Beatriz in Poland

After meeting and sharing the bunk-bed at Summer Unviersity in Istanbul, seeing each other during Madrid's SU and the Agora in Aachen, Bea finally came to Poland! One of these days Asia, Beatriz and I were hanging around the Ujazdowski Park.

Mushroom Hunting

One of the most common weekend activities in Poland, next to fishing is grzybobranie (eng. mushroom hunting). That's what I did yesterday with my family nearby Rogoźno.
At this time of the year the mushroom that may be found most easily in the forests of Poland is the one called kurka (eng. chanterelle).

Over 10 years ago my family and I visited my father's friend, who used to live in the middle of nowhere in Southern part of Sweden. As soon as we go into the Swedish forest it turned out that Swedes hardly ever do mushroom hunting so it seemed to me a mushroom paradise to us. However, when we got back to our host's house and started preparing our hunts on the pan, he came down and told us that, according to Swedish people, all of the mushrooms were poisonous except the yellow ones - chanterelles. Obviously, we ate all of them and nobody got sick. I guess it was a perfect example of a cultural difference.

If you ever come across a red mushroom in a Polish forest, then it must be muchomor. Don't even try to pick it up! It's one of those that you really shouldn't eat.

What's new in Warsaw?

Last Sunday, I met my childhood friend Tomcio. Before that I told him to surprise me with showing something that was not in Warsaw before I went for Erasmus.
We met in the most common place, next to the statue of Charles de Gaulle or as somebody would rather prefer, in front of the Palm. Tomcio asked me: Did you know that we have Starbucks in Warsaw since April? He must have noticed disappointment on my face and added quickly: Don't worry I have another thing as well! I was just checking your reaction! After walking all the way along the Royal Route to the Old Town, it turned out that the surprise was as I expected, truly adequate to Tomcio's profession, which is HISTORY.

The place which he wanted to show me were newly renovated Arkady Kubickiego (eng. Kubicki's Arcades). Actually, it's one of the lower parts of the Royal Castle that is located between the Castle and its gardens.

The story of the arcades is that even though they were designed and party built in the XIXth century, they were never really completed. After the November Uprising they were taken over by Russian army that converted it into a horse stable and since the end of the IInd World War they had fallen into ruin. In the middle of 90's somebody came up with an idea of renovating them. I'm looking forward to see what will be in the interiors in the future. Perhaps restaurants or galleries wouldn't be a bad idea.

(the picture was taken from Flickr)

3days in 3city

Tricity and is a kind of agglomeration at the Polish seaside, which consists of 3 cities: Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia.
As soon as I came back to Poland I decided to make a trip there to meet Kasia and Daniel. On the day of my arrival to Gdynia, Kasia and Daniel were coming back from Toruń, medieval Polish city famous for birthplace of Nicolaus Copernicus and pierniki (eng. gingerbread). The type of pierniki that Kasia and I are holding in the picture is called Katarzynki (eng. Catherines).

Even though it was getting pretty late, we've spent some time in the bar by the beach. I liked the place very much especially because of the good company and sea shanties in the background.

Smile, you're in Gdynia
(don't worry, rhinoceros didn't get hurt)

The next day begun with the trip to Gdańsk. This city was founded by Polish kings around Xth century but soon afterwards taken over by Prussia and Germany to be returned to Poland after the II World War. It belonged to the Hanseatic League for centuries. Therefore its architecture is a bit different in comparison to other Polish cities. For example, it has a lot of Dutch-style tall buildings.

The only leaflets we had from the Tourist Office were in Spanish, so sometimes translations of the names of places were hilarious. The pictures below present the most characteristic monuments.

Golden Gate - entrance to the old part of the city

Medieval port Crane (the black wooden building) and Dutch-style houses by the Motława river

Timber framing houses

While seeing this guy selling self-painted kanjis with "Your name in Japanese", I came up with an idea of earning money in Japan! I could do the same as him but "Your name in Polish" - Haruki Murakami could be Henryk Murakowski or Yoko Ono could be Jolka Onowicz.

Our evening plan was watching a movie in the open air cinema at the Sopot Pier, which is, by the way, the longest pier in Europe! In Sopot, I had a chance to see a Crooked House, which wasn't there 8 years ago when I've visited this place for the last time. I still can't believe my eyes when I look at the picture below! Extraordinary, isn't it?


Have you ever heared of ZORBING? No? Well, here it comes! The idea of it is that a person gets inside the transparent ball and keeps rolling. I've seen it for the first time in the mountains a couple of years ago and it looked kind of scary but doing this activity in the sea must be much more pleasant.

Last but not least, turn on your imagination coz I'm not allowed to publish the pictures. While waiting for the movie, Kasia and Daniel suggested playing a game with camera's self-timer. The idea of it is that you turn on self-timer and in the last seconds before taking a shot one of the people says what kind of stupid face everybody should do. Our favourite ones were: "PIGS" and "SMOKING NARGILA". Try it at home! You won't regret!

At the end of the day it turned out that to watch the movie in the open air ORANGE cinema for free we should pay the entance fee to the pier, so as a sign of protest we decided not to go there.
The power is ours!

First day of the rest of my life.

Once upon a time... - usually fairy tales in English start with these words. Meanwhile, in my mother-tongue, the most common beginning is: Za górami, za lasami..., which literally means: Behind the mountains, behind the forests....

Five months ago I went to Portugal for my Erasmus at the University of Behind the Mountains (Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro) and a true fairy tale begun. There were times when it felt as if we were characters of "The Snow Queen" - Iva and I used to call our flat "Ice Castle", or as if we were princesses from "The 101 Nights", while being surrounded by people speaking so many different languages. However, for most of the time it was rather like "Around the World in 80 days" but in this case "Around Portugal in 150 days". Every day was different, just like different were sunsets behind the ranges of Alvão and Marão mountains with windmills at their tops. I've been watching those sunsets from my window or from the kitchen window almost every evening while my friends were rolling cigarettes next to me.

It seems to be the end of desperate looking for a rainbow in the sky, spontaneous walks to Espontânea on Fridays and Saturdays, drinking Turkish coffee and fortune telling too late to fall asleep afterwards, giving missed calls to the numbers, which since we all left Portugal nobody will ever answer again.

Perhaps one day, we will have a coffee together again, in the shopping center of as dreamy name as Dolce Vita, while being served by the waiter that looks like Rocky Balboa.

Don't ever tell anybody anything.
If you do, you start missing everybody.
J.D. Salinger - "The Catcher in the Rye"