'weary of THE WALTZ'
"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,
for there is in London, all that life can afford".
Dr Johnson may have had a point in the 1700s, but today it's more like:
"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of crap service in Sainsbury's".
This man was extremely tired of London. Living in the centre of the capital
can be uphill work at times - the pollution, the overcrowding, the cost
- not to mention the lack of tea and sympathy.
London is a drug. When you are in there, in the middle of it all, it's
hard to escape. But on a diminishing number of T-cells, and after a trip
to Possibly The Worst Mardi Gras Festival in The World™ I was officially
'over it, darling'.
Having not set foot out of Zone One for three or four months at a stretch,
it's no wonder I was a stress victim. Perhaps for those rare born-and-bred
Londoners, it is a different story. But for those of us from some rural
backwater, I think there comes a point when we always want to leave.
So I swapped the grime and drizzle of Goodge Street for the majestic architecture
and serenity of Vienna…
Serenity, did I say? The Danube burst its banks in my first week, my Viennese
boyfriend and I have had more dramas than a Shakespeare Festival, and
the gay scene here is about as exciting as a fart in the bath.
I am frustrated at my terrible attempts at speaking German, (try having
an argument in a foreign language), Austrians eat bread and cheese for
every meal (so I grew love handles within days), and beer drinking is
compulsory at every opportunity (ditto love handles). Suddenly I find
myself missing home more than I could have ever imagined. Why ever did
I leave?
I was the victim of one of those dangerous long-distance relationships,
that's why. This was my first crack at a relationship in five years, and
my first since testing positive. I would really consider it my first in
adult life.
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We met in April. The next few months were spent sending text messages every three minutes, endlessly chatting on the internet and flying back and forth whenever time and
