Here's that picture again... this year it was extremely mellowing. I spent a longer time than usual meditating and reflecting as the last month of my life has been dominated by stress and illness. I decided to leave to the north this time, and was given a lift half the way to Gerrards Cross by a nice old lady from one of the populationless villages in the area. I also can't quite believe how nice the weather always is to me when I do this. When I left Crystal Palace it was that unbearable grey misty cold, but then when I stepped off the train at Langley it was glorious, and it stayed that way just enough for me to enjoy Boris biking all over the city when I got back in. I still noticed a ... read more

"What's screech wobble then?", asked the security clerk at Gatwick Airport as I walked through the metal detector in my "Ich herz screech wobble" t-shirt. "It's a type of music", I responded. "Oh really?", he bemused. "I've never heard of that, what does that sound like?" "It screeches and wobbles" I was on my way out of my homeland after spending a week there, marking the end of my former job and my graduation ceremony from university, and on the way to Lithuania, where I had been invited to play a show. Since there was no flight back to the vicinity of Prague until Sunday morning, it was one of those rare occasions where I would see a new place without choosing to, a place where it was obviously necessary for me to go for some ... read more

My request to the heavens for a celebration of my recent giving notice to my rapidly sinking language school was answered nicely as this weekend randomly and suddenly turned into a Polish road trip, with six (ex-)workmates to a cottage, built by our half-polish/half-czech comrade Jakub's family in the early 1990s. The cottage is situated in the village of Miedźno, near the city Częstochowa, which is one place I have been dying to visit for a long time. Our expedition to this cottage comprised seven people and two cars, who gathered in the early morning calm of the somewhat surrealistic Sídliště Rajská Záhrada on thursday, a Czech state holiday to commemorate the independance of Czechoslovakia from Austria-Hungary. The journey there was long and winding, and became noticeably more chaotic as we crossed into Poland (bringing my ... read more

Arriving at the border, we were bothered for our passports while on the platform (so, Romania hasn't quite got the hang of being in the EU yet, then) and shepherded onto an "overgrown bus, meet shed" style osobáček which took us to Debrecen. Jitka's correspondance with her friends in Liberec revealed that while we were running away from storms in the deep south, the Czech Republic was suffering from a rather epic heatwave - something we had now caught up with here. We decided that since the temperature had skyrocketed so much, for our two nights in Hungary, we should sleep outside and seek places with lakes and rivers. The first thing we needed to do was go and get a sleeping bag for me, which I needed. This was all we saw of Debrecen, the ... read more

As we stepped off the train at Braşov, we were surprised to be hassled about accommodation for a change. Finally, maybe we had come to a place in Romania which did expect tourists! Not that I mind walking off the beaten track a bit, but having already been recommended visiting Constanța by someone and finding the apparent lack of anywhere to accommodate tourists there, I was worried that the whole of Romania, including Braşov, would be a repeat of this. However, I had been told to go to Braşov by two other people who were very right. We took the guy who offered us a hostel up on his offer, and we stayed in an extremely cool place called Kismet Dao hostel on the outskirts of the historic centre. Our train had picked up the standard ... read more