Thursday, September 10, 2009

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...