forrestreid

Revolut seems to be very common in Europe, if you want to avoid cash. I think America can set up an account with them on their phone and use it to pay providers in Europe.

I took a trip trip to Boysclub21 in Amsterdam last week, on a Sunday night. I wasn’t really in the mood that evening, to be honest, but I decided to visit anyway to have a look at the place. When I arrived, I was greeted by a guy at the door, who welcomed me and led me to a seat. He was was Colombian I think, but not exactly the type guy I wanted, and I was bit concerned I might get stuck with him. However, he quickly told me that he would describe the other guys to me, and suggested I could ask one of them for a drink, instead, if I wanted. I appreciated the attitude. He pointed out the other guys who were working there. I think there were four guys working that night, as well as the guy who I met at the door there was a Bulgarian and a Portuguese guy and another guy from somewhere in South America, I think. I said I would like to chat to the Bulgarian guy, and so he came down and I bought him a drink. He told me he had moved to the Netherlands mainly to escape the homophobia in Bulgaria. He was about 30 and very pleasant looking, but not a stunner. We ended up chatting for 20 minutes. He travels to Thailand quite frequently with friends, and he told me he liked Pattaya and Jomtien in particular. His favourite bar is Question mark bar. He knew several of the staff in Jomtien bars by name and was disappointed that I couldn’t really remember any of the names of people in the bars, despite being there earlier this year. He was also complaining about the Russians in Thailand, he is not really a fan of them. I asked him if there are any Dutch guys working in the bar at all, and he said during university term time there sometimes were one or two guys who worked on a Thursday and Friday evening. We had a nice chat, but to be honest he gave off a sort of friendly, garrulous taxi driver vibe which although easy to talk to was a bit of a passion killer for me, and didn’t encourage me to want to part with €220. The set up, the room and the guy for €220, was clearly explained to me at the start. They take cash or card and it was a relaxed and pleasant environment. I would recommend you go and have a look at the place if you are visiting Amsterdam. It is the last of its kind in the city, and will only survive if people visit - in fact I feel a little guilty for not hiring there now, lol.

Not exactly. According the the website of Boys Bar Sitges, currently Thursday night is stripper night, with a show, Fri-Sat has house DJ and gogo’s, and they have a special pole dancing show on Sunday.

That is unfair. At the time Parthenon Marbles were removed, Athens was under Turkish rule. Many of the locals may not have understood the significance of the marbles, but many of the more educated certainly did. Within two years of the foundation of the first proper independent Greek administration in 1832, the Greek state had passed national legislation on the protection of antiquities, which provided that “all antiquities within Greece, as works of the ancestors of the Hellenic people, shall be regarded as national property of all Hellenes in general” This at a time when few western European countries had legislation on protecting antiquities. Also, although the nineteenth century Greeks were very proud of their Christian Byzantine heritage, they were also proud of their Classical history. Just look at government buildings built in Athens in the nineteenth century, like the university building or the National Library building. All strictly classical, intended to hark back to what they saw as their "golden age".

I went to villi Giani last week. I arrived about 6 pm on a Wednesday. It is my second time in in the place but I never hired there before as I wasn’t well on the last occasion (review of visit above). When I went in, I met the receptionist/host and he brought me to the one-way window. The available guys were three South American guys. They were all Twinkish in build, and of average to good looks. I think they had been better looking bunch the previous time, when unfortunately I wasn’t up to doing anything I clarified that the fee would be £160, which would include everything. I picked a guy called Pedro, who is from Brazil and quite new to the establishment. I was told I’d have to wait for a room, and I was ushered to a little waiting-room just inside the door, with a couch and a TV. Felt a bit weird to be stuck in this pokey room watching Sky News, but I was only was only there for maybe five or 10 minutes before the host came and brought me to the bedroom. The room was a small windowless room with just basically bed and side table. If I had been hoping for an en-suite to possibly have a shower, I would have been disappointed I decided I wanted a sort of proper massage first, but the bed was so soft it was hard for the poor masseuer - when he put pressure on my back I just sank into the mattress. I didn’t leave it long before I moved onto other activities. Pedro was friendly and eager to please. When the session ended, I gave Pedro £160 in cash before I left the room. The overall vibe was friendly and relaxing and I was offered water when I arrived and before I left. Before I left, I asked the host if there were any guys apart from the three I saw who who would be available the next day, and he showed me some photos and videos of a guy who wasn’t in that day, but would be in the next day. So it may be possible to plan ahead to visit when a guy you like will be there.

The Digital Services Act mandates no blocks of sites, it simply provides extra obligations on big sites to monitor what is happening on their sites. Of course some sites may choose to withdraw service from the EU rather than try face the extra expense of complying, but I have not heard of this happening yet. Some porn sites (such as Pornhub and Xvideos) have sued the EU regarding the extra burdens this places on them , but I have not heard that they will up close up shop if they lose.

For very muscular guys, probably Hunqz or Rentmen. I see Hunqz has a very muscular guy there now called "MuscularStraight" who might fit the bill.

The Shamelessmack Blog will give you all the info you need. His homepage is here: https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/ Go to it, and do a search for Bali He went to six male massage places in Seminyak and comprehensively reviewed them in March of this year (or, at least the posts date from March of this year). He compares them with Thai places, and has a included his own home-made map of Seminyak to show you where they are in the town. He tends to have complicated systems for his reviews. What your are looking for are what he calls "Type 3" and "Type 4" establishments (not sure if Bali has any Type 4 though).

Does not look like they are trying to attract tourists as visitors. According to their website: "To access the club, it is essential to register and be of legal age....You will need the approval of 3 club and/or board members."

I was probably a bit prejudiced toward Istanbul by one incident in particular,if i am honest. I arranged for a guy from the Hunqz site to come to my hotel. I was staying at a small boutique hotel on a side street of Istiqlal Street. As the masseur I booked was a good looking hunky guy, I guessed that the male receptionist on duty that day might guess what was happening, and I was wondered if my visitor would have any difficulties being given access to my room. Therefore before he arrived, I informed the receptionist that I had a gentleman coming to discuss business and said, casually, “you can just send him up when he arrives” as if I was about to show him fabric samples or something. The receptionist said he would. So the masseur arrived and came to my room. We had only just started undressing when there was a knock at the door... Obviously it was the receptionist about something. I was wondering what the bloody hell it could be (the escort was very unfazed and just lay on the bed). I quickly threw on my clothes, went to the door and opened it a crack, hoping the receptionist had just forgotten to tell me some mundane thing, such as that the electricity would be down for an hour that evening, or the like. I nearly died when instead he said “I have set up some Turkish tea up in the breakfast room for you and your guest”. Obviously I had to tell him that we were okay where we were. He seemed a bit disappointed, and stared at me for a moment. I had visions of the receptionist declaring "we cannot have immorality going on in this hotel you know", like Kenneth Williams in a Carry On film, but thankfully he eventually just turned round and left. It took me a while to get into things with the hunk after that! When my escort left the room, I was wondering if there would be anything said to him when leaving. So I stuck my head out the window as he was going down to reception, to see if you left the building fairly promptly, and he did. I was relieved as I assumed that meant he hadn’t had much of a chance to be questioned by the receptionist on the way out. However I noticed the receptionist changed towards me from then on. He had been friendly in a smarmy kind of way beforehand, but now he didn’t meet my eye and barely said a word to me. That was fine with me, but I was rather self-conscious coming and going after that! So between everything, it was a somewhat stressing trip for me.

In retrospect, that was probably an overly harsh judgement. I’ve been to Istanbul and enjoyed it from purely touristic point of view. Good value hotels, and some of the sites, particularly historic ones, are great. But I find it seems to have a lot of very uncritical fans on travel websites, which surprises me, after visiting. A few things put me off Istanbul. One was the “hassle”. It was not huge, compared to other places, but it was a bit annoying. Men walking up to you on the street and trying to engage in conversation, trying to get you to come to their "brothers carpet shop", etc. I remember in particular on my second day when I had just out of the Blue mosque, and was heading for the Kucuk Ayasofia mosque (formerly Byzantine church). A guy came up to me and began the “visit my brother’s carpet shop“ rigmarole. In an effort to shake him politely, I said "I can’t because I’m going to the Kucuk Ayasofia and it closes in an hour. I’m in a hurry” His response was to tell me that his brothers carpet shop was close by it, and he walked along with me to 10 minutes to the Kucuk Ayasofia, giving me the Hard Sell all the time! As an introverted person, I found this rather hellish (of course in retrospect I had made a fatal error by telling him where I was headed. Still enjoyed the Kucuk, would strongly recommend it, along with the Blue Mosque). That incident made me very nervous of that sort of thing for the rest of my trip. Also, the commercial sex scene was not great. The one sauna with escorts, the Aquarius, was full of Middle Eastern guys, that seemed to want to give a little service for a lot of money, and were a bit aggressive with it. Also, I found that the online escorts were unusually expensive, considering the average wages in Istanbul. Considering it is the largest city in Europe, there wasn’t a great choice, I felt. For comparison, there was a better choice, and cheaper guys, in Athens. The food is highly praised, and I found it good. But again a problem I noticed, is that if you go to cheap neighbourhood restaurants (where I was interested in going) there was no wine or beer available to drink with your meal. Very unlike dining in cheap Greek or Spanish tavernas. My understanding is that there is loads of bars in Istanbul, and plenty of fancy restaurants serving fine wine and beer with meals. But I wasn’t bothered about going to any of them, I just wanted a glass of wine or beer to wash down my kebab. I still enjoyed the cheap neighbourhood restaurants I went to in Istanbul, they were very good value for what they sold, but the inability to have a beer with my grub was just another niggling annoyance. All that said, from a purely "standard tourist" point of view, it is a very worthwhile city to visit.

Good for you if you have the fortitude to do it, but I would be very nervous that there would be only crappy places left. What i sometime do is to try and get a better deal is to try the website of the hotel, once found on Booking.com, and see if I can get it cheaper on their website.

I second that view. I wouldn’t necessarily be the greatest fan of Istanbul for various reasons, but one thing it does well is high quality hotels at bargain rates. For example, I just picked a random date in September and searched on Booking.com for hotels that are at least four stars or more, and had a “superb” or “exceptional” rating on booking.com. I found 58 properties available for less than €150 a night (and 28 for less than €100). The big American chains didn’t feature amongst them, as they seem to charge more of a standard fee per night, no matter what city you are in Europe. I have no doubt that the current currency problems facing the Turkish lira are a part of the reason you get such bargains at the moment, although as I said, Istanbul is always a very good deal for luxury hotels. I think sometimes high-end customers from the USA are a bit reluctant to venture away from the Marriott and Hilton etc line up. But I can guarantee you that if you see an independent hotel in Istanbul, that is 4 or 5 stars, and has an extremely high rating on Booking.com (from at least, say, 100 reviewers - only people have stayed can leave reviews on Booking.com) you are pretty much guaranteed a good experience.

Well, a brief update about the two destinations mentioned above -Sami's Bar and Bizzar - would be nice. Is the info that Bizzar is now closed correct?

I visited Villa Giani last week. I was in London for a few days decided to call in the evening before I was to fly home. I planned my schedule to visit that evening, but in the event I was actually feeling quite unwell that afternoon (and as it turned out within 24 hours I was hit by a very bad dose of cold and sore throat which lasted three or four days). Even though I was feeling out of sorts, as I was close-by, I thought I would call in and look at the lineup anyway. That way at least I could report back a bit more info for this thread. I rang the doorbell and a very pleasant, Hispanic looking guy, answered. I forgot to ask his name. It was a warm afternoon outside, and it was really warm, almost oppressively so, in the basement apartment. The receptionist confirmed that the fee was £160 for one hour. Then I was brought to the mirror window. When the guys realised there was a customer at the other side of the window, they came up to it and pulled up their T-shirts to show off their chests. Four guys were available. Three Hispanic looking guys, and a pale, European-looking guy. The pale guy and two of the other guys were twinks, the other guy was more muscular. I had a gut feeling that the European looking guy might be Irish (I’m Irish myself, and we can tell our own, lol). When I asked receptionist where he was from, he confirmed that my gut feeling was correct. They were all reasonably good-looking in appearance, although perhaps not as quite as glamorous looking as one might expect for £160. I note from reading this thread that the price they charge has gone from £100 just before Covid, to £130 a bit later, and now £160. Well, good luck to them if they can get the money. I was there at 6:20, and receptionist told me that if I wanted to take a guy, there would not be a free room available on the premises until 7 pm. I ask him to explain a bit more about their opening times, as the website says they are open from 1 pm until 7 pm. He explained that they are open later, but that there were only guys available to view until 7 pm. I decided not to take a guy that day, mainly because I wasn’t feeling all that well. I felt a little bit guilty about just being a "looky-loo" but the receptionist was very pleasant about it, and said it was no problem. Generally the whole atmosphere was very calm and relaxing. I don’t think anybody should feel nervous are going for a look, if they’re interested. It is literally a five minute walk from Earls Court tube station.