New Drawings

Here are some new sketches I did the last 2 nights:


They're all sketches copied from the Ultimate X-men comic (although I made a couple of adjustments to them).

*drum roll*.......................Its an A!

I just found out that, due to the exam board marking my year's biology coursework wrong, I have gone up 4 marks in my biology A level. This therefore means I am no longer 1 mark off the A and now actually have an A in biology! That makes it 3 A's and a B for me at A level which sounds much better at interview. So now i'm one happy chappy!

One thing after the other.............

So as soon as things look like they'll be sorted something else turns up to disrupt them. Today, after finding out my biology grade may well go up to an A, I find out I can't apply to Manchester university (one of the 3 universities I actually wanted to go to and which wasn't a back-up choice) because they now do the BMAT tests. The BMATs are stupid tests which have nothing to do with medicine but which some medical schools use to decide on interview candidates. Firstly I haven't done any revision for it (as I didn't know about it), secondly the final date to register for it by is tomorrow. So I can't do it. Instead I have to find another uni to apply for that I don't particularly want to go to. But thats a bit harsh because I may end up going to one of these unis that I don't want to go to and love it. Things always seem to happen for a reason.

The day after

The day after the 'nightmare' incident I felt really tired because not getting much sleep at night and getting up at 9 for an appointment with the nurse don't mix. As a result I made a few stupid mistakes that day. I had the pleasure of working for my parents at their office again (they wouldn't let me go home to sleep). Things mostly went fine until, without looking at the envelope properly and which way round it was, I stuck some stamps on the bottom of it (quite a few as well) and so had to peel them off and stick them back on in the right place (using selotape). The paper on the bottom of the envelope as a result was quite thin. Then I didn't stamp the DX letters very well and so the address on the stamp was only partly printed onto the letters. These weren't such bad mistakes so I went to post the letters. At the same time I had to pick up a prescription for another vaccine. So I went to the doctors surgery and went up to the reception. I was thinking about the fact that when I got the vaccine back from the pharmacy I would have to make another appointment with the nurse. So, when I got the receptionists attention, I asked, 'I come to pick up an appointment'. She just looked at me. I looked back. Then she said, 'do you mean you've come to book an appointment?' to which, realising what i'd said and feeling really embarrased, I replied, 'no, sorry, i meant to say i've come to pick up a prescription.' She just laughed and to be honest I was just feeling generally crap from lack of sleep and an aching arm (due to the vaccination) so I didn't care about it.

Nightmare

The other night at 2.30 am I was woken by the sound of a woman screaming and what sounded like frantic begging for mercy. This was followed by a man's sinister laugh. I thought it must be from a programme playing on the tv in my parents room (guessing that my dad had fallen asleep before he got to turn it off). But there was then a short break of no noise whatsoever and there was no light coming from the hall (which I would have expected to see if my parents tv was still on). Then the screaming and sinister laughing started up again. It sounded like it came from either just outside my window or somewhere in the house. To be honest I didn't have a clue where the sounds source was and started to worry about whether my parents and sister were ok. But I also know if someone broke in from downstairs my room would be the first they got to and so I would most likely be the first they killed.

I've heard people trying to break into the back of my house before when they tried to break down the fence in my garden and I was ok then but this time the noises I was hearing freaked me out. It reminded me of this nightmare I'd had semi-recently where I was trapped in my living room, on my own, with someone taunting me from the different windows around the room. Eventually the person threw something through one of the windows and then, as I concentrated on that side, he came through the other window and snuck up on me. It ended as I turned around to see a large knife in his hand and an evil grin on his face. It was just the feeling of being trapped and not knowing where the person was that freaked me out. And here there was the added fear for my sister and parents. The screaming and the sinister laughing, which seemed to be in reply to the screaming and pleading, carried on and I decided, even though the sound may be coming from just outside my room in the house, to run up to my parents room. So I did, with the sound of the sinister laughing haunting the hall as I snuck through it.

When I got to my parents room I told them what I was hearing and so they decided to check it out (and I came along because I was worried that if there was someone there they'd be attacked). So we checked the downstairs which was fine and then the upstairs, which again was fine. It was deathly quiet.

We waited in my room to see if the sounds would return. My parents decided it must have been some cats fighting because they are very high pitched when they do so and are known for sounding like babies or women screaming/crying. I felt really embarrased and confused. Because, although this explains the screaming sound, it doesn't explain the deep sinister laughing or the fact that the screaming sounds were accompanied by what sounded like pleading. It sounded like proper english words in coherent sentences.

Maybe, because I was woken up by it and therefore was just coming out of sleep mode at the time, I interpreted the sounds as women screaming and a man laughing and then, in this frame of mind, continued to hear it. But I know it definately wasn't a dream. Whatever it was I feel pretty stupid for waking my parents up over it seeing as no one has been reported murdered nearby and so it probably was just cats.

It certainly made it a memorable evening (well actually morning) but not one i'm desperate to experience again. And the next morning I had the sort of thing that inspires you to get up early, an appointment with the nurse for a vaccination (I make it sound like a bad thing but I don't have a fear of needles or anything so it wasn't a problem).

Got bored. So I drew. Its my character in Animal Crossing.

Its never ending, its also 3.24 am!

There was something special about this church but I can't remember what. I think it was something about it being very old and not having any of something which is important in holding up buildings.


I thought this was funny. Its a wind up car. Oh those crazy czechs attaching a giant key onto their car and pretending to wind it up before driving off into the sunset!

yep theres more

Its the clocktower in Dobruska's town centre. This was taken at 6 am just before I left to go to Prague for the finishing ceremony. It was cold and foggy.

This was the rolling ball in the Dobruska town centre. It provided many hours of tipsy ball rolling fun (slight exaggeration, more like about 15 minutes one evening after leaving the pool pub). That evening I changed the direction it rolled in (getting soaked in the process) and it was still rolling in the same direction the next day! Wow! The fun I had in Dobruska! I'm missing it more and more by the second!

Even more

Tis a random statue I saw in Dobruska on one of my walks. He looks kind of pissed off. Maybe its that smell of Chanel common to Dobruska. Or maybe its the fact that, being a statue, he is stuck there, never able to leave the small town of Dobruska where nothing ever happens.


Heres another pic of Dobruska taken while on one of my walks. You can see the clocktower in the distance. Strangely this pic makes me kind of miss Dobruska. It may have been a bit boring to live in for 4 weeks but it was a cute little town. In fact i'm missing the Czech Republic as a whole. And I have a craving for BeBe biscuits!

More mobile pics

This was a picture taken just outside one of the many castles we visited. Haven't a clue which castle it was. I think it was the one in a nearby town to Dobruska called Opocno. The following pictures were taken in the castle grounds:

Czech mobile pics continued

I went for a walk (and walked for about 3 hours). Whilst on this walk around the town of Dobruska I ended up in some fields that seemingly went on forever and then randomly saw this ugly building placed in the middle of nowhere. I decided to take a picture simply because I thought it was really ugly.

Whilst on this walk I also got really lost and ended up walking along a railway line towards civilisation (I guessed it must eventually go back to the town, luckily I was right). Unfortunately a train decided to use the track also so I had to jump down into the long grass next to the track. It was raining. The grass was soaking. I got soaking.

I waded through the long grass and eventually was able to climb back onto the track and then a road. It started to pour with rain so I decided to take a walk by the stream running through the town (as you do when it pours with rain). Heres 2 pics:

Czech mobile pics

Well i've been back from the Czech Republic for about 3 weeks. So what better time is there to put up some boring photos from my mobile phone which I took there (those who say a better time would be either when I got back or never because they're crap photos can shut up).

These are some chimneys sticking out of the ground which I thought looked cool so took a pic:



This is a statue of the grandmother (and some kids) from a very famous Czech novel called 'the grandmother (well I think thats the name, I forget).

There will be more pics to come for your viewing displeasure! Bet your wetting your pants with anticipation!

Wheel woman

Today while in central London I saw a woman carrying around a bicycle wheel. No sign of the bike, just 1 wheel. Theres not really much more to say about it so I won't try.

The checkout woman

I walked up to the checkout with my sister. The woman at the checkout was staring at some man who was looking at magazines, smiling. She continued to do this for a minute or two before we said, 'um, hello?' She slowly moved her head in our direction and then gave a strangely sexy sounding 'helloooooo.'

She then went on to scan our shopping before demanding money. But she had trouble adding up the money we gave her (we made the mistake of paying for the shopping with change). We were accused of being 10p short but we then found out it was because she thought the 20p was a 10p.

However she had to be the poshest checkout woman I have ever been served by. She spoke like the queen, she worked in Budgens.

'Want the receipt?', um no!

I went to get some chinese cabbage for the won ton soup my mum was making today. And when I went to pay the woman at the till printed off a receipt (as you do). But she had forgotten to get rid of all the previous receipts. So the receipt was this veeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrry long piece of thin paper. So the woman asked me whether I wanted the receipt. I looked at the receipt draped over the counter and trailing all over the floor. I looked up at the woman. I said, 'um, no'.

Its been a while.

As the title of this blog entry suggests, its been a while since I had any 'travelling experiences.' But that period of rest has ended and today I returned to being unable to navigate public transport and around central London efficiently (and with the added pressure of a time limit). Actually, just thinking about it, thats a lie because I had that Prague bus incident.................but that was in another country.............and here i'm referring to London travelling difficulties.

Anyway I was asked to help out my parents by going to town to a barrister's office where I would write notes dictated by the barrister in preparation for a court case. As a certain old teacher, who I and I know almost all others taught by him would rather forget, would say ' TAKE NOTES!!!!!!!!!!!'. Then I would go to drop off a file at a court.

I got dressed relatively smartly and, after receiving instructions on how to get to the places I needed to go, I caught the 91 bus. I had to wait quite a while for the bus but thats buses for you. And the old saying rang true. Two buses came at once. I knew roughly the area I was meant to get off the bus at. I just had to look out for Holborn Station and then I knew as soon as the bus turned left I had to get off. Its not hard...............but apparently too hard for me.

I somehow did not see Holborn station and before I knew it I was almost at Trafalgar square. Great. So I walked back towards Fleet Street, the street where a side road leading to where I needed to go was situated. I was already about half an hour late (even if everything had gone perfectly to plan I would have been about 15 minutes late). I felt really bad as I knew the barrister and client were waiting for me. So when I got to fleet street I didn't actually realise I was there and, seeing Chancery lane and remembering that was a road I would need to take (unfortunately one I would need to take later rather than then), I walked up it. It was only once I was half way up it that I realised I was walking away from where I wanted to go and that I had been exactly where I needed to go for the conference. But, seeing as I was already half way up the road and needed to go there later to drop off the file, I carried on, dropped off the file and then walked back again towards fleet street.

Back at fleet street I almost straight a way saw a sign pointing to where I wanted to go. It was down this small side street that was through a small arch and hard to spot. Once I walked down the road it split in all directions and I didn't have a clue where to go. I asked a couple of people there but no one knew where the place I needed to go to was. They could only tell me it was very near. Helpful.

After searching for a while and feeling terrible because I was an hour late I found a map on the wall from which I easily worked out where to go. It was quite embarrasing walking into the conference room and then apologising profusely for being so late. Luckily the barrister and client were very nice about it and told me what was happening and what had happened (the barrister had used the extra time while I was moping around town to write up some important letters for the case).

Writing notes for 2 hours isn't the most riveting thing but it was easy to do, luckily for me as I was exhausted from walking around London for so long and I forgot to eat lunch because I was rushing. So I was also really hungry. The conference room had chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate chip cookies! It even smelt of chocolate chip cookies! I was so wanting that whole bowl of cookies but because we were behind due to my lateness I had no time to have any. The smell taunted me for the whole 2 hours.

The journey back wasn't interesting. I just listened to music and it went relatively quickly as a result. Oh and of course I noticed Holborn Station without even looking for it on the way back. Stupid station. It should be fluorescent or something. Then people wouldn't miss it.

But my feelings of hunger were soothed by a delicious pizza once I got home.

Bus journey to Brno

I was up and ready to catch a coach nice and early the next day. My friend had to go to work but getting to the coach station was easy so I had no problems getting there. I got there about 10 am and straight away went to buy a ticket with the company I had been advised to use. But unfortunately they were booked up for the 10.30 coach. Even worse they were booked up for all coaches till 3.30 pm. There was no way I was waiting that long.

I went down to the information booth and asked when the next bus to Brno was (in czech). I was told opposite. Confused as to what the woman meant by opposite I walked over to the booth opposite but there was no tickets for buses to Brno being sold there. So I walked back over to the info booth and asked a different person the same question. They told me to go to platform 7 for a bus at 11.30. So I did just that.

The bus arrived but started only letting on people who already had a ticket. Those who did not had to queue and hope they could get on. I was in that queue. I waited in it for about half an hour before it was revealed there wasn't enough room for most of us queuers.

Tired, hurting from the heavy bags (yep again, stupid bags!) and very hot (it was starting to get really hot in czech again after the cold winds of Dobruska) I went back to the info desk. I was this time told to go to platform 11 for a bus leaving at 12.30.

Luckily this time I was able to get on. My bag was my companion sitting in the seat next to me (as I couldn't be bothered to put it under the bus, luckily the drivers didn't notice) and the seat in front of me was occupied by a large plant. Not the most talkative of passengers (by the way the plant wasn't mine, I don't know whose it was).

When i got to Brno luckily I recognised the station (as no one actually said we'd reached Brno) and I was met by my friend before making the tram and then trolleybus journey back to my friend's flat.

The last day part 3

That evening I had a beer with the friend I was staying with in a nearby pub before going by metro to meet up with my remaining course friends. I easily got to the meeting place (the Prague metro really is simple, proven by the fact that I have no problems navigating it) and we started to all walk towards a club. After numerous delaying factors (including waiting for latecomers, waiting for people to eat dinner as they suddenly felt the need to eat and waiting for a girl who randomly decided it was time to wish a friend happy birthday and then have a long conversation with the friend) we made it to the club. It was closed. So we went to stary namesti (the old square) and all had a beer or two (or three) whilst chatting.

One by one the number present started to drop as people left. In the end there was only me and two of my friends (and one person I didn't like that much). It was about 2 in morning and, because the metro stopped running at midnight, I had to make a roughly 30 minute walk back to my friends appartment. So at that point I decided it was time for me to to say goodbye. As my friends said goodbye some random people sitting nearby also decided to say goodbye to me...........which was nice. Maybe they'd been watching the Dobruska channel. Maybe they were drunk.

St Wenceslas Square at 2 something in the morning is quite dodgy. I would recommend people avoid it at this time. My journey home seemed quite long but luckily I remembered it from before I started the course when I went for a walk to the old square. On the walk home I needed the toilet. By the time I got to my friends flat I was desperate for it. Unfortunately the door into the block of flats and, even worse, the door into the flat itself were in my way. Even more unfortunate was the fact that I was a bit tipsy, not the best time to try and unlock doors as quietly as possible so as not to wake the flat's residents. It took a while but I eventually managed to open the door to the appartment building, but getting into the actual flat itself proved impossible. I had to go to the toilet and did so by a nearbye tree (I can't believe i'm talking about this on my blog but whatever). But then I couldn't even get back into the appartment building. I spent 10 minutes or so trying to unlock the door (which I knew I could because I had just done so 10 minutes earlier) before realising I was trying to unlock the wrong door (the building I wanted was further up the street). Feeling incredibly embarrased I opened the correct door and, after again spending ages again trying to unlock the flat door, I finally succeded and made my way into the flat.

The last day part 2

During the castle tour I was surprised at the amount of Czech I understood. It wasn't that I understood everything perfectly but I could understand alot of what was being said and I always had an idea of what the tour guid was saying. I was actually hearing the czech words and sentence structure which I had spent a month learning rather than the words all smudging together to make one long incomprehendable mess of speech.

When the tour ended we were taken to an empty part of the castle not open to the tourists. There they served wine and champagne and we waited. The teachers started arranging us in lines according to our countries position in the czech alphabet and our own surnames. Being from Great Britain (in czech Velky Britannia) I was third last with the other two English people being after me.

When the Czech presidents wife arrived the lines, which we had spent so long forming, disintegrated and everyone began to produce a semi-circle around her. Apparently she is known by many czech people as the frog due to her appearance and people's general dislike for her.

As seems to be the norm for the course the meeting was being filmed (god knows who for this time) and one by one they made us greet the first lady, say your name and where you're from and if you were unlucky she asked you a question. Being 3rd last it took ages for my turn to arrive (there were 76 people on the course). I walked up to her, said dobry den (good day) and where I was from (ja jsem z Anglie). Guess who was unlucky. Yep she had to ask me a question. She asked me whether I study or work. I was concentrating on what she was asking and trying to pick out the correct answer from the question. Unfortunately, in concentrating so much on this, I forgot to conjugate my answer and just copied what she asked me. So I ended up telling her 'you work' (which at least provided some amusement for the other course members).

As soon as the greeting ceremony ended she told us she had another meeting she needed to get to and left (at this point it had also just started raining). So, in the rain, the graduating ceremony took place. One by one, again in alphabetical order, we went to shake hands with the teachers and receive our certificates. Again I was 3rd last.

And that marked the official end to the course. Some people (like me) were staying in Prague whereas others were returning to Dobruska. So we all said our goodbyes and some of us planned to meet up later that evening in Prague for one last get-together.

I did it again!

Well I remembered my coat this time, however this years piece of clothing to be forgotten is apparently my swimming trunks. They are residing in Brno in exactly the same place I left my coat last year.

And I was planning to go swimming tomorrow morning. Damn!