fatty + me + chris a

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Fire up iTunes and here cue up Crüe's "Home Sweet Home." Awww, yeah.
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Here's Chris and Fatty back at my apartment getting ready to head back to their respective homes - so ends our journey.

Between the three of us that had cameras, we managed to take just over 2,000 pictures which I edited down to 21 entries comprised of exactly 790 photos. And so it's with these last few words that I end the European Vacation Series (which is by far, the longest diary project I've ever undertaken). Back to life in NYC!
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With one final pic of the fantasic four, we said goodbye to Grant (who was staying behind in London for another couple of days) and....
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Shuttlebus from the rental car drop-off to the terminal.
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Saturday morning we woke up, double checked our packed bags, thanked Grant's parents for their hospitality, and hit the road for Heathrow.
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Here's another one. This one's my pensive and artsy "I'm acting like the camera's not there, but clearly I must know it is because I'm the one who took the picture" picture. Who's more emo than me? Motherfuck this photo diary nonsense, I'm gonna get me a LiveJournal. (ps - look at the two cutey patooties passed out next to me like little sleeping lambs. Teeheehee.)
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Saturday, Chris was in town and the four of us got together for brunch at 9th Street Market to reminisce about our recent hijinx in Europe.
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We posed for one last group photo before all going our separate ways. Let's hear it for Halloween 2003. Wooooo!
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....ARCADE TIME! (Look at Grant and Chris peeking out in the background. Hahaha).
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...we arrived safely and without incident (save a slight yelling match between Grant and the rest of the passengers in the car who politely asked him if he would "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN SO DON'T HYDROPLANE OFF THE ROAD AND DIE FOR FUCK'S SAKE!") at Grant's parent's home and celebrated with some stiff drinks...
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We bid our lovely condo a fond farewell and piled into our sweet, lil' rental one last time.
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Once in the airport, we grabbed a quick slice...
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With a fistfulla cone, we bid a last fond-farewell to Rethymnon.
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After fucking around for too long in Bali, we ended up having to make the 35 minute trip back to our condo at dusk (freezing our asses off the whole way). After dropping the bikes off and picking up our car, we headed to a nearby restaurant for an early dinner.
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Seasoned veterans at this point in the trip, we even managed to drink our raki without so much as a grimmace. Opa! Opa!
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If you look closely, you can just barely see Grant peeking out between me and Fatty.
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Looky, looky! What's going on here in this picture? After Grant was done giving her the "See, aren't we fun guys?" photo review, she quickly cozied up to tha Grizza.
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Throwing down for the cam.
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Yaaaaay, Amstel.
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With the leather-panted Gunther giving us the stinkeye from across the table we took a view pictures more pics without her in the background to try to throw him off our perv trail. By the way, ever notice how stuff like Coke, ketchup and McDonalds always taste not-so-great overseas? Well with beer, it works the other way around. The beer we are drinking is Amstel. (not Amstel light, regular Amstel) Maybe it was the crisp sea breeze or the abundance of badobnkadonk butts out there but it was hands down one of the best beers I've ever had.
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The camera never lies. That's why the picture is blurred. But turn down a complimentary digestif in Greece and you might get your ass handed to you along with the check. Looks like we have some shots to drink. Oh well, here's to minimal liver damage.
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Aw, yeah. Let's hear it for culture.
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Here's us bright and early out on our front porch enjoying a breakfast of Greek yogurt and granola. Mmmmmmmm. (ps - what's up, busted dudes in the morning?)
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Hungry boys.
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Live Show gets the thumbsdown! Here's us in the parking lot trying to assess the financial damage. Our four Russian "strippers" managed to fleece the four of us for a grand total of €120 in less than 20 minutes! And we still didn't manage to see any heines! We hopped in the car to drive the remaing 1/4 mile back to our resort, and in the moment of silence after we were finished laughing hysterically at what had just happened we all heard Grant say quietly to himself: "Hmmmmm. A hundred Euros, eh?" Hahahahaha.
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On the way back to the car a little after 3am, we found another sidewalk snack shop and decided to get something to eat. We all ended up ordering the Cretan equivalent of (my favorite bo-bo NYC food) the infamous Rosario's "Frankie and Cheese." (special shout out to the Crowley brothers, Dens & J Crowley, who have both frequently use their web pages to expound upon the most excellent deliciousness of this culinary wonder of the Lower East Side)
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Here we are, four dudes surrounded by nothing but totally hot women from a Greek island who want to have NOTHING TO DO WITH US. Liberia's got nothing on us, THIS is hell on earth.
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...the center emergency row! Let's hear it for extra leg room. Awww, yeah.
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...and grabbed the train to Heathrow to catch our 10:20pm flight and kick off the next leg of the trip: Crete!
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After that, we hopped back onto the tube, headed back to Charlene's flat...
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Hi, we're tourists.
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Then it was back to more sightseeing. Clark: "Look kids! Big Ben!"
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London being London, it started raining just a few minutes after we got off the tube. We looked around for umbrellas and these were the only ones we could find. "Haaaaaaaaaaaay!"
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Fatty grabbed this pic of us too busy eating to look up. (Oh, and Charlene was with us too but for some reason she's hiding in all these pics!).
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Reunited! Grant had been in LA working on a TV show and we hadn't seen him in about a month. He arrived in London in the morning and woke our asses up. We showered, got dressed, and headed around the corner to a "builder's diner" right around the corner from her flat and we all ordered...
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Group shot.
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So in the course of shooting the shit with Tony Chambers, it came up that we had wanted to sing karaoke that night but that the only place that we knew of had already closed. Tony leaned in close and in a conspirital tone told us about a private, karaoke speakeasy he knew of that operated afterhours on the second floor of a tiny, nearby sushi bar. After promising we'd keep it secret, he disclosed to us the location. (Looking back, he was probably just totally psyched to have our loud, American, clearly NOT VIP-asses out of his little private, members only backroom!)
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At this point not only were we ridiculously over tired, we were drunk taboot. We pleaded for Charlene to take us home and put us to bed.
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GRANT! It was one thing for Lil' Buddy to miss out on Iceland, but a free, surprise concert of his favorite live band? That was just too much.
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Charlene called her friend Layla (who works for the company that promotes Carling Beer)...
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7:54pm: We arrived at Heathrow totally cracked out. We were so tired that we decided that we were going to tell Charlene that we were up for maybe grabbing one drink but then after that we needed to get some sleep. (Time Elapsed With Only 15 minutes of Sleep: 28h 24m)
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Look at our cold, red, saltwater-irritated faces. Ouchie.
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...and then the realization that we were actually IN ICELAND hit us. Iceland! Oh, snap.
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Miraculously, he managed to avoid getting a ticket (but he did accidentally lock himself out of the car...Doh!). We thanked him for the tour (it's still one of the nicest things a stranger has ever done for me - so Smari, if you read this, thanks again!) and then told him that we were thinking about checking out the Blue Lagoon on the way back to catch our flight but that the lady at the rental car place had seemed underwhelmed when we asked her about it. Smari told us "Fuck that lady. If there's only one thing you could see in Iceland, it should be the Blue Lagoon. Don't miss it. Go there now." That settled it. We bid Smari farewell, and headed for Grindavik.
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6:40am (local time and still pitch black out). We spent the hour-long drive into Reykjavik betting on what time the sun would rise. Price Is Right rules in effect: the one who managed to come closest, without going over would be declared the winner. It was then agreed upon that the winner would get to make out with Gemma, Grant's hot little sister, (mmmmmm....Gemma) when we stopped at Grant's parent's house in Essex on the last leg of our trip. But then we all remembered that Gemma had a boyfriend. (Booooo).
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Before getting in the cab, we neurotically checked to make sure we had our passports with us for the 11th time. You know, just in case one of us had somehow managed to loose it on the 25ft trek from Fatty's apartment to the street.
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4:13pm: Outside of Fatty's apartment, bags all packed and double-checked we coldlamped for one last photo before hailing a cab.
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Saturday night Grant made reservations for the Über-fancy restaurant, Suba. The food was so pretty, that our entries all merritted us all posing with them.
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Look! It's the ARMY OF DUDES. Can seven guys get into a nightclub on Friday night with only one female?
I edited together this montage of some choice cuts of the hits from the evening. (My favorite moment is Fatty's expression at 3:20) Enjoy! Track listing:
1. Christmas Wrapping
2. I Can't Go for That
3. Christmas Wrapping (part 2)
4. Head Over Heels
5. Plush
6. Peace on Earth / Ziggy Stardust
7. Let's Go
8. Fairytale Of New York
9. Creep
10. Don't You Want Me
11. Do They Know It's Christmas?