Europe

Is it because we always miss the places that we are currently not in? Because we cannot value what we have at the very moment? To some extent it may be the truth. But is it in this case? I don’t know. I pretty much believe that I just love Europe and I truly miss it. Not because, I live elsewhere for the moment. It’s because it is the place to be and the place to live.

I can imagine living somewhere else (like Morocco) for good but to be honest I don’t really want this. I would love to keep visiting Morocco all my life but only to put my ass on the beach in Agadir or go for a party in Marrakesh or Casa :) However, not to work and live here anymore.

I want to live in Europe. Because, it’s entertaining, beautiful, small, diversified and it’s very practical as a place to live – the living conditions are high comparing to the rest of the world. Or because the salaries here are high in comparison with the other parts of the world which makes the traveling to the other countries (where the prices are smaller) so cheap. What I also appreciate is the European Union. I know it’s not perfect. But admit – who could say 30 years ago that it would be possible to go from Tallin to Madrid without passport? To pay with one currency? After hundreds of years of wars among all the European nations the continent is unified more than ever. Hitler who divided the Europe 60 years ago by the worst war ever must be really surprised now, speechless.

Living in any European country seems like living in all of them at the same time. Because there are no borders, because it is so easy and cheap to travel within it.

Can you imagine a better place to live? (ok, except NY:) ) I can’t.

Bem-vindo a Lisboa

So today, the time has come to see the capital. I couldn’t leave this country without seeing Lisbon. Just see the newly uploaded pics to realize how beautiful the city is. I went there on my own. That’s actually the best way to explore the city. Ok, it’s not the best way in general (you may miss a lot of places without having a person who knows them very well) but the best only for me :) I just love wandering across the city with no destination. Alone – with my camera only. Taking the streets that I like, with no other criteria whatsoever. No rush – I feel like the time is on my side.

So I took the bus from Leiria (a city between Lisbon and Porto where I’m staying and where Catarina comes from) to Lisbon. It took almost 2 hours. When I arrived I actually didn’t know what to do. I had no guidebook, city plan or even no instructions where to go. That was even more exciting. I discovered that there was a metro station next to bus station so I went there. To my surprise I realized how much Portuguese I could understand from the metro guide hung on the wall just next to gates to the platform. Knowledge of English, French and the general understanding of the functioning of public transportation :) made it easy for me to learn how Lisbon metro works and which ticket I should buy. I arrived in a really beautiful place where the charming streets with old wooden trams seduced me and my camera :) I was wandering downtown and later near the castle of St. Jorge. Then I went to EXPO ’98 site to taste other part of the capital. Afterwards it got dark but I still managed to see Belem and then was back in the downtown where I was having some random walk until I got back to the bus station and went back to Leiria.

That’s the cultural experience that I do enjoy a lot. Sightseeing cities, taking thousands of pics, having coffee or walking in the most famous places. Recently, I have been complaining a bit about my Morocco to the extent that my friend asked me what I was still doing there if I didn’t enjoy anything (she mentioned culture too). Then I started to think. Don’t I enjoy the culture or even the country?

Let’s summarize then! What I don’t enjoy (or it’s not important for me to experience):
-the local food – I’m very picky so I always want to eat what I already know. Mc Donald’s is the best choice sometimes (I know – it’s politically incorrect but I love the food from Mc Donald’s – feel free to hate me, I just love it and I’m proud to admit it loudly :) ),
-tradition, religion (e.g. Ramadan or some feasts) – just doesn’t appeal to me… what can I do about it? You’ve maybe noticed that – I barely write about the tradition,
-the countryside – well, I can go there for a while but I’m quickly bored,
-the traditional part of the cities (like medinas in Morocco) – I enjoyed it the first time but later it was too tiring and annoying,
-interacting with the locals, being invited by them – I was trying this many times but I always feel uncomfortable being invited by a random person (even if I know it’s part of the culture and it’s 100% safe). I just feel uncomfortable, unsafe and I’m thinking of escaping as soon as possible,
-shopping – maybe I don’t enjoy because I don’t have money, maybe the local products are just not interesting. I’m not a shopping person anyway,
-music, dances or movies – it’s hard to raise my interest by these pieces of culture (Bollywood music and movies are exception though but it’s rather a coincidence),

Then what do I enjoy?:

-as described above - the sightseeing of the famous or charming places in some big cities,
-having a lunch (not traditional of course :) ) or a coffee in a famous place or street (not a traditional place like e.g. medina),
-having conversation with the cool people (some locals or internationals – doesn’t matter) about some interesting (from my perspective) topics,
-experiencing the urban lifestyle (night life included) and all that is connected to luxury (I wish I could afford it! – in such cases I don’t mind being invited :) ),
-taking the metro – I know it sounds stupid but I really enjoy it! Probably because metro is such an urban invention – sort of a symbol of a city,
-the architecture – my love to the architecture has been present all my life.

So now you see how to make me happy and how to avoid making me unhappy :)

Another issue - I wrote a few times about Morocco you can easily see the division between traditional Morocco and the modern one and you can pick each of them whenever you want. Recently, I’ve been picking only the modern one – I enjoy it much more. For the traditional part I don’t mind seeing it but not more than once. A good example is Fez – a very traditional-looking city in Morocco. I really enjoyed it the first time I was there. Later, I was there at least 4 times more (to play the role of a guide for my parents, to receive someone at the airport or to arrive from France etc) and each time I was praying to leave soon. After seeing the traditional Fez once I was done with it forever. There is nothing more that I could see there or that could entertain me. The modern parts of Morocco (like Agdal in Rabat with my favorite café Bert’s) always appeal to me and I can spend there a lot of time always. There are still a lot of places in Morocco that are famous and considered by me as traditional. I do want to see them but not more than once.

Another interesting (and shocking) discovery about myself. I don’t have the need to explore any other cultures deeply. If you know the iceberg model of culture I can tell you that it’s enough for me to explore the visible top (shame on me most of you would say, wouldn’t you?). I don’t have to know what is under the water. The first days of being in a new country are always exciting for me. The more you stay the more negative things you realize. So I prefer to stay short enough not to discover them and to keep the positive image of the place. Even if it’s not true, even if it’s fake. That’s why I don’t want to live in any other country before I settle down (and settling down will be soon I hope). I want the next country to be the last one for me (however, maybe not PL). I love traveling and I will be doing this for all my life. I will explore many countries but I won’t stay in any of them too long in order to see the exciting part only – without the boringm daily routine that keeps catching me in Morocco more and more. Just the top of the iceberg as it must be like with the wedding cake I guess – the top is the most delicious part ;) Well, maybe the only place I want to taste as my home for couple of months is New York but this is an exception.

So what do you think about my all these politically incorrect conclusions of mine? :)

Bienvenida a Madrid

So here I am! I arrived in Madrid and after around 30 minutes from leaving the airport I was robbed in the subway. The pick-pocketer stole my wallet and I even didn't feel it. I lost 40 euro and around 1000 Moroccan dirhams (around 100 euro) plus all the documents and the debit card. I went to report it at the police station and blocked the card. Fortunately, I didn't lose the passport. Now, I have no money (literally no cash) and I'm in real financial troubles... I have only debts... It's so unbelievable! Nothing had happened to me in Morocco for 7 months (allegedly third world country) and voila here I am. A while after touching the European ground I'm robbed!

Whatever! Somehow, I'm not in the bad mood. All my friends offered help as usually. I'm especially grateful to Catarina who is here with me and helped me with everything... And when you have new problems you normally tend to forget the old ones. So, all my frustrations somehow disappeared. And I don't know why but I don't think about the way the Spanish capital welcomed me :) By the way, the city is gorgeous.

Life goes on! Tommorow at this hour I will be heading for Lisbon.

Merry Xmas.

Kamil in Spain and Portugal

So tommorow, I'm flying from Casa to Madrid, spending one night at a place of a friend of my friend (may these AIESEC networks last forever:) ), trying to explore Madrid (less than 24 hours for that) and on Sunday taking the plane from Madrid to Lisbon.

Everything thanks to my dear flat mate Catarina who invited me for Christmas with her family...

I'm so happy to go there. Not only because of seeing new countries and beautiful cities but also due to leaving Morocco. I don't know what is happening recently but things are weird here. To this extent that my friend asked me today why I am still here. In her opinion, I should leave earlier because I only complain and seem unsatisfied. Of course, I will not do it. I will stay until my job is done. I guess the problems are mostly in my attitude and I should work on it.

I will barely have Internet access during the trip there so I will not have chance to update you. I promise to bring a lot of pics!

Merry Christmas!

all good things come to an end

What a fucking irony. It seems like the life is making fun of me. It happened again. This time because of cultural differences. Just look at the previous post and guess to see why it is so ironic. Don’t ask about the reasons (what exactly the cultural differences were) – it’s too pathetic. I think I still don’t realize what is happening. Maybe I shouldn’t be worried? Of course I shouldn’t. But I am. I guess it’s just the matter of days. Not months or weeks but days. Again, I feel like losing the game… Starting from the scratch. It used to be too good to be true. Whatever. Writing here doesn’t help. It just needs to take some time to heal the wounds.

Friends were helpful again – as last time in the middle of October, as usually. To the other readers – don’t ask questions. It’s a simple story with a disgusting thing included. Something one could never expect…

Anyway, I was actually supposed to write about the fact that I’m exactly in the middle of my stay here. Exactly 6,5 months passed and 6,5 still to go. I was supposed to write how happy I am to be here and bla bla bla. There is so many posts about how happy I am here so if you feel like reading it just go to the archives. I was also supposed to write that time passes really quickly in our lives. To give you some visual taste see the pics that I found by chance on my laptop (they were put by Ida, my ex flat mate who was using my laptop with me when she was in Morocco). They were taken during my first 3 weeks here. I would normally feel very nostalgic. Not today though.

The end.
Cynically yours,
Kamil

international relation[ship]s – part deux

I have another issue to reflect. Again about relationships, again about those international ones.

Have you ever seen a movie “Not without my daughter”? It is as far as I know a real story of an American women who married a Muslim guy (Iranian) in the US. They lived a normal life in the States, had a cute daughter and all seemed to be going great. Everything was fine until they went to see his family in Tehran, Iran. Then he turned out to be a conservative Muslim and didn’t allow here to come back to the US. Her life changed into hell. She was stuck in a Muslim country and treated with no respect.

I don’t know whether this story really happened or not but for sure it’s not a fantasy and it’s possible to take place somewhere in the world. But I really wish someone could make a movie about a successful relationship between representatives of 2 different cultures (especially including Muslim person as the Muslim world is subject of so many unfair prejudices). Showing only the worst aspects doesn’t reflect the real image, divides the world into black and white, builds stupid stereotypes.

I come from a small community (a village of around 1,800 people) and there are at least two couples where the guy is Muslim and the woman is Polish – one of them is actually my dentist (a very good one indeed - comparably good with my Moroccan dentist in Rabat) :) As far as I know they are normal couples and no threatening stories are included. Life just goes on and cultural differences don’t seem to interfere.

Well, but maybe such stories are boring for movies and wouldn’t sell good…

I bet my blog doesn’t have such power of influence on people’s mind as a Hollywood movie but I hope that at least I will have small and of course positive impact on people’s prejudices and stereotypes about the country. As you probably know I live an amazing life in Morocco and the cultural differences or shocks don't deprive me of this fabulous experience me that much. And the relationships can work perfectly too! I know something about that ;) – link it with the previous post please :)

international relation[ship]s

A few days ago I was chatting with one of my friend and he confessed that he felt bad about being single. Then I told him to go for an internship ("come to Morocco" I said :). It’s more likely to meet some cool person and it’s easier when you’re abroad. He agreed with me. And a lot of people shares the same notion.

So actually why is it easier? Because, you’re in a different country and culture where no one knows you and you can let yourself do more? Because you feel more free? Because you’re an expat who is more exotic or perceived as strong and independent person and thus more popular? Because you really want to have the time of your life and live it in all its aspects? Because living for a limited period of time abroad is not actually a real, normal and standard type of life? Because your life in different country is not conventional and sometimes seems like an unreal dream?

Any other ideas? Does someone know the answer?

reflecting the future

I haven’t updated you last days. Je suis très désolé! (I’m so sorry!). Actually, I don’t know why. Maybe because nothing exciting was happening. In fact, last two weeks were kind of weird. The flat became so empty so that I don’t enjoy being there anymore. It makes me feel sad. Moreover, it is so cold there right now. Whenever you wake up in the morning it’s something like 15 degrees. Brrrr! Definitely, I feel like not spending there too much time. The weather is not good anymore either. It’s around 15-20 degree but it rains or it’s windy quite often. I guess I was caught by autumn depression (or rather melancholy, depression is too strong word).

Last weekend, we had conference for new members and as usually I could describe it using words: challenging, hectic, inspiring, motivating, exhausting, enjoying and sometimes annoying. Although last months I was kind of tired of all kinds of AIESEC conferences this time I was much more excited about it. Probably because, it meant that something is happening in my life. I didn’t have to spend all the day in the flat getting mad (that almost happened to me 2 weeks ago – I literally almost got insane!) It was great experience even though language difference kept pissing me off all the times. Conference was of course mostly in English but there were times that everyone spoke French (I don’t mind that at all because it was chance for me to practice my French and actually I realized that I can understand more and more). The problem is when people speak Arabic (of course not during the sessions but during breaks, meals etc). It’s really annoying but at least I realized that it was not that bad as during my first Moroccan conference last June. This time it was way better. And the new members are really motivated, smart and cool so the future of AIESEC in Morocco looks promising (not to mention how proud I am of LC Anfa (I’m their coach) – they really rocked the conference :) )

I used last days (weeks) to reflect about the future as well. In fact, I think that’s one of my problems. Thinking too much about the future instead of letting some things just happen and go their way – “come what may”. But I do my best not to do it too much – that’s when it comes to my private life. In terms of professional life thinking should be in place periodically (not every day of course – I would get mad).

The good thing is that I’m sure that whatever choice I’ll make about the future that is going to be a good choice. Either coming back to Poland and finishing my studies plus working at the same time or going for internship and finishing studies at the same time (but in different mode) or staying in AIESEC and finishing studies at the same time. All the choices seem good for my professional development. So why the hell is it so difficult to make the final decision? At the moment all the doors are still open but the choice must be made soon. For now, I’m the most keen on the second option. Sometimes, I just think it’s the high time for me to “settle down”, find a job, home, start earning money and get the “real life”. The factor convincing me to go for the second option is also the result of my “unwritten analysis of my life”. I asked myself once when was the time that I was the most happy during the last years of my life. It turned out that this period was my stay in Poznan (a very charming city in Poland) last year. I had a really cool internship and I lived there for 10 weeks during summer. I had a cool job, a lot of free time during which I was exploring the city or sitting at the benches in parks or squares and reading books, partying or hanging out with people. I had the mystical and magical work-life balance. Studies plus AIESEC plus some part time jobs deprive you of this balance.

Moreover, to my huge surprise I’ve recently realized that I don’t need to live in a few countries of the world and explore each of them anymore. For now, I want the next country that I will live in to be the last one. Of course, I will still be traveling but I think I don’t want to live anywhere else for long – these will be just holidays or business trips (maybe except for a few months in New York ). Maybe, I’m changing , maybe it’s just the mood recently. We’ll see soon.

polonaise

I was supposed to post this message one month ago but I guess I had other stuff to write about. It’s never too late though so enjoy reading and watching :)

It all started last week when me and my guest from Poland (beloved Ludwisia) did a "Polish night" for my flat mates here in Morocco. We prepared some "Polish" food (I'm using "" because our cooking skills were not very sophisticated and we just did some food that not necessarily is Polish but who cares! - people liked it :) ).

We also decided to show them one of traditional Polish dances called polonez (the name comes from French word “polonaise” which means Polish). I guess it just reminded me about studniowka that took place in the city of Elblag (where my high school is) in January 2003 (“studniowka” is an official party for high school graduates taking place 100 days before final exams; the word studniowka comes from Polish words for "100" and "day"). For me the party was amazing because of performing this dance itself. Normally, in every school each student and teacher dances it together which makes hundreds of people dancing at the same time – believe me! That looks fabulous! However, in my school there was more. Before the dance of everyone, there was an incredible performance of 12 couples (including me:) Our performance was much more fancy and complicated that the one that we did together with the rest of our school mates. We wore amazing outfits borrowed from the theater in Gdansk – guys had military costumes from beginning of XIX century (from the time when Poland was fighting along with France (ruled by Bonaparte) against whole Europe). Girls had white dresses similar to wedding ones. We danced in a huge hall with foyer around. They could see us from the 1st or 2nd floor. The only one disadvantage of being involved in dancing was that one couldn’t see this beautiful view from the top – I was just later told that it was really gorgeous!

I’ll never forget the strong lights directed on our side along with people’s looks, loud but graceful music and all the powerful atmosphere – it was an enlightening experience ;)

But let’s travel back to 2007. As you can see the Polish night has woken up some old memories in me. Yesterday, I was sitting in my office and listening to polonez music again… I also downloaded the movie with the most famous polonez (Pan Tadeusz), showed some parts of it to my flat mates and was happy to see how much they were amazed.

The firt one just below is the original one from the movie.



Others at the end of the post show the dance performed at "studniowka" balls. They are some random videos found on youtube.

Watch it and enjoy it!

Happy to share some part of Polish culture ;)