It begins!

Well, Japanese be damned, we made it here without a hitch. It's currently Day 3, and I'm writing this from an Internet Cafe in Paris. In fact, right now I just encountered my first annoyance of a trip that's so far been both rosy and dandy. That annoyance is the bizarre arrangement of the letters on French keyboards. I had to deal with this from time to time in Montreal last year, but I'd forgotten just how annoying it is. But that's also good news, since the intelligent readers out there will have inferred that thus far we've had no slip-ups, no whoopsie-daisys and certainly no uh-ohs. In fact, so far we've been easy riding like Nicholson in his prime, although that's not to say it's been boring. Far from it. But before I dive strait into the anecdotes, let me introduce you to the whole gang. Names have been changed to protect the innocent..

The Hugless Stone: The Stone is a curious creature. He's a sucker for comfort and on our travels down to London to catch the Eurostar he was quick to assure us that, if it was socially acceptable, he would drape himself in silk. In the past, he's been caught looking for affection in all manner of unusual places; indeed, when asked if he'd ever tried to put his tortoise's head in his mouth, he responded definitively that it's reflexes are such that it simply wouldn't be possible. It was perhaps particularly revealing that when it came to saying goodbye to his parents (the very same parents who spawned him, raised him and whom he will not see for the next 5+ months) he said only, "Goodbye". Tears were not forthcoming. A handshake, it would appear, seemed inappropriate. The mere thought of a hug was the furthest thing from his mind. When on the Eurostar considering the enormity of our trip, it was without emotion that he deftly intoned, "My dog will probably be dead before I'm home". He is 'The Hugless Stone', and he is the first of our ignoble gang.

The Disgusting Hippo: Hips is the #2 man of the hour. I've known him for the shortest time out of all our weary band, but he's shaping up to be quite a character. He left behind his girlfriend of 13 months, and unlike The Stone, he wasn't afraid to shed some tears*.

* The Hippo says, "Oi, I didn't shed some tears."

He's arguably the most disgusting of the gang, on so many levels. He chose not to bring any soap or shampoo (hygenically disgusting). He refuses to eat anything more varied than supermarket bread, cheese and ham (culinarily disgusting) on the grounds that even butter would be a luxury and far too expensive (financially disgusting), despite his unequivocal position as 'richest traveller' with a personal fortune of £8,000. On our first night in Paris he lost the coin-toss and was awarded the disgusting, flea-ridden, ratty matress to sleep on. He chose to do so whilst still wearing his jeans, and belt. Entirely disgusting.

Having said all that, The Disgusting Hippo may well be the most normal and well-adjusted of the whole group, and I'm proud (although slighty disgusted) to call him my friend.

The Pristine Marmott: Although technically I've known The Hugless Stone since the age of 9, I would count The Marmott as my oldest friend in the gang on the grounds that he's been my bestest bud for roughly the last five or six years. At this point there's not much about him that will surprise me, so I'm enjoying (with an ironic sense of detatchment) watching him trying to live with The Hippo and The Stone, given his short patience, his obsession for cleanliness, his paranoid insistence on forward-planning, and his inability to admit defeat in an argument. In fact, these qualities have lead to many of the best moments of the trip so far.

On Day 1 he was incensed by The Hugless Stone's decision to air his sweaty feet (fresh out of a day of travelling in thermal socks) in the communal sleeping area. Naturally, The Disgusting Hippo had no objections when, moments later, The Stone trampled over his previously mentioned disgusting mattress with those same bare, unwashed feet.

Day 2 brought with it our first big argument, when The Stone happened to mention his plans to pop his blister in our shared toilet. As might be expected, this sent The Pristine Marmott into a rage (with yours truly firmly planted in his camp, I hasten to add). The Disgusting Hippo saw no problems with The Hugless one's plans, which only fuelled his (clearly incorrect) belief in his plans. The argument was finally resolved when The Hugless Stone offered as a personal favour to me to pop it in the other people's toilet next door when no-one else was around. To this moment he still maintains that his original intent was neither unhygenic nor gross.

This morning (or as it should probably be called for the sake of retrospective readers, "Day 3") brought another, this time as The Disgusting Hippo aruged on environmental grounds that flushing the toilet after each useage was a waste of energy and water. This time The Marmott called in a personal favour, which The Hippo was forced to give when The Stone chimed in, "Sorry, I really apprieciate you sticking up for me over the blister popping, but in this case you just don't realise how bad your own piss actually smells".

Characters were really tested late last night when we were walking back to the hostel from the metro station. I was at the end of the line (we walk in crocodile fashion from time-too-time for nostalgia purposes) and whilst the others chose to ignore a flamboyantly gay homeless drunk who accosted us, I decided I was in the mood for an adventure and engaged him in a discussion. The others crept back to me and, perhaps sensing kinship, the man told me how beautiful he thought The Hippo and The Stone were. He wished them both a "Bon soir!" with a hug and a kiss, and when he saw I'd whipped out my camera to capture the deep irony of the moment, he insisted on taking lots of photos with each of us. The Pristine Marmott let slip that his camera could take videos, and soon the man began serenading him with what was undeniably both an arousing and exciting rendition of the Sinatra classic, "Strangers in the Night". Eventually it was time for a sad "Au revoir..", which Mr. Pasqèt Fabrice (as that was the man's name) decided was an oppurtune moment to once again kiss us gently on the cheeks. Fare readers, I don't mind telling you, he tried his hardest to go for the lip-kiss with The Hippo and The Stone, and failing in that, succeeded in licking their faces with glee. Stubbly, stubbly goodness..

My time in this Internet Cafe is running out, and I haven't had time to tell you about our adventures jumping barriers at metro stations (things never go according to plan when we do that), nor about the cackling telephone lady at the Cambodian restaurant we went to. I suppose I'll just leave you now with a disgusting quote from the opening line of The Disgusting Hippo's disgusting diary:

"..................It begins!"