Oldest Friends

10.10.24 — Madrid

Oldest Friends

10.10.24 — Madrid

Whether it’s eating chicken nuggets off a trampoline bed to damning up a stream in order to make a new den, my earliest memories of spending time with friends are with the Smith sisters. Since the day one of them appeared peeking over our garden wall, Jemma and Lucy have been me and my sister’s oldest friends, inseparable despite the occasional shouting match of yore and the busy adult lives we all lead today.

Besides the universally bemoaned difficulty of organising things as a grown up, us four must also grapple with the complicated geography of our lives. I live abroad, Eleanor in Leeds, Lucy in Burnley, and Jemma’s often all over the place with her job. It seemed unlikely that all four of us would ever manage to meet up, let alone organise a trip for the girls to visit me in Madrid. And yet, despite all odds, last year I found myself rushing off to arrivals, heart in my mouth with excitement and a sign in my hand reading “Smith & Briggs”.

What followed was three days of chaos in the absolute best way. We caught up over drinks, chatted the hours away over food, and reminisced in my now very full house. Between conversations in bars we moved around the city, yapping away as we went as if no time had passed at all since we were making mud pies and running through the field behind our houses back in the early 2000s.

I’ve had the privilege of making many friends in all manner of situations and from all manner of places throughout the years, but I realise now that me and Eleanor are extremely lucky to still have Jemma and Lucy as close friends with whom we can laugh until we cry over ancient anecdotes and rewatch The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking for the umpteenth time since we first discovered it on a half-broken VHS tape in the Smiths’ living room.

Reconnecting with my oldest friends was the tonic I needed as summer came to a close last year. Although I’d no way of knowing it at the time, their visit marked an absolute high before the coming low—but more of that in my next post.

To avoid ending this celebratory journey on a low note, I’d like to thank Jemma, Lucy, and Eleanor for coming to visit me and for their continued friendship, love, and support. I can’t wait for you to be back, and I can’t wait to see you all in England.

Pippi Longstocking is coming into your town!

Buffalo & Toronto

31.08.24 — Toronto

Buffalo & Toronto

31.08.24 — Toronto

My time in Buffalo began with an eight hour journey from New York City, during which Kevin took the wheel and I took charge of keeping him entertained with conversation, fuelled by a disturbingly colourful Kit-Kat purchased in a half abandoned petrol station in the middle of nowhere. I thus started my visit to Kevin and James’ place as I meant to go on: putting the world to rights while nattering the hours away with Kev.

Once in Buffalo, we realised that I’d pretty much seen and done everything there is to see and do in the city during my first visit, so my time there turned out to be a rather relaxed affair. I went for walks, visited the school where James works as a teacher, and bought an obscene amount of the world’s best chocolate-coated honeycomb at a pretty little shop in the city centre.

One of the highlights of the trip was a day out at Six Flags Darien Lake, a theme park which I dragged James to while Kevin was at work. I initially just wanted to bag as many new coaster credits as I could, but it turned out to be a wonderful chance to spend time with James without Kevin around. I love Kevin dearly, but I also know we can get quite intensely engrossed in our conversation once the two of us get chatting.

But chat we did, and right until the end, when Kevin dropped me off outside my hotel as I prepared to spend the last few days of my holiday in Toronto. Kevin and I had visited for a day trip in the past, but this time I had the chance to explore a little further, and I must admit that liked what I found.

From its graffiti-filled alleys to the delicious street food in its markets, Toronto offered a lot more than I could ever imagine. Whether exploring the university campus by day or waltzing along the waterfront by night, I discovered that the city reminded me of a more European version of New York City, combining the best of both continents in one vibrant and chaotic package.

I fell slightly in love with Toronto those last few days, even if it tried to kill me. You see, I spent the last evening having a lovely soak in my hotel’s bath, but the bathtub was deep and the floor, slippy as hell. You can imagine the scene…

Gays in New York

17.08.24 — New York

Gays in New York

17.08.24 — New York

The train from Vermont to NYC was going well until the tannoy announced that a bridge up ahead was stuck open and that we’d all to get off here, in —as Megan would say— bumfuck nowhere. After wondering how the hell I was supposed to get to my destination, they ushered us back on to the train: the bridge had been fixed.

I spent my first night in the Big Apple alone. Alongside what felt like the rest of New York, I sauntered across Brooklyn Bridge as the sun set, resolving to walk the way back to my hotel in the financial district. This meant I had time to pick up some street meat in the form of a tiny hot dog which cost me a whopping six dollars. After paying a measly 25c for hotdogs in Burlington, I was pissed. I thus finished off my evening meal with a cheap burger from McDonalds. U-S-A! U-S-A!

The next day I called Kevin while I walked around Central Park. He was driving down from Buffalo to meet me in New York and I wanted to tell him the good news: I’d got up bright and early and secured us tickets to see Chicago on Broadway. Having already practically drained my dollar stockpile in the ticket office, I then mooched around the shops on 5th Avenue until my very dear and very unpunctual friend arrived.

With the daylight dimming, we made a couple of stops to spend our first night together. First was Dumbo Market, almost tucked under the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side of the water. The food was expensive and the people were a bit too hip, but it was a good spot to take a selfie to prove we were in NYC. Then I was dying for Kevin to experience the sandwiches at Katz’s Deli, which we washed down with some ice cream as we sauntered back through Manhattan like the cool kids we are.

Morning came around and with it the usual battle to get Kevin out the door. I succeeded eventually, and we stopped by Little Island to suffer a while in the summer heat while I took a few more photos, after which we ducked into a couple of markets whose prices meant that our custom was limited to the use of their bathrooms. Then it was showtime, where us two gays in New York had our fill of music, dancing, and camp tomfoolery. We loved every second of it, thus deciding to carry on our queer adventures with a trip to Stonewall for a drink and a boogie under a thousand rainbow-coloured lights.

That evening, optimistically nonchalant of the storm brewing overhead, I insisted we head out on one of the city’s municipal ferries. These are intended for use as transport between New York’s boroughs, but I surmised that we could make a return trip in order to watch the sun set over the city. As you can imagine, there was no sun to be set from under the storm clouds, clouds which then began to drench us through as the journey progressed. By the time we’d arrived at the end of the route, we’d to leg it down the dock and hide under a canopy until the boat set back off again. Drenched to the skin, we took it back down to the financial district, grabbed some more dodgy street food just as the rain began to lift, and dried off in the hotel while I greased up the bedlinen with my box of fried chicken.

It was an absolutely chaotic final night, and it could have happened in no other way for me and Kevin, who is chaos personified. Watching musicals, exploring the big city, and getting into this pickles certainly made for an exciting stint in New York, but I know that I could go to the dullest place on earth (Hull, say) with Kevin and it’d still be endless chats, laughs, and mischief. There’d just be less bagels.

Green Mountain

16.08.24 — Vermont

Green Mountain

16.08.24 — Vermont

This year marks the third that I’ve headed to Vermont for my summer holidays, and for good reason. There’s nothing quite like kicking back amongst stunning nature to spend time with people I love… and hey, I don’t even have to learn a new language to visit!

This year’s trip, as they’d say out there, was a doozy (here meaning ‘outstanding’). Reunited with Megan and family, we visited swimming holes, went on hikes, hosted BBQs, kayaked out on Lake Champlain, and drank shitty coffee at my favourite diner.

Most nights we spent chilling out at Maureen’s, but we did venture out after dark on the odd occasion. We spent one evening getting bitten to death by mosquitos as we watched a film at a drive-in cinema, which was a lot of fun despite the nasty critters. Another we spent at a campsite, where we rocked up with marshmallows, sausages, and a bottle of wine… but no tent. We’d seen the forecasted thunderstorm and decided that, given me and Megan’s combined survival skills, we would probably die if we tried to brave the night. It was a good shout, as the heavens opened after a couple of glasses of wine and we made for the warmth of home as our campfire was slowly smothered by the rain.

It’s silly little moments like these that make Vermont my happy place. The people make the place, there’s no doubt about that, but there’s also nothing that can beat escaping from my day-to-day amongst the green mountains that give the state its name.

All must things must come to an end, though, and this trip ended with Megan and family waving me off as I boarded a train headed south — but more on that next time.

Boston & RI

11.08.24 — Boston

Boston & RI

11.08.24 — Boston

In six hours I can fly from Spain to Canada, but six hours stuck in a car isn’t considered anything out of the ordinary in the US. That’s what Megan told me as we hopped in her car and headed down to Boston, the city where Megan was once a uni student and which lies a whole six hours south of Burlington.

Boston felt more European than anywhere I’ve been in the US. The metro felt Parisian, the streets looked English, and the cannoli we devoured tasted very Sicilian. I felt like I was back in my home continent until I saw people in caps talking in an American accent about going to the “ball game”.

It turns out that the “ball game” was exactly where Megan and I would be headed, too. A place called Fenway Park is home to the Boston Red Sox, a team which sounded vaguely familiar to me and of which Megan is a keen supporter. She grabbed us some last minute tickets whilst the sound of someone belting out their national anthem resounded through the stadium. We’d been assigned nosebleed seats, but managed to make our way down to a better spot as others left. Not that this mattered all that much: I still don’t understand this sport in which players seem to spend most of the game idling, so I spent most of my time sampling some of the US’ best/worst sports snacks.

That evening the heavens opened as we crossed an unfortunately long bridge over the harbour. We got home drenched to the bones, so it was a miracle that we didn’t both wake up with a raging cold the next day as we jumped back in the car for our next destination: Rhode Island.

Part of Megan’s family hails from the smallest state in the US, which I learned has a rather funny accent as we tucked into some clam chowder in a quint wooden seafood restaurant overlooking the beach. We spent time with Megan’s aunt and cousin, our gracious hosts; but also had the chance to grab ice cream, eat nice meals, and spend our last evening walking down the beach to a local dive bar overlooking the sea.

As I sang along to some live country music in this ramshackle joint full of characters, I wondered how every decision and turn in my life had led me to be in this most random of places at this very moment. But, and after managing to separate myself from a drunk lady in a cowboy hat who’d forced me into dancing with her, I had a moment to reflect on this with Megan as we looked out over the waves, and I realised that there was no place I’d rather be.