Away I go

well I have changed my mind I was going to write a blog titled "game over" which was going tell the account of how I got my ass kicked my six people aged 13-20 at ping pong (Latvians love ping pong who knew) but as I didn't have any similar stories Ive decided to write about my recent travels and the people Ive met along the way.

In the last three weekends i have met, had dinner with and consumed alcohol with people from-
Morroco, Spain, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, France, Italy, Hungary, Palestine, Algeria, Estonia, Tunisia, Molidivia, Bulgarian, Greek,......not all at the same time.
A couple of weeks ago i went to France to attend a training seminar, the seminar was about sustainable development, actually a lot more interesting than it sounds.
To get to France I had to go to Riga first, I was little worried and tired. I had to leave for Riga at six in the morning and then i found out that we wernt taking off until 3.30 then we land in Prague and have to stay in Prague for 4 hours and we wont land until 11.00 which worried me a little as everyone else was meeting at 7, and when we did land we had to get on this bus for 35 mins and then when we were on the bus ring a number that we were given, but because of the international block on the Latvian sim I have I couldn't make any outgoing calls and nor could my traveling companion.
So at this point she had the idea of going to get some food at her Aunts, so were on are way getting further and further away from the airport, and im starting to worry about time, walking through a strange town and then we got to a really old building and then at the apartment i can hear her dog bark,.....................as we went in , I saw that the place looked nothing like the outside it was like the Tardis , and there was a sweet old lady who could not speak a word of English sat me down, and then created a mini feast, massive cups of coffee, three boiled eggs, cheeses, breads and waffles. Its been said by someone before that I can be a bit of a hobbit but all my worries were gone with a nice full belly.
I had to use the communal toilet at the apartment and as i walked into the small old fashioned toilet trying to be funny and clever thinking oh i could write how this toilet looks like the one from trainspotting in my blog............i broke the pull handle.......fuck...when i thought the day was going to get better. I fixed it in the end, after three boiled eggs I was at the top of my game and only panicked a little.


Got to France quite late and found out I was sharing my room with a elderly gentleman from Morocco that looked just like Barrack Obamma's dad, who was nice enough guy but kept asking me if I was asleep when I had my eyes closed.
The week in France was great, and even got the chance to walk around the streets of Aix en Provence, which was full of rich yellows and browns and has a strong Mediterranean vibe to the place. Also got to go to Marseilles for the evening, went to the Notre Dame le garde at the top of this hill and you can see the whole of Marseilles, and it was very impressive.
Most of the guys went shopping but a few of us decided to have a look around the smaller areas and I even found a small independent cinema. It was funny because I was talking to this Italian girl about how much i miss watching films and going to the cinema than we find this one, and it was showing the Sam Mendes Movie 'away we go'. Absolutely brilliant one of the best films Ive see this year........and one of the best sound tracks ever, you cant argue with a film that has Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground.
It was nice to meet these people and will hopefully get to work with some of them soon for new projects i was even given a nick name from one of the Palestinian girls.....'Mr Smileyface. I'm not sure why Im getting these types of nick names I thought i give of the impression of a serious mysterious poetic young man ......................................................................................... but its probably closer to a permanently grinning rodent.

When I came back from France I had another seminar to go to, this one though was being held in Gulbene the place I'm living in which makes traveling a lot easier. This seminar was called 'Ā million reasons light is better than dark' and I already missed some very creative work shops and making some light installations because I joined the group of Estonians, Austrians, Latvians and Slovenians about five days after the rest of them arrived so i didn't have much time left to get to know everyone but I was lucky because they were all very friendly and sociable and on the first night i was with them I even learnt about Slovenian poetry.
On the last two days their were four workshops Fire juggling, Music, Theater and Synography. I decided to join the music work shop and the four of us decided to play the music for the theater guys. It was great jamming with them, we had around two days to practice and we all swapped instruments and I learned some new tricks on the guitar.
One of the funniest things was when i asked one of the Slovenian girls what the band should be called......and she came up with the 'Milk Tits'....even stranger was the dance that she made for the band which simply put just looked like she was milking her tits.?

Before the night of the big performance we had a party at a sauna house, which is as cool as it sounds, got very drunk and had some great Estonian Quiche and various fruits, as the party went on I got into a very philosophical chat about time, with an other Slovenian girl who is currently studying philosophy and then astronomy...... you cant beat drunken philosophical chats whilst at a party.
The sauna was hot, really hot at times I could hardly open my eyes. I shared it with some of the Estonian gang and they were telling how they like their saunas hot and how they also like to hit each other with branches....hard,................ so What else could I do I got smacked with a twig and maybe it was the heat or maybe it was the alcohol but I really enjoyed it....but they were taking it a little easier on me the next day one of the guys still had marks where they hit him so hard, Its also custom to roll in the snow after but as they wasn't any there Id just hang outside in my pants drinking a nice cold beer watching all of this steam just roll of my body, but then a few minutes later it got very, very cold.

Back at the party, people were drinking and dancing to Nick Cave.....so it was very good night. I forgot how much fun it is to dance to good music when your pissed, I havnt really drunk much since ive been here in Latvia, so it was nice to get my dance on....and oh believe me I can dance with the best of them, it was like I was back in the dance room in mielleinium ( a refrence to all my Plymouthian friends).
Through the night people were being picked up at various times, I was in the last group to leave. One thing Ive noticed about young Latvians is their dry sense of humour and when something goes wrong a lot of them just say 'fail',
when i was getting in to my seat in the car, the door got closed on my hand...it didnt hurt and my hand is fine but what was funniest is the fact that the guy who was driving us just said in a really dead pan way "ultimate fail"......it was funny at the time.

The next day we had the performance, I played the drums, guitar and the harmonica and I really enjoyed my self, it was only the third time Ive ever played in front of an audience and one the most sober times. I was once played in a Bar but I was pissed out of my face dressed up as "the dude"from the Big Lebowski....as i recall a very good night indeed. The performance was being held at the cultural center, and the group of us did a lot of rallying people and informing people the night before, at times it looked like the circus has come to town with a group of foreigners roaming the streets of Latvia holding posters, waving flame torches around and having a quick exhibition of the fire jugglers doing their stuff, all the while the band was making as much noise they could with the drums and shakers. Quite a number of people turned up at the cultural center and it was great night of music and entertainment and the place looked fantastic with all the light installations put up and the lanterns that everyone made.
The theater was great as it starts out with using shadows only, inside a huge white cube then the guys come out of the cube and you notice the fantastic face paint their wearing and then the music and the dancing start to work together. Hopefully Ill be able to show you all a video of it soon.


Its been a very busy couple of weeks and Im probably forgetting lots of stories. Its also been very culturally diverse and I have learnt lots of things from lots of different people in such a short amount of time ....but if i take one thing learn from it, well ive learnt this. THE MILK TITS ARE THE BEST BAND EVER!