Here comes the sun …

On Sunday, I went on my first trip with the college yacht club. The sound of my alarm clock at 6 am was particularly cruel, but we had to drive down to Portsmouth to get the yacht and make the most of our day ahead. We sailed in the Solent, which is this bit of sea water between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. The weather gods obliged and although it was cold, the sun shined down on us gloriously the whole time. I joined the yacht club because a) I’ve always wanted to sail but I’ve never lived near the sea, and b) because I like getting out of London at the weekends, and c) to meet new people.

When I was a kid, we all had this thing called památník, which is Czech for something along the lines of “a book of memories”. It’s basically a pretty notebook where all your friends, teachers and family draw a picture for you and write a few nice words, so that you can look at it with nostalgia twenty years later and remember all your classmates from primary school. Often, people would use copy paper and copy out perfect pictures of Disney characters along with some sort of cheesy poem copied from somewhere. My dad did a pencil drawing of a yacht and wrote, “May you always have good wind in your sails, and may your ship always find its harbour.” And I loved that, because it was so him, and because he was wishing me freedom and good luck on my journeys. And I’m all about the journeys …

Back to the Sunday trip now …  Admittedly, I wasn’t the most hands-on member of the crew (because I’m always scared of screwing up), but I learnt a few bits and pieces about sailing: how to use the radio, what to do in a man overboard situation, a bit about the position of the sails, I pulled in the anchor (with a remote control, how lazy!), and they even let me have a go at the helm, which wasn’t as hard as one would think. I’m planning to try out more stuff next time.

I’ve very aware that this blog is supposed to be mostly about London, and lately I’m writing about all things not-London, but that’s just the way things are going right now.

Exhibit A: my expat life through scribbles.

I’m not exactly used to receiving emails which start with “Dear artists and writers,”. Who? Me? What? A few months ago, I sent a couple of links to my blog posts to Michaela Freeman from the Czech Centre in London, who is curating an exhibition about Czech expats living in the UK (+ British expats living in the Czech Republic as well, I think). She was looking for all types of art and writing which relates the experiences of living abroad.

Her original reply about my writing didn’t sound overly enthusiastic. She said it was “not too bad”, so I forgot all about it. But, bad or not bad or too bad or whatever it was … they’ve included me in their Lost in Translation exhibition, which you can preview online here. (The post which they picked is Strangers have the best candy.)

The actual exhibition will run from 1 – 19 November at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. The main event is on Sunday 14 November at 4.15 pm and there will be a film screening (of a documentary called Czechin London, which sounds fun!), followed by a moderated open discussion, followed by the opening of the exhibition. Tickets are £5.

I have no idea what to expect and I feel pretty nervous about going … (me, the non-artist, who shouldn’t really be there). Back in my flute-playing days, I used to frequently provide that little bit of intro music at art exhibition openings in little galleries in the Czech Republic, and these events were usually frequented by the same (very small) group of intellectuals from our town, who would always wear sophisticated scarf arrangements for the event, sip white wine and chat knowledgeably about the artworks … I would pack up my musical paraphernalia as quickly as possible and run. It was all a bit too grown up for me. But what the hell, it’s been some time since I stopped using anti-pimple cosmetics and switched to anti-wrinkle. Maybe I’ll bring one of my more arty friends for moral support.

Anyway, here is a bit of blurb about the exhibition from the email they sent me:

LOST IN TRANSLATION? explores what it's like to live in another country through the works of British and Czech artists and writers with experience of living in the opposite countries. Each works tell a different story about coping with the change of the environment, but what unites them is that it’s impossible for an artist not to be influenced by it in their work.

To most people, it doesn’t seem to matter where they come from until they move elsewhere. That’s when you really start to see who you are; to the point of surprising yourself with unexpected yearning for the national identity. The language barrier especially is something that even those resumed to visual communication can find staggering.

Settling into another culture is an emotional and adventurous process. The wonderment of things being different - cars on the other side of the road, learning to talk at great length about the weather and the tube announcements in an alien language. You take it all in with all your heightened senses, initially feeling displaced and uprooted, but gradually beginning to grasp your environment and redefining your identify. You are never going to be the same.

Photosoc

The best thing about going back to university is being able to join a societies full of people with the same interests as you. (Young people, that is … not pensioners or bored housewives with lots of time on their hands.) So far I joined three: photography (because I love it), yacht club (because I’ve always wanted to sail but have never had the opportunity before), and lastly, the student newspaper (because my occasional blogging has given me the (over)confidence to share my little bits of wisdom with the world). Plus, I get to meet new people and drink ridiculously cheap cider with them in the student union bar.

Here are some pictures I took during a recent photo walk with the Photosoc people. We started off in Green Park, walked through Westminster and later I wandered off along the South Bank towards Tate Modern … Enjoy!

 

All my tux.

I came across this online service which creates a pretty-looking tag cloud for any web address you enter into it. So here’s the one for my blog; at least the newbies among you can see what I mostly write about. Everything is cloud these days.  (Those who work in the IT industry will know what I’m talking about …) Cloud infrastructure, cloud services, private cloud, public cloud … it’s got to be the most annoying buzzword since Web 2.0.  But at least it’s sunny in London today. :o)

Snog after dinner.

Last night, I met with my friend S. for some Chinese food at Noodle Oodle near Tottenham Court Road. We hadn’t seen each other for aaaages and it was good to exchange some gossip. She’s one of my old friends from boarding school, and being an expat, it’s nice to have these people that I’ve known since I was a teenager, because it makes my existence here feel a little less fleeting. To shake off the calories afterwards, we decided to go for a little walk around Soho. It was Friday night, the neon lights were on, everyone was out and there was this great energy around. We had a great laugh talking about the one time when S. and her friends went to a nearby gay bar to watch a very fit Asian guy doing table dancing. Then we walked past all the XXX video places, the £2 peep show, Trashy Lingerie … and S. told me she’s craving Snog. “You mean frozen yoghurt or a real snog?” I asked her. But she’s Chinese and didn’t know what the word meant! Oooopsie wooooo, thank God I was there to explain to her why it might not be the best idea to ask random drunken strangers, “Excuse me, I’m looking for Snog.” We found the shop in the end, and it was a very nice sensory experience indeed. (I had strawberries with mine.)

I’ll have to come back soon for more Snogs and more photos with my real camera; although I’m quite pleased with how this phone photo turned out.

Try something new today …

I always pick up these free recipe cards on my way out of Sainsbury’s, although I’ve never actually cooked anything from them. Most of the time, the food looks too dull, or unhealthy, or the list of ingredients doesn’t look appealing. But this? White mice graveyard with little headstones made out of biscuits, complete with epitaphs like Boo and RIP? Ten points out of ten for creativity, Sainsbury’s!

Cycling in London

My life has been full of changes recently. Apart from quitting my job and returning back to university for a master's degree, I've also tried to commit an act of heroism: becoming a cyclist, in London. I figured it was a very clever decision: I would save money on transport (a very significant dent in the student budget in this city), I'd avoid the crowded trains, save the planet and get fit, all at the same time. 

So I ordered this no-nonsense folding bike from Amazon, which is nothing as fancy as a Brompton, but it's small enough to fit into my apartment, light enough for me to carry up the stairs, and generally should just do the job. I tightened all the screws and bolts, made a few trips to Argos and Halfords for all the associated pieces: helmet, lights, pump, D-lock and chain, more comfortable saddle. Ready to go!

Since my knowledge of traffic rules is pretty much zero (my driving licence hasn’t left the drawer for about 5 years), I signed up for the free cycle training with my local council. "What? Free cycle training for adults?” my friend Z. marvelled, “This really is a communist country.” But I suppose it’s cheaper  for my borough to give free training than to scrape dead cyclists off the roads. I specifically told them that I need to learn how to ride in busy traffic. Well, the instructors were nice enough and all ... but they only took us to the park (no traffic at all, hello!) and then to a quiet side street. I guess they didn’t want to take any risks, which made the whole outing rather pointless. But I did learn a few useful things: don’t “hug the kerb” because then the cars will just whizz past you instead of overtaking you properly and giving you the space you deserve; ride one meter away from the kerb instead; look over your right shoulder every time you are about to change direction; watch out for people opening doors of their parked cars … and never ever stop next to a lorry, because he can’t see you.

Monday, first day of university … should I? Shouldn’t I? Well, it was a Tube strike, so I had to. I planned my route on the TfL website, carefully got into my cycle lane, tried to watch out for traffic, I pedalled and signalled and then … suddenly, a red light appeared in front of me, which I only noticed at the last minute. The road was slippery from the earlier rain and my sharp braking sent me straight over the handlebars. See, everything in this country is the wrong way round, even the brakes. I’m so used to braking with my right hand, but unfortunately, in Britain, that is the front brake. Dangerous!

 
A woman rushed towards me from the pavement and the whole “OMG, Are you alright?” thing followed, which was very sweet of her, but I wasn’t going to lose my face. I could hear the tough love of my parents at the back of my brain, “Get back on your bike. Get back on your bike, for chrissake!” So, I got straight back on up my bike, flashed a smile and hurriedly replied, “I’m fine, I’m okay.” The light was still red and I didn’t want to delay the car behind me. My knees were kind of bleeding a bit and my hands were kind of bleeding a bit too, but hey, I’m a tough girl with a stiff upper lip and there are children living through civil wars in Africa, so why couldn’t I just get back on my bike. I made it to the nearest pharmacy, put plasters on my hands and knees and then cycled on the pavement for a while, which is illegal, and I got various loud expressions of abuse from my fellow citizens for it. I kind of felt like crying (leave me alone, I already fell over once this morning!!!), but instead I quietly told them to go fuck themselves under my breath.

Ten minutes later, I mustered the confidence to get back on the dreaded road. London’s cycle lanes are such a pain! Too narrow, they start and stop in random places, the cars park on them ... and most of the time you have to share the lane with buses, taxis and newly also motorcycles.

In the end, I made it to uni and back … but I spent most of the night afterwards unable to sleep because these images of buses whizzing 4 inches past me kept playing in my mind. The next day, I bought a 7-day travel card for the Tube.  I haven’t given up on cycling yet (otherwise I would have bought a 1-month card), but I’m giving my purple knees and chance to unpurple themselves … in the meantime, I’m reading up on the highway code, Cyclecraft and cycling routes. And praying for my courage to come back soon.

My Tube travel card expires on Tuesday … what to do, what to do, what to do!