Wiselka, Ogrodzieniec and Krakow

So the birthday party was great. It didn't happen on the beach but around the campfire in Michal's garden. All my friends and Michal's guests who were at his house at that time were invited. There was a beautiful bouquet of forest flowers which my neighbor Marysia made (made with the herb "krwawnik" which is blood-giving and regulating, blood=soul...) and a big cake and some smaller cakes, wine and beer, and most importantly wonderful atmosphere under the Wiselka dark and starry sky. The whole time I spent in Wiselka was wonderful. Wiselka, or particularly Michal's house, is a great meeting place. My friends and neighbors joined me there, friends whom I met in Wiselka earlier also were there as Michal's guests who come to his house all the time, and then there were new friends who stayed at Michal's house so I made new friends... There are several rooms at Michal's house which he lets to vacationers in the summer and all vacationers become friends. They meet at a big kitchen downstairs, they make campfires at night, they watch each other's dogs and kids, they go for trips outside of Wiselka, and then they also visit each other at the places in which they live. This time I visited Gosia and Marek who live in Szczecin and Wlodzimierz who lives in Krakow but the story about these visits will come in a minute. So in Wiselka we woke up early with Max, we went for a walk to the forest (Max to pee, me to eat blackberries), then we ate breakfast, then we went to the beach (Max to bathe in the sea and sleep on dunes, me to study my Chinese medical texts), then we went to the village for dinner, then I went to visit Michal's father who is over 80 and was in need of Chinese medicine and someone who can talk about paralel worlds, then I did acupuncture for Michal (so that he can stop smoking for ever...), then we went to the beach again to watch the sunset, then went back home for supper or for campfire with friends, then we dragged ourselves to bed and we were so tired, but happy, on some occasions that we kinda fell asleep before we reached the bed... Originally I planned to stay on my piece of land (1km away from Michal's house) in a tent but all the friends who were supposed to stay there with me decided to stay at Michal's house so we also stayed at his house. We changed the rooms a few times to make space for some guests, slept in Michal's famous "salon" and eventually ended up in a small wooden house in the garden, which was actually the best thing. So the outlined plan of the day was sometimes interrupted by some short trips somewhere, going across the border to German towns and the like. We didn't go to Bornholm this time because the ferries go there only on Saturdays and we didn't want to stay a whole week on the island. Some other time. Wiselka's air is the best air I have come across. After three weeks Max and I became strong and beautiful, and full of energy of exquisite kind... Also my daily visits to Michal's dad were incredible. We talked a lot, I did some acupuncture, we exchanged some funny stories and humor, and we bacame close. When we were saying goodbye I felt this connection to Mr. Marciniak, something hard to describe, something elusive but eternal... and I thought that this will happen in the future maybe, that some of my patients will become my friends, or that they will grasp something I wanted to share with them and that I will grasp what they wanted me to know, without saying a lot, just absorbing the energy. During my daily visits we were both learning from each other, learning stuff that is most valuable, stuff that books don't teach, only life can...

Then Gosia and Marek invited me to visit them in Szczecin. I met them three years ago in Michal's house and it was wonderful to meet again. I stayed at their beautiful old house, we went biking around the city, we went to see "The Tempest" in the courtyard of the old townhouse (but were chased out by a great storm and rain, the tempest indeed), we went to a museum and art galleries, we listened to music at night... Szczecin is a beautiful city. It was badly damaged during WWII, a lot has been rebuilt and now the rebuilding and beautifying goes on full speed. It has many nice old buildings and the new ones are built to resemble the old so the atmosphere remains. It is also a port and I love port cities.

I stayed a few days in Poznan after my return, did a million things that always await me on my return (it's funny but there's always some administrative stuff, some kind of mistake about the house, the car, this or that, taxes or fees due, etc., etc., which is made by some secretary in some office and then it takes me a few days to fix it... it seems it's the Polish specialty, the very erroneous administrative body - it resembles Kafka's "The Castle" - and the administrative body's pride, and the ordinary customer, tax payer, who has to deal with it... and break it, but not in a way that it is too obvious because then it is impossible to fix anything...). And after I dealt with the fixing I went to Ogrodzieniec to visit Mariusz whom I met in the Bydgoszcz School of Acupuncture and who also visited me in July. We went to visit the castle in Ogrodzieniec, or rather the ruins of the castle. The castle was very big originally and it still has a lot of space to walk about. It was built on the hill so the view from it is beautiful. This region of Poland - Jura krakowsko-czestochowska - is famous for its hilly form and for mountains or rocks good for rock-climbing. Mariusz climbs rocks and I went with him and his friends rock-climbing on a rock right next to the castle. I never did it before and thought I would be scarried hopelessly but I wasn't really. Mariusz was securing the line from the bottom and the line was fastened to a kind of harness tied around our waists. I stood under the vertical rock and though it would be impossible to get to the top of something like that. But the rock is quite porous and there are spaces to find for toes and fingers and push up. It was fun and when I got to almost top I felt good. It was not a big rock but still it gave me a feeling of elation, physical and mental. I will have to do it again in the future. We also went with Mariusz to visit the salt mine in Wieliczka. It is one of the oldest salt mines in Europe and the only one still in existance - not a working mine but very well preserved. It is now a museum and it can be visited with a guide. There is also a sanatorium part where people stay for inhailing salty air for all kinds of immune and respiratory problems. I was enchanted with the many corridors, sculptures made of salt, all kinds of chapels and even a salt cathedral (dedicated to St. Kinga - the patron of the Wieliczka Salt Mine), the salty lakes, the old wooden equipment, etc. We had a great guide who explained everything to us, who told us a lot of jokes, poetry and even sang some songs. It was great. Everything happens about 150 meters under the ground - you can even have coffee or eat dinner at the mine's cafe and restaurant. It is a really cool place and I recommend it to everyone who visits Poland. In the evening Mariusz's friends joined us for "parzonki" which is a tipical dish for this region of Poland (close the coal mines). It is layers of potatoes, sausage, bacon, onion, beets and carrots, put in a cast iron pot and placed in the campfire. It is done exactly the same way as the dish in Minas Gerais, a mining region in Brazil. I wrote about it when I was describing my trip to Brazil. Very tasty. We had it with home made vodka rakija which Mariusz brought from Croatia as him and his friends toured Croatia on bikes in August.

After I parted with Mariusz and his parents I went to Olkusz (which wasn't in my plans but I got a lift there on my way to Krakow) and visited the small but nice old town market square. Then I went to Krakow and walked around the huge old town market square. It was full of tourists... so full that I felt tired of the touristy atmosphere after an hour... Krakow is Poland's main tourist attraction and it shows. I remember it from some years before and it was such a nice and quiet place. It is still beautiful, with its old buildings, cobbled streets, many churches, the river flowing through it, the Wawel castle, but the atmosphere is gone. I am lucky that Wlodzimierz gave me a tour so at least I could see the places off the beaten track and I have good memories of it, walking in the evening when it becomes quieter and frendlier. We spotted a concert (Bach, Vivaldi and Morricone) in the Church of St. Peter and Paul and I went to listen to the music inside the beautiful interior. Later that evening in Wlodzimierz's house we listened to all kinds of opera pieces, masses and songs until 2 am. We eat breakfast listening to fado and film music... Wlodzimierz loves music and has a very big music collection. I then went to visit the Wawel castle - home to many Polish kings- which is quite big, consists of many buildings and a huge cathedra. In one of the cathedral's towers there's the Zygmunt bell, weighing almost 13 tons, still in use on some especially important occasions. I visited the treasury and it had very little jewelery and common everyday use things, mostly it consisted of armory, all kinds of weapons, helmets and cannons. While I was walking through the treasury I was thinking why people spent so much time and energy on decorating weapons which were used for killing and not on pots and plates they used everyday at home with their families... all these swords, muskets, bows and arrows... all were encrusted with precious and semiprecious stones, pearls, gold and silver; even horses' harnesses and seddles used in warfare were exquisitely decorated. All this made to be used in wars and to kill... to present the might...

It is wonderful to visit friends or to be visited by friends. I love these trips and the time spent together. It's one of life's big flavors, all these conversations, exchange of ideas, learning from it, exchanging energy, admiring nature and art together...

On 1st of October I will be going with Patrycja to Croatia. Patrycja found cheap tickets Warsaw-Budapest-Split so we are going to backpack for a week. We want to see Split, Dubrovnik and some islands.

And now I am in the process of doing the last fixes to the house, finding tenant for one floor of the house, and getting ready to depart to Asia after my return from Croatia. Unless something unexpected happens, someone else invites me to visit him or her and I postpone my trip. But such is life and I go with the flow of it...

movies and travel

I thought everybody forgot about my blog (I almost did) but it turns out people are still reading it, some I didn't even know where reading it, so I am gladly going to write more. I even ran into a friend Iza I haven't seen for 25 years and she is reading my blog - what a surprise - and we talked standing on the old market square in my homtown and we felt like there was no 25-year gap. In fact we haven't changed much physically and mentally we are on the same waves... When it comes to things unexpected and so called coincidences, which I experience daily, I will talk about them here later. First, since last time I was talking about a movie, I will start talking about two movies which I recently saw (or even three). One is absolutely great, one is not so great but very useful, and the third is interesting and good but dark.

The first movie is entitled "Rusalka" (which means the mermaid in English). I saw this movie with Marysia. I mentioned in the blog before that I met Marysia in Calcutta in India. Our meeting was highly "coincidental", the only person I met in my travels who lives in my hometown. Since then all our meetings have been coincidental. Marysia calls me and says "here and here there's a movie/festival/some cultural event and we get together right away and we go. It is totally spontaneous each time, like in the beginning. So this time it was like this also. We went to the movies, the cinema in what used to be the "home of the railwaymen", and saw "Rusalka" and got enchanted by it. We left the cinema uplifted and the rest of the people left it sad and crying. Such is the difference in perception... I read some reviews after we saw the movie and mostly they were only about the superficial stuff of the movie, because like every great movie it has many layers, superficial, deeper and very deep. The very deep layer to me was the idea that we come to the world for a purpose. We have a lesson to learn or a test to pass. Sometimes we have many lessons to learn in a lifetime, sometime maybe we carried over from the past life just one task to complete. It seems that Rusalka, the Russian girl from the movie, had to overcome the feeling of jealeousy which was destructive. The first time it came over her when she was a little girl and was jelous about her mother, she was very destructive and burnt a house. When this feeling came over her the next time, when she grew up, she overcame it - she found love in herself which allowed her to help instead of destroying. Eventually love for another human being was greater then selfish feeling of jelousy and the need to keep a person to herself. After feeling the bliss of that emotion, could she ever feel this emotion so strongly again? Was there any reason for her to be around after the task was completed and lesson learned? There wasn't, hence, the ending of the story, for me and Marysia one full of hope, for the people in the cinema, who were only looking at the flesh and not at the spiritual, a tragedy. You will know what I am talking about after you see the movie. And don't read the reviews before you see it because they are flat and superficial.

The second movie is "The Secret". I friend downloaded it to my computer some weeks ago. I've heard about it and I've heard about the book on which it is based. I saw the first 15 minutes of the movie, thought "what kind of superficial bs this is", turned it off and decided it was a waste of time to watch it. Then I started thinking that if so many people read the book and watched the movie, since it became such "bestseller", I should see it to see what attracts people to "The Secret". So I watched it yeasterday and here's what I think. It's not "a secret". It's basicaly the pauperized version of the notion of karma - whatever you do, it comes back to you, whether you do it, think of it, or intend it. Eastern philosophies have been dealing with this notion for thousands of years. The movie says that now the quantum physics, and the latest reasearch, points out that "everything is energy" so "we are connected to everything". Physicists say that we can attract certain energy, etc., etc. For anyone who has travelled outside of the Western world or read about research other then the Western scientists' research, whatever is said in the movie is a surface of the "research" done by people in other parts of the world. However, regardless of how simple, or - I have to use this word here - primitive the stuff they talk about is in the movie, it is quite usefull to the people living in the reality of the Western world and Western civilization. The mind of the Westerner cannot believe based on the intuition, it can believe only what it sees or percepts with the senses. It has been trained to do it from the beginning, by the system of education and the everpresent media. So it's hard to say to the Western man "believe what you feel" - he has to see to believe. So it's easier to say "believe that you are going to get a new bike or a car". I agree with the makers of the movie: if you ask for a car, you will get it. I have often said this to the people in the acupuncture clinic in NY: "Why don't you ask the Universe for what you want?" Some were looking at me as if just came straight from Mars. I know asking works and it's not a secret. It gives people a glimpse of how good life can be if they get into communication with the Universe. Finally they realize they are not alone, help can come, the energy (or whatever it is) comes their way, things start to change positively, things become clear and bright. And maybe once people get what they want they can go to higher plane of understanding and ask about other things than material things and go into deeper understanding or reality. The other thing I like about the movie is that it doesn't talk about modern psychology and doesn't use any of the stuff modern psychology uses. The people in the movie say that about 80% of people in the West grow up in disfunctional families (because our model of the family is disfunctional in the first place so no wonder, but that's another story) where there's alcohol, sexual or physical abuse, or verbal abuse, etc. So basically we are all kind of screwed up from the beginning so there's no reason to be feeling sorry for ourselves that it happened particularly to us since it is not particular to us but particular to almost anybody. Instead of looking for shrinks (who are as screwed up as ourselves) then and going over and over our bruised selves, we can just start waking up in the morning and saying what we are thankful for. That's IT. Instead complaining we fell into Yocasta or Oedipus complex, and that we have this psychosis or that neurosis, we forget about this complex or that complex and just say we are thankful we can walk on our two feet, move our two hands, and the head is in its place as well. If one gets into thankful mode one can make a very looooong list. And then we realize, as the movie says, that we are "timeless... we are the picture of God in the form of a human body... we have Godly potential..." and then we realize we can do basically anything we want. We can start living life instead of dozing off life in one day. I also liked what they said in the movie about health : "you can heal yourself". You get sick because you want to and you get healthy because you want to. Jao de Deus in Brasil said that he removes tumors in people's bodies because it makes them feel that since he did something, they will regain health. But actually, he says, whether he does it or doesn't doesn't matter - it's all in the people's mind.

The third movie "Aphonia and the Bees" is a movie by Polish director Jan Jakub Kolski. It is a very good movie but it's about the dark human nature, about the dark times in the Polish history, about hidden emotions which burst out with uncontroleable force when held in too long... It's interesting, like all movies by this director, so I can recommend it, even though it's so dark...

And about the time since my last entry. I did a series of shorter trips to visit my friends. I went to Slovakia to visit Katarina, to Warsaw to visit Marcin and Dorotka, to Mazury to visit Viola and Marek. Then I went to Marocco to visit friends I made there in January and to see the festival of Gnoua music in Essaouira. I did a stop over in Girona in Spain. I am going to write about these trips soon. On Saturday I am going to go to Wiselka and I will stay there until the 20 August. I will take with me my friend Jarek, who is joining Marzenka and their son Iwo (and their two dogs Bard and Pola) who are already staying at Michal's house. On weekend there's a festival of Slavs and Vikings in Wolin, close to Wiselka, so we'll spend some time then. On Sunday Gosia and Rashid are coming to visit me in Wiselka, my neighbours are going to join me, some other friends... it will be great. We will be walking in the forest, sunbathing and Balticbathing, picking blueberries and running with dogs on the beach. I also want to go the island of Bornholm on the Baltic sea. It belongs to Denmark but it's straight up from Wiselka and there are ferries and catamarans going there from Miedzyzdroje. I heard the island is beautiful and people bike around it. I will get the riksha to pack Maksio and we will tour the island.

In September I will be getting ready for my next trip to South East Asia. I decided I will go to Thailand first, then visit neighbouring countries and then I will either stay there for a while or go to China. More details soon.

And next week I will be 40, 1040 that is. But actually I am timeless so I will be 0000. In any case I like to celebrate timelesseness so there will be a party on the beach at sunset. Anyone who wants to come to the party is invited: 7 pm, Wiselka Beach, Wolin National Park, Baltic Sea. Many hugs to everyone.

Vicky Christina Barcelona

I just saw this movie with Hania and I loved it. It basically reflects what I have been thinking about lately which is such: although I dislike melodrama, it is better to live life fully, expressing all emotions and being honest to the point it hurts about them even if it means there's going to be some melodrama involved in life eventually, than live life half-heartedly, always sticking to the "plan" of what we imagine our life should be or sticking to the norm or to the society's rules, never risking anything and being afraid of trying anything out of the ordinary. And maybe that is the reason why I feel better in places where people are hot blooded, live emotions on the spot, never look back and never regret anything. And that is why I feel so bored in societies in which everything is according to the plan of a "perfect" life, perfect family, perfect job, perfect house, etc. and not taking any risks so that that perfect life remains "perfect". I feel very connected to Juan Antonio and Maria Elena and to their living out of the moment. Hania said an interesting thing: the triangle Maria Elena, Juan Antonio and Christina is honest and out in the open. Dough will be in "perfect" marriage with Vicky, until he gets bored out of his mind one day and gets a mistress on the side and will go to great lengths to hide it. In the first triangle everybody deals with their emotions as they come and everything is discussed as it happens. In the second triangle, in the "perfect world", when the wife (or the husband) finds out about the spouse being unfaithfull, then the melodrama starts and there's so much of it that it can kill everything. In any case, and in my case in particular, I come to the conclusion that there's nothing worse than a boring life and it is better to ask for what you want and to get it if you can than lie flat and hide in the never changing status quo. It's interesting how at one point Christina, the American tourist, suggests to Juan Antonio that Maria Elena should see some shrink about her suicidal attempt and mood changes in general. I don't think Maria Elena would think there's anything wrong with her, anything that would require any doctor's help: this is how she is and how she deals with life, in a compulsive way but that is what make her feel ALIVE. Would she want a doctor to proscribe some pills so that she would not be able to feel all the emotions, the pain, the tragedy? Hell no! She may want to kill herself at one point but to be half dead while being alive by numbing herself by prescribtion drugs - I don't thinks she would want that. I liked so many things about this movie. I also loved the scenery of Oviedo. We decided with Hania that we will some time in the future undertake a road trip to see all this beauty.

My story about Morocco will come. I have talked to Gosia who is coming with Rashid to Poland in June and we will go to Morocco to visit Rashid's family and the friends whom I made there recently. So I think I will get to the details of my trip before we set out to Morocco again but if not, then I will write with new impressions.

Now I am almost done with the house renovation. I will start looking for school of acupuncture, hopefully to start in the fall. In the summer I will still be here in Poland, making short trips here and there, visiting friends whom I haven't seen for a long time, visiting Katarina in Slovakia for a few days, visiting Marcin and Dorotka and their son Tomek (the next baby will be born in a few weeks) in Warsaw, visiting Gosia and Rashid in Lodz, and enjoying the good time.

Easter greetings

I have been thinking about you dear friends during Easter. Easter is a big holiday in Poland and probably the most spiritual one. It lasts two days so there's lots of time to celebrate life, to sit at tables full of traditional dishes, share the food and conversations with friends, family and neighbors, and to think about spiritual and earthly things, and about people we love who are far away. And in my case I always think of people who are far away since due to my nomadic nature my friends and loved ones are spread out throughout the planet (and beyond).

Starting with spiritual stuff, on Sunday morning, after I woke up and patted Maksio who came for his morning back rub, I thought how the Easter morning is the celebration of resurrecting from the dead, from non-existence, and how for me every day is the Ester morning and every day I live as if I lived the whole full life in it. I was resting in bed, in the quiet home (my mom went to the South of Poland to visit her sisters and extended family so I was home alone with Max), feeling incredibly well and peaceful. Then, after contemplating resurrection, other dimensions, and the wonderful unexpectability of things, I got out of bed and started the day. I went for the Easter breakfast to the house of my neighbors and friends whom I will call "the Dezor Kids" since, although they are grown up now, to me they will always be kids because I remember how they were all born (I was a teenager then) and how they all were in diapers, how they were changing teeth and growing. Out of 8 kids (they were 9 kids but the second oldest boy Adam died) 7 still live in their family house: Ania, Michal, Julia, Marcel, Liliana, Laura and Luiza (the twins). The 8th child Helena lives in Belgium with her family (her partner Emmanuel and two little babies Julian and Celina). We were also accompanied by Ania's boyfriend Max (who is from Argentina) and Julia's boyfriend Pawel. Girls bake delicious cakes and cook good food so the table was full of all kinds of home made delicacies. We had lots of fun eating and talking and afterwards we went for a long walk with Ania's dogs Taco and Lilo and with my Maksio. Everything is blooming in the forest and it is getting warm so the walk was great. We really are lucky that we have this beautiful forest and lakes so close to our homes. We were chilling out the whole day, talking, watching short films made by Filip (Liliana's boyfriend) and sharing lots of laughs. The next day, still a holiday in Poland and what is called Smingus dyngus - the tradition of pouring water on each other - I met with Patrycja and Hania for coffee and cake and then later we went altoghter with the Dezor Kids and their cousins for a long walk again and got somehow wet. The Smingus dyngus tradition is still very much alive (it comes from the very old times as I heard): people run around with little plastic bottles or bags full of water but also with buckets and water guns so one can get quite wet if one can't run fast... I had the camera so I was spared. After the walk I visited Hania and her family and once again we set down at an Easter table eating and drinking and enjoying the time together. In the evening we all met together again in my freshly renovated house for a party that ended at 2 am. I ate a LOT of cake this holiday... a few types of cheescake, two types of poppyseed cake, a few types of babka, a yeast cake, chocolates... Today I started the day with drinking liver-detox tea... But it was all worth it because everything was delicious and what are the holidays for?! Today my friend Przemek came for leftovers because he couldn't join us yesterday but I still have cakes until the rest of the week. More friends will come and all will be eaten in due time. I enjoyed the holiday a lot - it left a very warm feeling in my heart.

Well, and about Morocco - I will write about it soon. I just have to finish that freaken tax return which I pushed aside until now and now is the last day so got to do it before the deadline. How I dislike this paperwork stuff... absolute torture... but what has to be done has to be done and then I can move on to enjoyable things. Hugs to everyone.

House Renovation

Hi Steve! Nice to hear from you. Where should I start? The craziness in my life continues...

Maybe I will start with the latest. The latest is such. While I was away in Marocco the main water pipe in the house broke, hectolitres of water spilled into the basement/first floor and everything got wet and the parquet floor started swimming... Around the same time my mom got sick with the flu and then got a Bell's Palsy (paralysis of the face due to the facial nerve infection). I came back with my own infection but nonetheless pulled up my sleaves and got to work. First I did acupuncture for my mom (her face got back to normal and she also noticed that her facial wrinkles got smaller, as a side effect). Then I went to work on the house. And I am still working, after six weeks! Due to a wonderful coincidence (or God's finger, as I believe) my elementary school friend Michal, whom I haven't seen since I left the elementary school, came for a visit because he had an idea of a 25-year reunion of our class and I was on his list. So I asked him if he knew a plumber and he did and that's how I found Mr. Marian who turned out to be a plumber, and electrician, a painter, a floor fixer - in two words we called such a man "Mr. Gold Hand". So Mr. Marian also pulled his sleaves and together we have been fixing the house bottom to top. Today Mr. Marian came for the last time and the rest, such as fixing stuff outside like the roof, garden, etc., he will do when the snow finally thaws... because it is still cold in Poland although the spring is in the air. So the floor downstairs got replaced. We also had rats which most likely came from the stables which are close to the house so we got rid of them and had to replace some pipes which they chew, these nasty rats. Everything is fixed. Now I also have a heap of garbage in the backyard, an incredibly big heap of garbage, which was in the basement because my dad had the herding disorder which means he couldn't throw away anything and everything was collected somewhere in the house. I still have about 100 screwdrivers, lots and lots of bolts and nails of all impossible kinds, three lawn movers, different types of plastic garden chairs, miles of cables, tin, carpets, not to mention most likely a few cars in car parts stored in the garage and the garden. I also have a whole VW of 30 years which I decided to sell. I love the VW but it is a car that requires constant work and I don't think I can do it. So there's still more work to do but the worst part is done. At least the house became brighter and lighter and I made happy a lot of people with all the stuff that I donated and gave away. I still have to drive some stuff for the flee market, but when it gets warmer, and books to the library. Mr. Marian became part of the family and enjoyed home cooking of my mother and the espresso I made for him in the italian espresso machine. Mr. Marian drove 50 km every day, because he lives in a village outside of my hometown (25 km away), so I am espacially grateful for his services and that he agreed to help me with everything.

I take breaks from fixing the house and I go everyday for a long walk with Max and then with my friend Hania to the gym. We found a great place for spinning. It's called Magiel fitness. Magiel is the old device to press the loundry so we are pressing our bodies hard there. It is located in an old townhouse and all the beutiful ceiling fixings and the wooden floor have been kept so it's like spinning in a colonial house. The instructors are great. So we start a day with driving Hania's son Wojtek to school in the morning and then we speed to catch a class. We get energy for the whole day. Sometimes after that we go for a coffee to our version of Barnes and Nobles. And then Hania goes to her chores and I go to meet with Mr. Marian who is waiting in the house. On Sundays Mr. Marian had a day off and I had days off too to enjoy some theater and museum activities. I am really impressed how nice my hometown has became lately. So many nice cultural things are happening and so many nice coffee places flourished for conversations. It's really great.

I don't know if I mentioned earlier that I decided not to go back to Amsterdam and to study there. I decided to look for a different school. I found a school in Poland, 100 km away from my hometown, and I will ask if I can continue my education there. Classes start in September. I will look at this school and some other schools in Europe and in China. In any case, I am very glad the water pipe broke because I did what had to be done and what was waiting for me to be done since my father's death. After this part of my life is cleaned and fixed, I can move on to the next chapter, without worrying there are things waiting for me to finish. So until September I will most likely be here, at home, enjoying friends and nature. I started giving English lessons as a way of getting some money and I will most likely just do this so that I can be free in the summer to spend some time in Wiselka on the Baltic coast.

And now I can start writing on Marocco. I will do it in a new entry. I actually woke up with a cold today so I will take a break for rest and some linden tea and write some more soon. It seems I have been sick on and off this entire winter. Time to work on my immune system... I am sending you lots of hugs, my friends everywhere.

Finally!

Dear friends, finally! I have the internet connection at home. I will be connected to the world and to you now. I will soon write about my travels in Marocco and about my life in Poland at the moment. It's midday now in my hometown Poznan and I have to run some errands but I will be back soon. Ciao!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone!

By some strange turn of events I came to Marocco a few days ago. I will write more if I find a keyboard that resembles the one I am used to. Until then all good wishes to everyone.