Q. mascots!

We then took off on our little adventure walk in the woods. We made our way to the part of the woods called ‘Mean Wood’ where ‘The Holly's’ are, the woods where J.R.R. Tolkin spent much of his time while writing “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”… we had finally found our way to the hobbit homeland!!! Sasha told us about some of the rocks in the woods, how there are some that have very strong energy “Dolmans.” Friends and people go there a lot to get high, but that even being there can make you feel high. We learned how to salute the birds ‘Good morning Mr. Magpie, how is your wife and children,’ saw ponies and chickens and fields of wild flowers and stopped to sit by a little crick with a water fall to eat some pastels (pot pie like pastries). After a pee break in the bushes we headed back to the bbq, with Margaritte jokingly making out with a dolman rock along the way. The bbq moved inside due to the rain again and I passed out on the couch for about half an hour due to lack of sleep. We ate great food, met fabulous people from the KSC and then headed back to the H.S. squat to start packing for our departure to London the next day and for our interview with Leeds hot queer band ‘Jean Genet.’ We set up for the interview in the dungeon/workout room and had Bob and Helena get into ‘costume’ upon arrival (a.k.a. underwear and sparkly ‘tit tape’). The interview went really well and we ended with a little photo shoot and bonding sleepover.

I woke Margaritte in the morning, searching for our films that I lent to someone to copy and we had to leave in a few hours. We rushed downtown and met up again with Helena (of Jean Genet) for a quick breakfast and for Margaritte and Helena to reunite before we got on our lovely Mega bus back to London that had no working toilette. With some lunch snacks and pee break, a half hour dead stop due to an accident and phone calls from Retha in London (a friend from South Africa who I met at Queer Festival Copenhagen); we finally arrived at Victoria Station. We headed over to Liverpool Street where we met Tonia and Retha and then ran into Kate and George (Australian Lesbian twin sisters who we would be staying with) and then hit up a Bangladeshi restaurant for our first big meal in quite a few days….

Manchester-Margaritte and Elliat explore the north of England - July 15-18, '06

(Margaritte)
I realized this morning that I want to be a writer again. I want to spend my time at Evergreen writing stories and taking pictures. Sound like a good life plan at the moment.

Hear we are in the midst of northern England memories. Lets start at the beginning.
We left on the mega bus, a double-decker long distance bus with a pig like conductor painted across the back of the bus winking at us as if to say “welcome to the hellish ride of your dreams.” After an hour of combating traffic through city center the bus abruptly stops on the side of the road, another scratchy British voice comes over the intercom, sounds familiar doesn’t it? “Due to engine troubles the bus will be paused until another bus can come and take you the rest of the way.” After about 5 min. the bus starts again and keeps going with no explanation. This repeats 3 times through out the ride until another bus meets us half way there and we unload bags onto our second mega bus. As this happens it is also a “Wee” pee break. Being used to the grey hound routine and a little fuzzy in the head from a nap I walk off the bus to “take a wee” and inspect my surroundings. After finding the perfect black current juice I walk out to no mega bus. In a moment of horror I realize I don’t even have Elliat’s number because we have been joined at the hip for the past few days, and I don’t even know where I am, plus all my stuff is on the bus, oh yes and I have all the money for both of us on me. In a state of shock suddenly I see a red faced Elliat running towards me shouting, “get on the bus we are leaving.” In a state of embarrassment and relief we board our bus and laugh most of the rest of the way there.

Manchester, our sweet industrial city. “The Basement” the info. shop and queer film festival, Primark our cheap cute clothing hookup. We arrive with heavy bags and make our way to the awesome info. shop “The Basement.” Nice people with northern accents and a place to stay for the night immediately greet us. The space itself is colorfully painted and full of resource and queers. There is a vegan café with sparkling elderflower drink, yummy and cheap big meals with cake. 3.50 pounds for 2!

We watch gay cinema including a movie called “the pink mirror” a campy Bollywoodesque film about drag queens in India. We plan to distro it in the states. After the film we went back to the organizers house, Humey where we hung with Manchester queers and talked about Kafe Queeria, the collective that put on the film festival. They also put on a café for queers at the info shop with performance, knitting and socializing.

The next day we explored Manchester. We had our first official British breakfast that morning, baked beans, eggs, tomatoes, sausage, thick bacon, shhh don’t tell the vegans, tea and brown sauce, something similar to ketchup with dates that has a vinegary taste to it. It was all-good and we finally felt full. The city center contains a large green with dead grass and a fountain full of kids running around in there underwear and teenage boys filling bottles with recycled water to splash there mates and girlfriends with. We took pictures and watched the children play until it got to hot and was time for some air-conditioned shopping. Primark was the cheap clothes hookup. Polka-dot belts for 1 pound, pants that fit Elliat, skirts that come right up to your bum with big red buttons, we were quiet happy.

That night we had our first interview with Humey talking about race and the queer community, all the organizing in Manchester for ladyfest and the work between Leeds and Manchester. I could already see that I would be learning a lot from the interviews. I usually try to explain that queer identity is about having no barriers around who you love. To be open to being with anyone not just one sex or the other but gender queer folks and other identities. Humey described it as uniting all the facets of gay identity. Like not being segregated to one identity but uniting under an umbrella term that brings people together. I really liked that.

Our last night in Manchester was the Gossip show they were a fun piece of the Pacific Northwest in a far away city. We hung out with Bob and Helena from Jean Genet and all danced hard and sweaty in a crowd that looked exactly like the Northwest except for the British accents and all the smoking inside. After the show we went downstairs to hang with Beth, Hannah and Nathan the band members. Elliat made a date with Beth to hang out in Portland and eat hamburgers and get earrings. We then went home in a cab. This was our first cab in England. They are large, enough room for 7, and I am still getting used to this opposite side of the road thing.

We left Manchester that morning a fresh start to Leeds.

London- travel queeries film begins... July 12-14, '06

(Margaritte)
London: Margaritte’s Arrival
I arrived in London on Wednesday night in a sleepy state already to be put into a real bed. Elliat picked me up later then I wanted after being on a broken down tube train. No matter, we were off to a good start hugging and sharing in the new somewhat blurry landscape (from lack of sleep) around me. We waited for our train that never came. A crackly British voice over the intercom told us that the last train had broken down which forced us onto an over crowded city bus through the suburbs of London. Welcome to a big sprawly city where you don’t know the stops because they are not clearly marked and the bus driver will not shout them out. We made our way to the back and squeezed in with all my gear as Elliat filled me in on the details of Copenhagen and her first day in London. Which included juicy tidbits of big squats, queer football (soccer) and fresh filming ideas. We arrived at Sherry’s tiny flat in Brixton at three am and immediately cuddled into the couch for seven hours.

The next morning we awoke to her flat mates cooking up a breakfast under our noses as we, and all of our equipment, were squeezed in between the fridge rater and the door to the hallway. We took showers and found a market to buy mangos, 3 varieties including one called Alphanzo, and some bread and eggs. Atop Sherry’s apartment is a little bit of Eden. It is a beautiful garden full of flowers and magical tables and chairs and sunshine between roses and borage plants. We talked for hours and then went in to take naps before going on a proper British evening walk round the Jamaican neighborhood. We saw a church steeple made of stone, found Shakespeare Street and got to know a few dogs.

That night we slept at the apartment squat across the street, the “Clifton Mansions.” It was a huge old and dusty apartment complex with a fake horse head above the door. When we came in a courtyard with various sculptures and plant bits growing out of old bathtubs greeted us. On the left was Arika’s apartment, which she shared with her girlfriend, a friend and a very jumpy dog, named Mollie.

Arika shared stories over mint tea of squatting in London for the last 10 years and how Britain has been the best place in the EU to squat because of some old squatter rites law. We talked about the history of the building, how the landlord disappeared and most of the tenets just stayed and didn’t pay rent for the last 20 years. More recently the city council decided to evict all the people there and the half block of squatted apartments around the corner to make way for development this fall. This has become a problem as the gentrification of cities is becoming a worldwide issue, pushing poorer folks out of their homes. Squatters are also under a lot of pressure from the government threatening to change this old law, many cases are brought to court each year trying to save free spaces. The forced move will be hard for the tenants of Clifton Mansions but Arika said in a way it was good because of some recent harassment from a neighboring businessman and his friends. They were dealing crack and verbally assaulting the queer folks in the building as well as the women. Though this was some of the harsh reality of city life on the fringes plenty of people have squatted securely and viably throughout the city and country. We hope to visit more squats in the countryside and city’s in the north.

Our last day in London, the first time through, was full of fun sweet moments. Including Sherry’s musical performance at the White Chapel Gallery. She does a combination of electronic noise art and performance with a screen in front of her projecting images across her body. We met up with some of Elliat’s friends from Queer fest Copenhagen and Sherry’s lovely flat mate Joe. We all watched the next band together leopard legs, an all gurl drumming sound art band. Our friend Scratch and I stood on top of benches fanning off cigarette smoke with postcards and taking in the intense bass of drums and ten howling womyn all dressed in white with thick black eye makeup.

Afterward, after a two hours of coordinating, we all walked to a gay bar in Central London called the Joiners. The walk was the best part, it took us through a Bangladeshi neighborhood full of young people and restaurants then quiet side streets that made us feel like we were utterly lost, then losing half of the seven people when they turned the wrong corner and two others when they went to get bagels without telling anyone.
We finally made it to the over crowed very smoky pub and tried to sit down on some couches. A sexiest older gay man refused to move, being used to taking up SPACE and laid his body across the couch to reserve “his space.” We stood for some time, then when he went up to go to the toilet Elliat and me, the un-polite Americans, snagged the couches and told him and his friends they could share the space, which they did before leaving.

We all giggled and talked and took pictures into the wee hours when kisses were exchanged as well as numbers for when we return to London at the end of July.

Queer Festival Copenhagen- July 4-11, '06!!!!

After the hour long plane ride into Copenhagen with Mel (a person I met at the airport and recognized from around) we got a train into town. I picked up a guild to the city since it had a city map on it and for fun was looking through it on the way into to the Central Station and in the events and things to do was… Queer Festival! I was a bit shocked and was feeling unclear as to what to expect from the event, but when I got to the space I instantly recognized tons of folks from Queeruption Barcelona and felt right at home.

The fest was in a big stone building the organizers had rented with money they had gotten from a grant from the Copenhagen City Arts Council. It was a part of a whole square with other venues/spaces connected to it and there were triangular benches in the middle of the square along with a stage with kiddy pools on it and a large tent where people were lounging. On the side on the main building was a tent set up also with a kitchen space that was open and where people could go get tea and coffee and make sandwiches and help cook meals (with suggested donation). When I walked in the space there was a room on the left with a rug and couches and three huge pictures on the wall, to the right was the main performance space/stage (where later there was a huge amount of lights and sound equipment loaded in), up some stairs from the stage there was a bar and some chairs, down the hall behind the living room was bathrooms and a storage room. On the next floor up (1st/2nd floor) there was an amazing gallery space with an info booth with rad zine/program guides. I think that total there were 5 gallery rooms with pictures from tons of events and sculptures and exhibits by different trans women, documents of performance, drag queen costume patter designs, a chair made of stuffed socks, found art and graffiti, and so forth. There was also a dress up room which was a very helpful and a well used part of the festival through out the week. Lastly, in the stairway between the gallery and the attick was a computer station with free internet and the attick was where some people were sleeping, storing their bags, and later in the week was turned into a dungon. The basement was kind of a lot of rooms full of electrical boxes and amps but serves also as the ‘dress room’ and had a shower for the lovely squatting kids who needed to bathe.

The first day I hung out in the courtyard and caught up with old friends, listening to DJs and some performances. Mel and I ended up staying at a flat down the street with this woman named Sara who was really super nice. I stayed up and talked to Sara some- she is a painter and we mainly talked about the fest and Danish Culture. I think the main thing I remember about her was this dish she made for me the last night I slept there. It was a traditional Danish dish to have when it’s hot and you make it with sort of hard sweet biscuits broken up in a bowl with buttermilk and lemon juice in it poured on top. It was really nice- a kind of combination of cereal and cheese cake batter! I stayed there for two days until the other performer in Mels group came to take my place, then making my way to the squat where other folks from the fest were staying, called ‘The Youth House.’ It’s really the only squat in Copenhagen and apparently there have been fights over it for years between the punk kids and the city government. It’s a really amazing space that was about 5 miles Northwest of the main festival space. The basement had a industrial sized kitchen and the main floor had a huge hang out space and the bathrooms (which I have to say made everyone a bit sick with the smell of piss). We all were sleeping on the next floor up in a huge old ballroom that was all painted black with a large banner of a first punching through an swastika handing on the stage. There was also a banner for K Town Festival (a hardcore/punk fest that had happened a week or so before Queer Festival in that space). I slept on a gym mat next to the windows, other folks slept on the bleachers, the stage, balcony and other parts of the ballroom. I usually went to bed sometime between 3am and 8am and we were usually woken up by people moving cabels in the space or someone having band practice/playing drums around 11 or 12. There were city bikes in Copenhagen that were mainly I guess for tourists- you would put in a 20 Kroner coin and then the bike would release and you could ride it around for however long (but not be able to lock it) and then when it was returned you would get the $ back. I saw quite a few bikes out though that were missing the coins, so I guess some people had figured out how to get them out and just take the bikes (it’s a same system for shopping carts they have in germany). You could also rent a bike with a deposite or pay for the bus (20 kr. A trip) or take a taxi with 4 people (20 kr. Each).

The second day I was there, Wednesday, I ended up doing kitchen crew with a bunch of kids from Australia/London, Denmark and Sweden and the went to sit in the audience of the live broadcasting of Queer Tv-Tv, a queer tv show on Copenhagens public access station where they were interviewing people about Queer geography and queer architecture (for example talking about the genders of different spaces and buildings and non-heterosexual structures). In the evening I performed as Sr. La Muse in my shower curtain naked costume and blond wig. I went a watched the corpses bride in the movie tent and waited for Sara to go home, which ended up happening around 3am.

Thursday there was the pussycafe hosted by Pia from the Kings of Berlin outside in a tent where people ate chocolate vanilla pussy shaped cake, took candid shots of their pussies as rock stars with glasses on and made pussy art. That day there were also public performance pieces by Miss Fish from Dunst falling into a fountain in the main square and an impov Soap opera, more workshops on queer geography, and another Queer Tv-Tv show. I went with my new friends from Amsterdam, Bastiaan and Krista (User), back to the squat on bikes (with all my bags on my back!) and then we got ready and head over to the women/trans play party that was happening that night. It was at a Womens Community Center (which I found out later was specifically there because some people were pushing for the space to be more sex positive). The space had a smoking room/hang out area on the second floor, the main play space on the third floor and more bathrooms on the 4th floor. The play space had a kind of mesh that reminded me of a military boot camp hanging from the walls to make up different spaces. There were some couples/groups going for it already when we got there, others spending time behind the bar, folks leading other around on leashes and then there was a larger group of folks from the fest who I was with. We ended up playing spin the bottle since people were not really initiating anything and then we played spin the bottle with people shouting out what scene to do next like doctor nurse (which is my new favorite game ever and one of the most entertaining things I have done in a long time). Not much else really happened, people walking around topless, restling (where I kinda fucked up my knees) and lots of talking and just getting to know folks more. Some other people of course took advantage of the opportunity and space a lot more, but over all it pretty chill.

After trying to sleep some at the squat I headed over to the main space for Queer Festival again and had breakfast and showered and checked e-mail. It was then Friday and I believe that’s the day I went out on the queer bike tour of Copenhagen where they had barrowed a bunch of bikes and people were all dressed up and we went around to see the palace and different government buildings and the little mermaid statue (which apparently has been decapitated about 3 times or more). I helped out a bit more with kitchen crew and also went to the drag workshop by the kings of berlin, where Kris Ko helped me do powder shading techniques on my chest, put on a silver dress that was way too small, some clips in my hair and a pink skirt with the back open, make-up and finally a golden picture frame as a necklass. This super punky Danish girl I met while working in the kitchen was wearing a pink Barbie shirt and I ended up helping her spiff up her outfit also with a pink mini-skirt and belt, high heel mock snake skin books and we ripped open the shirt more to have it open on the side and then some make-up. She became ‘Barbie’ from that point on (with another make over the next day as well). That evening Team Plastique played (Berlin/Australia) plus others. That night I caught a cab home with some London kids at around 5am back to the squat.

Saturday night was the biggest party for the fest, happening in a venue down the street. I signed up for ‘general help’ and hung out backstage with the kings on berlin and dunst kids, telling stories about breathing out of my eye. I got some footage of the Dunst performance for Travel Queeries and saw other amazing performances by the Kings of Berlin and Ocean, which looked great, especially in that large of a space. The night lasted for a long time, there was fun to be had on the dance floor and in the bathrooms, people going back and forth between inside and outside and when all the booze was sold, the clean up crew started to do their work and the party moved to the main space where I heard it went until 1pm the next day! I got a cab home again with the London kids at around 7am, we looked for a breakfast spot with no luck and finally found our way to our beds. Sunday was the beginning of our recovery, people wondering around after too much drinking and looking for food. It was a cloudy day and we ended up inside around candles telling stories with a woman with some kind of mental illness yelling about people having too many legs and such. I ended up singing some jazz songs and talking about breathing through my eye again, feeling a bit off with angsiety by the end of the day for all the emotional confusion one can get from being around so many good lucking gays, ending it all with hugs and a nice walk back to the squat with Barbie and friends. The next day there was laundry to be done, internet to be checked, breakfast to be had with another US as we talked about making another anarchist queer gathering in the US and about our experiences as traveler and with the festival. Cleaning up the space was dominated mostly by people going through all the left overs of the dress up room and putting on as much as they could and then packing it back into bags again. The rest of the queers at the squat made a huge dinner and everyone left over from the fest came over for dinner as we got drunk on red cherry wine in the back yard while rosy played us the violin and sam yelled at me for mixing up the names for noodles and pasta. The next day, Tuesday, I hung out in town a bit with rosy and peter and caught my flight finally to London where I found my way to Sherrys house in Brixton and awaited the arrival of Margaritte and the beginnings of production for Travel Queeries Europa 2006!!!!