Viktoria Goes Abroad: 2013

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Canal boat weekend

One of my weekends here was especially pleasant thanks to my lovely colleague Claire and her parents who invited me to spend some time with them on their boat in England. I was delighted by the invitation – I always wanted to live on the boat!

Claire's parents are very interesting and pleasant people. Well, just their way of living makes them special for me, but I must say that they are the people who could write motivational books. For example, her mum gave up her job in the bank and went back to school, so that she could become the nurse, which was always her dream job.

Claire's dad is hypnotherapist. “Why is that Buddha without the head?” I asked him, when I saw that the little statue on the table has the head separately next to it. He just shrugged his shoulders: “It is a good reminder that nothing in this world is permanent.” Well it is something that would Yoda or your other favourite movie wise-man would say, isn't? (I know, Yoda would probably use some weird sentence structure instead...)

Nala, the dog. She didn't like me.

He added that he will probably attach the string to it, so that the statue looks like the toy dogs that nod with their heads. And facing the resentful look of his daughter, he just laughed: “What? I think that Buddha would approve!”

Our boat trip. Tea included!

On Saturday, we attended the birthday party of a one-year kid, who was related to Claire. The party was at the school and it was quite a big event, I guess that British people have slightly different approach to kids parties than us. Balloons, garlands, a lot of food, a lot of kids and their parents, family members and weird unrelated visitors (just like me).

In the evening we played Mahjong (a game that is very popular in China and I never managed to learn it, though I spent six weeks there, but this game is probably my fate anyway, because I finally played it on the canalboat in England, such a random place to learn a Chinese game), drank some tea and ate biscuits. And probably for the first time here in Britain, I felt hot, because inside the boat there was a little stove. The cosy boat was really different from those cold big houses so common in Britain.

Playing Mahjong in the evening.

Sunday: a boat trip. About two miles there and back again… and it took us half a day, because we went through eight locks. It was fun and a little bit challenging physically, I didn't regret that I missed my weekend class at gym at all.

Dog is always helping us steer the boat.

The boat is about 25 metres long, but in the evening there were 10 people and one dog in there (Claire, her brother and his new girlfriend; her sister with two kids and their father, both Claire’s parents and of course me. And the dog.). Well, you know what they say: the more the merrier. And without any doubt, I declare this weekend my best weekend here in Wales!

(Fun fact: it was in England…)

Me, opening the lock.

Claire's dad.

Mushroom-picking adventure

After many days in the office, it is always a good idea to enrich your life by some poetry and go outside and have a walk in the fresh air, isn't it? Especially when you can spend some time in the woods of Wales with your colleagues from the publishing company…

During the weekend, I attended two poetry events. I liked it, but I have to admit, that the poet inside me is lost (or has never been there) and my inner life is definitely not as rich as I thought. Anyway, after these two events, we had the company meeting in Cardigan. And the last bullet on the list describing our agenda for the meeting said: “The Guide to Successful Mushroom Picking Learning to Survive in the Woods”. After the discussion about more serious things and drinking a couple of mandatory cups of black tea with milk, we all set off for the mushroom-picking adventure as an original teambuilding activity.

We were given an A4 paper with the pictures of both poisonous and edible mushrooms, two baskets and optimistic idea of eating mushrooms as a breakfast. Most of us apparently never picked mushrooms before and it didn't help that some people told us these fabulous stories about various kinds of mushrooms causing death. To tell you the truth, I thought, that this all might be some weird kind of natural selection or just a rough way of firing the employees, in case we pick the wrong ones.

But after all, the mushrooming was awesome. Crossing the small river using the tree was fun and team bonding, walking in the woods refreshing and toasts with mushrooms for breakfast were delicious.

And apart from the work experience I gained here using InDesign and Illustrator, I will probably add to my CV “mushroom picking” as my skill. You never know, it might be useful someday...

That's us!

So far I have only paper with instructions in the basket...

Somewhere in the woods.

Special birthday post

Today is my father’s birthday. As I am in Wales, I cannot celebrate with him, so I decided to give him instead of usual flowers and material presents this special blog post and video. Following video was filmed in 13 different countries and you can hear 13 different languages in it, people singing, waving, laughing, jumping, playing piano… as a small birthday gift to you, daddy! :-)

Happy Birthday! You are the best dad in the world. Thank you for everything. I love you.

And of course: huge thanks to all my friends all over the world, my family and all strangers I met along the way, who participated in this little project of mine. I am happy that you are in my life, that you are ready to help and bring happiness.

In this video participated people from: Brazil, China, Czech Republic, England, Georgia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea and Wales.

Filming locations: Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Georgia, Germany, Indonesia, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, South Korea, Sweden and Wales.

(And I strongly recommend to turn the volume up, so that you can hear everything properly.)

Visiting the House of Lords

When I decided to do the internship in the Welsh publishing company, I didn’t think I will end up visiting the “River Room” in the British parliament. But sometimes the best things are those unexpected.

I got this amazing chance to attend the talk by Angela V. John, reputable historian and really lovely person, which was held in the House of Lords. Her new book Turning the Tide was recently published by Parthian books, where I currently work and was lucky to get the invitation to her lecture.

I felt like in those movies, where there is a villain trying to blow up British parliament and before that, he just casually and courteously talks to the other people at the event. (And I suppose I would be the villain in this story, as I wore red lipstick and out of all visitors, I was probably the one with the name which sounds most Russian-like.)

Ever wondered what London looks like from the Parliament building?

I shared my feelings with my colleague, but she looked quite shocked to hear it. I guess I will not try to joke about things like that in front of the British citizen again.

Of course I was very polite guest. I quietly listened to the lecture (well, okay, maybe I was the only one taking pictures, but I was still very quiet) and later when refreshments were served, I went for juice instead of wine.

Here are some pictures from my London trip:

Young Victoria. And another one.

Talk by Angela V. John about suffragette Margaret Haig Thomas.

Chatting people in the River Room, House of Lords.

And Parliament building from the London Eye.

Some people are just not impressed.

Millenium Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral.

Tate Modern.

About writers, slaves and north Wales

Sometimes I have to ask myself what kind of demons reside deep inside me and why they force me to crave for travel all the time.

You know, you are at home, everything is nice, stereotype, boredom, peace and stuff, and then – boom! You are in a pick-up truck with bunch of slightly drunken Slovenians, driven by a Welshman with a long beard and pencil behind his ear. And you are shrieking like hell, because you are the one that is standing right on the edge of cargo part and you expect to fall out of the car in a second…

But let me explain.

My boss asked me, if I want to come to the book launch on Friday and then to some event of Slovenian writers in the north of Wales. I explained to him, that there is rather big difference between Slovakians and Slovenians, but I still wanted to go there.

The launch was very nice, though it was in the village in the middle of nowhere with minimum of light pollution around and just one sheep every six miles, if you know what I mean. I met there a woman who claimed that only a heartless man can live without the mountains and without the sea. Which automatically makes me and all the other Slovak people heartless creatures, but whatever.

But the author of book was really nice and enthusiastic, and although it was in a small village, more than fifty people came to the event.

The next two days I spent with Slovenian writers in the writers centre Tŷ Newydd, which is really awesome place to be. During the day, there were presentations and talks about Slovenian and Welsh publishing sphere and books. In the evening, unofficial chatting and drinking began. On Saturday after the dinner and couple of drinks, they got this awesome idea to go to the pub in the village nearby. I joined the others, why not. The next thing I knew, I was sat in a pick-up driving through the forest, wearing a nice dress, desperately clutching some part of the car so as not to fall out of it.

I think I should be writer too.

In the library of Ty Newydd.

But after all I survived the ride and it was nice weekend. And I got to know some interesting facts about Slovenian language and its connection to my native language. One example: in Slovenian language “otrok” means a child. The same word in Slovakian language means slave. All I have to say… probably meeting writers from Slovenia is not what you usually expect from an internship in Wales, but as I like to say:

"Life is what happens to you while you´re busy making other plans."

Seaside is just 15 minutes of walk away from Ty Newydd.

Cricieth Castle.

How living in Wales changed my lifestyle

After a month in Wales, I feel like my life has changed and I have to write down a few points that reflect this change. It might be a warning for you or invitation to come here and visit me, as you wish.

1 BBC Weather.com is one of my favourite webpages now.

I strongly object to depicting of this superheavy rain with strong wind just as two little drops, but they are mostly right about what the weather is going to be like, so I still check it there.

2 I use an umbrella.

Even though I have always been in my private guerilla war with umbrellas, now we both agreed on truce for these three months. (Though I have a feeling, that umbrellas are not quite sincere. That one of mine is already half broken. They hate me.)

3 There is always a cup of black tea nearby me.

I drink approximately 10 litres of black tea a day. I have no idea, how can I sleep after this amount of caffeine in my body, but it works somehow. Everybody in the office likes to add some milk to it, but I still resist to this trend. What if I liked it, then I would have to walk to fridge and back, just to get some milk for tea!

4 I eat mayonnaise.

In fact, not only I eat mayonnaise, but since I came here, I have probably eaten more mayonnaise than in the rest of my life. I always found mayonnaise really unhealthy, but here, if you just want to grab a sandwich for a lunch, you have to buy something with mayonnaise. Otherwise it is usually pretty plain and disgusting.

5 I do not believe in buses anymore.

They are always late. Or early. Which means you have to come to bus stop at least ten minutes before, to be sure you won’t miss the bus, but mostly those buses come so late, that you end up waiting there for half an hour. Well, buses and weather are probably two worst things here in Swansea, where I live. Confirmed by locals.

Caerphilly Castle

If you have spare three or four hours and fancy visiting some new historical place nearby Cardiff, Caerphilly Castle is a wise choice. We were lucky to have very nice weather, because most of the time in Castle, you have to walk outside and you do not have many places to hide in case of bad weather. (It seems to me, that they do not have many “indoor castles” here in Wales.)

When you walk around the castle, there is not much information about it, half of our visit, we were just wondering when it was built and who lived there. After some time, we found a room with huge table tablet, where you can play with touch screen and old documents all day long, and later also one hall with pictures introducing the history of castle.

Out of all materials explaining about the castle, we probably enjoyed most a short animated movie that was screened in one of the small towers. I think the movie would use some warning before, for more sensitive kids. Even though it was animated, it showed a lot of cruelty and a couple of times, the red colour splashed all over the three walls (depicting blood of soldiers or something like that).

Some practical information:

Caerphilly Castle is the biggest castle in Wales and second biggest castle in Britain and there is one nice tower which out leans famous tower in Pisa, so you can make the same classic tourist photo supporting it.

It took us about 30 minutes to get there by train from Penarth. Return train ticket cost around 4 pounds per person (we travelled in a group of four people). Entrance fee to the castle is £ 4.75 for adults and £3.60 is student ticket.

Enough said, let´s have a look at some pictures of castle:

Some wooden guy supporting the leaning tower.

The Shire, I guess. Frodo, is that you?

With two flags of Wales.

Birds and stuff.

Caerphilly Caste was built in the second half of the 13th century. Still a nice place to visit.

Inside the castle walls.

Lovely houses nearby the castle.

Look right!

Nearby the Central Bus Station in Cardiff.

Getting off at the right bus stop requires some advanced skills acquired through thorough study of science and a lot of training in arts as well as some instinct and plenty of luck. In most of the buses they do not announce the names of bus stops. You cannot find it anywhere inside the bus, too. And in common timetables with routes, you cannot find all the stops that bus is going through. Say, out of forty of bus stops, you can find there only ten most important of them. All in all, if you are traveler just visiting Cardiff, you might find it extremely difficult to get to the exact place you want to. If you want to go to the place you have never been before, you have to ask the driver, where to get off or your local friends have to describe the place for you. The common instructions then look like this:

“After the roundabout, the bus will go around the big blue building on your right and when you can see the small park on the left side, it is time to get off the bus.”

And if you are misanthrope and you do not want to speak to people, you have to spend hours with Google Street View.

Further, the bus stops seem to me to be the other way round. As if the bus should go through the pavement or something like that. I added some pictures, so that you can see it as well.

I do not know where should I wait for the bus. Does the driver even see me behind the glass?

And THE left side! I suppose it was created a long time ago (in a galaxy not so far away) to put off the immigrants from the life in Great Britain. If you do not get run over by any vehicle (here you cannot find any street sign saying Look right! like in London), there is at least a big chance you end up at the completely different part of the city than was your original intention, because of getting on the bus on the wrong side of the road.

But I must admit, that although the system may seem pretty user-unfriendly, the people around are always helpful. The bus drivers are very patient when confronted with never ending inquiries from foreigners about where to get off. When travelling here, do not forget to be polite and thank them. People don’t say goodbye, when they get off the bus, they usually thank the driver. I enjoy this local expression in particular:

“Cheers, drive!”

I always feel too jovial when I say it, as if I was drinking with driver, but I like it anyway.

Sully Island

Today I decided to visit Sully Island, which is a small tidal island nearby the village I currently live in. During the low tide, it is accessible through the rocky pathway, but once the tide gets high, you can end up stranded on the island for pretty long time. If you don’t come back before the tide rises, you can either call coastguards or wait with some rats on the island for about six hours.

The rate of tidal rise and fall here is the second highest in the world and the tide comes quite quickly. That is why some people do not consider going there completely safe. Before entering the pathway, you can notice some not very encouraging signs. One of them says:

Warning! Warning!

DANGEROUS TIDES

Many people have been drowned attempting to visit or return from Sully Island. The causeway is a death trap. Please take great care.

Death trap! To tell you the truth, I was a little bit scared when I began to cross the pathway to the island and every other second I was glancing to the water, if it is not too high. Even though I checked the times of tide on a website, I was nervous (those random numbers on the internet didn’t seem very credible to me). Still, I was supposed to have two more hours before the pathway disappears below the water.

I just couldn’t help but wonder, what I would do, if I really end up alone on the island. The battery on my mobile phone would run out of power in about an hour. I had with me a brand new Marvel T-shirt with Spiderman, Ironman, Hulk, Captain America and Thor on it, but I was pretty sure none of these American superheroes would help me in such an awkward situation in South Wales.

But I managed to go there, enjoy the beautiful view and come back home unharmed. Below you can see a couple of pictures I have taken there. Enjoy!