Every One Knows Chuck Norris

So, im cooking in my apartment, as usual the only one cooking as my room mate does not cook and hardly eats. Im trying to boil some rice, one of the more difficult carbohydrates in my opinion. Im never sure on how much waters your supposed to put in and it always ends up with a thick film of starch on each grain (and for someone who has supposed IBS thats not too good, but its only supposed becasue I dont trust my doctor). As im cooking the fire alarm of the whole building starts to go off, the only thing I can think to my self is FUCK not again, as this would be the third alarm now thats been set ofwhilst ive been in the building. The first was the security alarm mentioned in the third blog, the second time was only a couple of days before this incident, something to do with the security at the apartment which incidently gave the whole building a balck out right in the middle of me boiling some eggs, and then this incident making it the third. I ask my roomate whats going on and he said "don't worry , it happens all the time" īt has nothing to do with us"
Now ive learnt one important thing about my room mate is that for about 90 per cent of the time he is completley wrong or quite ignorant of the enviroment around him. For example he didnt notice that the bath was orange because of dirt but because of its oldness??, the doorway light was broken and needed repairing??, but in truth the lightbulb was gone (which I changed) He does not cook because does not know how too ?? now I do like my roommate but sometimes its wise to question what he says but on this occasion I believed him, I just carried on cooking with the alarm ringing, not doing the usual waving of a towel at the alarm or opening the windows to let the smoke/steam out. So the alram kept ringing and ringing for around twenty mins and then there was another massive Latvian authority in my doorway, speaking to me in Latvian then stopped talking completly when he learned I was just a stupid Englishman he just pointed at my rice and then the alrm, explaining two things to me, One it was my fault and Two dont trust Thibaut.
Even the moring after there was strange goings on, as I leave for work a bit later than Thibaut I was surprised to hear someone in kitchen when I was in bed, I was going to stay in the front room becasue there was nothing in the kitchen that I cared about and if someone was going to steal then they could help themselves to as many shitty national geographic pictures on the wall, and spoons as they liked, but as the noises were getting louder I became more curious I open the door and instead of the usual huge latvian there to meet me there was a sweet old lady..........which was good becasue if I got a good punch in I m sure I could of floored her, serves her right coming into my yard. The truth is she had a key and was checking some numbers on some metres or something plus she wasn't that small so it would of been a much more even fight then I would of liked.

Now as the weekend was coming up I knew one thing I could not stay in that apartment it was getting too strange, spontanious and unpredictable , what I needed was a night out, I needed a drink.
This weekend was going to mark my first saturday night out in Latvia, as i finish work around 8 in the evening i get call from one the guys from the centre around 9, asking if i fancied going out. This was good timing as I wanted to see what young Latvians do on a night out................as it turns out its the same as being 17 in England....not a lot.
The thing is with most young people in Latvia they all look older than they actually are, so i meet my friend from the centre i meet his friends and sister. The thing is they are 18 but they look older and Im 25 but i dont feel 25 and i certainly didnt that night.
It turns out that there not many clubs in Gulbene, well there are actually no clubs at all so we go for a drive and before we drive off, we go the shops and buy a little alcohol. I actually end up buying some sort of alco pop which was coke flavour and tasted like shit, and two others bought some brandy and a bottle of coke. A swig of brandy than a swig of coke, it was great it was like being 17 again, driving around in my mates car finding a place to hang around, and plus driving in the night in Latvia is awesome, the speed limit here is 90 miles per hour in the country roads and its completley black as there hardly anylights, plus it was snowing too which for me (as i was sitting in the middle in the back) looked like scenes from star wars ( when the millienium Falcon hits hyper space) unfortunatley I have such confidence Issues I didnt imagine my self as Han solo or luke, the most i could muster was fucking R2 D2.......but it still felt like Star Wars and that was good enough for me.

The night was good fun, I got to meet new people but we didnt find a place to go to, as many places were shut after 11, so we drove around for a while and then we had probably the best conversation Ive had with anyone here in Latvia.................... we talked about Chuck Norris.
Chuck Norris is an American matrial artist who has starred in some very cheesy and rubbish action movies over the years, plus a really awful T.V show "Texas Walker Ranger", but most of the time there so utterly shit, that there genius. For a few years now Chuck has become something of a cult legend and an interent pheneomenon happened...called Chuck facts here are some of the best
1 when Chuck Norris is Late, Time better Slow Down
2 When Chuck Norris does pushups, he doesn't lift himself up. He pushes the world down
3 There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live
4 Chuck Norris can Kill two Stones with One Bird
5 Chuck Norris Does not sleep. He waits
6 Chuck Norris does not wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.
7 Chuck Norris is the reason why Wally is hiding

I think you understand and there are loads of facts on the internet, so when i said in the car "I cant believe you guys know Chuck Norris" ont of the best qoutes I have ever heard back was simply "Ēveryone Knows Chuck Norris"

Meeting new people in Latvia is great and one thing that ive noticed that the humor here is very black which suits me as I love funny sereal things. One day i had to go to a new youth centre which was getting small finishing touches done, but on the way we had to pick the centres camera from one of the young people. On the way i made a joke that we should take his money for being late and then my boss replied "yeh then we should kill his cat"........which I found funny any way.
It turned out to be one of my favourite days here, it was good to ge tout doors and do some hardwork. I had to cut bark of a log which was great fun, as I said before i hate confronation with people but give me an axe and im going to fuck your tree up.
The new centre is the great building which used to be a school and its located in quite a rurual area, and out side the building is this great stretch of land, near the back of the building is this lake and in the lake is a little island, it was are job to make a bridge then a path in the middle of this small island and then to help make a bonfire.
It was great that a team of people from Riga came to help ( this team actually turn out to be some of Latvias most famous musicians) at the time I had no idea, so I kept talking to them about youth work and what centre there from which In reply I got some very strange looks.
After the bonfire we go to a bread factory and we see how latvian black bread is made at the end of the tour we are offered some bread, to take back to the building with us, where we will all share the Bread with some Honey and Cheese, It was quite funny as all these people were taking the bread to be shared but my roomate Thibaut had other plans he was taking the bread and was putting it in his pockets. I asked him why and he replied that "I antcipate that there will be laods of bread left on the table so i can take home" which he did.
It was a great and very bohemian evening, we ate the food and then listened to some acoustic music from the musicians and even though I didnt understand it there were still some moments that were fantastic. After the music we watched a film on youtube made by the kids of the youth centre to show the musicians what kind of activities they do there, they even used on of the muisicans songs, I was stood next to him to see if if he was pleased or embarresed by this but the song choice seemed to not effect him, then the second song comes on and its only fucking David Hasselhof asking us all to jump in his car, if I was the musician I may have been deeply offeded by following my art and passion with the Hoff......or maybe its a great honour.

After the music finished we were all getting ready to go home, a woman who was one of the musicians asked what I was doing there, I said "im volunteering in Latvia" she said 'Interesting choice"and I suppose at the begening it was, bit now i feel more confidnet that it was the right choice.............................. even though yesterday (at the time of writing this) I'd set of the fire alarm again, Im now four and counting.

Tune in next week folks as we see our plucky hero tackle the language barrier at an Improvisational theatre show, called "what lines being said Anyway".