We've reached our first elongated gap between entries, and it's a whopper that spans a whole week. Starting last Thursday I attended the fourth of my four modules, Writing London, did some more doggiser in Hyde Park, showed off my Beşiktaş shirt at the kebab shop on Friday, lit up floorball practice on Saturday and paid a visit to Emma afterwards, played my first two matches for the Great White Sharks on Sunday. After that, honestly, it's been a pretty normal week. Except for how bloody warm it was on Monday, and the fox I met upon crossing London Bridge on Tuesday...
What did the fox say, you say? He said: "u wot m8" before trotting along.
Writing London is pretty great. The lecturer creates a nice and relaxed atmosphere, and I feel like I'm in the company of some interesting people in a really fun way. All my
lecturers are charmingly eccentric in their own way, but the personal
nature of this module is truly refreshing. The weather was nice on this day as well, and I immediately made my way to Hyde Park afterward to eat my lunch and do another session of doggiser; determined to be in best possible shape before practice a day later on Friday and Saturday's two matches.
On the subject of that, I still haven't checked out the London Royal Docks yet to do any swimming, but I've discovered that you can join the Serpentine Swiming Club at a much cheaper cost and swim until 09:30 every morning. Not only that, but I have a feeling that the (admittedly spartan) changing facilities would allow me to leave my stuff there and go for proper runs in Hyde Park instead of the depressing pavements around Old Street. Meaning I could get the tube to Hyde Park in comfort, drench my exercise clothes in sweat (I could break into a sweat on the South Pole), and then return to Old Street in warmer, dryer clothes afterwards. More on that when I find out more.
Quick history lesson: "It is perhaps of interest to note that the Football Association founded in 1863 is just one year older than the [Serpentine Swimming Club]."
As previously mentioned and totally planned, Friday last week conained a whole lot of nothing until I decided to explore King's Cross and the surrounding area. It was quite different without all the Lumiere exhibits and people all over the place.
Shrine to Severus Snape aka Alan Rickman at Platform 9 3/4.
I really like the way they've painted these construction barriers to look like hedges.
City planners of Sandnes should take note; this is what the area behind Vågen VGS could end up looking like.
Someone set fire to, and melted, this bin.
After that, I decided to nip round to "City Best Kebab", the one I told you about when I arrived, to get a samosa and finally show off my Beşiktaş shirt to Boris. He loved it, and we chatted for a bit about football and Istanbul before I left. This relation has made the local kebab shop so much more than just a kebab shop, and I'm reminded of it every single time we give each other a wave as I pass by.
On Saturday I had a nice breakfast before heading over to the Battersea Sports Centre, still feeling slightly apprehensive following my distastrous performance on Monday. To cut a long story short, I had a great practice session that quelled most of the doubts I had in my mind about being good enough to even play matches for the Great Whites (the A-team). This was also aided by me recieving my kit for this season:
I'd arranged with Emma to pay a visit to the Dudlyke household after practice to catch up on how we're doing, and to do a bit of laundry. Yeah, about that. Does £5 sound like a lot to you, to do one load of laundry at my nearest launderette? To me that's absolutely outrageous, but I could be wrong. For now I'm counting on the kindness and good company of the Dudlykes, and offering to do as many favours as humanly possible to reciprocate. They are a lovely bunch, and I must remember to take some photos next time I'm round to show these wonderful people I know. I ended up staying there until quite late before catching one of the last trains from Clapham Common back to Old Street.
I was up bright and early so that I could be at Clapham Junction by 08:45. Since there was only one car for all the people who turned up, some went by car and some went by train. I was in the train party, and we ended up all the way out to Farncombe by Godalming where we were collected by the car that took us the rest of the way.
Matches are in the format of 3 x 20 minutes, but where the third period is usually compressed to 15 for scheduling purpouses. I was put on the second forward line together with Mats from Sweden as centre, and my forward colleague Ray from Latvia on the right. The tactic was for Ray to run around like a posessed duracell rabbit, drawing two defenders, which would give me the time and space to take shots on goal. Fair enough! Ray is an absolute machine and it's really inspiring to play alongside someone with a capacity like that.
We won our first match against our biggest rivals, the London Crusaders by 6 goals to 4, after leading 6-1. I scored a textbook tap-in, I think it was our 6th, but I later noticed to my dismay that it wasn't registered as my goal on the match summary. Gutted. For the second game against the Hastings Predators, I was given the task of playing in defence for the first period. We concluded that I had more of a contribution to make up front, and I spent all the rest of my energy chasing down their defenders in another victory: 7-4 to the Sharks!
When we walked back down to the train station, we walked through what might as well have been the location for Hogwarts; Charterhouse School.
Getting the tube back to Old Street after a long day of travelling and playing.
I was totally knackered and completely famished when I got back, and after a quick rest I went out for a massive kebab and a chat with Boris. He assured me that my dad, who is a vegetarian, will love what he's got in store for him, and he showed signs of being my bro in that he warmed my samosa (pre-dinner snack) on the grill for me. I'm starting to feel at home here now.
On Monday I awoke to my temperature sensor detecting 14 degrees celcius outside, which was a bit of a shock. I wasn't ready for summer, and thankfully that was just a flash in the pan. But I dread to think how hot it's going to be when April/May approaches in this room that isn't amazingly insulated. Classes proceeded as usual. On Tuesday I went out for a little exploration and ended up crossing paths with a fox on London Bridge. I almost phoned the police on the 101 non-emergency hotline because the little rascal looked lost and was headed north, towards the city centre; but soon concluded that it was probably fine. I lost sight of it fairly quickly anyway, and later found out that urban foxes have been roaming the streets of London for quite some years now.
I also saw this brilliant Mini!
The self-deprecation is strong in this textbook on English language teaching...
That should bring us relatively up to speed with things. I've completed two weeks of classes and am starting to see elements of routine in my life in London. Tomorrow I'm planning to get started on some coursework that is to be handed in on Monday the 8th. Let's see how that goes!
Hello, this is Dad (the vegetarian) here. After reading about Boris, I'm definitely going to come and visit you some time before the end of May.
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