Tascha time!!!!

Yesterday was a really exciting day for me as I met up with my dear friend Natascha. Tascha had planned to visit England, being from Austria herself, and I delayed my move in order to get to meet her once again. We last saw each other in Vienna where we spent a good few days exploring, and where we celebrated my eighteenth birthday together. If you can't work it out from that I'll clarify: We've not seen each other in way too long!

We met up outside Camden station in London and it was truly wonderful to see her again. Tascha is one of the kindest people I know and it really is a shame that we live so far. It was truly amazing to meet up with Tascha again and I am not even going to try and put it into words. Despite her protestations that her English had worsened (her English is great) we really did pick up where we left off and had a wonderful time. I was also lucky enough to get to meet her cousin,who I think is called Sabrina but I didn't catch her name after the initial introduction so apologies if I am wrong!

Can you tell which of the cousins was sitting in the sun?

It was great to be back in Camden after a while of not visiting. The mazes of stalls, all full of clothes and items that I could quite easily integrate into my collection are all fun to explore. I maintain that the best way to explore the area is to simply walk and get lost in the markets. If you try to find something in particular it's not going to work out quite so well! 

We also had a Turkish wrap thing off one of the street food stalls. Not only were the people on the stall lovely but the food was good too. Indeed, we've not had one of these pancake things (I forget the name and the stall just called the wraps) since my mother and I were in Turkey and sitting in a little tent. It was really nostalgic for me!

Of course, I never manage to show people around without there being some drama and this came in the shape of getting caught in the middle of a police chase. By this, I mean that the bloke who was running managed to hit me in the head with something as he went past. Nice couple of hours of dizziness (sorry to Tascha and Sabrina who had to look after me!) and a lovely bruise forming today. Not complaining because, seriously, these are the events that make the best stories for the future!! It was really funny though as one of the stall holders came over to clarify that this wasn't what England's normally like, bless him!

By this time, it was about time for us to part anyway as The Visitors had tickets for The Book of Mormon and needed to go to theatre land! Can you tell I'm jealous? ;-)

Tascha then really surprised my mother and I by giving us gifts that she had brought with her. My favourite, and that of my family, has to be the home made miniature bottles of schnapps with a little gnome on the bottle. Those feel so special and my bottle is going to take pride of place on one of my shelves in my new room no doubt. It was really sad to part, once again, and I simply hope that we manage to see one another soon, and, indeed, hope that both she and her cousin have a safe flight home on Thursday.

<3

Of course, after a day like that, the journey home simply couldn't be smooth... The car broke down, having been serviced the day before, and we were stuck for about three hours on the M1 - luckily we got to a service station. That said, the drama of the day really brought people out of themselves. Stall holders who came to check I was okay earlier in the day, the men who stopped to try and help with the car, the gentleman and his family who  lived locally and said that we could go to his if need be, the lady who gave us parking for free because it would have cost us twenty pounds otherwise, the cashier at the service station who came over and chatted for ages after his shift so we didn't get bored. These kind of interactions only really happen in mini (or larger!) crises but don't they remind you of the beauty of humanity. If only we all came out of our shells a little more and showed each other the love that we have inside, and if only society allowed that to happen.

An eventful few days

On Monday, after singing, I went down to Exeter to collect my exam certificates from college. It was really strange to be back in the old building, walking the same old routes, yet without one familiar face along the way. I can't say I miss college but I do miss some of the people who I met there very much.

There's something slightly anticlimactic about
holding the certificates but all the same!

I also spent most of the day yesterday in Exeter itself with my mother doing some Christmas shopping and generally lurking. First stop was John Lewis to look at a DSLR camera that I'm hoping to receive for Christmas. After a fair old while of photography with compact cameras only I've given in and decided to invest in a 'proper' camera. I'll be honest and say that I'm still not 100% happy with it but my aims are getting increasingly ambitious and I'm getting more and more frustrated with the limitations of the compact camera. Anyway, this wasn't supposed to be a camera rant!

I was especially happy to see that the Christmas Market was up and running on the Cathedral Green, especially as I had read it opened on the 1st of December! It was a lovely surprise. I was also remembered by a couple of the stall holders... I must have spent way too long there last year! It was so lovely to see people having fun together. One college aged girl walked past saying to her friends "I can't help it, I just love Christmas!" while a young boy ran up to a statue of Santa and tried to take a gift from his bag. There was an all round excitement and that is what makes Christmas so special.

I forgot to take photos at the market so have a shoddy
photo of a half eaten cake I bought there instead ;-)

When darkness fell mother and I sat down in a hastily constructed bar tent (which was blasting Michael Jackson songs) and had a glass of Glühwein each. You can blame 'Tascha for that because she was the one who started us drinking it! It was here that I logged into facebook, meaning to message 'Tascha although I never did, and found the following in my update feed:

Post by RASTABAN.

Well, that was unexpected. I write reviews here for my friends or for my own reference and never expect them to be read by anyone else, least of all the person/band I was writing about. I was so touched by what was written though and say, yet again, that this just goes to show that Rastaban are not only a band full of wonderful musicians but lovely people too. If you still haven't listened to them go and listen now!

The other thing that happened that day was on the way back to the car I stopped and chatted to a homeless gentleman. This was something I used to end up doing quite a lot in Exeter and I forgot how worthwhile it was. In the end my mother gave him some money and he gave her an origami crane that he had made. As we walked away he shouted after us: "God bless!". We'll probably never meet again but for those few minutes our lives crossed and it was beautiful.

Gifts from afar

Okay, okay, Austria's not all that far but all the same when I received a parcel from 'Tascha, who happens to be a brilliant friend of mine, it was still pretty exciting.

'Tascha and I were last together about a year ago when I visited Austria for my eighteenth birthday. She did absolutely everything she could to make it special for me, and succeeded. I was pretty overwhelmed to learn she was sending my something for my birthday this year too and really excited to hear from her in a more personal way than online.

Today, I got my parcel with a beautiful handmade card (which is now sat on my newly tidied desk) and some gifts relating to my favourite things. This made me feel so special that someone thought not only to send me something for my birthday but that they thought through what I would like and, more importantly perhaps, took time and creative energy to make part of the gift for me. I am walking on air because I'm so happy right now.

Thank you Natascha!!

This was about the tenth attempt to photograph me in the hat she sent.
Mother wasn't happy with the others because they showed building work!

Youtube news!

About four years ago I first started to subtitle Elisabeth. It was about a week before my birthday and, having discovered the magic of this musical I decided I wanted to share it with my friends who were coming round to celebrate my birthday (although, of course, it wasn't finished in time). Thus I decided to use a dictionary to translate my favourite musical. 

As you may well know, I had never intended to upload 'Elisabeth' onto youtube but in early 2010 my computer got a virus and, so that I didn't loose my work completely with the death of the computer, I uploaded them onto youtube. The response was instant and more positive than I could have believed. I decided to continue to upload the videos, as I made them.

Suddenly the project of a fourteen year old became something bigger and had more influence on my life than I could ever have imagined.

In the end, my friends never watched 'Elisabeth' with me, but people from all around the globe have shared it with me. I have had some amazing conversations with people because of Elisabeth, met some amazing people and, most importantly, I met three of my closest friends (Helena, Aleks, and Natascha) as a direct result of the show. 

Not only this, but I realised something... languages weren't that inaccessible to me. Sure, I struggled with French like mad but German, well I was learning that by accident. Because of the translating I became more confident and continued my French studies, picked up Japanese, and will be studying German and Hungarian at university next year.

But why am I writing this now?

Today, almost exactly four years after I subtitled my first video, my youtube channel hit 1000 subscribers.

So this is a thank you blog, really. If you are reading this then it's probably because you've been looking at my subtitles in some form, at some point over the years. Your messages, your views, everything, has encouraged me in so many ways. Yes, every creative member of 'Elisabeth', 'Rebecca', and 'Marie Antoinette' has had an influence too but it's been you, the people who have supported me, who have changed my life and for that I thank you.