next stop - clapham

well it's been a couple of weeks, and i've been quite the busy lad.. most of my time has been spent with my gal CS who made it over for her maiden voyage right before valentine's day... i reference v-day, as CS is also known as my wife.  mr. and mrs. cheekypint have actually spent many a beach holiday, romantic dinner and night out in seedy gay bars (what?) over the past DECADE or so, so as you can imagine, i was really excited to see her.

i won't go into the adventures that we had, because CS does a fantastic job chronicling (is that a word?) all of the gastro-fun that we had together in her own little blog... but suffice to say, it was great.  i do find that i'm acclimating quite well here - but it's always nice to have a familiar face from across the pond to make it that much better.

so onto the here and now... just wrapping up a great weekend here... after a truly exhausting week, friday night was just what i needed.  discovered a new neighborhood - clapham - which is probably a good mix between smith street in brooklyn and greenwich village (btw, please forgive the incessant nyc comparisons - i am just trying to tailor the message to my audience).   a good mix of young professionals/artists/bohemian types mixed in with your basic 'yobs' (another great word i just learned) having a good friday night out on the town.

anyway, the brazilian and i kicked off the evening with seeing the movie that basically everyone else has already seen (even my parents!) but us - slumdog millionaire - at this very cool 'picture house' which, not surprisingly, has a fully-licensed bar next to the popcorn stand (i am sure you can guess which had the biggest line... err... queue).  ok, i get it now.  amazing film.  kinda funny to see a hollywood/bollywood ending though.  (i.e. guy gets girl, guy joins 100s of people in line dancing sequence at end of film).  the brazilian was a bit emotionally taken with the whole story line, so after the movie was done, we quickly changed that scene to one that was more familiar to us.. boys and booze.  first stop was the 'kazbar' - i'd say this would be similar to (here we go again...) g on w 19th street... lots of room to stand and pose, decent music and, well, gay.  second stop was the two brewers... i was less of a fan of this one.. it was a little more run down, a little sadder... kinda like 'posh' in hells kitchen.  but the crowd was entertaining enough and i heard a great mashup of world hold on (bob sinclar) and people hold on (lisa stansfield) that made up for any shortcomings.  

saturday was a very productive day for cheeky-p and the brazilian - unfortunately nothing that i feel is worth blogging about (though if you are truly interested in how to get hard water spots off the shower door and which load of laundry i started first, i would be more than happy to tell you).  after all that excitement, we were itching a bit to return to civilization with - you guessed it - a few more drinks, this time in soho.  we were good boys though, and didn't make it too late of an evening.  all good fun.

the week ahead looks to be fairly brutal, but nothing like the brutality i saw in slumdog.  it'll be funny to see how it's presented at the oscar's tonight (which i will not be staying up for, thank you very much). a bunch of fake hollywood types saying what a great message the movie has - yadda yadda yadda - while spending millions on an awards show that no one really cares about. 

now, if you want to see a proper awards show, check out the brit awards - hosted by kylie? lady gaga and the pet shop boys together on stage together?  amazing...