HANNA!

Being a report of my holidays, specificaly how Hanna and me met for the first time, and how we spent our days together in London.

Well, this holiday sure was long anticipated. Hanna and me met over a year ago on Something Fishy, and have been in regular contact ever since. Almost from the beginning we had discussed how we might meet up, but for many reasons this had never happened, admittedly including my own anxiety about being seen in the flesh by someone who had grown dear to me, and who might have quite different expectations of who i am in real life.

But things were finaly working out for me, in many ways, including the lamentably neccessary financial conditions (special thanks here to my parents, who subsidised this voyage quite generously). So we had agreed on a date, i applied for and got time off at the office, and all was set to go. Well almost, my flight was scheduled for Tuesday evening, but before that i still had an appointment with my hairdresser. And yes, i'm very satisfied with his work, he didn't even blink when i told him that i would be spending the week en femme and would like the cut accordingly. But next time we're going to be a bit more extreme with the couloring. Then i still had all kinds of busines to get done before i could leave, and in the last hour before going to the airport i decided that i wanted to unpack and piled everything into a proper suitcase instead of my old sports-bag. Oh, and take a shower too, and grab a bite to eat, and suddenly i was in an awful hurry.

Anyway, i'll spare you the boring details of the airport etc., suffice to say that i had a wonderful flight, with sundogs and inverse rainbows around the sun, and fantastic layered cloud-formations, and as we approached the canal huge thunderstorm hammerheads, and we even flew through the top of one of them.

Then debarking, the dreary wait for the luggage, and then straight through customs without the slightest hitch or worry. By this time i was (i suppose quite reasonably) very excited, and the moment right after i came out into the reception-area is frozen in a kind of weird photography in my mind. There was this very fast scan of the area with my eyes, taking in the people, deciding who was waiting for somebody, who was scanning the doors i had come through as nervously as i was studying the people, looking for a hint of recognition in somebodys eyes or body-stance, all in the blink of an eye. And then zeroing in, recognizing my dear Hanna whom i had only seen so far through a few photos we had exchanged on the internet, a halting move forward, not quite trusting my instincts yet, seemingly a similar reaction on her face, a nervous smile because i still might be wrong, by now advancing over the few meters that seperated us. Seeing the sheet of paper with my name written on it and a moments disapointment as i noticed it was written in black instead of the pink we had joked about. Then almost simultanously the question: "Hanna?" "Ruby?" and finaly a tight embrace, after those hundreds, perhaps thousands of virtual hugs we had shared on icq finaly a to hold her, tightly, for real.

In the car i was a real chatterbox, talking about anything and everything that crossed my mind, which had i fear rather disconnected from the real world and was desperately trying to get it's bearings again. Then arriving home, shaking hands with her step-father, and retiring to her room, where i think we showed each other our sketch-books and talked and then i hardly remember anything any more of that first evening.

When i got up in the morning Hanna was still soundly asleep, so i decided to do my toilet, and particularly to shave my legs, which i had rather neglected for the last couple of weeks. Then i got dressed in the blue summer dress my mother had passed down to me, with an orange t-shirt, and when i was ready Hanna was up too, so we had breakfast together before leaving for the station and the ride for the big city.

Here i guess it might be appropriate to describe what we looked like, because i think even in a city as crowded with various peoples and styles we still were somewhat noteworthy, if not extremely so. At almost six feet both of us are rather tall, though quite dissimilar in build. On that first day out Hanna wore olive-green military-style trousers, a kind of scout-uniform shirt, though the badges were removed, insted she sported a communist pin. And then off course german paratrooper boots. I would categorize her look as antifa (a word which probably needs a little explaining. The antifa(shists) are a loose movement of punks, idealists, hard-rockers, hippies, anarchists, feminists and other folk, parts of which are quite militant and might at first look be mistaken for skinheads themselves, specialy for that military-look which some of them wear. I fully aprove of them, even though i have only moved in the fringes of that particular movement). Myself i was wearing the afforementioned dress, light shoes with about an inch of heel, and generaly trying to look pretty, mainly because i was quite sure that anybody who looked at me for more then about a tenth of a second would see right through me (though the only time i got any comment was at the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and i guess that there the people were looking out for that kind of thing).

So via train and underground we arrived in town, and by that time i guess i was experiencing some serious sensory overload. London is a crazy town. We left the underground at oxford street, into what must be one of the busiest streets in all of London. The sidewalks were crowded, traffic, even though limited to taxies and buses (classical London double-deckers), almost at the point of breakdown, people moving everywhere and in every direction in a totally manic way, huge billboards advertising the stores, music of all styles coming out of entrances, souvenir stands for the tourists every couple of meters (i'm proud to say that i didn't spend a single penny on them). I felt quite lost, specialy after sprinting through a huge department-store looking for some quite simple groceries, so i begged for a stop somewhere to have a drink and sit down, and perhaps get a little relative calm. We found ourselves in a Starbucks (what are them americans doing in London anyway?) over some really ice-cold drinks (hardly surprising, since they were constituted of about three quarters crushed ice). After that we took it a bit slower, deciding to stroll down the street first without actually attempting to do any shopping as of yet, and ending up at picadilly, where the crowds were if anything even thicker then on oxford, and perhaps a bit younger in average. There we visited the Japan-center, a store Hanna had told me about repeatedly, where we did some simple purchases before returning into the mealstrom that makes up the streets of London.

Picadilly was where i really appreciated how much of an inocent country girl i really am, having lived most of my life in a house surrounded by fields and woken by cowbells in the morning. Here the houses are covered in gigantic animated illuminated everchanging billboards, street-performers are so nombrous that it becomes cacaphonic, vehicles of all kinds are continuously circulating, the people moving through everything just making it all more nervous. Finaly we escaped into the movies (though American Psycho was hardly calming), then we had a stroll through china-town and checked out an asian supermarket before having pizza to snack upon.

Finaly we decided to return home, tired and with hurting feet. We were both glad to arrive, though the day was hardly finished yet, as we decided that it would be a good moment for me to have a look at her puter and perhaps clean up some things on it, install a new anti-virus, all that kind of thing. Or perhaps we did all that on the first evening, i'm really not that sure anymore.

Anyway, that's it for the first installement of this fantastical trip, i'll be sure to write some more soon before i forget all the details, so come back soon to check out what else we got up to.