Email from the Edge Part II

Hi.

This is a tale of sadness.

It's the tale of a young girl called Kimberley Dryden and her struggle with anorexia.

It's also the story of a man who may well be a serial killer and the tale of a city I have come to know well during the past two years.

So, make yourself comfortable and let me take you on a short walk down the cobbled steets of an ancient city called York...

I returned to York on the 1st of April of this year after spending a few days in Paris. Paris is my favourite city - it's the most romantic place I have ever visited. A place which seems to have been created for lovers to walk hand-in-hand through its streets.

I returned to York for one reason and one reason alone. Kimberley.

Perhaps I told myself that I was coming here for another reason, but I know now that it was her who brought me back here.

It's funny, but Kimberley will never know just what I have been through during these past three months.

After arriving in York I stayed for two weeks at the worst hostel ever - York Backpackers on Mickelgate. Don't ever stay there - it's a nasty place full of nasty people.

After two weeks I made a decision to remain in York and I started to look for somewhere to live. It was then that I met the serial killer.

I was passing a post office and I noticed in the window an advert for a room for rent. I called the number and arranged to meet the landlord. What first made me realise that this might prove to be an odd encounter was when the landlord insisted we meet at a quarter to midnight.

We arranged to meet outside a telephone box on Mickelgate. He was late and so I called him and he told me that he was delayed because one of his windows had been smashed. Uh-oh.

So, a little disturbed, I waited.

After 20 minutes, a dishevelled looking man turned up with two dogs in tow. He told me he was in his forties. This later turned out to be untrue - he was actually around 55. He also told me his name was David. This was also untrue - his name turned out to be Jason. Memories of Friday the 13th started spinning through my head.

Jason took me to his house and showed me around. I couldn't help but feel a little strange as he left all of the lights out, except one, and he showed me the house in near darkness. This was, apparently, because he was afraid his windows would be smashed again.

This is all absolutely 100% true, by the way, and it gets a little worse. The room that would be mine was a pokey little box room and the last person to sleep in the bed was Jason's Mother, who, it's worth mentioning, had died in that very same bed two years earlier.

So, I left the house that night thinking that there was no way that I could ever live there. Then, as the hours went by, I slowly started to change my mind. All he wanted for the room was £20 a week - and £20 a week is a small price to pay for death and dismemberment.

So I moved in. And that's when things became even stranger. I soon found out that David - or Jason - was on a variety of pills. He was taking medication for a 'psychopathic personality disorder.'

When I foolishly mentioned that this made him a psychopath he insisted that, no, he just had a personality disorder. Okay, but that doesn't explain a few things - like the time that I was watching a video of The Simpsons with him, in total darkness, and he ran behind the settee and hid. (It happened).

One day I made the mistake of telling Psycho Boy that I had a secret. It's true - I do. I did something in my early youth that I'm ashamed of and I've only ever told a handful of people about it.

Serial Killer Boy then started sleeping downstairs on the settee and would rarely venture upstairs or anywhere near my room.

When I asked him why, he told me it was because I might go to the toilet during the night and he would "see" my secret. What? What on earth did he think my secret was - a sixteen inch penis!?

This went on for a few weeks and then came the day that I saw Jason/David's Princess Diana memorial. (He was in love with Diana). He put it in the window for all of the world to see - a huge collection of pictures, letters, framed photographs and other titbits. Wow.

Despite his strange behaviour, I eventually came to the conclusion that Jason was just a lost soul, someone who had been treated badly by people, and I vowed not to be like that. I started to buy him cakes and presents and things.

It's funny, but I remember that whenever we had a disagreement, he would say to me, "Oh let's not fall out" and I distinctly remember thinking to myself: Well, we never actually fell in!

A few weeks later Jason told me that he had decided to move away to be with his sister and so I had a week or two to pack up and find somewhere else to live.

I soon found somewhere - a nice, Italian-run Guest House, where I'm staying until tomorrow morning - and so I said goodbye to Jason and wished him well.

I thought nothing more of Jason/David until a week ago when I saw him just a few roads away from the House from Hell we had both apparently moved away from.

He told me that he was there to see an old friend and straight away this aroused my suspicions - Jason never had any friends.

So, a few days later I cycled past his house and, lo and behold, there they were. A hundred pictures of Princess Diana, staring out at me with their dead eyes...

Yes, Serial Killer Boy had lied to me. He wasn't moving - he just wanted to get rid of me! And he even went as far as to pretend to speak to his sister on the phone about leaving when I was there!

So, needless to say, I have absolutely no sympathy for Freak Boy now and the whole experience has only served to confirm for me many things I believe about humanity. This guy promised to send me a cheque for the kids in Belarus and this, along with almost everything else he said, turned out to be a lie.

Perhaps, in an Internet cafe somewhere in York, Jason sat down and typed a similar entry to this one telling his friends how he'd had a close shave with an odd guy with a crazy Versace coat! Who knows...

So, the four weeks I spent with David/Jason were an interesting, bizarre and unpleasant experience - and one that Kimberley Dryden will never know about.

But there are so many things that Kimberley will never know. She will never know that I have thought about her every day during the past three months. She will never know about this entry. She will never know that during the past few weeks I've come closer than ever before to taking my own life.

Every moment I spent with Kimberley was precious and wonderful. I felt utterly at ease with her, completely comfortable, and that's rare for because I often have problems relating to women.

Kimberley and I met when we worked together at York hospital. I still remember the way she looked as she walked the halls, with her brown hair and brown eyes, wearing an overall that was two sizes too big for her.

Kimberley and I spent a great deal of time together during the few weeks that we knew each other. Then in September of 2002 I moved away from York and began travelling around Eastern Europe.

I know that my leaving hurt Kimberley. I told her we would meet again. And I was right - we did see each other one last time. But it was different from anything I could have imagined.

I returned to York in April and I went back to the hospital to see her. She had not responded to any of my letters and I couldn't understand why. All I knew was that I had realised that Kimberley was the best friend I had ever had and I wanted to see her again.

So I saw her at the hospital and it was horrible. Very painful. She told me that she didn't want to spend any time with me. She didn't want to have feelings for me again. My last words to her were: "My heart is broken" and then I left and I never saw her again.

What Kimberley did to me wasn't nice and it hurt me a great deal. Being treated like that, knowing that I did nothing wrong, knowing that I only treated her with kindness and compassion, has been difficult to come to terms with when I cared for her so much.

But during the past few months I have begun to understand why Kimberley behaved the way that she did. You see, Kimberley is an ill girl. She has anorexia and she gets by on just a bowl of cereal a day.

I was like a little whirlwind in her life. Before me, she didn't really have a social life. She stayed at home with her long-term boyfriend who tries his best to control her. She had her little safe existence, with her routines, where everything was familiar, and then I came along and changed everything.

Suddenly she was going out and meeting new people. And she was starting to get better, too. I told her good things about herself, boosted her self-esteem, and encouraged her to take vitamin pills. She was starting to eat more. She was looking better, feeling better.

And then suddenly I left and she had to go back to the life that she had before. I know that I hurt her, though that was the last thing I ever wanted to do. And though nothing of a sexual nature ever happened between Kimberley and I, I know that I caused problems in her relationship with her boyfriend.

After I left, she probably apologised to her boyfriend and realised he was the only person that she could depend on.

And then when suddenly I reappeared seven months later it was just too much for her to take. The best thing for her to do, to protect herself, was to push me away.

Which is exactly what she did.

I know that Kimberley had feelings for me - she told me so - and I used to marvel at the fact that I wasn't in love with her. She was pretty, sensitive, funny - everything I could ever wish to hope for in a woman. And yet I didn't have feelings for her.

Then a few weeks ago I was lying on my bed, in the guest house, staring at the ceiling, when I had a realisation. What I realised, simply, was that not only have I been in love with this girl from the very beginning, but she is also the love of my life and the person I think that I should have married.

Kimberley was my salvation. These past few years I have moving around the UK, from Wales to York to Exeter, searching for that special someone. It has been a very lonely existence. And then I found that someone but realised it too late.

And I think, too, that I was Kimberley's salvation. Kimberley may not have long left to live and I think that I could ultimately have helped to save her life. And it is knowing this that hurts me the most.

So I have remained in York these past three months in the hope I might bump into Kimberley and strike up a conversation.

I have no friends here, they have all moved away or we have lost touch, and it's been a lonely three months. I stayed in the hope that I might see her again one last time. But it never happened. I never saw her again. And she never replied to my letters.

And now it is time to leave York and these difficult times behind.

I will always miss Kimberley, the love of my life, and I will always think about her and what might have been. I have given her three months of my life, waited for her for three months. But I should try to move on, although that's very difficult to do, especially as we once sat and shared a joke together in this very Internet cafe.

So, until next time, it's goodbye to Kimberley and goodbye to York.

I will continue to keep this city and that wonderful girl in my thoughts, and I will remember each of them until the day that I die.

Goodbye York - I will miss you.

Goodbye Kimberley - you were the love of my life.

From the memory box of a Professional Englishman.

Email from the Edge Part I

Hello.

How are you?

I don't know where this is going...

I'm going to sit here and let the words flow and see what appears on my screen. This could be a very personal entry, so if that's not your thing, go and take a walk and when you return I'll be gone.

I'm sitting in York library - my bum has graced this seat many a time - and I'm writing to you on a warm and sunny afternoon.

Life is a bizarre thing, man.

I often marvel at people who manage to breeze through life, hardly a care in the world, meeting all of the challenges that confront them on a daily basis and accepting and adapting to this crazy little world which human beings have shaped and conquered.

Life for me, and many of us, is not that easy. My heart was broken a few days ago, as it has been broken many times before, and now I am trying to recover the fragments and piece them back together.

I guess it's this that I want to write about today.

I'm aware that my entries sometimes have an air of tragedy to them, and I really try my best not to be self-absorbed, but despair and heartache confront me on quite a regular basis and an outlet is needed for the emotions that often threaten to overwhelm me.

If that outlet is a library, a computer screen, a keyboard and oodles of electronic space, then so be it. I don't know anyone I can talk to about my trials and tribulations, and so that's where you come in.

But before we go into that and before I tell you about Kimberley Dryden - the girl who is the cause of my latest troubles - let me tell you how things have been going in my increasingly bizarre and surreal life since I managed to get away from that damn hospital.

So, I visited London recently. I bought myself a nice Versace coat. It cost the equivalent of almost two thousand dollars. It 's covered in distinctive patches. I think - and hope - it's cool.

While I was in London, I bumped into Michael Portillo. He thought I was stalking him. (Michael Portillo is a high-profile ex-politician). It happened when I was travelling around London by tube. I noticed Michael Portillo standing opposite me. He was immaculately dressed, wearing a suit, with his hair gelled; frozen in perfection.

He was looking at me, because I'm wearing a mad coat covered in patches, and I was looking at him, because he's Michael Portillo.

This went on for a while - him looking at me, me looking at him - in a non-sexual way, you understand - and then the tube pulled into a station and he got off. This was also my stop, and amongst dozens of people, I ended up walking right behind him as he left the train and made his way across the platform.

I unintentionally followed Michael Portillo as he walked and suddenly he became aware that I was just a few feet away from him.

I'm sure that the poor guy thought I was some sort of nut. Maybe it was the fact that I was blasting Sting's Don't Stand So Close To Me through my personal CD Player. (Perhaps Mad About You would have been a better choice).

As soon as he got through the turnstile, he was off, faster than a race horse. He veered to the side, took a right turn, went in the opposite direction of the exit and disappeared.

As for Sting and I, we went on our merry way and thought how funny it was that we'd managed to spook Michael Portillo.

So the moral of this story is that you don't need a degree or wealthy parents to make a difference in politics - all you need is a two thousand dollar Versace coat!

So that was my first bizarre trip to London. My second strange visit to London happened about two weeks ago when I visited my nation's capital with the intention of purchasing a pair of Versace trousers.

I arrived at London Victoria coach station and joined a queue to purchase a ticket for the tube. I noticed that somebody had left a white envelope lying on the counter in front of me. Thinking it was empty, I took a look inside anyway and, to my amazement, I found that it was stuffed with crisp, unused bank notes!

My heart skipped a beat or ten and I looked around. There was a guy behind me but he seemed unaware that the envelope was there.

I contemplated leaving the envelope on the counter but thought that if I did the guy behind me would probably take the money. I considered handing the envelope to the ticket-seller but he was rude and I thought that he might keep it as well.

So I took the envelope and the money. I counted the money on the tube and there was one hundred and forty pounds there. And yes, I did rather guilty about it later, but it did pay for the Versace shirt that I'm wearing right now as I write this blog entry!

So that was my second bizarre trip to London.

There's a lot more to write about it. I want to tell you about my brief visit to Paris last week. I want, too, to tell you the Princess Diana obsessive and possible serial killer that I'm about to share a house with in York. I also would like to share a thought or ten with you about the whole Iraq situation.

And, of course, I want to tell you about Kimberley Dryden. She is the reason that I'm writing this entry and the reason that I'm in York. She's also the reason that my heart is in pieces...

Until next time, thank you for reading my words.

Bye.

From the memory box of a Professional Englishman.

These Crows Feet Run Deeper

Howdy.

How are you?

I'm writing this a day after the dawn of the new year. How was yours, by the way? Mine was okay, but I don't really think that the coming of a new year is a cause for celebration.

I hate to sound like a pessimist, but this will be another year in which humanity gets it wrong again. A year of war and madness, tragedy and sorrow.

This will be a year when people will be blown to bits in Iraq and Israel. A year when innocent children will die in poverty. A year when all of us reading this entry will get a little older and become a little more cynical. And a year when the crows feet around these blue eyes will run just a little deeper...

No, the coming of a new year should only be celebrated if people are prepared to change and are ready to try to make the world a better place. But people aren't, so now things can only get worse.

I've recently found myself thinking about the days that made up the last 12 months of my life. If I close my eyes, I can almost relive those days.

I remember the sounds and sights of a city called York. I remember the smiles and laughter of people who came to be very dear to me. People like Urko, Cesar, Kimberley and Chris.

Now I'm faced with the bitter realisation that those people are out of my life and all that remains are these crystal clear memories, which are kept ever close to my heart, and which often threaten to overwhelm me with their sweetness.

I have a wonderful memory of a bike ride Urko and I took together through the Yorkshire countryside in July of 2002. I know that I've written about this before, but it was such a perfect day. It was beautiful, sunny weather and we just got on our bikes and rode together across fields of corn and through little villages.

We found a remote farm along the way and stopped off to pick some strawberries. Later we joined Cesar - another wonderful man, from Mexico, whom I miss dearly - and we all had a meal together. It was very nice and one of my personal highlights of the year.

However, not all of last year's happy memories came from York. In April I visited Brussels to spend time with a girl called Patricia Leduc.

I met Patricia in York and we spent a very nice week together. We got on very well and I felt very comfortable with her. And I was quite attracted to her. In fact, I was thrown out of a youth hostel in York because I was caught in the shower with her. This little incident increased my male friends respect for me no end! Ha ha! Yeah, baby!

In April, Patricia left York and I missed her very much. I arranged to go and see her in Brussels but, sadly, our relationship totally fell apart within an hour of my arrival in Belgium's capital city.

Patricia didn't know that I had come just to see her - she just thought I was visiting Brussels anyway - and this made things uncomfortable between us. It all ended with her telling me that I was a 'victim' and she didn't like me or my appearance.

I was upset about that for a day or two. Then I got over it and spent some very nice days in Brussels. I didn't meet anybody, but I did travel around the city and I saw some nice places and it gave me a great deal of time to think. I thought like I had never thought before: About life, God, death, everything. It was very spiritual!

In the same month my aunt Annette died after a long battle with breast cancer. It was a difficult time for her family and my heart goes out to them and to my Mother, who still misses her sister.

In June my dear friend Maxim also passed away. Maxim was a little boy I knew who lived in Minsk in Belarus. He was terminally-ill; he suffered from a muscle-wasting disease called muscular dystrophy.

Maxim's death came as a great shock to me. In September of 2002 I returned to Belarus and spent both a pleasant and sad evening with Maxim's parents, Sasha and Lena, who are two of the strongest and most welcoming people I have met.

Maxim's memory will continue to live on amongst everyone who knew and loved him. He inspired me and I shall never forget him.

In September I left York and went travelling across Eastern Europe. I went to Hungary - which was great - and Romania - which was not - and then briefly to Poland and then to Belarus.

I sampled frogs legs for the first time in Romania and had some adventures with pornography (see a previous entry) but didn't really enjoy my time there. I got the impression that everybody I met just wanted something from me, and so I left with quite a negative view of the Romanian people.

Hungary was different, however. And that was partly due to a wonderful little hostel called the Museum Guest House. I remember having a wonderful massage there. And I went caving in the bowels of Budapest, which was simply stupendous!

And those were some of the main events of my life in 2002. I don't know what 2003 holds in store for me or for any of us on this planet. But one thing I do know is that, sadly, the future is not bright.

I don't mean to depress you (though I will) but the truth is that there is little hope left for humanity now. It's only a matter of time until terrorists acquire some sort of dirty nuclear bomb and when they do, all hell will be let loose.

I guess all we can do is try to make the most of the time we have left. It's still a beautiful world, despite the actions of America, Israel and my own country, and things have not come to a head just yet.

So enjoy your life, travel, widen your horizons and cherish each and every day.

Wrap up warm and be careful when you take the Christmas decorations down.

Take care.

Skyler Black.

A Bolivian Girl in Budapest

You know, travelling is a lonely business.

Sure, sometimes you have great times and you meet great people.

But unless you're travelling with a friend, you can often end up wandering the streets of new cities by yourself and you can't help but feel a little lonely and a little lost.

And then somebody comes along who makes you realise how just amazing travelling really is...

Hi. It's me again.

I'm writing to you from my favourite little hostel in the world, the Museum Guest House in Budapest, where Pixie is still politely laughing at my jokes and Monica is still asking if I want a massage.

I've been back in Budapest for two days now after catching a train from Cluj-Napoca in Transylvania. My last hour in Cluj was a disaster. Awful! I cringe as I write about it. Let me explain...

You might remember from my last blog entry that I went to Romania to take part in a voluntary project. After the project was cancelled and the volunteers left, the head of the hosting organisation said that I could spend the week staying in his office.

I had a bed to sleep in and I also had full use of the office computer. When I wasn't in an Internet cafe until the early hours, I would use the office computer to chat to people on the local chat site.

Anyway. It was my last hour in Cluj and I was bored, so I decided to look at some pornography on the computer of my organisation.

I don't often look at pornography, but I'm male and in my twenties, so I think looking at pictures of naked women is my God-given right!

So, I was looking at various sites and various girls and then, suddenly, lots of little windows started to appear and as quickly as I closed one, another one appeared. Before I knew it, the computer was full of these little windows and I couldn't get rid of them!

Somehow I had managed to overload the computer of a voluntary organisation in Romania with pornography. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shift it. I tried turning the computer on and off. Deleting files. Everything. And it gets worse!

In trying to delete these windows, I managed, somehow, to add about twenty or so internet porn sites to the list of favourites for the organisation. And then, worse than that, I also managed to change the home page to a porn site too! Oh! My! God!

How I did that I don't know. They just came out of nowhere. And some of them had some REALLY awful names. I dread to think about what was on them.

So I was sitting at the computer, horrified, feeling numb, looking at a photo of a woman sticking a cucumber where the sun don't shine, when Adrian, the head of the organisation, walked in. Before he had a chance to look at the screen, I clicked a window and got to the Yahoo site, where I pretended to write an email.

He sat next to me (this was at five o'clock in the morning - a few hours earlier we had been at a nightclub together) and waited for me to finish so he could check his emails. I sat there, writing this email to no-one, hoping he would fall asleep.

Eventually he did and I slipped quietly out of the office and made a rush for a train that would take me to Budapest. I left a note for Adrian, offering my sincere apologies, and as yet I haven't heard anything back. I'm not sure if this is a good sign...

And that was my final, disastrous hour in Cluj-Napoca. The two days I have spent in Budapest since then have been much better. No misadventures with pornography!

Yesterday I explored a huge cave network under Budapest. There was about twenty of us, travellers from all over the world. We spent about 3 hours squeezing through the smallest gaps imaginable!

There was one in particular - appropriately called "the sandwich" - where you couldn't even move your head as you tried to squeeze through. It was insane - but great!

After exploring the caves I went to the cinema and watched The Sum of all Fears. It was crap. I fell asleep. At one point in the film a nuclear device is detonated in the US (a premonition) and this woke me up. I saw cars flying towards me and for a brief moment forgot I was at the cinema. That was scary! But the film was still crap.

But I think that, out of all of the memories I take home with me from Budapest, there is one memory that will stand out in years to come. And that one, single memory is a couple of hours I spent with a beautiful American-Bolivian girl named Teresa. We both arrived in Budapest from Cluj-Napoca on the same day but on different trains.

We were both tired and Teresa had to catch another train the next morning at 7am. And yet, despite this, we ended up walking the streets of Budapest together until five o'clock in the morning.

I think Teresa just wanted to see Budapest because she was only here for one day. But as for me...I just wanted to spend time with her. I knew I would never see her again. We were just ships passing in the night, travellers heading to different destinations.

And yet...already I find myself missing her. I don't often connect with people but when I do it's something wonderful. I told Teresa that travelling is not so much about seeing new places and trying new things, it's more about meeting people, and this is true.

The days I spent in Cluj-Napoca were not memorable because I never met anyone who really touched my heart. And yet Teresa, without knowing it, has managed to do that and in doing so she has made these days in Budapest special and unique.

I will remember this time in Hungary. I will remember the caves, the Museum Guest House and the capital. But, more than anything, I will remember a sweet Bolivian girl called Teresa.

She passed through my life in a heartbeat and yet she has left an impression that will last for a lifetime...

And now it is time for this Wandering Englishman to say goodbye. Belarus awaits. My train to Minsk leaves in just a few short hours.

Remember to wrap up warm and stay well.

So, goodbye my friends, goodbye Budapest.

And goodbye Teresa.

Love always.

From the memory box of a Professional Englishman.

PS May 2008: I never did hear from Teresa again. She returned to the US and quickly forgot about her travels and the friends she had made. I will never forget her though, and this blog entry will always serve as a reminder of that sweet night we spent together six years ago, when I was younger and the world was younger, too.

Chasing Dracula in Cluj-Napoca

Hi!

It's me.

When I was a teenager I was a big fan of a TV show about a fictional town in America called Twin Peaks.

It was a strange town, full of weird and wonderful characters like the Log Lady and Agent Cooper and visited by evil spirits that possessed many of the locals. I watched Twin Peaks every week and for a while I was obsessed. But in all the time that I spent watching the show, I never thought that I would end up visiting a town like Twin Peaks...

Welcome to Cluj-Napoca in Transylvania.

I'm exaggerating, of course. Cluj, the second largest city in Romania, is really nothing like Twin Peaks. But it's still a weird and wonderful place.

I have never before set foot in a city with so many flags. They decorate every street here. The mayor is a bit of a right-wing nut and he's taken his love of Romania to the extreme. Even the benches have been painted in the three colours of the Romanian flag. And the traffic cones. The litter bins. The police cars....

Romania, though never a part of the Soviet Union, still looks very Soviet and the cars, buses and monuments here are very similar to those you can find on the streets of Belarus and the Ukraine.

To tell the truth, I don't really like the people, though my opinion of Romania and the Romanian people is changing daily.

Some people have been kind and I've collected many new email addresses. Cluj is a very nice city and I would recommend it. The girls are also very pretty.

But this is not the welcome that I received from the people of Belarus. I've spent the last week thinking about the people I met there. People like Michele, Tanya, Olga and, especially, that wonderful girl I fell in love with...Katja Hrinkevich.

Here in Romania, walking the streets of Cluj in my expensive clothes and with my British accent, I do get the impression that many people look at me like I'm a meal ticket. And many people here have told me that the locals just want to know me for my euros.

So anyway. I mentioned last time that I was coming here to meet some mysterious strangers. Those strangers were a group of international volunteers I had arranged to meet here. We were coming to Transylvania to learn how to make pottery.

Unfortunately, I was a few days late and when I arrived I discovered that the volunteers had decided to abandon the project and go travelling. It seems that there English wasn't so good and they didn't understand the meaning of the word "pottery"! Eh?

This means that I have come to Romania for nothing. Am I pissed? You bet! But still, it has given me the opportunity to meet some new people and to see a place that I would never otherwise have visited.

I've also had some rather unique experiences.

On the train from Budapest to Cluj I met a girl in her twenties who spoke good English. She was travelling to another city in Romania. We spent some hours together and ended up playing a game where we used a pen and bits of paper to ask each other questions.

These soon became questions of a very sexual nature and as the journey continued we both started to get rather excited and rather hot.

Nothing actually happened, because I'm far too shy to have something with a stranger on a train - I prefer to get to know a person much better before doing the shaky-monkey-wild-and-bumpy - but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.

So. What else have I done in the past week? I visited a Chinese restaurant and sampled frogs legs for the first time. (I wanted to try shark and octopus but they were out). I went to an art museum with a girl called Dana and later watched Stuart Little 2 with her.

I met two pleasant girls at a restaurant and enjoyed speaking to them very much. I sampled some of the nicest milk shakes I've ever had in my life. I also went to a nightclub with two people.

During the past days I've come to the conclusion that Romanians are vampires. They really are a night people. Many places - clubs, cafes, shops, bars, supermarkets - are open 24 hours.

I've become addicted to a local chat site and have spent lots of time in Internet cafes. I've been visiting one particular Internet cafe until 6am and each night at around 3am the owner tells me he's going to sleep and I should wake him before I leave. Odd!

It was my plan to visit Brasov to pay my respects to Count Dracula before I left but my money is running low and so I've decided instead to return to Budapest and then to head to Minsk. In fact, I'll be boarding a train for Budapest in just a few hours time.

So, these have been good days in Cluj-Napoca. Not great days, but good days. I'm glad that I finally got the chance to visit Romania - it's been an ambition of mine for a long time. And although I do feel a little disappointed, I will one day return to this country.

And now I have to go. I have people to do and things to see.

I will write to you once again from Budapest.

The adventure continues...

From the memory box of a Professional Englishman.

PS: A big hello and a message of love to my family: My Mum and my sister Emma and my brothers David and Mark. xxxxx

Beating the Beggar in Budapest

Hello!

How are you?

I'm writing to you from Budapest, the capital of Hungary. I arrived here yesterday after a 36-hour coach journey from York.

I'm in Budapest for just a few more hours and then I catch a train to Cluj-Napoca in Romania where I'll be meeting five strangers. I'll spend ten days in Cluj and then head back to Budapest before setting off on 18 September for that country I know so well - Belarus!

I could tell you why I'm meeting four strangers in Cluj-Napoca tomorrow. I could even tell you what I'm doing in Budapest today. But then, of course, I would have to kill you. So, for the time being at least, it will have to remain a closely guarded secret...

What I can tell you is that I love Budapest and I have really missed the people of Eastern Europe. It's funny, but Budapest is very similar in many ways to Minsk in Belarus, with an identical Metro system and lots of beautiful faces and friendly young people.

Last night I stayed in a funny little hostel called the Museum Guest House. It's where I'm writing to you from now. It cost me 2,500 Hungarian forintz to stay here which is about six pounds.

The Museum Guest House has got to be the smallest hostel I've ever seen! It has just a few beds here and there, a couple of settees and some mattresses strewn across the floor. I think that this is the closest that you can come to actually paying to be homeless!

I was treated to an all over body massage this morning! I had to strip down to my underpants in front of a room full of strangers - which was rather interesting - but it was well worth it!

The massage was very nice, very relaxing - and I'm not just saying that because the woman who gave it to me might one day read this entry! The massage set me back 2,100 forintz.

Unfortunately, my all over body massage didn't include the two parts of my body that I wanted massaged most! But never mind. Someone else will do that for me!

On the subject of naked bodies, I awoke in the early hours last night to find that all of the people in my room had decided on the spur of the moment to have an orgy. They were all naked and in various positions, some of which just didn't seem possible.

It was very interesting to watch and - oh. Wait. That didn't happen. It was just a fantasy I had while enjoying my massage. Oh! The fine line between fantasy and reality becomes ever more blurred!

It was lovely to sleep in a bed last night after spending 36 hours curled into a ball and trying to sleep on the seat of a Eurolines coach.

The only thing about sleeping in a dormitory is that it makes indulging in a man's favourite hobby a real problem, especially when you're sleeping on the top of a bunk-bed and the slightest, smallest movement sends vibrations through the whole bed!

Ha ha! Oh, come on! Don't look so shocked! It's perfectly natural and just about everybody does it from time to time. Even YOU!

Soooo. Anyways. Leaving York was sad. After spending eleven months as a resident of York, it was sad for me to leave that magical little city behind.

I've never before lived in a city where I've made so many friends and met so many decent people. True, I did meet some bastards, but the people who became my friends were great. And, as each one left, I met somebody else who became my friend.

So, a big mention to all my York friends:

Urko, Roberto, Cesar, Andrew, David Shakespeare, Dana, a little boy called Jake who I met when he was a patient at York hospital, Chris, Shaun, Eileen and, finally, a huge mention to the sweetest girl I've met in years, Kimberley Dryden!

I only met Kimberley just a few weeks before I left York and yet she quickly became one of the best friends I have ever made. She is wonderful, pretty, sweet, extremely fragile, delicate, sensitive and utterly unaware that she possesses all of these qualities.

I have truly never met anyone that I feel so protective towards. Kimberly is not well and, to be painfully honest, she may not be alive in a few years' time. I have only been away from her for three days and already I am worrying about her.

I will never forget her or any of the friends I made in York. I will always look back upon my days in that city as days of wonder, filled with magic, laughter and romance, where I was able to enjoy the sort of life that I was deprived of in my early youth.

So, it's a sweet goodbye to York. For now...

And it's goodbye from me, too. Romania awaits. I have to buy my ticket for the overnight train that will take me to new cities, new people and new situations. I just hope that I can find somewhere to sleep on the train other than a squeaky bunk-bed!

Thanks for reading this. Take care.

From the memory box of a Professional Englishman.

Applause for a Little Girl

Hello.

This entry again comes to you from York.

I recently returned here from Manchester where I was lucky enough to be a spectator at the some of the sporting and ceremonial events that made up the XVII Commonwealth Games.

That's what I'm going to write about today.

I had an enjoyable few days in Manchester. But it is one memory that stands out...one memory I will treasure and keep forever.

It all began at the opening ceremony of the Games that took place at the newly-built Manchester Stadium on July 25th. I was there with Tony Blair, the Queen and oh about 38,000 other people.

I remember watching BBC television coverage of the 16th Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur back in 1998. I learned then that the next Games would be held in Manchester in four years time and I promised myself that I would be there.

I've promised myself many things over the years and some of those promises have, sadly, been broken. I am a man who sometimes finds it difficult to plan properly and to keep to my word. So I was very happy that I managed to make it to the Commonwealth Games in Manchester as I promised myself I would way back in 1998.

Anyway, I made it to the opening ceremony of the Games as the eyes of five hundred million people fell upon Manchester.

The ceremony itself was pretty damn good. I didn't have a very good view - I couldn't admire any of the female athlete's bottoms or count the Queen's wrinkles - but just being there and being able to soak up the wonderful atmosphere was enough.

There was dancing and music and the flags of around 23 British colonies and the flags of more than fifty former British colonies. There were explosions and fire. There were soldiers and marching, pop acts and men in suits. There was even David Beckham.

There was all of this and then there was one little girl, Kirsty Howard, six years old, born with her heart back to front.

Kirsty Howard has become something of a celebrity in this country thanks to David Beckham, who seems to enjoy a unique and special friendship with this brave little girl.

I knew before I attended the ceremony that Kirsty would be there. What I didn't know was that while I was there I would make a decision. It wasn't an important decision, nor was it a brave decision, but it was a decision nonetheless.

What I decided, simply, was that when Kirsty came into the stadium I would stand up and clap for her. If I can stand up and clap for an athlete or a royal with wrinkles then I can sure as hell stand up for a little girl born with her heart back to front.

So when Kirsty appeared I got to my feet and I started to applaud. For about a minute I was standing alone. Then the lady next to me stood up. Then a few more people got to their feet some rows away. Then some more people. And then a few more. And then, suddenly, magically, this quickly spread around the stadium and soon everyone was standing and applauding this little girl.

I thought then and I still think now that it was me who did that. I will never meet Kirsty, I will never be able to do anything to ease her suffering or soothe her pain, but I could at least help to bring a stadium full of people to their feet for her.

I don't know if Kirsty noticed that she was given a standing ovation. I hope that she did. But the truth is, for me, it didn't matter if anyone else got to their feet or if it was just me.

I was prepared to stand there alone.

So that was the highlight of my visit to Manchester and my highlight of the Commonwealth Games. A few days later I returned to Manchester with Christopher Dion, a young man from New Zealand, and we watched the athletics and the boxing together.

Unfortunately, we missed most of the athletics (and we won't go into the reason for that now, will we Chris!) and we only saw about fifty minutes of the boxing. While watching the boxing match I saw a familiar-looking face in the crowd. It took me a few minutes to realise that it was Prince Edward!

On the whole, I found the whole Commonwealth Games experience to be VERY addictive. Better than any drug I ever tried in my early youth. I've never considered myself to be a sports fan, but the games were seriously cool. There is no comparison to be made between watching a sporting event live and watching it on a little box with an aerial on top.

In fact, I enjoyed it all so much - and was so disappointed at seeing only a bit of the athletics - that I returned to Manchester one last time to watch the cycling final, which was also brilliant.

And so that, for me, was the XVII Commonwealth Games. I'm sure that many thousands of people have other, equally special memories.

Before I bring this entry to an end, I just want to give a mention to two friends of mine who have recently left these shores. The first is Chris, from New Zealand, who I mentioned earlier.

Chris left England yesterday. He's in Singapore now, where he'll be staying for a week before he heads back home. The second person I'd like to mention is my dear friend Urko.

Urko was one of my very first friends in York and our friendship lasted the ten months that he was here. I was lucky enough to spend a very nice day with him a few days before he left to return to Spain. We took a bike ride together on a beautiful, sunny day and came across a farm where we spent an hour picking strawberries. Later we visited a Chinese restaurant with our friend, Cesar, and ended the day by eating the strawberries we had collected.

It was a very nice day and one that I'm glad I could spend with Urko. He's travelling now and I want to send him my very best wishes. Take care of yourself my friend - and now you're famous!

And that's it for this Commonwealth Games blog entry.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, the second of my blog entries. Take care of yourself and stay well. Take care Kirsty.

Bye.

From the memory box of a Professional Englishman.