There is a Green Hill Far Away...

As I might have pointed out already I'm currently living the most interesting period of my life so far. So forgive me if I do get a bit carried away or if it seems that I've even got an overdose of euphoria while writing this. After all, I've finally emigrated to a climate where I do not have to suffer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder) on regular basis and thus have no excuse for being grumpy or gloomy. I really feel that I've done already enough whining on this blog so now it's high time for me to take you on a tour through the best bits of my life here in London. Let us start!

1. The Yerfaslav Inklings
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Many of you might be familiar with a certain group of informal literary discussion associated with the Oxford University. This particular group was called the Inklings. You might have heard of them (if not then shame on you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings). Well, in order to honour their legacy a small group of UCL affiliate students has now officially formed an unofficial group of informal academic discussion which meets ever Wednesday at the Jeremy Bentham (or the Old Jerry) pub. Less fancifully expressed me and my two friends (Ville & Vallu) got this idea on a day trip to the Stonehenge and Bath about two weeks ago. Here's a picture from that trip with both Vallu & Ville in it.

And what's in the name? Why Yerfaslav? Well, as you might have guessed, it is indeed sort of an anagram from our names (and 'fa' stands for Stefan).

2. The Oxford Pilgrimage

On this trip to the Stonehenge and Bath it was proposed that we should do a similar visit to Oxford and to pay homage to Tolkien in his home town. The Yerfaslav Inklings met for the first time last week in order to prepare for this trip which turned out to be quite a success. Among other things we befriended a Moldavian guy with exquisitely ragged sense of humour, drank real ale at the original Inklings home pub the Eagle and the Child (or the Bird and the Baby as the Inklings called it), ended up in a fancy dress party (at some guy's house) of freshmen from the New College of Oxford University and finally - got hammered. We returned to London on a night bus and were at home around 6 am. Needless to say I was very thirsty next afternoon (once I woke up). Here's a cheerful picture and a somewhat grim reminder from our epic journey to Oxford. 

(psst! it says: Remember what happened to the dinosaurs!)

 3. Life in a dormitory

Even if the rent is quite steep in Bloomsbury my bachelors way of life allows me some everyday treats like this brand new haute cuisine invention of mine. I'm not quite sure how to call this dish. It does have a codename though. It's the buckwheat surprise! After you learn what's in it I hope you could give me some proposals as to how to call this treat.

The Ingredients:

a) half a cup of buckwheat
b) 8-12 pieces of sausage OR tofu
c) one good sized onion
d) 4-7 champignon mushrooms
e) two eggs
f) some sour cream (if you have any) + spices

Procedure:

Basically there's nothing much to this. You take a small saucepan where you boil the buckwheat for a quarter of an hour (remember to spice it up with salt or butter). Then you take a biggish frying pan and start frying the rest of the (by now sliced!) components starting from the sausages or the tofu (depending whether you're vegetarian or not!) and continuing with the onion and mushrooms. Once the buckwheat is ready through it into the frying pan with the rest of the ingredients. When most of the moisture has boiled away you add the eggs in order to get more doughy feeling to this dish. Make sure the eggs are well scrambled (in fact you shouldn't be able to tell that there are any). As you must know the eggs also make any food much more substantial so personally I wouldn't leave them out even if I were a vegetarian (well okay, ovovegetarian!). N.B. tofu takes quite a while to fry up so, please, just trust me: you don't want to end up with underdone tofu in your mouth. Be patient.

And here we have the less photogenic picture of this thoroughly bachelor style food:

4. All the things awaiting

In two weeks time my girlfriend will come over to London! We've got many ideas how to spend the weekend of a lifetime in this city but let it suffice to say that there's a punk rock concert of Flogging Molly (boyah!) and some nocturnal wandering included. Right after her departure I'm off to my first proper holiday away from London. I'm going to the Outer Hebrides to visit an old friend of mine. He lives with his wife in the quite little village of Grosebay on the Isle of Harris. Just today I received a call from him confirming that they are looking forward meeting me in the Stornoway harbour. I can hardly believe that after these four long years of studying and working I'm actually going back to the sites of those old euphoric days.

5. ... I'm going back there one fine day!

But tomorrow I'm leaving London for Bristol! There I'm going to stay with my two CS friends I met and befriended this summer in Moscow. One of my them is originally from the smallest city in England called Wells (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells) and on a day trip there I'm also going to re-experience by favourite town in all West Country: Glastonbury! There are many things I could tell you about Glastonbury based on my last visit there. One things is sure: it is probably the best place in all of England to smoke some pipe, to taste some local cider and I'll probably return with a backpack full of bottles filled with the water from the Chalice Well (btw, what kind of an Atheist does that make me tough?). I'll tell you more once I get back. Okay?

Yours in high expectations,

-Stefan 

PS. Now instead of a picture I'll share a song with you to demonstrate properly this ongoing euphoria of mine (the song deals very much with the idea of god but please note that all references to any god are completely unintentional here):

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Glastonbury Song - The Waterboys

I dreamed myself from the sultry plains to the old green square back in old Maybole
Rode the wind up to Stornoway paused at the peak, pacified my soul
Caught the bus at the faery fort made it to the mansion on the Boyne
See I come around to the ancient ways I took a tip from the Buddha boy

I just found god, I just found god, I just found god where he always was

We came down from the hill of dreams Bernadette, mother earth and you and me
Through Carraroe, down the wild wood side blinding our eyes in the shallow seas
Drank fire with the King of the Blues, plugged in to the medicine way
Took a long last look at Crazy Horse push now for a golden age

I just found god, I just found god, I just found god where he always was

I found myself on the roof of the world just waiting for to get my wings
Strange angel in the changing light said "Brother, you forgot something!"
My heart beat from the inside out so lucky just to be alive!
Can you tell what I'm talking about? Any day now the Sun's gonna rise!

I just found god, I just found god
I just found god where he always was
I just found god where he always was

There is a green hill far away I'm going back there one fine day.
There is a green hill far away I'm going back there one fine day!