Gdanśk and Gdynia

I did promise pictures, didn't I?

Gdynia:






And Gdańsk:










The Black Pearl

Music Room

Last week I did two things I haven't done for a little while.

No, not that. If only.

Hidden deep in the bowels of the conference centre are three music rooms. Not so far from the interpreting booths actually - the old disused ones that look out onto nowhere.
There's a lovely black Bechstein piano and a dog-eared copy of Bach's Woll-Temperierte Klavier as well as some Schubert impromptus on fragile leaves and as your fingers stumble over the keys all the chatter clears from your mind and you can really think finally.

You might think, for example, that you found and that you played from exactly the same ragged fragments of music last year and that this year it is somehow more difficult: the memory of the music moves your hands but in some way they are less agile, less accustomed to the exercise - they trip and falter under the sheer emotion of the melody and you cannot fill the notes with the expressive quality that you would like.

This week I bit the bullet and recorded myself in the booth. I won't go into details but - if I could forget just for one second that it was me speaking and pretend that it was some complete stranger - the comedy value would be immense.

As with the piano, I want to express the idea elegantly, I want it to sound smooth and pretty and legato but I am out of condition and it's more staccato, rubato and generally agitato with the odd note of vibrato where more than a hint of a doubt starts to creep in.

Why is it that choosing one way means missing out on something else?

I love living in Kraków, and I value the experiences of the past two years, but I wonder what I have missed by being here. Could I have lived for two years in Paris instead, spending Sundays at the market near Bastille or daydreaming around the Butte de Montmartre? If in two years I managed to learn enough Polish to stagger through a conversation in the back room of Kolory, imagine how much I could have improved and perfected my French instead! I could have travelled to Italy, lived in Florence, taught English and finally Learnt to Appreciate Art! Or moved into London and worked in a suit in the City.

Can't you hear the doors slamming shut all around you?

So you make choices and you travel and you run after one thing and neglect another. You forget that you are a musician, or a writer, or a lover, and you chase something else that you have never been.

Eventually you flit from place to place, trying to catch up with whatever essential intangible thing it is that you are missing. You avoid commitment to one home as you avoid attachment to one person. When you want to daydream, well, you take out old memories like photographs, blow the dust off them, and leaf through them, soothed by the fact that they are closed history and that you can just as easily slip them back into the album where they belong.

So what now?

Did you know...

... that soft drinks are known in francophone Switzerland as sportifs?

You've got to respect a country that is so muesli-slurping virtuous it can make even Coca-Cola sound healthy...

I love it when...

... Simplus sends me text messages, whenever I'm abroad, providing me with the telephone number of the nearest Polish Embassy.

- Ambasada Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej w Genewie, słucham

- oh, hi - I was wondering... um... I don't suppose you're on the same street as the British Embassy by any chance? No? Nie? Ale dobrze rozumiem po polsku!!

... etc.

more travels

Somewhere between Basztowa Lot and Dworzec Głowny (tram stations in Kraków):

- come on, we get off here!

Pino (wracked with doubt): Are you sure you saw me turn the gas off??

- yes, let's go!

Pino (furrowing brow): cos I know the eggs cooked quicker than I expected and then I took the pan off the heat and at that point the cat knocked the beer on the bed and I don't remember turning the gas off... d'ye reckon I could get a taxi home and back?

- NO! we don't have time.

We went to Trójmiasto (or at least dwie trzecie miasta). Photos.... later.

ps, I didn't leave the gas on.

Polish word of the Day #09222: Duszno

Summer in Kraków: like that song, you're hot then you're cold, you're yes then you're no, you're in then you're out....

... and you have No Idea what to wear.

Yes, Monsoon Season has hit Poland. Lightening ricochets across the evening sky and we fall asleep to the distant rumble of thunder, only to wake up to the clatter of rain on the window. Nothing has been dry for weeks: indoors smells of damp towels while outdoors smells like musty soil.

Summer is a sartorial minefield: with a glance to the grey skies above, you pull on thick jeans and a scarf, only to be puffing and sweltering by the time you reach the end of the street. If you go out in shorts and flip-flops, guaranteed the heavens will open the minute you head for home. If you're not sweaty, you're shivering: either way you're soaked. For the first time since I left university, trench foot is becoming a serious concern.

- It's... I don't remember the English word... duszny; said a Polish friend. I replied 'stuffy' - but it's not stuffy. Stuffy is when you play hide and seek and end up shut in the wardrobe for half an hour. Stuffy is a euphemism for 'why did we have to have beans for tea? Please for the love of God let's open a window!' Stuffy isn't quite what we have here. It's damp, the air is thick and heavy, muggy, close, sultry, stifling, devoid of anything resembling oxygen...

And it's not just here: floods are sweeping across Central Europe - according to BBC News, Reuters, Gazeta Wideo.

As another friend said: If I'd wanted to live in a country where it rained every day for the whole of June, I'd've stayed in Ireland...

New pizzeria in the neighbourhood

Following huge losses in the recent European Parliament elections, many major players in the European left-wing have had to find new employment:


'Lekka Pizza Rewolucyjna'... no wonder I only got a 3+ in my Polish history exam!


A little bad punning my friend?

... 'Dla CHE go nie?!'