| 100 in 1000 |
- Spend a week up a mountain learning to ski
- Visit Karoline's place in Moravia
Hold a conversation in Czech (only)- Drink 500ml of each of the following beers:
PilsnerStaroprammen- Budvar
- Velke Popovice
- U Fleku
GambrinusKrusovice
Respond to at least one GOARN request (WHO and MSF are
also acceptable)Travel across the AtlanticReturn to South America- Read a book to, or with, an impressionably aged child
- Participate in one NanoWriMo Challenge and come within at least 10,000 words of the goal length
Have my nose pierced- Have my next tattoo drawn
Purchase the perfect jeans (x 2 pairs)- Attend a spin class 3 times a week for 8 consecutive weeks
- Bake Viv's cheesecake
Make David's casserole Make David's Chicken Cashew-nut StirfryInvite 4 people who don't know one another too well to dinner- Ride from Vienna to Venice on a motorbike (pillion acceptable, those less desirable)
- Attend a book group for at least two books
- Go on a choir weekend (learn and perform difficult piece in two/three days)
- Visit Madame Tussaud's (in London)
- Take an architecture appreciation course
Join an all-girl group and sing a soloPublish in a scientific journal (top two authors)Cook a duck or other 'waterfowl'. Locate the Al-Timimi's from Doha Veterinary PractiseHave a pedicureMaintain a Brazilian (ouch) for three months.Find a trustworthy Czech hairdresser- Treat my inner-6-year-old twice a week (at least)
- Do the liver-cleansing diet properly (12 weeks)
- Don't eat out for one month
Find a flat and flatmate- Purchase one Joseph sweater
- Purchase one of the following pairs of
designer shoes (they MUST also be COMFORTABLE, and be able to be worn with 4
different outfits and 2 types of occasion): Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blahniks,
Christian Louboutin (Ebay or 2nd hand are acceptable)
- Send 5 books to the booksphere and track them.
- Go hanggliding
- Read 10 'classic' books (from 1001 Books to Read before you Die)
Moll FlandersEverything is illuminatedMadam BovaryZen & the Art of Motorcycle MaintainanceCatch-22OdysseusOn the Road
- Run (non-stop!) for 5kms outside (preferably in a street race thingy)
- Send Christmas Cards on time
Make a collage/mural out of street lights on my wallBuy a bed, build it, and sleep soundly in itGo to AfricaHost an 'event' (classified as and when)Organise a 30th Birthday PartyWear a costume- Sing on stage
- Buy a painting that evokes memories of Prague (cannot involve queues!)
Learn a god-damned card game that stays in my memory (other than fish/snap)See sunrise. Be sober. Have woken for it. Excludes months Nov-Mar- Take a walk and flip coins at each intersection
Win something- Draft a will
- Take a roadtrip
Go to Italy already- Sea Kayak around Abel Tasman Park (NZ)
Get plantsTake a train to another Eastern European Destination (accession countries are acceptable) alone preferably.- Get UK to give me a provisional motorcyclists license and simultaneously get a 'card' license.
- Go SCUBA diving again - at least two dives lasting 30mins each.
Go to a dentist. *sigh*- Do a Czech Wine Trail. And live to tell the tale
- Make an 'outbreak emergency kit'.
- Go to bed prior to 11pm every night (inc weekends) for four consecutive weeks.
- Marvel over lack of tiredness
- Dine at a Gordon Ramsey restaurant (or Nobu)- preferably for free.
Bet on the nags- Do something for charity (applying and getting a 'red card' will count)
- Walk along the Champs Elysee
- Do 100 sit ups in a row
- Do 50 pressups (arms in tight)
- Make branston pickle (or nearest substitute)
- Cook something 'new' and 'adventurous' at least once a month
Find a mentorBe a mentorLearn what mentoring is all aboutMeet an online person in real lifeResist the flirt. Once. Just one night. It's okay if people don't immediately succumb to my natural charm. Really it is.Spend time at a spa (spa towns in the CR don't count)- Send a care package to someone
Get a Tata Bojs CD- Take a French/German/Dutch course and SPEAK THE DAMNED LANGUAGE WHEN I HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY EVEN THOUGH IT MAKES ME SOUND
LIKE AN IDIOT!
- Order new contact lenses.
Make a list of things I take with me when I pack for different occasions- Eat lobster. Prepared by someone else.
Back up the blogPut everything onto an external hard drive- Find a DDR mat and console and 'dance, I say dance!'�
- Go to the beach and lie on the warm sand. For an hour. (with sunscreen on, natch)
- Take and complete a course in either: Tango, Salsa or Flamenco
- Join the Municipal Library of Prague
- Move to another country
Go to a live concert of a band I actually like- Pay off debts (student loan excl.)
Send thank you cards for every gift I receive (other than the gift of happiness, blah blah blah).- Get an agent (literary or theatre)
- Go to a sports bar without cringing, by personal choice
- Ride a rollercoaster
- Hold a snake
Spend a day wandering around a museum (not art gallery!) |
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| Remember me?? I'm the one who...*mumble mumble* |
| Thursday 15 December 2005 |
Gosh…over a whole week has passed without an update. By now, you’ve probably all forgotten who I am.
Why has it been such a long time? Well, to start with, there was nothing to say. I mean, I know this hasn’t stopped me from writing before, but my X chromosomes were channelling some ‘man’ proteins – consequently I was thinking ‘nothing’. (actually, on the re-read, that sounds like a hideous euphemism…but it’s such an authentic turn of phrase, I’m gonna leave it there for your amusement).
And then I had a whole load of ‘things to do’. Namely, get ready for the weekend ahead. That meant the laundry (argh!! Bane of my existence...) which didn’t melt or go crunchy in the Czech dryers (hooray!), but did require hours of my time. I’ve never appreciated how nice it is to have a washing machine on-site, but believe you me, I’m never taking one for granted again!
Thursday night I met a serbo-croat photographer in Prague – who regaled me with tales of the war. Not a terribly amusing topic, I’ll admit, but hearing how someone shot themselves in the arse with their borrowed rifle? Hilarious. Especially after getting lost (read: cold) and drinking vodka and orange on an empty stomach. EVERYTHING was hilarious.
Friday I went to a short film collection – part of the international short film festival that was screened over the weekend. I really enjoyed it – but since so many days have elapsed, I can’t recall much. I remember one film that really ‘depicted’ the sensation of loneliness. And I’ve never seen as awful a game of hide and seek as the one in Czech (there was only one film…it was counting then searching – I think I pretty much caught the gist of it). Followed by a CANZA drinks evening (Czech/Australia/NZ Assoc.) where I didn’t meet a single NZer. *sigh* Instead, I spent the evening ducking to avoid the Sydneysiders – their accent doesn’t get any smoother with distance. A few mojitos and I was home by 5am. Restraint personified…that’s me.
An early morning rehearsal for Intunition saw three people still in their ‘going out’ gear (and I wasn’t one of them!) and the rest of us singing far far far far below par. Which led to the emergence of some serious nerves – which then combined with the nerves I was feeling about Umit visiting – and left me feeling slightly queasy for the rest of the day/evening. But the performance went far better than expected, even despite the lack of foldback on the stage. Things are SOOO different when microphones are involved. But we managed Dream a Little Dream and the audience didn’t throw rotten zeleniny our way (vegetables, not tomatoes). The audience were a little, how shall we say, lacklustre. Something (perhaps, though I’m attempting to refrain from judgement here) to do with the organisation they were there for: some mission that was bringing Christianity to the Czechs via language. You can well imagine. It seemed to be very church of England; no one appeared to have muscles in their arms. And here’s a bunch of 7 songstresses turning up in black with red accessories, all looking mightily ‘hot’ and singing saucy jazz numbers (oh, come on!! Santa baby is saucy…hurry down the chimney?? It’s hardly subliminal messaging is it?). Of course, the lack of enthusiastic response (we knew we’d nailed the songs because they smiled, their applause was just a little, well, “cake” I guess) caused some of us (okay, okay...me!) to go a little overboard, consequently, when I did my verse (Santa cutie, fill my stocking with a duplex etc.) I may have “inadvertently” performed a little leg-action too. *shock*
I thought that perhaps the butterflies would stop once we’d sat down at the end of our second set. But no. Not a bit. You tell me how you’d feel if you were catching up with a guy who you had a HUGE crush on when you were 15 – and you haven’t seen him for 14 (we re-counted…surely two smart people can get it right…FOURTEEN YEARS people!) years. I mean, I’ve got friends in NZ who’ve known people for that long (next-door neighbours, childhood friends etc.) but I don’t usually count myself in a group of long-known friends. And yet…here I am, late!, on my way to the Movenpick (yes…very yummy Lira) hotel in Prague to catch up with Umit. PANIC. Just as well a) I was really really really late (one really per 30mins) and b) the girls were on the metro with me, else I’m sure I would have combusted.
But, somewhat surprisingly (as far as I was concerned) I needn’t have been worried, and Umit and I hung out for four days as though we were still in school. Albeit without Mr Aldridge and the spectrophotometer results (though now we can both interpret a chromatogram…we certainly couldn’t in lower 6th!). And he did disappoint with the Toblerone (see previous entry but one). First off was a visit to a jazz bar where we were asked not to smoke and not to talk during the playing. I mean...come ON! No smoking, fair enough, it can get pretty nasty; but no TALKING?! It’s a jazz performance not a damned opera. You can get into the music AND talk at the same time you know! Weird. After that it was a gay club (okay, I had to have it pointed out to me that there were very few females here…doh!) and then we tried Roxy (it was shut?!) and gave up and went home.
So the verdict? What should YOU do if someone from your adolescent past calls you and says that they’re on their way to visit? Invite them in, by all means. I had an absolute blast. We wandered around the castle (a little bit, though we were too late for most of the places), and the city (the astronomical clock really wasn’t worth the hype) and took photos (yep…I played tourist…and LOVED it!). All that, despite having to rug up warm all the time. I love this city sooo much. Most importantly, we found a café, where they serve amaretto coffee (mmm…winter’s all of a sudden looking a whole lot better) and cake. And a guy plays the piano (VERY WELL) after 5pm. Is it a Piano Bar? Not quite…but it’s directly opposite the national theatre – so it may well become my ‘local’. Over the weekend, conversation was enhanced (though, I hasten to add, not dependent upon) by the Book of Questions (Lirachick, thank you!!!!) but I fear that we only got through about 6 of them (questions where we both answer ‘yes’ aren’t really conversation pieces) over the course of some very long dinners/lunches. We even missed a movie and a ballet because conversation was too good. But isn’t that how life should be?
So a big thanks to Mr Oncu (Snr) for buying tickets without even hesitating to ask whether I’d be free that weekend…otherwise I may have chickened out “the weekend of the 10th? Um…you know what? I REALLY need to clean out my goldfish tank…”!!
Last night I raced up to the tram to go grocery shopping. But in my haste, I slipped on one of those longitudinal joins in the wet concrete (it finally rained, about 1mm) and essentially collapsed in the middle of the road, twisting my ankle the same way I did in Menorca. After inarticulating “Feck…that hurts” in Czech, and being helped up by someone who clearly understood, I hobbled to the grocery shop. After all, a girl who does not shop does not eat dinner…and I was damned hungry. I wasn’t annoyed because of the pain (though my first stop WAS the pharmacy: Diclofenac) but it took me so damned long to get anywhere…and I was permanently on alert in case someone kicked my ankle too. It’s not like my ankle usually gets kicked when I go out – but I was hyperaware (or was that a side-effect of the diclofenac!?). So, due to the ridiculous amount of pain shooting up the outside of my shin, combined with my inability to request an ‘ankle brace’ (the list of things needed from the UK gets weirder by the day!), I gave rehearsal a miss, and sat reading on my bed with my ankle in a puddle of ice (wrapped up in a stolen napkin – it almost counts as the perfect crime!!). Damned loose joints.
Tomorrow I go Christmas carolling in Old Town Square (where else?) which should be great for the tourists. Then a quick catch up with Marketa (since we didn’t really speak much at Stare Pani – the jazz club) before meeting Nis and doing whatever it is she wants to do. I’m hoping it’s ‘visit the café’ and then ‘decide our plans for the weekend’ though Sat night is already taken care of – party at which Intunition are performing. And then next week I’ve got a modelling job (yes, really), and socialising most nights because on Saturday I’m off to the UK!? Is it really Christmas already??
Speaking of which: those that want cards had better make sure I have their mailing address…else their mailboxes will be sobbing by Easter! J |
posted by Nomes @ Thursday, December 15, 2005   |
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