On Friday, we unfortunately came too late to the Welcome Drinks at the host hotel (Novotel Vauxhall), and found the lobby to be empty, aside a few random leather dudes. After a quick drink we walked straight to Fire, where the first real kick-off party, Leather Nexus was. Having arrived quite early, the party started slow, but became really heated after midnight. When we were leaving, after 3am, it seemed that everyone had cleared the dancefloors and packed into the darkroom area. I guess the desperate stage had begun.

On Saturday, it was time for some sightseeing and the Recon’s main event, Full Fetish which was in a club called Scala near King’s Cross. The venue was a regular, albeit huge, dance club, which worked fine for the dancing aspect, but failed miserably in the cruising aspect. The dark room area was a smallish area on the top floor of the club, with a few makeshift metal fences and plastic sheeting providing cover. We left relatively early, but later I heard people had started to break lights in the toilets to get more dark space. Man, people are really desperate…

On Sunday the highlight came, the d-vote rubber party at The Hoist. Upon first entering I was surrounded by middle-aged naked guys, but apparently it was because there had been a naked party at the same venue before the rubber party. Some of the naked guys remained for the rubber party, which was a bit jarring and not fair, because the rubber party had a strict dress code of just rubber. However, there were tons of hot rubber dudes around, and the party was quite enjoyable. After 10pm (the party started at 6pm) it turned into Deconstruction, the official closing party of the week, which packed the Hoist to the brim, and I left soon after it had started.

On the shopping side, I bought a nice S10 mask with attached hood and collar from Regulation. I also bought a rubber belt, which didn’t appreciate the partying I put it through, but Regulation nicely exchanged it for a leather one which will most definitely stand even the worst torture…

All in all, it was a successful trip, partly because London is such a fun city to travel to. There’s always something to do or see, even during daytime…

The temperature in Cologne was unusually high for the whole weekend, maxing at about 34 C. I couldn’t but feel sorry for the guys wearing full rubber and hoods in the parade… it must’ve been bordered on lethal!

Even though I feel love towards my home country of Finland, this weekend once again proved the vast gap between Germany and my home country. In Finland, there was a pride parade last weekend as well, the Helsinki Pride, which was attacked by anti-gay activists with pepper spray. Even though the attack has been condemned by many, discussion boards still flow with wry messages mostly emphasizing how gays should keep it more low key. Attitudes like that once again make me ponder about the option of moving abroad to more receptive cultures.

I’ve been wondering with a few Finnish friends if we should do a rubber group in the next Helsinki Pride. At least we would have gas masks in case of another tear gas attack

The nice thing about Berlin is that — unlike many so-called gay friendly cities — it really has a gay district. The adjacents streets of Fuggerstrasse and Motzstrasse form a compound where during a weekend like Easter or Folsom you can walk around in leather or rubber and perfectly blend in. In fact, as I don’t do rubber or leather as casual wear, I felt a bit frustrated walking around the gay district in jeans and with a camera, because obviously I was mistaken for some poor young straight tourist wondered into unknown territory.

I was travelling with two (into kink) friends of mine and we stayed in the city from Wednesday to Sunday. The first night, Wednesday, was a bit quiet on the party front, but from Thursday onwards there was a lot to choose from. On Thursday we went to Mutschmann’s Rubber Night which had suffered an advertising failure and was very quiet; not a problem, since after 11pm it turned into a general fetish event and packed so much to the brim that it had more rubber guys in it than during the Rubber Night!

On Friday we decided to go to Rubber eXXXtreme, and it had suffered a last-minute venue change to Scheune, which is a smallish bar with a recently sized darkroom. The bar area was totally packed and changing into gear proved to be quite a hassle. They had bar tab thing with wristbands, so at least you didn’t have to fumble around with cash. I retreated to the hotel at about 3am, but my friends partied until 7am and went straight to breakfast, but they suffered the consequences of that the next day.

Saturday, final night, was the night of the most underadvertised fetish party I’ve ever seen, the Snax party at Berghain (and Lab-Oratory) combined into one venue. It was huge, and like most huge fetish parties, it was in an old power plant. After an hour of queueing (didn’t have presale tickets) we got in and stepped into the huge hall of dancing kinky guys and electonic music. The Lab-Oratory part of the complex was a huge maze of darkroom areas which proved to be at least as popular hangouts as the dance floor.

If you’ve never been to Berlin during Easter, I highly recommend it. Folsom Europe might be a tad bigger, but the Easter has a definite vibe which I am looking forward to dive into again next year.