They all have local chapters, and those chapters organize birds of a feather evenings. Some are closed (only transgendered people, so even safe for those who want to stay in the closet or are just not confident enough yet) and some are open.
One of the chapters is the Amsterdam one. I start paying them a visit just a year ago as it was incredibly hard to make time for this due to home work commute issues (amongst others). Their evenings are quite cool as they are open: First you can go to dinner with a group in a normal restaurant, then the meeting kicks of in a local cafe somewhere in the Jordaan.
This year they have their 40th anniversary, and that should be celebrated of course!
Theme of the party, held at club Akhnaton, is "Femme Fatale". Just use google images to get an idea on what that should be like. I settled quite quickly for the Scarlett Johansson for MNG fall '09 campaign look
That is as fatale as one could get :)
But that was just one part of the plan...
There where 2 more things to be accomplished. One would be the event's photographer, the other would be staying in a nearby hotel but do the whole exercise en femme.
I can just say everything was a great success!
After digging my car out of the snow (in skirt and heels, and boy that was not an easy thing to do!) I went out to pick up Sabine and Natassia as they where also staying at the hotel. Luckily there was still a spot at the parking lot in city centre and we all checked in without any problems. I got quizzed though whether that was really me and I explained it that this was my "other head". Reservation, checking in where all done under my boy name. It is not illegal to dress up since 1984 but providing a false identity still is.
After dumping my top heavy photogear laden suitcase and switching boots for those more pratical in the Jordaan area (cobblestones, steep bridges) we picked a tram and went out to Backstage as I wanted to get some extra make up and hair care supplies only to be immediately kicked out as it was after closing time... Sorry, I must be turning blonde!
Anyway it was already dinnertime as I felt hungry and restaurant "De Eettuin" was nearby so we walked over there. This is also the place where the local chapter goes for dinner on those evenings so we might spot some usual suspects there :)
We where actually the first ones to come in but soon after some other familiar faces came to dinner. The place was fully loaded after a while!
Dinner was splendid, and after coffee we went back to the hotel to get ready for the party. I made my eyes smokey, applied the false lashes and slipped into the femme fatale outfit. Refitted the suitcase with all the equipment for the fotoshoot (and a second outfit) and off we went!
Suitcase was still heavy and had to drag the thing upstairs where the photo area would be. Good thing I brought my sneakers along and left the heels in the suitcase until everything was set up. Pffft!
The photo shoot was a total success, I made banners that where placed at visible places at the venue and while I was making the pictures Natassia was burning them to cdrom and also managing the counter together with me. I also overheard that some people thought the photo booth was manned by real girls ??? In total we made some 14 happy customers :)
Later in the night I switched to the other outfit, you might recognize it from a previous photo in my flickr stream:
The party lasted until 3am but unfortunately the bar was closed even more than half an hour before that so I could not buy my volunteers some cocktails :(
Other drawback was that I didn't manage to speak to that many people but I danced for a while. A gg who was there with her friend commented on my outfit, it appeared she is working in a MNG store :) Cool!
So I got back at the hotel, which was just next door (my feet where very grateful for that) and plunged into bath, and went off to bed.
The next morning I slipped into something less conspicuous (boot,jeans and purple top) and joined Natassia and Sabine for breakfast. I didn't felt being spied upon, Natassia thought only 2 people where peeking at me but probably couldn't get a proper reading. Or they just saw a cool girl enjoying her breakfast :)
After checking out I quickly burned some extra cdroms with our pictures on it for Natassia and Sabine (while there where watching a tennis game on the telly in the lobby)
Leaving Amsterdam took a bit more time than I thought, as I would very much like to knock some money off on the parking fee, but the guy to get the reduction card from was nowhere to be found...
And again I would thank all the people who volunteered helping me out at the the photo booth and especially T&T Amsterdam for organizing the party and arranging the possibility of me setting up that very photo area!
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