I used to hate my violin, I love my guitar

I was seven or eight when my parents bought me a small violin. I don't think they wanted me to become Paganini but were wise enough to know that some musical education would be useful for developing my personality.

Frankly, I really hated playing this instrument. The main reason probably was my teacher who failed to wake up any enthusiasm for violin in myself: I had to exercise over and over again boring and strange sounding melodies, moreover he couldn't explain to me properly the theory so that I had always trouble to read the notes. So, not only got my fingers hardened but also my willingness to continue. After about a year I gave up. Secretly. I was too worried to tell my parents as they always tried to encourage me in playing. So I was skipping the lessons for about three months. When it came to surface my parents really weren't happy, neither was I, as my bottom had some bruises. (Not so much for skipping the lessons but for spending the money for the teacher.)

My dad told me they wouldn't force me to play the violin any longer but under one condition – „choose any small instrument you think you could like and try and l learn it.“ There was only choice – the guitar. This time I was more lucky with the teacher even though I found the beginning almost as boring as playing the violin. But I started to like it slowly. The exercises suddenly sounded more pleasantly to my ears although they all were simple pieces of classical music. After a year I still didn't play any chord, actually I did but had now idea about it. My teacher was preparing me for playing them but not before I mastered all basic and some more then basic playing skills. Some months later I discovered by myself how to play chords and thanks to my previous education (and my teacher's patience) I was surprisingly able to play not only the chords but also the melody. The guitar got me, swept me off my feet, I just kept on playing.

Today I feel sorry for my parents and neighbors who had to listen to my playing almost every day, even playing the electric guitar as loud as possible. You know, it was the time of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and The Bee Gees. Their fame crossed even the iron curtain. Then the years of university came, I started working at the same time and got married finally. Both of my guitars stayed abandoned somewhere in the corner, there was no time to play and as we had no money I eventually sold them.

The first thing I bought after my divorce was the guitar. And I played and played not to be better but to drive away my sadness, „strumming my pain with my fingers“. After a few months of this „practising“ I was better then ever before. About ten years ago I bought my dream twelve string guitar which sounds really well and it seems to play even better then I do actually.

Well, playing the guitar (any instrument) is a joy. It is able to rise your spirits when you are sad (and of course vice versa). It brings a real pleasure while sitting with friends. You are always welcomed with your guitar. So I hope Bettina, a young lady from Australia, who has just bought her first guitar, will have the same experience. She can only play four cords but there are many songs only for three… She is announcing:

„I don't have any aspirations of playing in a band or getting all sophisticated and technical- all I want to do is sit on the terrace and play the guitar. By myself. That's all I want to do. I'm so excited. So far, I can do G major, C major, E minor and D major. Apparently there's a song in that, but I haven't quite found it yet. The tips of my fingers are sore as hell, but it's all worth it.“

P.S. I still have my first violin. It reminds me of childhood, my parents and my first and last corporal punishment.

A man whose hobby is collecting sentences

There are two reasons why I like reading blogs, more precisely, blogs written by English native speakers. Not only do they give me the opportunity to discover so many details of their lives, their moods, ups and downs etc. everyone knows what I am talking about, but they also offer me the way how to express all those things. I consider blogs the best English textbook. They are very helpful to improve my English.

Each time I read a blog I come across an interesting sentence that includes some new word or grammar. I copy it and translate into my language. Then I try and translate this translation back into English original, so that I have to think not only about all the words but about all grammar rules as well.

You may be surprised by the number of sentences I have collected and translated within five years – more then 10 000. They are all stored in my small palmtop which is able to choose randomly any of them - first my Czech translation without having the chance to see the English version. It appears only after translating into English and pushing a button.

I always strive to pick up a sentence that can “live” by itself, that sort of stretches the imagination, includes some emotions or tensions, is funny or sad etc. Here you are some examples from the last weekend, this time mostly about relationships, or better, about loneliness:

desolation = I came home to an empty house and tried to make warm with a fake christmas tree. This example illustrates the desolation of a lonely woman's life.

We lost our power about on Tuesday night. I am afraid of the dark, so I pulled the covers over my head and tried to sleep. When I got up the power was back on, so I jumped up and made a pot of coffee, and then it went out again.

I had to get out the Coleman stove and cooked my lunch sitting at the dining room table. There is just something about cooking on the camp stove that makes it taste so much better.

tip over = Wednesday was our recycle day so all the bins were out, many tipped over and there is paper, cardboard, etc. all over the place now.

I have an older brother and an older sister. All three of us have been divorced. My parents have been together for more than 40 years, first marriage.

I am by no means unattractive: I am a busty, skinny blonde. Why do I keep attracting men afraid of sex? Will I ever find a good man to have any kind of “normal” sex life with?

I met him last night at dinner. He's been living in London for the last 12 years and has come back to NZ to live. I'd never met him but we really clicked. Like seriously good chemistry between us.

Some wise person once said something like "never do business with your own family". Yeah well, it's hard to turn your own family down. You feel obligated or something. Well I finally got pissed enough this morning that I fired my own brother. He drives me nuts.

We will never marry. He is going through a divorce and I've been divorced twice, so it's not something we're considering.

I'm still a little surprised when I feel loneliness when people leave me. Tonight, as people left, it was on the tip of my tongue to say, wait, don't leave. I went back to the kitchen to finish some dishes, and I think that it would have been nice just to have someone sit there with me even in silence. I don't want to be in this house alone.

let sleeping dogs lie = She has started to email me. After all these years. Should I reply, or let sleeping dogs lie? - I wouldn't reply. It's never good to stir up the dust once it's settled.

When I am in the mood I open my palmtop and try and translate. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I wonder why English is so tricky.

Back from Paris

Paris was great, better than I had expected. It is just beautiful and friendly city, even the weather came up trumps as it was drizzling only the last hours of the last day.

I wondered what the new EU airport security steps were going to be like. Nothing out of the ordinary except for liquids that are not allowed, moreover I had to take my shoes off in Paris. But the security staff didn´t seemed uptight, they were even friendly, especially in Prague. What struck me more, however, were the soldiers with guns at Paris airport and many other public places. I got the impression there were taking their job really seriously, walking slowly and watching carefully every corner just like hawks. Unlike the soldiers at Prague aiport who seem to pay attention to themseves above all.

As for the trip, all went as planned, Montmartre and Sacré Coeur, Notre Dame and Quartie Latin and St Germain, Eiffel tower, Louvre, Arc de Triophe, Champ Elesees and many many other places including Versailles or some new districts at the edge of the city. Mostly I was really impressed and you should know I am pretty picky living in the old city of a hundred spires. I guess the biggest difference is the wide of Paris. In Prague you have all those medieval wonders on a dime. Paris is much more spacious with lots of beautiful parks and of course you need to stroll much longer distance. But compared to all those explored views and sights weary soles were nothing. It was my first visit to Paris, definitely not the last.

A girl from Singapore was writing her travel blog from Paris just a few days before me:

„Decided to walk around the city for the first day since I have not quite decided on my itinerary. To my horror or horrors, the city is huge. The maps just make it look small. I walked and walked for abt an hour before getting to louvre (and it was not before I got lost). My walking tour has not ended... I decided to look for the tourist office to pick up some ideas where I shd visit. This brought me to the Opera a monument. I visited galleries la fayette… The day ended with a train ride back to the hostel... I couldn't walk anymore.“

Armistice Day? No clue what does it mean.

In a week it is going to be 17 years since the velvet revolution in my country. We have become the part of EU and we all have been learning again what the democracy is like. We have been really enjoing our new freedom, but there are still so many things that are in front of us.

Tomorrow many people in the countries, we want to belong to, will celebrate Armistice Day (or Remembrance Day). Unlike us. Yes, officially, there will be some actions but generally people don't care. Not because they don't want to but because they have no clue what it is about.

There is no tradition to remember and honor those who were killed during wars except those who were the part of the Soviet Red Army and those whe died in the last few days of World War II during Prague's uprising. Of course, they have to be honored but they used to be honored way too much. This happened not the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" but every May 9th, the day that was celebrated like the final day of of World War II (no matter that the this war ended one day before in Europe). Worse, all others, killed during World War I and even those who died during World War II but wearing western uniforms were officially condemned to be forgotten. This has almost happened.

Many things has changed since then but the people's mind is hard to change from one day to the next. So tomorrow, maybe some people will wear poppies whille the majority will remain in the dark. Like I used to be some four years ago.

I was in England for the first time, starting studying English. And when the Armistice Day came the teacher explained to us the meaning. At 11 am we all took two minutes of silence as a sign of respect. The following weekend I went to London for the first time and what I was most impressed about were thousands and thousands poppies 'planted' almost everywhere. Thousands and thousands Londoners were coming with small crosses (or stars of David) decorated with silk poppies. Later I learned something about the charity connected with them.

At this point, I realised the huge difference between the people there and us. Those Britons strive not to forget those who died, mostly for others. We even don't know we should strive to. We have almost forgotten. I wish we remembered again. I guess, enjoying the freedom without remembering those ordinary people who had to die is like drinking best champagne or whisky without knowing their price. Is it a true joy then? Or is it more pretences? It is like 'Damn, stop bothering about some artificial flowers and charity…' It is just sad reality, the inheritance of our soviet-era past.

P.S. I am off to Paris tomorrow. I am curious to see the poppies there. Maybe I am too idealistic.

I finally can see who I take after

This old photo was taken in 1939 before Marz 15th. The young woman is my aunt Truda with her boyfrind. She was 16-years-old, he was 22.

I got this picture today from an old woman who had known her, they were schoolmates and this picture is the only one I have as a concrete memory of her. Finally I can see what she looked like.

After Marz 15th 1939 everything had changed in her life. That day the Nazi troops crossed the borders and my country was occupied. That first day of Hitler's tyranny the synagogue in the town where they lived was burned down as gloomy prognostications of things.

Not only did all Jews suppose to wear the yellow David star but many of them had to leave their jobs, their property were confiscated and childdren were expelled from schools. But that was only beginning of things to happen.

The two continued dating and in the spring in 1942 they got married, which was only a few weeks before there were ordered to get on the train (cattle carriages) to a concentration camp. They ended up in Terezin (the camp for all Czech Jews before sending them to other camps, mostly to Auswitz) along with their parents and my second aunt. Only my father was missing, because he managed to escape at the last moment.

They lived there for more then two years and that old lady who gave me this precious photo was with them. The living conditions were beyond words but the still stayed alive.

Then, in October 1944 those two were sent to Auswitz and within a few weeks to another camp in Bergen-Belsen while their parents were straightaway sent to a gas chamber.

My aunt and her husband were young and still relatively strong so they could work for the Nazis. But shortly before they left Terezin my aunt got pregnant and gave birth to a girl in Bergen-Belsen. That was like a death penalty. She and her daughter were killed, only a few months before that camp got released by US troops. Her husband survived and shortly after the war he moved to Australia.

My dad mentioned this aunt only once. He told me “Looking at you I think you take after your aunt Truda, your nose just looks like hers.” This was the only remark about her as he had never spoken about his family.
Looking at my aunt I guess my dad was right.