Raise the Alarm

Well, here is part three of my latvian adventure, now at this point I feel I have to tell you that as crazy as some of this may sound, all thoughts, feelings and events actually happened at the time.

Its saturday night and I am at my mentors house, we have just had dinner and finished watching a movie (yes man) and i know at this point that soon I will be walking home. Latvia is still very new to me and I dont really know if its safe or freindly and the walk home is at least 20-30 mins, so im beggeining to worry. Only a little of course.
Unfortuantley physical confrontation is another thing that I dont excell at. If i am involved in a conflict I have three methods to deal with the problem. The first is to run. The second is to act mad and slightly insane, I saw this work in the cartoon Hey Arnold. Arnold was getting bullied so he decided to baffle and scare his foe by acting completley insane, he used the dancing to James Brown technique. My technique would be something basic yet effective....maybe I'd start to eat my shoe or something. The third and most effective method is to offer food and try to tame your foe, this actually worked once back home and has made me believe since that anyone looking for a fight has really only got the grumps because they havnt eaten today.
As im leaving the apartment I asked Maris if it was safe and he assured me that it was, he said "šure, sure its safe, i mean it is for me". That didnt feel me with total confidence but i have to get used to my surroundings and it wasņ't that late anyway. Option 1 was out because i could run, but whereto I dont know where I am, option 3 was out because i had no food on me, so it looks like the acting slighlty mad option it was going to be.
The thing is Maris was right I had nothing to worry about at all, because there was no one in the streets,because no elese was dumb enough to be walking outside because it was fucking freezing.

Gulbene has a strange beauty in the evening, with the lack of street lights and the cold crisp air it can make the place very atmospheric. As im walking to my apartment, i have to walk through country lanes and on each side of the road are lots of trees and on the left is a wide river, with old style wooden houses and there is even a well in one of the gardens. I look up and I see the most fantastic evening sky Ive seen since I saw shooting stars in India. The stars were so clear and it gave me a great comofrting feeling, I got the same feeling in India and even Blockhouse park, a park which is around the corner of my house and is the highest natural point in Plymouth dont you know.
As Ive turned the corner there is a street light right by my place but it sort of put too much light on everything and I could see this really eerie mist coming from around the corner and everything started to look like the eastern european viallge from the game Resident Evil 4, where the hero has to face against a group of zombie peasents and farmers and this massive bloke with a chainsaw and a brown bag over his head, my walk turned in to a fast pace. Then I started to hear a noise i turned off my I pod and it was the dogs barking and then my fast pace turned into a lazy mans run and i was home in two mins.

As i got home i still had nothing to do, though I am starting to get a routine, My flatmate was in his room watching movies, I decided to put the radio on and read a book. The radio here is fascinating, there is one station called Star FM which plays a lot of recognisable music but its always the same songs, it starts with Beyonce and then Rightsaid Fred, Green Day, the Jai Ho song and then as Im feeling a little vulnearble comes on everybody Hurts by REM, the Irony was not lost on me.
I was feeling vulnrable because of the book I am currently reading which is called Slaughterhouse five, this deals with issues surrounding life and death, and when faced with these issues you cant help but be a little reflective about the decisions you have made and along with the REM song, it occured to me that Im far away from my loved ones, Im cold and Im not sure what kind of project Ill be doing...maybe i rushed things slighlty (i didnt though). Then in around an hours time and Im being completley honest with you here, it was like the light at the end of the tunnel , a sound through the fog, as I was reading I subconciously started to listen to the song and what i heard was -
Here is a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don't worry be happy
In every life we have some trouble
When you worry you make it double
Don't worry, be happy......

all I could do was laugh, turn off the raido and i knew that tommorow was going to be a good day.

Now the next day was sunday and on sunday the centre in which I work at BAZE , is closed but me and Thibault are allowed to go in there and use the facilities like the internet and the DVD player
All we have to do is lock up and put in the alram code. Now before I carry on with this tale you have to know that the language barrier can be a litle difficult some times, all the workers at the centre and my flatmate speak English but they cant understand a word im saying because of my accent. It seems like the Aviva adverts have not made it to this part of the world yet and the concept of Janner is wasted on them. For those who dont know, I am from the south west which may give me a slight accent when i speak certain words, and over here it seems to have baffled my Latvian friends. Especially my French room mate, who seems to ask me to repeat my self an awful lot, I too have difficulty sometimes understanding people sometimes but I tend to act very English and poilite and rather than ask people to repeat themselves i just nod my head and smile which I thought would be fine and not get me in any trouble.

Back to the tale there are two alarm codes one as you first come in and one on the third floor where the office is and the Computer room. As there was no one there apart from Thibault who goes to the centre very early at 8 every day (working times are usually 12-8 in the evening) i thought that it would be ok to go in as the codes would of already be put in (as i didnt want to do it as Ive never used an alarm before) I got a phone call from Thibault saying that the door was open and the 1st floor alarm was deactivated but the office on the 3rd floor was armed, i thought to myslef thats fine because im not going in the office im going to the computer room, so i go upstairs not a problem and then im on the 3rd floor there are three rooms the TV room, the Computer Room and the Office the alarm is right next to the office so thought ill be safe and go no where near it. I go into the computer room to find it empty but evidence showing that Thibault has just left, cos his laptop was still there, so i guess hes over the road having lunch, great i can use the internet to write my 2nd blog in peace and then all i could hear was _PEEP_PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP .Ive set the alrm off, I started to panic I and I try to remember the code, I did have them on a slip of paper but I lost it, none of the codes im putting in are working PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP, fuck fuck fuck fuck, but its ok ill Ring Thibault and he can tell me the code....................... my phone is out of battery, so I do what anyone else would do, ill put on my boots and Iļl get the fuck out of there and as Im leaving I notice that the front door is open. My Initial thoughts were great Thibault is back or one of the other Workers heard the noise ..................but no, it was a 6ft2 Latvian policeman that looked like Ivan Dragoš (from Rocky 4 people) skinnier brother, Luckly he wasņt holding an AK47 but a massive walkie talkie that still could of done damage if it was busted over my head. I started to talk to him hoping that he could speak English......he didn't. Ok I thought what can I do...........................well I could always eat my shoe.

The Policeman seemed to be ok and did not look at me as an intruder, we went to the alarm and randomly pressed buttons, i said "Ill be back to him" (which made me laugh to myslef of course) and I went to find Thibault, which was quite easy as he was on his way back, he said that he told me about the alarm, he may well of done, I dont what Ive been agreeing to in the last five days. He also found this terribly funny and at the time I wasnt to ammused with the whole situation.
So just another day in Latvia, the rest of the day was long after that excitement and I had to make jobs to do to fight the boredom, I drew cartoons of the parrots that stare at me...whos mocking who now eh.
I cooked a meal and then when it was late i once again put on the raidio. Star FM was putting on the usual, Beyonce and then Rightsaid Fred, Green Day, the Jai Ho song and then as Im feeling a little vulnearble comes on everybody Hurts by REM... Do you know what.................FUCK the radio i have Tetris on my phone.
And I knew that tomorrow was going to be a good day.

Well Latvian fans Tune in next week to find our reluctant hero battle the huge viatamin tablets that aunty Tam gave him and the difficulties of being a veggie in Latvia, in the next exciting tale titled "Would you be concerned if you Urinated Bright Orange Wee"