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Reports

During my travels, I received free accommodation for a night in exchange for writing a daily travel diary. This diary documented how I reached my next destination, the hosts who welcomed me, the food I was offered, and other experiences along the way. Below, you will find the archives of these extensive reports. Please note that English is not my native language, and most entries were written quickly, often around midnight. Enjoy!
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Wednesday, 30 May 2001
Enfield --> KissFM, London (UK)

About being invited to the the UK Premier of Pearl Harbor, walking between nobodies and celebrities, the afterparty and everything else...

Bam Bam, one of Britains best and most-awarded radio-deejay, gave me a call after I had tried to contact him about his morning Breakfast Show on KissFM.

At some minutes after 9am he called me live in his show and invited me over to be the guest on his Breakfast Show the next morning while he could let me stay for a day!

And for tonight he had a special thing coming up: he would take me to the UK Premier of this summer blockbuster Pearl Harbor!

That meant a dress code, celebrities, and a post premier party! Of course I immediately changed my complete schedule to experience something like this.

Bam Bam would pick me up around 3pm, so I had time enough to relaxe, have breakfast in the hot burning sun in the garden, play around with the kids a bit and surf some while on the internet.

Some German press agency seemed to had written about me, my pageviews blew up enormously - to a score I had never seen before. For this complete day I almost gained 10,000 visitors on this site. This may explain my site to become a little slow or even unreachable at certain times. I am sure my webhosting provider will keep his eye opened…

After 3pm I had packed everything again and got of in the Toyota Land Cruiser Limited Edition with the most popular radioguy of the UK!

Bam Bam is the artist-name, but he doesn’t want his real name to be published, because that has nothing to do with everything. “I know deejays doing their show and behaving big in cafes and restaurants,” he explains. “I don’t do that. On my show I use Bam Bam, and most times everybody around me uses that name.”

His radiothing is just his work and he loves to work hard for it and therefor doesn’t want to be this guy from the radio when he ever wants to go out.

But the name Bam Bam is also his coverage when he pisses somebody or some organisation off on the radio (so the opposite side doesn’t know who he is). Like he does all the time on air and what made him have this popular. You won’t find a picture of him anywhere easily.

On the way to his brand-new house, Bam Bam bought me dinner-deluxe-take-away at Kentucky Fried Chicken (how good is that!), which we ate at his home in his living room.

He just had to share his new DVD he had bought about Magic Man David Blaine, who recently almost frozed himself to death… Amazing how this guy does his thing. You should really see his work, he even gets almost one feet of the ground –slowly- without any wires or help, unbelievable.

After this ‘healthy’ dinner we had to prepare very quickly for the UK Premier of Pearl Harbor. We had to be at the Odeon theater on Leicester Square before 6.30pm and Bam Bam had arranged himself a car and a driver who brought us there.

On the way to the Odeon cinema and the big spectacle. Bam Bam showed me the exclusive tickets, which only celebrities and very important people receive.

When we got at Leicester Square the car had to drive slowly on a lane turning round on the Square and already from the beginning of this lane people where staring at the car to get a glimp of any possible star.

This felt so weird, because it was really crowded and when the car stopped at the red carpet at the entrance, the door was opened by one of the doormen and the public standing behind the special fences was just massive.

And everybody looked at us to see if I was a celebrity, cameras where already flashing. When I got out of the car and Bam Bam and I walked on the red carpet to the entrance of the Odeon cinema, we really walked in the middle of a wall of photographers (of course wondering who we are, and if we were important enough to take pictures of), only a few cameras just kept on flashing…

But when the actress Kate Beckinsale arrived at this scene the flashing cameras where almost heating up the whole Square. Everybody just got mad!


Thousands of fans had gathered outside the Odeon cinema to catch a glimpse of Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett and Trainspotting actor Ewen Bremner.
Kate said to this line of press inside: "This is much noisier and scarier than it was in Hawaii because it is Britain and my friends and family are all here!"

Once inside this cinema Bam Bam and I were just walking between big time celebrities, wanna-be’s and never-will-be’s. Bam Bam explained the complete atmosphere: “A normal person would have there heads out to spot one of the [for example] Spice Girls walking around, while one of the Spice Girls would only have her own head out for this certain director.”
And it was pretty visual: the two very over-dressed ladies sitting one row in front of us, were only looking all over the cinema to spot interesting faces and then share this sensation with eachother…

It was kind of pathetic to see a clinch of British soapstars doing exactly the same. Funny how Bam Bam and I ate our popcorn and talked about radio, internet and mediathings…

Finally, almost 30 minutes later than announced, the lights went off and some man introduced the director of the movie, Jerry Bruckheimer, and a part of the cast: Kate Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett and Ewen Bremner, which came on stage for a short applause.

Then the movie started…

It really is a good movie, but don't disappointed by the length of it: over 3 hours! I must say that if this was a 90 mins movie, it would only be a nice Hollywood-story.

The current 3 hours really get you into the story, so you'll experience everything that happened around the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, almost in real life. I mean, you'll just get dragged into it as you are watching it.

As usual the special effects are 'explosive'. I have people heard saying "It's a love story!", well: yes it is. Nowhere is stated that it isn't. It's about Pearl Harbor and it is a good story. I'm just glad there was a story and not just action-entertainment.

After the movie everybody got out of the cinema and coaches took us to the Post Premier Party at the Senate House in Malet Street, London.

When we got there the complete building was lightened with the American Flag and the Pearl Harbor logo on it. Really amazing to see.

At the entrance uniformed soldiers where whistling and yelling to all the ladies coming in, just as soldiers are known about and all part of the event.

Once inside I bumped against Boy George, the artist who's now a Fridaynight deejay on KissFM, and we met Belinda (the lady I am on the photo with). She is into the marketing of the movie Pearl Harbor and this whole premiere and a good friend of Bam Bam.

The whole party had a big main entrance, with stairs going up to the balconies and two halls one both sides with different music, but all in style with the movie.

The dress code was 'military chic', so I did well with my brown hat on. And the waitresses walking around with glasses of different wines looked like the nurses from the movie.

In the first hall a big band was playing the tunes from the 20's to the 40's and that was quit entertaining. Some professional dancers tried to warm up the dancefloor for the rest, but that didn't really work out.

Belinda challenged me to dance with her on that empty dancefloor, but just when I finally dared to take her hand, the band made room for a deejay and the old fashion fun was over.

Bam Bam had arranged his car around midnight, so it was time to go home eventually. I enjoyed the free drinks ('another Bacardi-coke, please'), the [icelebs looking for other celebs[/i] and the music.

The photographs I had taken of this event, where the only ones possible, because I was not really allowed to make them (to preserve the privacy of the guests).

When Bam Bam and I got back home, we got on the internet for a few hours and it got over 3.30 in the morning, when Bam Bam pulled the plug outof the computer. "Ramon, you must go to bed now!". With just two hours of sleep to go, my eyes closed very fast...
Ramon.


The press about letmestayforaday.com today:

L'Internaute.com (French):
"Profession : globe-trotter pique-assiette"

Artist-at-large.com (English):
"Letmestayforaday.com: Travel with a Twist"

RTL World News (German):
"Mit einer Website um die Welt"


You can translate the above links at world.altavista.com in your own language.



Follow my tracks on Ludo's map! It's in Dutch, but you'll see a lot!


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