Bianca's RED SHOE DIARY LONDON RUBBER BALL - PART 1/3 (Translated from french by our dear friend KosmikKreeper). NOV., 2002. - Introduction About 2 years ago I think, I wrote to you about my experiences in Europe, more precisely about Germany and the Netherlands. Today, I’ll be describing my adventures at Skin Two’s Rubber Ball in the heart of London. As most of you may already know, Skin Two’s Rubber Ball was held the 1st week of October. Actually, the fetish festivities ended with the Rubber Ball on Monday but it all started the previous Friday with different fetish activities happening every day. We got the ball rolling Friday night with a soirée at the Electrowerks club and Saturday night at the unique and famous Torture Garden. During the day on both Saturday and Sunday, there was the Skin Two Expo and, of course everything ended with the great Rubber Ball with a VIP “after hours” later downtown. Enough to make you crash for a couple of days! ;-) Originally, Martin and I were not supposed to go to London even though we were extremely tempted by this week of pleasure. Since we had already bought our tickets for Kink in the Caribbean (a fetish week in Jamaica at the end of October) and we knew London to be very expensive, we had decided to postpone London for next year. But barely a month before the Rubber Ball, we found out that one of our pictures would be on the cover of Skin Two number 41. This wonderful surprise got us very excited and after Tony Mitchell’s (editor) request to reconsider our decision, we gave in. We packed our bags, excited and impatient to finally discover the London scene praised by many worldwide. And with my Laptop handy, here are my impressions… - Wednesday, October 2, 2002 Today, I’m finally ready to leave for London. These last few days have seemed endless with all the things that I had to do before leaving. Last Monday, I still hadn’t received my new passport. Imagine the stress! After many phone calls I was able to pick it up at the passport office. Thank God! And right now, I’m in the plane and nothing can get me stressed, at least for the moment. In 5 hours I’ll be setting foot in London for the very first time… - Thursday, October 3, 2002 I just arrived in London. It’s 7:00 am here but for me it’s still 2:00 am. I’m tired and I can’t wait to be at the hotel, drop my luggage and rest a bit. But before getting there I’ll have to take the Tube: the London subway. Our Montreal subway only has 4 lines and a fixed price for all destinations. Here, there are 15 lines divided in areas. We have to pay the correct fee depending on the distance traveled. The same lines also have a tendency to split up somewhere along the way. For example, the green line goes from north to south but it can have two northern and two southern destinations. Therefore, where you stand on the quay (the top half or the bottom half) will determine if you end up on the North-A line or North-B line. With only 4 simple lines in Montreal, you can imagine that we were already confused and we hadn’t even left the airport yet! And I thought the Paris subway was complicated! Anyways, after a 45 minute delay, we finally found our hotel that luckily was located in the centre of the city. Since I’m a woman of action and I love prancing down commercial streets, I really appreciated being 1 minute away from Oxford street, one of the popular streets of London. After a little snooze we went exploring this wonderful street. I have to say that I could’ve bought at least one piece of clothing in every store that we walked into. Fashion here is a lot sexier than back home! I never had problems finding clothes in Montreal but London fashion seems more original. There are many high heel shoe stores and in Montreal women seem to wear them less and less. I didn’t buy anything today. We concentrated ourselves on finding affordable restaurants. The British Pound is worth 2.50 times more than the Canadian dollar. In other words, it’s almost three times as expensive here compared to Montreal! Our hotel room is about $180 US and it’s very basic. We were lucky that Tony Mitchell recommended this one or else we might have paid over $250- 300 US. And this one is right in the centre avoiding unnecessary Tube trips. Being tired, we didn’t go to bed very late but at 5:00 am we were wide awake and couldn’t fall back asleep. We got dressed and meandered down Oxford street hoping that a restaurant might already be opened. Strangely enough, in a city of 9 million people, everything seemed closed. Luckily we found a small 24h grocery store selling sandwiches. Thank God! We walked and walked. We passed one jewelry store after the next. Very expensive ones I might add. And stores like Chanel, Armani, Gucci… The display windows were gorgeous. I have to say that even the architecture was incredible! Europe has its own unique charm. Did I mention that we almost got hit a couple of times? People drive on the right here and very fast as well. It even seems that when they spot a pedestrian they speed up and try to hit him. Beware! Maniac drivers are everywhere! :-O - Friday, October 4, 2002 We woke up at around 3:00 pm a bit tired but in good spirits. Luckily the reception gave us a buzz to see if we wanted our room cleaned (since we had the “do not disturb” sign on the door) or else we would’ve slept straight through! We got dressed and had a bite to eat on Oxford street. This time I wasn’t able to resist my temptation so I bought a belly- button ring and a new watch pendent. We also purchased a pvc nurse’s uniform as well as a green pvc skirt and top in a shop we spotted during our early morning walk. It had been a while since I had bought myself some pvc! And I can’t wait to show them off to you! Hehehe. ;-) We also registered at an Internet café to take our messages. I wanted to chat on the Lair but the site was blocked. Long live censorship! It’s already Friday night, the first fetish evening at the Electricwerks only 20 minutes away by Tube from our hotel. Tonight I opted for my school girl look, the outfit provided by Especially Rubber. I wore a pewter skirt and socks, a pewter top lined with white and a small white tie. All in latex off course. No pvc for me this week. I put on my makeup and did 2 braids. We left at around 11:00 pm to take the Tube. I wore a trench coat to hide my costume. After all, I don’t know if London is a dangerous town. Electricwerks is a fairly new club able to hold a few hundred people. It’s divided into 3 sections: a dance floor, a dungeon room (where people can dance in cages) and a casual lounging room where people can sit and chat with others while having a drink. The lighting is subdued and the ambiance is a bit gothic. The music is good but I did dance because parts of the floor were stone-like. I had problems walking all night. I actually fell twice. The first time I broke a strap on my left shoe and the second time I fell just in front of Tony Mitchell that I had just met in person. Aye caramba! At least we had a good laugh! We had the opportunity to meet wonderful people tonight, like Tony Mitchell, Sandra (a professional photographer), a couple from Norway… We were really happy to see John and Nicky (the beautiful Nicky!), two wonderful people that we met for the first time in Boston at the Manray Club. [note from Martin: Nicky is the girl Bianca is kissing on the photo at the top of this page.] We also saw Mistress Gemini again (beautiful Mistress Gemini!) and Robert Fluty, that we had met at Manray an that we’ll meet again at Kink in the Caribbean 3; Robert being the organizer of the event. [Note from Martin: You will see photos of Mistress Gemini and Robert Fluty in Bianca's Diary about our trip to the Caribbean.] All in all, we had a great time. Martin took lots of pictures of me and other people around. [ Image on the left: Vibeke, Knut and Allis. Hi guys!!! ] Being too tired, we didn’t play but one gentleman whipped my bum for a few minutes while Martin took some pictures. Ouch! Some people really can’t control their strength and their whip. When I tell you that I don’t like to have my thighs whipped please concentrate on my bum! In only a few minutes I had swollen red marks that usually only appear after 1 or 1.5 hour of play with Martin. I prefer to be warmed up first… but hey. Next time, I’ll stick to Martin. ;-) My schoolgirl outfit was a hit tonight. I have to say that many people had original and expensive costumes. Every time I attend this type of evening, I’m always impressed at how creative the latex designers can be! Corsets of all shapes and colors, gothic, Japanese or classical gowns, Nazi or military uniforms, and not forgetting masks of all kind… Some Skin Two, Torture Garden, Polymorphe, House of Harlot, Inner Sanctum [No web site available yet.] and then some. Enough to turn everybody’s head! We left at closing at around 5:00 am. I’m not used to clubs closing so late. In Montreal everything closes at 3:00 am. We walked to the nearest tube station and 1:30 hours later (we got lost in the Tube again), shower taken, I was almost asleep before hitting the pillow. continue to... PART 2/3 Do you have questions/comments regarding this Diary Entry? I'd love to hear your feedback in the FORUM!