Rob and sanj's Excellent adventure Part 1

Well last week I had a friend from sunny Plymouth come to visit me here in Latvia. AS I wanted to show Rob around I had to think of things to do...so he comes to Latvia and the first Idea I have is to go to Estonia and visit their capital city Tallinn.
The best thing had to be the fact that he brought
English Tea Bags
Brannigans: beef and Mustard (veggie friendly of Course)
Mojo magazine, Q Magazine and Nuts *ahem
and Last but no means least a jar of Branston pickle...which believe me friends nearly brought a tear to these old eyes.
The first night was fun, the Hostel was fantastic and the beer was a pound...two beers later and huge shot, we found ourselves conversing with latvians, Canadians, Australians and Chile...ans ???(well people from Chile).
The drinking was fun...but the 3 and half hour journey back to Gulbene wasnt, I was ok, But Rob suffered a little more than me, but soon as we got back to the flat...time for Pro EVO ( for those not familiar with Pro EVO, well its the best football game in the world and if you prefer FIFA then stop reading my Blog and Fuck off).

Now since Ive been here I haven't had any problems with anyone, none of the locals or any of the rivals but for some reason Rob attracted the crazies.
The first time was on the way to Riga, I had to leave for a minute (to go toilet around the corner of the bus station) as I came back a strange old man is trying to converse with my English friend who at the time was looking quite bemused by the whole situation, luckily I know enough Latvian to tell people I can't speak Latvian.
When we were in Riga we went to the cinema to watch a film "From Paris with Love" I read one review that i had to agree with which described the movie as Rubilliant...something which is rubbish and brilliant at the same time...any film with John Travolta as a fat and bald special agent with a black dyed beard is worth watching. Now when you buy the tickets here you have to choose the row and the seat number so we picked the ones in the middle...but it didn't really matter as the place was practically empty so what were the odds we would be in someones seat...........well Im glad Im not a betting man...5 minutes into the film a Latvian gentlemen walks over says to me in Latvian that I'm in his seat..there were seats all around us but he wanted that one, luckily I didn't have to move he just sat one seat away from me...very odd.

When we were in Riga we didn't have long until we had to get the bus to Estonia. So we had a bit of lunch with some traditional food (pizza followed by Ice cream.
As I was in the bookshop picking something up for the journey (Frankenstein and selected poems by Edgar Allen Poe- I was in the mood for something dark).
As i left the shop I see that Rob was having another strange encounter with one of Latvia's finest drunks...this guy was a little harder to talk to as and a little more aggressive his face was right in robs asking for money...but luckily I knew how to diffuse this situation I just used the old short charm..distract and run.

However our meetings with European drunks didn't end here..no..unfortunately it got worse. The Bus to Tallinn (Estonia) was a 4 hour and a bit journey and on this bus was one Estonian gent who was going to get through this journey the only way he knew how...drunk...very very drunk.
Now he was sat in front of rob and I was sat behind rob,,so for most of the journey I didn't notice him..sometimes I can hear some shouting over the noise coming from my I pod but in general I didn't care. Rob however started to get annoyed, he couldn't sleep because the guy kept hiccuping (we timed him and he went on for half an hour). I tried to help Rob by telling him not to be so up tight, relax, don't let him bother you and even suggested that he should just move. Half an hour later Rob got to sleep and when he woke he found that the man was gone...moved...thats right he moved...moved right behind me.
I tried to talk to the man to befriend him so in that way he may choose to be quiet and to stop disturbing me from reading but unfortunately nothing... he would say some nonsensical things in English and then carried on drinking and spilling beer on the floor....which flowed on to the bottom of my bag..then he would put his face in between the my chair and the chair next to me...say something in Estonian and then would proceed in reading Frankenstein with me.....well enough was enough I turned around looked him straight in the eye "excuse me, Im trying to read my book if you don't mind" well that showed him he went back to his seat...at the next stop the driver saw that this guy was so wasted that he forced him to sit at the front of the bus.

When the bus arrived we were greeted by our Estonian hosts Jaanika and Bono the Dog.

Please stay tuned for next week for Part 2 Rob and Sanj's Bogus Journey

I was looking for a job.....I found a job....heaven knows Im adequte now

Last week me and Thibault were accompanied with a visitor. One of the ex EVS volunteers came back to visit Latvia and stayed at the flat. It was really nice having someone else at the apartment. For me it was nice to hear people talking and having a conversation without being one of the people involved (Thibaut doesn't really like a lot of company at the flat and if I do hear talking then its usually Thibaut talking to himself.....which he does an awful lot). It was nice to talk to someone who has experienced the things which I'm experiencing right now and I was even able to get a few tips...One of the biggest ones was how to improve my Latvian and the answer was.......volunteer at the local nursery. As I have done nursery work in England and a little in India I felt that it was brilliant idea....as I have never found that type of work as work. This may be because I still have a lot of growing up to do...but come on why decide to work in an office all day, go to a job from nine to five, having to wear a tie or worse, when you could be helping kids paint or play with plasticine or reading stories.....you do need to be creative and at times patient but other than that its one of the best jobs Ive ever had (though I haven't been a paid musician or director or blog writer.....yet).
Plus its one of of the jobs Ive ever been good at
* Waiter - only kept on as it was my grandparents restaurant...however was demoted to dishwasher
* working at a bakery's- sacked because I couldn't make a sandwich to their standards after 5 weeks..a thing that my closest friend still wont forget or remind me often
* Telephone salesmen- sacked on my first day and also the day that the aforementioned friend got promoted
* shop assistant- got the job as my friends already worked there and convinced the manger at the time....lasted a while, god knows that they had enough excuses, but I was good for morale...fact
* barman- fantastic laugh yet not enough hours in the summer...somehow tricked my way to supervisor position.
I believe that for me the future is in volunteering which im reasonably adequate at.

back to the story.....now I went to the nursery with Margaretha and she talked to the headteacher for me to start and go every Thursday working with four year olds.
Now she wasnt wrong about learning Latvian because if i don't learn some stuff soon then the kids will run riot....sentences I need to learn
stop hitting
speak slowly
don't fight
stop laughing at me
put the gun down

The kids were a little frightened at first but it was ok as were all going to a puppet show in the main hall. All I can say is thank fuck I was well rested because that was the most trippy thing I have ever seen...erie looking puppets of animals hanging about in the woods....a dog playing the harpsichord and a lady fox dressing up as mrs Santa cluas...at the end the puppeteers completely broke the fourth wall by coming out of their hiding positions to say goodbye......rubbish, I saw their lips move...but the children seemed to love it.
Later on we all went outside to play in the snow...I heard a few of the kids talking and conspiring and then one shouting hey English, I turned around and .....THUMP ...snowball in the face (well it was more like a shard of Ice)
however even though their was slight trouble with the language I had a great time and Im looking forward to going back in a couple of weeks......because next week Im off to Estonia with a friend from England...and I going to drink and become happy in a haze of a drunken hour ...see you around readers.

snow, snow everywhere... yet not a tree to pee.

we all have things we want to do before we leave the world behind us....I have many dreams...I want to have a drink and share pringles with David Bowie at my local pub...I want to learn how to fix pocket watches......and I would like to insert adamantium claws into each hand....but now one thing I can tick of my list and that is watching Latvian motor racing in the freezing cold.
There was cause for celebration as there was one British team taking part (they didnt do very well) but I did show them support with my pillow which incidently has a union jack on the front.
But the racing wasn't the best thing about that day...no the best thing was that i finally got to go in a tractor....well more precisely on a tractor as I was sitting in the big bit in the front that scoops all the mud.
Standing in the cold for two and half hours did have its challenges. For example my snickers bar which I was saving became very hard to eat and that goes double for my ornage...plus my body became cold and also I needed to wee quite badly. Drinking tea did not help....drinking tea with Balzams ( Very strong Latvian Liquor) made me warmer yet I was always hoping that the warm sensation running through my body was the liquor and not piss.
After watching a couple of laps and having a ride on the tractor we dcided to go back as I was not the only one who was having trouble with their bladder.
However we did have a problem....the car wouldnt start...we tried pushing but nothing helped...luckily I had my pillow just in case we had to stay their for a while....help was on the way yet I could not hold it any more...I left the car to wee.
Now the first thing I had to do was get out of the road as we were on the track of the actual rally.....they only get timed at certain parts..luckily this wasnt one of the parts but they were still pretty fast...so looking around me to find the best place to go...I saw....I saw a vastness of nothing....just fields and fields all covered in deep snow.
Their was a tree close to the car but surrounded by a blanket of whitness and as I walked to the snow..I realised why their were no other footprints...becasue it was a stupid idea.
After getting waist deep in snow...i had to walk ten minutes from the car to find an isolated place and ....im not proud but I had to wee in the middle of the road no shelter...it was out and luckily I was alone....sorry gran.

After that pleasent story I can tell you all now readers...Ive been so busy lately....always dreamed when I was younger that by the time I was 26 id be living some sort of rock n roll lifestyle.
Well how about this for rock n roll...last week I went to a textile museum and then a few days after that I took a ride on the oldest train in Latvia and ive been making videos for presentations for youth centers and schools..Ive also been to the biggest art academy in Latvia....I know its not very rock and roll but I like it....like it yes I do.

"you want fame.......well fame costs"

So, ive been back now for just over two weeks, trying to get in the same momentum that I had last year. One big change is that I now have the bedroom which is fantastic, Ive already bought the insence,candles and a new plant. Ive also put all my stuff from India in there along with my Beatles poster and R2D2, and it looks like a hippie paradise....just how I like it. Thibualt is struggling with the sofa bed though...so we have come to an agreement Ill keep the room but he can have the bed, and we will move the sofa bed in my room, so in that case were both happy I have a place to hide from the world and he can sleep comfortably in the front room....I hope guests wont find it too strange as they would have to sit on Thibault's bed ...having a cup of tea and some biscuits.

In this issue Ill will be talking about fame and the price you have to pay when you finally get it.
There have been many great songs about fame, there is "Fame"from David Bowie....um..."fame"from the movie fame .....and "when will I, will I be Famous"from the fantastic wordsmith Luke Goss and his band Bros. Well Luke you should of come to Latvia.

Now Gulbene is a small district in Latvia and and to say Ive had an impact.... would be a slight exaggeration. But I have been in two movie since my time here, and you have to admit I have some credible acting range(un-named, and waiter).
I feel I have perfected the presence of a very uncomfortable man wanting to be somewhere else....years of practice I suppose.
Ive also been in the local paper to promote my presence here in Gulbene and certain projects that I do like English lessons and my media group.
What is also quite funny that Im now on tour....in a way, im going to different schools promoting volunteering and the youth center ( Ive even been asked to give a shout out in my blog to the high school in Juan-gulbene)
Also my very controversial in your face band, the Milk tits wrote a Christmas album last year called "spray your milky egg nogg" which got some great recognition in the underground scene.
There has been a few perks, getting recognized in the street, groupies and the drugs, but you know its a very hollow lifestyle.

One of my favourite achievements here in Latvia though, and one of the funniest is that last week I filmed the local awards ceremony. Its one of the first times I have had to film anything and a fucking awful job I did too, but as it happens I was the only one filming and the local news wanted to do a piece about it the next day, so they used my footage, unfortunately I don't have a TV that shows any channels, but apparently the next day they used an edited version of the footage and afterwards, the screen showed "footage filmed by Sonny Short" fuck you Luck goss...look at me now.
However like Icarus who flew too close to the sun, I seemed to of rouse the suspicion of an important person here in Latvia and that man is The "immigration officer".
So it looks like my debauched lifestyle has come to an end and my new arch nemesis seems to have heard a little too much about the English guy who insists of hanging around his town. As I didn't have my passport on me, the gentlemen will be back to get my details this week, I would try and challenge him but he has the second best mustache I have seen in Latvia ( the winner being a Lady I saw at the shops) so as soon as I can grow hair around my face.....its on.
So I hope this is a lesson for any young people out there looking for fame, don't try so hard, get by on your own wit and charm and always look out for the immigration officer who is ready to take you down.

long time "snow" see

well the blog is back and I am going to continue telling you all about my adventures here in Latvia.
I hope that you all had a great Christmas and enjoyed your nut roasts ( i have decided that if everyone presumes that I eat meat and everyone eats meat, then I will counteract this by presuming that everyone is a vegetarian)however apologies to those allergic to nuts.
I had a fantastic time back home with my friends and family and it did make my final days of my visit very difficult to say goodbye.
As I was preparing to get back to Latvia i had one worry and that was how much will my luggage weigh and how much will Ryan air fuck me over if my bags were too heavy.
The worry was that I was taking more things then i left with, I now had more luxurious items on board with me.
As I now had experience and knew what to expect in Gulbene, i knew that I had to take my X box, around 30 films and twenty of my favourite CDs for those lonesome evenings. Not only that I also now have the pleasure of announcing once again, that I sonny Short am an owner of a onesy.
My family are awesome as they helped to prepared me for the remaining journey, they tooled me up with

An army green itchy as hell onesy
a 1930's style bomber hat
Custard creams
spices
cous-cous (the food so nice they named it twice)
chocolates
A Union Jack pillow
new books
veggie dumplings
a sign for my door that says "what would Elvis do"
A candle and of course, my R2D2 clock that projects the time on the wall

I was worried that all these things would add up and weigh me down. I was also worried about the weather and the journey up to London but it actually turned out quite good.
On the road i was accompanied with my Dad and Grandad short, thats right the shorts went on a road trip to London, we had flasks of tea, coffee an assortment of crisps and sweets and cheese and pickle sandwiches. It was awesome I do like the little things in life and when you have lots of little things adding together well then its bliss, and how can you beat a coffee with a pack of McCoys a cheese and pickle sandwich, reading a music magazine, traveling in a back of a car listening to some of the finest soul music produced in the 60's. I do like traveling and whenever i get into a backseat of car, wherever its a friends or family members the first thing I want to do is have a little sleepy.

As the weather was so unpredictable and the journey was five hours long, we left at 8 in the evening to get there for 5 in the morning as plane left at 6, we shouldnt of worried so much as they was no problems at all and the roads were so clear we were making perfect time, we were going to be so early that we stopped regularly (even ten minutes before the airport) and as we got there it had the feel of some sort of refugee camp with various people sleeping on the floor waiting for their flights, we went for a coffee around the corner of the counter and hour later the lines were unbelievable.
As I was waiting in the line the inevitable happened my rucksack strap snapped, the x box was too heavy for the strap........however I still had one more, all it needed to do was hold the weight till i got home, the problem was that it nearly broke before and i used a staple to keep it attached to the bag and now I had to rely on this small staple to last until i got back to the flat which would insist of a 40 minute walk from the bus station to my place.........did it fuck.
As i got to the bag dropping zone the lady informed me that my luggage was to heavy and I had to get rid of half a kilo....half a fucking kilo..I had to wear a tshirt, a shirt, a hoodie and a huge jacket with a bulging bag with one workable strap held on by a staple carrying my old style camera, unwashed and under-nourished and the worst thing is not everything was saved....no custard creams, no veggie dumplings...not even my cous-cous was able to come along.

As I got in to Latvia I had to wait for a bus to drive to gulbene, luckily that wait gave me enough time to watch a film in the nearby cinema (sherlock Holmes, at least 7 out of 10) 3 and half hours later I made it to gulbene and then the staple gave way (fuck you staples Ive always preferred glue and binders), I had to make some straps out of the surviving bits of the bag, which was extremely uncomfortable walking in freezing weather and a lot of snow (photos will be up shortly)I had to also get food for shopping and I fell over on the road twice, the journey felt like a life time but luckily I didnt crack my eggs.

However you have to make the best of a bad situation, I got home unpacked, had some spaghetti, a cup of tea, biscuits and watched a DVD of the Old Grey Whistle test, Put up new decorations for the flat, played some pro evo listened to some music lit some candles, and rang my parents. My dad was so tired he crashed out when he got home, only to be woken my mum who made him breakfast in bed with a hot steaming bath, he was so confused he thought that he might of crashed the car......good work mum.
I ended my first night back all snug in my onesy wearing my bomber hat mentally preparing my self for whats to come.

Just another clip blog

Now if you know your TV history you know that whenever you have a long running show you will always get a shitty clip show, a sort of recap of all the "best"bits from that particular series. Well I don't know if its been done before but i am going to write a "clip blog" this is going to be a way of just recapping certain adventures Ive had in My Latvian adventure.

Now Im creative but unfortunately Im not as creative as I would like. I wish I could be some sort of artistic poet, or maybe a painter or a hobo musician from 50s America traveling across the open country on fright trains. One of the first jobs I ever wanted was to be a cartoonist and even today I have fantasies about being In a band, not selling any records and then in twenty years time some artist wants to make a documentary about the Impact that my small band had on the music industry. However with all this passion for art, music and to certain extent performing there was one thing always in the way.........my lack of talent.

Now in the last two months Ive been here I have had the opportunity to show my creative side and even practice certain skills and talents.

Drawing.
Now Man loti patik Gloznot. This in Latvian means , i really enjoy drawing ( I know your Impressed) and I do enjoy it but when it comes to art I've had a wall in front of me, I can get to certain point then everything turns to shit.....my peak is cartoons. I think its the child in me but Ive always been able to draw cartoons or doodles but when it comes to actual reality, i struggle my brain and my hands just stop co operating with each other. At the beginning I had spare time to practice my gloznot, and I even tried to draw something real....the picture of the parrots. The usual happened and it turned into some surreal childish doodle and then I started drawing Uncle Ben eating jars of KoK, maybe My art teacher was right that my approach to art was always too childish.......actually fuck him...being childish is my artistic style and for me well sometimes reality needs to be altered.

Music
For those who know me well, know that I have been practicing harmonica now for around five years, and its probably the only musical Instrument i have ever been average at.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to perform with the amazing new band "the Milk Tits". Ive played in front of my friends and small groups of people but never to a big hall, and I wasnt always on the harmonica I had to play guitar and the drums too (not at the same time, though that would be hilarious) which took me out of my comfort zone a little. The best thing was that we playing music for the theater workshop, so we didn't have to play a song just make some atmospheric sounds and If it was out of key or if it didnt have any rhythm well thats ok because it was art and improvisational and we could just say it was meant to be like that. However after we finished the next band was running late so a few of us went back on stage to do a performance of creep.....now I watched it the other day and all I could think was fuck, im really bad at the drums. Though every band has one bad performance and we have to start somewhere I think that im just going to stick with my harmonica. Undeterred I have plans to write the "milk tits" Christmas album.

Acting
Well some of you may know that about six weeks ago I went to watch some improvisational theater, and I was thoroughly confused by the whole thing, Partly due to it all being in Latvian and partly due to the double whiskey I was drinking.
Now for the last three years of my life ive been a student..and one of the quintessential elements of being a student is day time TV. Now yove got to be smart,too much is bad, if you wake up too early then you may get enticed with the E4 morning schedule.Smallville, One tree Hill , now this is bad enough but its ok at 12 45 scrubs is on but what to do before then well unfortunately on E4 its the fucking Gilmore girls so dont get stuck in a rut, shop around try different channels and for me Dave can help at these vital moments even though youve seen that episode of Top gear far too many times before...what else are you going to do get out of bed and study. Now one of my favorite day time television shows has to be Who's line is it any way USA (which can be found on channel Five USA) now I used to watch it thinking to my self If I ever got in a position where I could have a go at doing what there doing then Id do it, however I never thought that I would be doing it in Latvia.
Well last weekend thats exactly what I did, I took part in Improvisational theater, and I have to admit i was quite nervous, I mean we had a practice before people arrived but I never though that there would be so many people, and it was mostly In Latvian. We had to work in teams and luckily for me my team had good English skills and we had a plan for the first game kill me off, kill me off early. So the first thing I had to do was pretend to get shot in the head...another great role for my CV.
As a child I starred as a cabbage In Jack and the Beanstalk, Ive been in two short movies in Latvia, my roles being Random guy and waiter and now Im pretending to get shot in the head....im moving up the ladder of success me thinks.

All in all, I still haven't found that special artistic skill that i have but I do try.....maybe thats my special skill, some people are good at football, some are good at maths ...Im good at trying haha

The Big One O

Well here it is, the tenth blog of my great Latvian adventure and it´s put me in a somewhat reflective mood. I never thought that I would make it to ten. Firstly I thought that I would get bored of writing all the time (which sometimes I do) and secondly, I thought that things would start getting more, you know.....normal, and that I would run out of stories to tell. But writing these blogs have been great for me to tell you all about the strange, the mad and the weird. What´s funny is that the blogs themselves have now become internationally known, they are read in parts of Europe, Asia, South America................................ and they all agree that my spelling is awful. Though I have had some really nice comments from others. I have even spoke to the first EVS volunteer that stayed here in Gulbene and she told me the origin of all the pictures of animals in the flat and the reason why there is a huge plant in the corner of the front room.
However for all you critics I now have an editor to help keep the spelling and grammar in check, this is just the start of bigger things, although when I say editor it´s probably fairer to say a lovely friend who is willing to help me.

Last weekend I hosted a party for all the people that I met on my on-arrival-training in Riga about a month ago. The party was organised by my new mentor Justinē, which was good as she did all of the organising, as I´ve been so busy lately with work and joining various projects. At the time I probably wasn´t in the party mood for several reasons. One being the fact that I was starting to get a bit tired of all the partying I´ve been doing, I love to party but I also need time to rest and be on my own. The second reason was that on that weekend, thousands of miles back home In Plymouth my ex-classmates from Uni were all celebrating their graduation. This put me in a bit of a sombre mood. It´s quite hard to give yourself a goal, work really hard for three years and achive that goal, especially at times when I didn´t think it was possible. I´m really pleased with how I did but I haven´t been able to celebrate with the people who helped me along the way. I couldn´t celebrate on the day we got our results because I was In India, but that ended ok with a sneaky beer on the rocks next to the river by the house.
But graduation is a chance to celebrate together, but as always Pa short had some great advice, "the awards are great but at the end of the day they are just trinkets and baubles". I know he´s right. You give your self personal goals and that´s what they are personal and you may forget the rewards that you have over time but the things you learned and the experiences you gain will last forever.

Well thats a bit too deep for this story. Let´s get back to the reasons I don´t like hosting parties. Here´s the big one: If it´s shit you can´t leave.
But thankfully it was a great and I think everyone had a great time. It was interesting to get their perspective on the flat, some were shocked with the smell of the water and the sleeping arangements and the pictures of random animals every where. One guy was saying that if im not happy I should do something about it, but I suppose I am happy, very happy, its not perfect by any means, but I have two choices - whine and complain, or just get on with it. There are times when it can be difficult here but the work is perfect for me and the opportunities are amazing, I’ve met so many people and already seen a lot and its still very early in my journey. Next year I´m going to travel across the Baltic countries and then see how far I can get after that.

I had a great time meeting the guys once again and I will meet them again soon somewhere else in December. But for the week it was back to work, I have created a couple of new interest groups at the centre and recently bought a really old manual camera, which I can´t wait to learn how to use because then I can develop my own pictures in the bathroom, which would be great as the red light will distract people´s attention from the orange stains and mould on the wall.

Plus I joined another project at the end of the week with people from Lithuania, Poland and Latvia. The centre was hosting a project that focused on the importance of young people being polictically active and there were workshops on how to make videos. So I even starred in my second short film in Latvia and my roles are getting higher, first I was just a random guy but in my second role my character had a name which was .................................waiter. Hopefully that film will also be on YouTube.
At the end of the week the group went to the capital, and in Riga we went to the Latvian parliament and even met the ex-Minister of Finance. This was fun, as Latvia is in a current economic crisis and also spent two million Lats (which is close to two million pounds) on a bridge that hasn´t even been completed yet. I donned my serious face, and gave him some hard-hitting journalistic questions about these issues.....worryingly he sort of just laughed the issue away and said this, I quote,
"when I was starting out in Politics a superior said to me you can make two types of decisions when you´re a politician a bad one........or an even worse one".............Knob.

Riga is a great place and the hostel I stayed in was awesome. Any place where they greet you with a free beer is going to be a good place especially when they have the Beatles, Rolling stones and Dylan on the video juke box. The nightlife is active in Riga, but they don´t start until quite late and as I was in English party mode, I started drinking at eight but it´s ok, people caught up, and me and the Lithuanian guys even managed to sneak into a night club full of cheesy euro trance music and Russians.
I learned a lot from these guys: They are currently squatting in England and have made getting stuff for free into an art form.


Once again I had another great week in Latvia and drinks with some new international friends.
But next week I think I´m going to take it easy with a new book, a cup of tea and some biscuits. It´s coming up to two months of being here now and the time has gone fairly fast, I´m going home for Christmas in December but after that I might have to do a full seven-month stretch away from home and whether it will be easy or not, who knows, but I´m sure I will have some stories to tell.