It hasn’t been just me looking for free things to do in London which we would enjoy…Michael has been busy at it as well. And one of the events he came across was in the Kingsway Tramway Subway. This subway is rarely open to the public, but for a number of weeks this year it has been housing an art installation called Chord by Conrad Shawcross.

We met up at the entrance to the subway, meeting up with a guy in a highlighter jacket. We waited for the set time, at which time the gates to the subway opened and we started making our way down.

The subway hasn’t been used for a long time in its intended function. However, it has often been used in films, and we could clearly see evidence of that all around. We stopped in the first part to look around this material, before we made our way further down into the tunnel…to see CHORD!

Chord is an installation made of two identical rope-making machines which move back as the rope/chord becomes longer (to keep it taut). It is a whirling machine of colour, strings and exacting movements. WOW! I have never been very much the ‘art installation’ person, not having seen much of that sort of thing. It was this big thing making something so exacting and so beautiful…it was scary in some ways and relaxing in others…definitely relaxing to see the small tiny movements which were building this great big rope. In a way it got me thinking about how it is the smallest steps and things which allow us to build that which is big and grand. Hopefully that is how my work will go…cos right now I can see myself being very much in the small steps…but you wait and see …grandeur will flourish

Last weekend I had a visitor! I know…it’s been a week now, but I have been so busy this past week…what with things to do, and all the other stuff, that I have barely had time to get down to writing a blog post.

So on to the visitor:

Last Friday (actually Saturday morning, at 2am!) saw me waiting at Marble Arch…for the bus from Luton airport…to deliver John to London…woohooo! He had been saying he wants to come for a while, and finally he made it! He was staying the first night over at our place (really my place, cos Michael was away for the weekend), hence the meeting at such an unsocial hour…but I don’t mind …before I could drive he had driven me home loads of times, so I could be up late for once to see him home!

Saturday morning was my Styles in Paintings course, so John joined me on a visit to the National Gallery. Every day there are guided tours which coincided with the times of my course, so John went off for that. (He seemed to really like tour, so today I sent Michael off for one as I was in my second lecture in the Styles in Paintings course…hope to have the notes for that up sometime soon).

From the National Gallery we went back home as John needed to pick up his stuff, where we cooked some tortellini with white sauce (which ended as a tortellini soup, but delicious anyways, and I learnt how to make white sauce, which I tried out on Michael on Tuesday ) before running off to Westminster.

We had planned to meet Audrey, another Maltese girl at Westminster at 5pm for a walk on the Southbank. 45mins late we arrived O:). By now it was getting dark, but we still made our way off on the walk. We ended up walking to the Tower of London and back! It was good to meet up with other Maltese people here and talk, particularly as although Audrey has only been here a month, she already agrees with me about lots of stuff which is different here!

The first night was the only night I hosted John, but Monday we met up again…to go see Les Miserables! John’s cousin (see his blog here) is in the show, so we got great seats for a great show…WOW! I was impressed! From the mechanics of the revolving stage, to the sound, the set, the singing and the classic songs! WOW! Yes…I really liked it . And I was so glad Michael decided to come with us to be able to see it himself as well.

All in all a great time with John here. Now I’ll see him when I’m back in Malta, and then who knows when? He’s going off to Kenya for a year!

Yesterday marked one year since I arrived in London. Who would have thought? In a way it feels like I have been here forever, but then I cannot believe it actually is one year (especially when I think about the work I need to do ). But what do I think about living here now?

Getting Accustomed to Living in London

In general I find living OK…not heaven on earth, but neither hell. It is a middle of the road deal for me…Positives include that you are in a big city which is the centre of a lot of things. Especially in terms of my research this means that I am surrounded by people who have a good level of say in what goes on. Getting this sort of contact and exposure early on can only mean good things (unless they hate you ). Another positive is the number of flights going in and one of the city (though all the airports take more than one hour to get to…so not exactly close, and most not even actually in London!).

Negatives? Coming back from Prague public transport is definitely high up on that list! I find it so crazy that it takes ages to get anywhere mainly because of traffic and crappy connections. In Prague everything is so much smoother and interconnected…having one ticket for all transport systems where you pay by time not by mode of transport means that there are much less overlapping services, putting less vehicles on the road, and getting you from A to B faster. Another negative for me is the vast size of the city making it difficult to meet other people living in the same city unless they live in the same area (consider that my friend takes 1.5hrs to get from where she lives in London to where I live, while another friend living in Kent (not London) takes 1hr to get into London (and from much further away)…that must say something about the efficiency of transport. To meet people you need to make plans ages in advance…not at all how I am used to things.

Attitude to Malta

I’ve always been a teeny weeny bit happy that I was Maltese, and loved our tiny little island (with all its problems…and of course there are loads ). However, since moving to London (and also in other travels) I am coming to realise that people tend to complain wherever they are. Coming here I feel I have become maybe a bit more patriotic than I was. People who complain about every teeny weeny little thing in Malta tend to get on my nerves a bit. I often find that people in Malta tend to think that everything abroad is perfect, and only Malta has problems. But being in London? I am not too chuffed about customer service here, OR the public transport (going down in the underground makes my ears hurt for days after…and that’s the least of my complaints!). And let’s not get started about the weather (I’m becoming a real Brit now , though I don’t think it is as bad as they say). Also, at least in Malta people acknowledge your presence most of the time. Here you walk straight and don’t speak unless you really have to if it is a stranger…When I try to do my ‘let’s smile at people on the way to work experiment’ I often get puzzled looks…Come on…lighten up…is it so strange if someone smiles…and can’t you smile back? Please? Pretty pretty please? It will make my day .

Well, these are some of the things I have been thinking about in the past year. It hasn’t always been easy living in London alone. However, now I realise it is not only me who feels these things. Hearing my supervisors discuss about how long it took them for London to start feeling like home to them some weeks ago immediately hit a chord with me and made me feel so much better about living here. A year here has gone, but the next year brings with it more changes…Michael will be coming to London! How will we deal with that? Hopefully I will tell you more about that in next year’s installment

Often Sunday evenings here in London meant me lazing as much as possible at home O:). Luckily, today (besides the essential Sunday lazing ), was so much more (afternoon and evening – till 2pm was, of course, lazing and sleeping – I desperately need my weekend sleeping!)

First off was meeting Steph again (WOOHOOO). As I said in ‘I’m a Geeky Techie‘ she moved to London last week and brought me the recovery media for my laptop. Today however we met in the afternoon just for a coffee (which turned into a frappe to cool us down ) at Euston Station. It is so nice to have people to meet up with and just chat along with. After our frappe, we then both made our way home.

The plan was that I go home and do a load of washing (which I had originally planned for Friday, but never got round to). However, on the way home, I heard a ‘Ara min hawn!’ (‘Look who’s here!)…It was Ivan, a guy from Malta working as a doctor in Wales, but down in London for a conference…and we just happened to meet on the road. It was a nice surprise to see him and get some more Maltese dosage and friendliness into the day. However, it was soon a rush back home, to actually get the washing done before my evening plans

And what were the evening plans you must be saying? Well, I had two free tickets to go hear the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican. So far having two tickets would still have meant me going alone, as none of my friends have taken up the offer to join me for similar stuff. However, after I went to the Beethoven concerts, one of my flatmates said she was interested…woohooo…I got a friend to go with yesterday!

The main concert I went to was a symphony concert playing music by Schumann, Sibelius and Brahms. However, before the concert, there was a free (for all this time ) concert! We attended this (both as it was free and as we had to be there at least one hour early to pick up the tickets). So glad we went to it though! I really enjoyed it!

First up was Schumann’s Fantasie for Cello and Piano Op.73. I really loved the cello player, Vashti Hunter. I loved the sound coming out of her instrument…it was great!

The second performance was then Schumann’s Piano Quintet Op.44 by the Barbirolli Quartet (Gemma Beeson was the pianist for both). I really liked the energy they put into their playing, and the energy coming out of their music. If there was anything to suggest for change I would say that I would have liked a bit more interaction between the musicians, since though they sounded very much in synch and nothing sounded to be lacking from their music, besides the violist, it seemed like they were all immersed in what they were playing in isolation of the others. Anyways…just my idea.

Then it was time for the LSO! First up was Schumann’s Manfred Overture. This was then followed by Sibelius’s Violin concerto in D minor (Op. 7), and after the interval Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 in D major (Op. 73)

I really loved the first half of the programme. In particular I liked the encore performance of Frank Peter Zimmermann, who was the soloist for the violin concerto. It was amazing! He played what he called some variations on the concerto…on his own…but he made it sound so good! He was bowing and plucking at the same time, making it sound as though there were so many more people playing…I was impressed! When I used to play I could manage bowing or plucking, but both together and playing different melodies in the different manners at the same time was DEFINITELY beyond me!

After the itnerval was Brahms’ 2nd Symphony. This was the favourite of my flatmate, but it didn’t inspire me as much…probably as it was in a major key, and I am generally more inspired by music in a minor key (my melancholic side emerging maybe?). Nevertheless…it was still amazing! I haven’t heard a full orchestra playing in ages! So it was a good thing to do, and a perfect finish to a great Sunday

Sorry guys…I won’t blog about Michael’s visit to Pisa…but you can read all about it here

We did play a game of Carcassone when they returned Before the the girls were off to their musical, we had gone to buy some drinks and snacks, so when they returned we settled down to some wine, some chips, and a game of Carcassone (with very simplified rules…unfortunately it didn’t seem to have impressed them…oh well! – cannot please everyone can it?). After one game and the drinks however we were all ready for bed!

Sunday

Sunday morning saw us making our way to the Natural History Museum. Unlike the Science Museum, which I had visited 3 times before, I had never been to the NHM, so I was glad they chose this museum to visit . It was fun to go around the exhibits and joke around with what we see…that is one thing I miss most I think…having someone to banter with…I don’t know anyone here enough I think, and Michael is not that much up for too much bantering and teasing (it doesn’t seem to be an inherent trait in Danes as it is in the Maltese! We seem to excel in this kind of thing and thrive on it). My favourite exhibit however has to be the ‘creepy crawly‘ exhibit, which is about arthropods (maybe I’m weird, but who cares? I’m a biology student ).

From the museum we then decided to make our way to Kensington Gardens. First off however we stopped for ice-cream…mmm…haven’t had ice-cream in ages! (my mind still says ice-cream = hot weather) but the sun was shining and there was a pleasant breeze, we saw an ice-cream van just outside the museum…and voila’! Ice-cream!

Ice-cream in hand we made our way to the round pond in Kensington Gardens. I haven’t really spent much time sitting around in a park just enjoying the view and the discussion (up to a few months ago I didn’t even understand the pleasure of it ) but it was great to just catch up on everything and relax together in harmony It started off sunny, but soon the wind started coming, and the sun started leaving, so after a while we got a bit chilly…when we got too chilly for our own good, we then made our way to Kensington High Street. 

There we entered into the first shop…T.K.Maxx…this is a shop which sells designer brands for up to 60% off, so e.g. you could get Calvin Klein jeans for £19.99, and things like this. We spent more than 2 hours in there I think, and we left with some (or make that a lot for some of us ) purchases. The shopping was good fun…mainly because Christabelle made sure to get me into stuff I would have never thought of even trying on. I guess I need to look at things with a bit more of an open mind when I go shopping, rather than just discard everything at first sight. 

By now however we were quite dead! So on to Tesco to buy some food and back to my place to rest…because in the evening we were going ICE-SKATING! Now Marilyn can and enjoys roller-skating quite a lot, and Christabelle as well, and both have been ice-skating more than me (I had only been twice when there was an ice-skating rink in Malta, and this was more than 6 years ago!). This meant that there were two girls who can skate very well, and one (me) who could just about manage to stay standing on ice. Luckily, with their help (particularly Christabelle’s, who very patiently dragged me round the rink like a free taxi service), I managed to by the end of the night be able to skate around without holding. Also, I only fell once! and it was at the end of the night…so it wasn’t because I couldn’t skate, but more because I was too tired to think by then (or so is my excuse). By the end of the night we were all exhausted, so we just made our way home, dragging our feet all the way, and fell into bed

Monday

Today was their last day in London before they made their way to their other stops prior to returning back to London next Sunday. So the morning saw the girls finish their packing, and us being off to pick up the car they had rented.

We arrive at the car rental place early, and go to talk to the receptionist…they are asked for the payment voucher to show that they had paid…Christabelle hadn’t printed it!!! PFFFF – what did she think? Well, this meant we had to go to my university, for her to print the voucher, and then go back to the car rental place. 

Finally car in hand, off we go, first to drop me off at uni, and then for them to be off to their next stop, Canterbury. We did s number of gaffes O:) and I must admit I was quite terrified of the driving in London part, but I arrived safe at uni…hope they did too in Canterbury!

If you’re wondering who I am and what I’m doing writing on Ann’s Blog let me give you a quick intro to explain the situation.  So my name is Dorothy Gauci and I’m an old school friend of Ann’s.  We’ve known each other since we were 12.  Anyways I had to go to Prague last week to attend a workshop/conference for work and Ann was kind enough to set up a meeting with Michael so that I’d have someone to show me around the place during my short visit.  And this brings me back to the reason I’m here writing about it!  Ann asked me to uncover the deep dark secrets about my trip :p

So left Malta at a reasonable hour.  Had time to sleep-in that morning and pack before leaving at around 13.30.  Landed ok and waited for flight number two to Prague. Thankfully only a short wait and a short flight.  I love to travel but it’s the travelling part I hate!  Airport waiting areas and long hours staring at walls tend to make me cringe nowadays.  Landed in Prague…dark…wondering how to get to my hotel. Michael and Ann had supplied me with simple directions but still I do get slightly apprehensive being on my own in a country I’ve never been to!  Caught the airport bus…stopped at the last stop…caught the tram…and great it stops right in front of my hotel! Easier then I thought! Public transport in Prague it seems is very efficient and absurdly cheap too!  Great way to get around.  Checked into the hotel, ah 4 star accomodations are bliss.  Rarely get to use them but the conference was in the same hotel so booked a room there to make it easier.  I’m so not used to 4 star accomodations that when I got into my room and heard music when I opened the door I thought I’d walked into someone elses room without actually realising it was the T.V. playing something while a welcome message was posted on the screen Nice room, can’t complain!

No time to waste.  Had to head back on the tram and stop at the metro station to meet Michael at the Mustek stop next to the map on the platform.  I messaged him right before leaving the hotel so that we’d arrive at the same time but he got there before me and re-assured me he was waiting at the map right on the platform.  So stopped at Mustek and there he was!  Handshakes and introductions of course and off we went!  Prague by night is beautiful (can’t say much about it by day as I didn’t get to see much of it at that time!).  Michael took me around the old square were we stopped to have some mulled wine then we walked on through loads of winding roads until we made it to the bridge over the river.  The views are breathtaking and Michael was kind enough to give me little bits of info along the way!  Walked some more, and some more talked about a million and one things like how I knew Ann, what the weird black baby statues were supposed to signify and how a Dane ended up living in Prague after all! Took a break from walking but not talking and stopped at a place for coffee (though I wanted hot chocolate or a cappucino but was informed very very softly that they didn’t have any…only black coffee :p). Was getting late so Michael walked me back to the metro station and I got back to my comfy hotel room for a hot shower.  I did manage to supress my urge to run and jump onto my soft double bed…I remained composed :p

Day two was conference day.  I’ll spare you the details but I work in health research and the conference/workshop was about patient rights and standard measurement of health quality.  Part 1 of conference over, lunch time in the hotel restaurant.  Had a cute nerdy Slovenian ask if he could join my table so kept the lunch interesting!  Part 2 of conference over.  Yay it’s 4 and I can run around Prague freely now.  Messaged Michael again (poor guy I’m sure I drove him absolutely mad!) and he suggested we go down to watch a concert then grab dinner.  Fine by me!  I left the hotel to walk around on my own and do some souvenir shopping.  Was a bit rainy but nothing too bad.  Before the concert we dropped by a crystal shop were Michael’s friend Sue works to see if she’d like to join us for the concert and dinner. She had to miss the concert but we’d pick her up for dinner at 7 and meet her boyfriend Kristoff at the restaurant.  So Michael and I headed off to the concert…Did you know that the band ‘Fun loving criminals’ still exist?  I didn’t we watched their 1 hour set though I only recognised two songs then went to pick up Sue and grab dinner.  Kristoff met us at the restaurant and we ordered.  The food was really yummy and pretty cheap too!  The company was an eclectic mix of people not from the Czech Republic!  Sue is from Korea, Kristoff is from Germany, Michael is from Denmark and I’m from Malta.  It was interesting asking and hearing how these people ended up in Prague and made me wonder about man’s need to travel the world and the desire to start over in a new alien country.  Somehow we’re pretty fearless about leaving everything we know so well and feel safe in to plant roots, even if shallow, in another country.  Dinner over and the gang walked me back to the metro station.  We said our goodbyes and hoped to see each other another time!  I got back to the hotel and took a looonnnggg hot bath, packed for my early morning check out and headed to bed.

It took me 12 hours to get home from a country that is about 3 hours away Left the hotel at 6.30 had to wait over 4 hours at Munich airport, realised that I had to stop off in Catania before Malta and had to wait 1 hour on the plane there.  When we were finally about to land in Malta we had to pull up and change runways because of the weather  Home…finally….19.00 *sigh*

And that was my trip to Prague!  I look forward to visiting again and seeing more of it because it truely is beautiful and worthy of a second visit.  Big thanks to Ann, Michael, Sue and Kristoff for making my short time there even more memorable!  Hope to see you guys again some day!

Dor

Yeps…that’s what I heard last night at 4:30am….DRRRRRRRNNNN

What was it? FIRE-ALARM!

Grrrr…

I have never been in the residence before for a fire-drill (luckily!), but this time I didn’t guess it was a drill at that time! It just meant I had to up from my bed and be off…wore my coat, a scarf, and some flip-flops…looked out of my door…I see another girl going down…so off we went together, down the stairs, meeting other people as we were going down.

Now…where do we wait? We went to the fire assembly point…and waited

…and waited

…and waited

10mins…

no-one came…except a few more students

20mins…

25mins…

when is this thing going to be sorted?

30mins….

Alas! The student deputies came along…grrr…it seemed that the alarm tripped in the building next to us… Technical fault! The fire-men though came to check it out

30mins in the cold, and back to bed we went then…however that meant it ruined my nights sleep, and caused me to sleep in this morning rather than wake up bright and early to do something productive.

Oh well

As long as it doesn’t happen again

Hopefully hell won't be my destination then...

As promised in the last post, this post will be about the weekend in Cambridge.

Last weekend, Michael came over to the UK for a visit (YIPPEEE!). Since he cannot stay at my residence, and since he was flying in to Stansted, we thought it would make more sense to go to Cambridge for a weekend, and after all get to see this place. So that’s what we did…we booked the tickets, found a B&B for 2 nights, found a couch-surfing couple for the next…and off we went!

The first two nights were spent at Somerset House B&B. It was clean, had a friendly owner, Kim, who happily accomodated our change in dates as well, and we got a good breakfast every morning. If there was to be a downside, it would be that it is not as central as could be, though we could easily walk into the city centre in around 20 minutes. Also, you could hear a bit through the walls if people were being noisy, so it was very good that the people there were very quite.

What did we get up to? Well…a lot of walking…Cambridge is a gorgeous place, at least to me! When I saw it I thought that I would probably have been much happier studying in such an environment…though London does have its plus points as well, particularly due to it being the capital city, so you have things like major libraries and institutions close by. But the greenness, river, relaxed environment, with everyone riding around on a bike certainly has its appeal to me!

Now about the city sights. First off we stopped at the Round Church. I was told about this by a friendly guy on the bus from London to Cambridge (who was also on the return bus with me…that helped pass the time quite easily ). In this church the main thing is an exhibition around it about the history of Cambridge. I am always interested in the history of a place I am visiting…in fact the City of Prague museum and the Museum of London are amongst the museums which most grabbed my interest. There is also a 20-minute video showing, which Michael and I got roped into watching…it was interesting, but a bit dragging, and the visual could be much better O:).

The Round Church

From there we walked on to see a number of colleges. These colleges represent the central point of university life in Cambridge. I had never really understood how the college system worked in Oxford and Cambridge…had it explained to me and now I somewhat get it (I think :-/). Every student, besides being of course assigned to a department, is also assigned to a college, which is more concerned with the social aspect of university life. I guess that would definitely help in feeling more at home in an environment, and have more support, rather than in an environment like London. It was cool to go into some of these colleges to see how they look like, and see their well-kept grounds.

What else with we do? Well…we walked around the area a lot, from the backsides, where the river runs, and off to the market, as well as just generally getting in the atmosphere. Some good pub meals were also in order…first night I had a steak and ale pie, while Michael had a burger at the Burleigh Arms. The second night we tried to return, but it was full with people watching a game…not a place to sit! All other pubs we came across were much more expensive (The Burleigh Arms offered great food, good-sized portions, and at decent prices), so we ended up having a doner kebab

Uhhh! and how could I have nearly forgotten? On Saturday evening, before going off in search of food, we went to the Evensong at Kings College Chapel. WOW! What a gorgeous place…and with a queue to get into the service as well! Great service I must say. It was my first Anglican service, but the music in the place was excellent, and the chapel (less chapel more church I would say in size) is gorgeous. A downside maybe woudl be that it was quite evident that most of the people there were there for the experience (just as we were), rather than regular attendees. It felt in a way sometimes like we were observers looking onto a show. Nevertheless, definitely a not-to-miss experience if you’re in Cambridge!

Kings College Chapel

The second part of the Cambridge weekend then involved my first experience of couchsurfing. But that deserves another post, as this is getting quite long, and I need my beauty sleep

I promise that the second part will come up soon!