Today, it's been exactly three months since I came back to Polska from Australia (via a few additional countries). Was I fearful of the return when the tiny plane from Budapest was about to touch down on the runway at Warszawa airport? Of course I was. After a fabulous time spent in Australia (especially the last few weeks) fueled by an intoxicating mix of Lebanon and Turkey I was afraid that everything would fade away a bit once back in my home country. I was obviously happy to see my family, catch up with my friends and... well that's all. Some of you might remember what I went through when I returned to Polska in summer 2008 after my first year in Morocco. It was an immense reversed, cultural shock and even the fact that I knew I was going to stay two months only helped very little.
This year the circumstances were quite similar to a certain degree. I was coming for an extended period of time and I had several goals to achieve. The most important being to pass my ACCA exams. Similarly, three years ago I had to write my thesis during the time I had to spend in Polska.
Luckily for me, some of the circumstances were also drastically different. Three years ago, I was totally broke. I was quite well off during my last 3 months in Morocco thanks my little fortune earned as an extra on the movie set with Matt Damon. That money was only enough to extensively party in Rabat and Casablanca but did not last until my return to Polska. As a result, I had to accept to work for my younger brother and for my parents. The job for my parents included cleaning toilets in their tourist summer guesthouse and the job for my brother was to sell inflatable mattresses or inflatable crocodiles for children to play on the beach as well as cheap sun-glasses made somewhere in South-East Asia. I know that many people had to made their way up the career ladder from the very bottom in order to succeed but I have never heard of anyone making this way up with inflatable crocodiles. It sounds funny now but it was rather depressing when I had to go through that.
The extended financial resources earned this year down-under and empowered by unusually strong Australian dollar made it easier for me to cope with the Polish reality this year. Let's admit that - the Polish reality is not that harsh. On my first night back to late-summer Warszawa, while I was getting on the only line of the capital's metro, I thought to myself 'Warszawa is a pretty cool, I would easily see myself live here'. But I quickly understood the source of that uncommon (and a little bit unreasonable), patriotic thought. My return to Polska was like an extended holiday. I had almost 4 months of not having to work while I did not really need to worry about money. Firstly, I was living with my parents (no rent or food expenses). Secondly, it's still much cheaper in Polska than in Australia or Western Europe. Thirdly, I had enough savings and every expense was justified by saying 'it's in my budget for Polska'. I also did not have to wake up everyday to go outside into the cold to take public transportation and deal with the local working culture and mentality that I still do not like. I also arrived in Polska at the end of the summer so I did not have to cope with the influx of tourists and - which was even better - I did not need to sell inflatable crocodiles.
So yes, the spontaneous, little thought of going back to Polska was based on very shaky, unstable and temporary foundations. Luckily, I realized that quickly. This did not prevent me from enjoying my 4 months in my home country. Catching up with old friends, family and using my native language were all pleasant activities. Apart from getting frustrated with my exams and studying there were no dramas directly related to my extended stay in Polska.
Then why was it so much easier now than 3 years ago? Was it because I was 3 years older? Was it because the summer crocodiles were out of the picture this time? Was it because I had much more savings in a very strong currency? Or because I was more mature? As much as I want to say that it was thanks to my maturity I have to admit that it is not the most right answer. It was probably because of mix of all the factors. Me being more mature, slightly richer and no longer haunted by the dreadful reptiles. No matter what the reasons were, the most important thing is that I really had a good time. There was no complaining this time and much more pleasures. I was way more bearable to myself... and to others in my environment.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
The smell of the Kingdom
Countries or cities have their specific smells. I guess that anyone who traveled at least a little bit can notice that fact. It is nothing unusual. Morocco, or more specifically - Rabat or any other big city, have quite an intense smell in the summer - a mix of hot, humid air, car fumes and sewage. When it was strong, it was disgusting. No one sane could enjoy it. The mix of all that fragrances left a strong mark in my brain.
Then a few weeks ago, I was sitting at a bus stop in Sydney's City while waiting for a bus after going to a cinema. It was a warm, winter night of August. Quite uneventful. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I started feeling that horrible smell. It was coming from the nearby sewage drain. It was disgusting. I did not feel like Sydney at all. But quickly, I recognized that smell. It felt exactly like the sewage in Morocco. It was equally awful. But there was something intoxicating about it. There was something seducing. It smelt just like Rabat or Casablanca. In the middle of the Central Business District of Sydney (a.k.a. City Jungle), while sitting on a bench, I got totally carried away by a terrible smell that reminded me of the Kingdom. Surprisingly, it felt really good and I could not help sniffing it continuously. It was awful but so good at the same time. I could not stop. I enjoyed it.
No one sane could like it. I am definitely insane.
Then a few weeks ago, I was sitting at a bus stop in Sydney's City while waiting for a bus after going to a cinema. It was a warm, winter night of August. Quite uneventful. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I started feeling that horrible smell. It was coming from the nearby sewage drain. It was disgusting. I did not feel like Sydney at all. But quickly, I recognized that smell. It felt exactly like the sewage in Morocco. It was equally awful. But there was something intoxicating about it. There was something seducing. It smelt just like Rabat or Casablanca. In the middle of the Central Business District of Sydney (a.k.a. City Jungle), while sitting on a bench, I got totally carried away by a terrible smell that reminded me of the Kingdom. Surprisingly, it felt really good and I could not help sniffing it continuously. It was awful but so good at the same time. I could not stop. I enjoyed it.
No one sane could like it. I am definitely insane.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
A love affair with Lebanon
One of my travel dreams is slowly coming to an end at the very moment while I am sitting at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon. Since I met my friend and host in Lebanon almost 4 years ago in Rabat, Morocco, I had always wanted to travel to Lebanon and spend some time in Beirut and around the country. I even considered moving there at some point. If I had had a job offer back then (or anytime now) that would have definitely happened. I remember saying that I wanted to live there to a random Lebanese guy (an ex-boyfriend of a friend of a friend) a few years ago and he replied 'no, it's not a dream, just do it and you will be happy'. This became one of my favorite quotes ever. A few months ago, I finally decided to go there. I thought that I could do it after leaving Australia and before going back to Poland since it was sort of on the way back to Europe. And if you know me well enough you know that I adore making my travel itineraries as complex as I can only take it.
2 flights, 3 airports, 1 layover and 24 hours of traveling later, I finally arrived in the Lebanese capital. My friend picked me up and we drove to Tyre (Sour in Arabic) - a city in the south of Lebanon where she works and lives. The airport is pretty small but for some reason we could not find each other for almost an hour. I was wandering around the arrival hall and watching people. It was really interesting to observe all the Lebanese diaspora arriving from all over the world to visit their country and their families. The population of Lebanon is about 4 million people while there are between 15 and 22 million Lebanese living outside the country. While I was waiting at the airport and watching people I figured that some of them must have arrived first time in years and it was the first time in a long time they saw their relatives. It was quite touching to see the anticipation, excitement and tears of joy in their eyes and faces. But as I discovered over the next 7 days , I would have an equally intense and touching experience in this small Middle Eastern country.
I spent my first day in Lebanon in Tyre/Sour in the south. It's a city close to the Israeli (or Palestinian as the state of Israel is not recognized in Lebanon) border with several camps for Palestinian refugees. The weather in the city was extremely hot. There were electricity outages regularly so the AC would not always work to cool us down. The streets were full of electricity polls and kilometers of electric wires and cables densely filling the air between the buildings and above the streets. I think I discovered an important law - the more wires and cables there are on the streets of a city, the more likely it is that the electricity will be cut off at least several times per day. I started the day in Tyre/Sour with a long breakfast. My friend was at work so I just went to the corniche and found a nice restaurant where I ordered a big breakfast - some eggs, bread and vegetables. It was just me, my breakfast and the Mediterranean - a joyful match. It was perfectly terminated by a cigarette of which a pack is 10 times cheaper than in Australia. Yes, I therefore smoked quite a lot in Lebanon. Tyre/Sour has some spectacular ruins dating back to the Roman times and I managed to see them for a while until the scorching mid-day soon chased me back home. We then left for Beirut in the afternoon.
The next highlight of Lebanon was of course its capital - the city of Beirut. One of the most exciting cities of the Mediterranean region (Mediterranean being my favorite region on the planet Earth). Named the top place to visit in 2009 by New York Times, one of the Lonely Planet's most lively cities of 2009 (way ahead of Paris, London or New York). It was also said to have the second highest visitors' spending level in the Middle East and Africa region. My credit card will sadly confirm that statement. Beirut was simply... amazing. I do not know why (and probably will never know) but for some reason I spent quite a lot of money there and surprisingly did not seem to care about that at all. I also hardly slept and did not feel like I needed to rest much. I was partying till dawn and waking up quite early too. It felt magnificent, even though it did not feel like me at all.
Yes, I met someone too - we danced, we made out and we stayed up till 7 AM wandering around the streets of Beirut. We ended up in some random breakfast place for hungover people at 6 AM. I fell asleep at the table waiting for my pain au chocolate and orange juice.
There was something extremely frustrating about Lebanon - the language. After spending 2 years in Morocco and picking up quite a lot of the street Moroccan Arabic, it was totally useless to even attempt to speak it there. People could hardly understand anything. But the Gods decided to give me a permission to speak my (!) Arabic for one night only. I was introduced by a good friend of mine to his friends in Beirut and they took me out for a dinner on Saturday night. There were a Canadian-Lebanese, an American-Lebanese and a Danish-Lebanese - well, most of the Lebanese are Lebanese and something else so that should not come as a surprise. But the highlight of the soirée was an Algerian trans-sexual who was a political refugee in Lebanon. Algerian and Moroccan dialects are quite similar and mutually understood. So Kamil - a white European guy ended up speaking in his [broken] Moroccan Arabic to an Algerian trans-sexual man-turned-woman, a political refugee in Lebanon while enjoying his noodles at a Chinese restaurant in Beirut, Lebanon. None of the Lebanese guys could understand us. It was a fabulous and positively grotesque situation.
The other highlight was my last 2 days in Lebanon which taught me quite an important but, at the same time, simple lesson - the bad and good people are everywhere. I was going to visit an Australian-Lebanese friend from Sydney who was spending a month with her family in the north of Lebanon. In the morning of that day, my friend from the south was supposed to drop me off at the bus station in Beirut but for some reason we could not find the entrance to the station while we were driving on the highway just above it. I was a little bit stressed about the trip mostly because I was traveling with 2 big and very heavy bags. Let me just remind you that I left Australia after a year of living there and I had all of my stuff with me. At that time, I had no stable home. Whenever someone asked me where I lived I would say 'nowhere, I'm in Lebanon now'. That was true - I left my home in Australia and I was yet to arrive in my Polish home. For that 2 weeks, I considered myself homeless. So with all my bags and luggage, we ended up driving around on the highway looking for the entry to the bus station underneath us. Frustrated, my friend pulled over at a gas station and asked for directions. The guy told her something in Arabic after which she told me 'You can take the bus from here'. We were in the middle of an inner city highway full of traffic and we stopped at a junction where traffic from a smaller road was joining the highway. I was puzzled. 'I don't think I will be taking a bus with all my heavy bags from the middle of the highway. You've got to be kidding me' I said. A few minutes later a bus pulled over and I ended up taking the bus with all my heavy bags from the middle of the highway. Impossible things happen. The bus was supposed to take me to Enfeh - a small coastal town south of Tripoli (not the Libyan Tripoli, there is a Lebanese one too). The bus was more than half empty (or less than half full if you want to change the perspective) but at least my bags and I felt more comfortable. However, city by city and village by village, it got more and more empty. It started feeling too much like 'the-driver-and-I-only' which was kind of an disturbing feeling given that the driver did not look friendly. About 10 minutes before the destination and while in a fabulous city of Byblos, the bus was totally empty and it was just the driver and I. He stopped the engine, looked at me via the mirror and started speaking to me in Arabic (the Arabic that I don't understand at all). His English was as bad as my Arabic (my non-existent Lebanese Arabic to be precise) but I figured that he wanted me to get out of the bus since it was empty and it would be uneconomic to drive further. Unless I decided to pay more so that he would drive me to where he had initially promised to take me to. He mentioned something about $25 which was at least a few times more than the regular price. I gave him $10 (still 3 times of the normal ticket price) and suddenly new passengers came so we took off. I texted my friend, she called me back and I put her through to the driver who got quite angry. But I could not understand anything so I tried to speak to one of the new passengers. She did not have good English or French either. After I gave up on communicating with her she only asked me if I was Australian. As it later turned out my friend asked the driver to drop me off at a certain point but the smart ass decided to get rid of me a little bit earlier so that he would not have to face my friend who was angrier than the asshole driver. So as I entered the bus on the highway, I was also kicked out of it on the highway again. But before that, I managed to get back some of the change. It was not a lot but at least I knew that the bastard did not rip me off totally. I felt he was insulting me although I could not understand a word. Again, I ended up with the bags packed with my Australian year in the middle of a highway. There were some stairs luckily so I climbed or rather crawled up the stairs with all the 35 kg of my Sydney life. I found myself on a bridge over the highway in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly, a few seconds later, a car passed by and stopped next to me probably understanding that if there was a foreigner standing there with a lot of bags, something must have gone wrong. At the very same moment my friend called me, so without explaining too much I just passed my phone to the mysterious man in the fancy Mercedes and he started talking to my friend. Initially, she started shouting at him while she thought he was the evil bus driver. After a while of a normal exchange of information on the phone, the Mercedes man handed the phone back to me, smiled, tried to say something back and drove away. Again, I ended up being by myself in the middle of nowhere under the heat of the Mediterranean sun. This only made me laugh to myself at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. I actually thought that at that moment my life was like a good vs. evil fairy-tale where the good wins over the evil and everyone lives happily ever after. The evil of course took the form of the fat and vicious bus driver who kicked me out in the middle of nowhere out of his ugly, white bus-mobile. The good was embodied by the gentleman in the chic Mercedes who saved me from the mortal peril of that difficult situation. A few minutes of waiting later my friend picked me up and I started the last chapter of my Lebanese trip. I spent a day an half with her, her family and friends visiting the north of Lebanon, tasting the local cuisine and learning more about the country. It was a great way to end my stay in the Middle East.
All of the experiences I have described above were very exciting bordering intense but none of them was as intense as the one I had in the middle of my stay in Lebanon. It was quite harsh and challenging. It only underlined the contrasting aspects of the country and how diversified and difficult its reality is. The intense experience I went through was a visit to the Museum of Resistance a.k.a. the Museum of Hezbollah. It is located on a mountain peak in the south of the country, not far from the border with Palestine/Israel. I went there with 3 French friends, a little bit curious of what I could see but not expecting too much. I was dressed casually or casually bordering inappropriate - my Balinese flowery shorts, Moroccan sandals and my (in)famous, second hand Mickey Mouse T-shirt. We entered the place and were quite surprised by how well it was organized and how packed with tourists it was. We could see a real touristic facility ready to welcome hundreds of people every day. There was a gift shop at the entrance selling Hezbollah flags, T-shirts or key rings with mini guns or kalashnikovs. The whole place was apparently financed and built thanks to money from Iran. It looked like a temple of victory of the Zionist enemy - full of spoils of war, guns riffles, boots, cans, street signs and many many more. People would take pictures with a barrel of a tank or a giant map of Israel/Palestine with all its weak and strategical points revealed, explained and described with details. It was quite an interesting and amusing experience in the beginning but my feelings started to change while we were walking around the place. The past few days in Beirut flashed through my memory - two sleepless nights of heavy partying, amazing brunches with delicious food (one of it happened to take place in a restaurant called Casablanca) or an afternoon with drinks at a rooftop bar with a swimming pool overlooking the city and the Mediterranean. And while I was having those flashbacks and walking through the museum of war, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the strong energy and the intensity of the place. I was taken aback by the contrasts of the country. From a rooftop pool or a loud nightclub full of fancy people, I ended up on in a museum where the war was glorified. It was not about judging whether Hezbollah's actions were right or wrong. When I looked at the whole place and its idea without any context I just realized I was at a place where violence and war were admired. Suddenly, I sensed this feeling of extreme sadness. Lebanon - the beautiful and small country full of nice people, beautiful beaches and thriving cities - was also a place of wars, conflicts, fleeing and suffering. You kind of know that from newspapers and TV but it's easy to forget about it once you're totally carried away by a city like Beirut. But right there, on that mountain I was faced with the other side of Lebanon and the Middle East... and the dark sides of the human nature. It felt sad to have realized that instead of having museums of arts, local craft or other beautiful things, it was a museum of war. All those intense feelings made me feel so down that I started crying and I could not really stop it. I felt so sorry for the country and its people - all the ones that died, were wounded, captured or had to flee. I guess I felt what people sense when they go to Nazi concentration camps in Poland or Germany. I don't really think my experience would be complete, had I not gone to that place. It showed me the other side of Lebanon. It might sound a bit weird but a crazy night at a nightclub was as important as going to that museum. Both were quite transcending experiences - and both give you a good glimpse of Lebanon.
The 7 days in Lebanon felt definitely as if it was a few good weeks there. Maybe because I slept so little, I went out a lot, I met many fascinating individuals and I traveled extensively. My love affair with Lebanon and Beirut was a very deep and intense relationship fueled by a unique connection. And I do hope that soon there will be a 'part deux' of that.
2 flights, 3 airports, 1 layover and 24 hours of traveling later, I finally arrived in the Lebanese capital. My friend picked me up and we drove to Tyre (Sour in Arabic) - a city in the south of Lebanon where she works and lives. The airport is pretty small but for some reason we could not find each other for almost an hour. I was wandering around the arrival hall and watching people. It was really interesting to observe all the Lebanese diaspora arriving from all over the world to visit their country and their families. The population of Lebanon is about 4 million people while there are between 15 and 22 million Lebanese living outside the country. While I was waiting at the airport and watching people I figured that some of them must have arrived first time in years and it was the first time in a long time they saw their relatives. It was quite touching to see the anticipation, excitement and tears of joy in their eyes and faces. But as I discovered over the next 7 days , I would have an equally intense and touching experience in this small Middle Eastern country.
I spent my first day in Lebanon in Tyre/Sour in the south. It's a city close to the Israeli (or Palestinian as the state of Israel is not recognized in Lebanon) border with several camps for Palestinian refugees. The weather in the city was extremely hot. There were electricity outages regularly so the AC would not always work to cool us down. The streets were full of electricity polls and kilometers of electric wires and cables densely filling the air between the buildings and above the streets. I think I discovered an important law - the more wires and cables there are on the streets of a city, the more likely it is that the electricity will be cut off at least several times per day. I started the day in Tyre/Sour with a long breakfast. My friend was at work so I just went to the corniche and found a nice restaurant where I ordered a big breakfast - some eggs, bread and vegetables. It was just me, my breakfast and the Mediterranean - a joyful match. It was perfectly terminated by a cigarette of which a pack is 10 times cheaper than in Australia. Yes, I therefore smoked quite a lot in Lebanon. Tyre/Sour has some spectacular ruins dating back to the Roman times and I managed to see them for a while until the scorching mid-day soon chased me back home. We then left for Beirut in the afternoon.
The next highlight of Lebanon was of course its capital - the city of Beirut. One of the most exciting cities of the Mediterranean region (Mediterranean being my favorite region on the planet Earth). Named the top place to visit in 2009 by New York Times, one of the Lonely Planet's most lively cities of 2009 (way ahead of Paris, London or New York). It was also said to have the second highest visitors' spending level in the Middle East and Africa region. My credit card will sadly confirm that statement. Beirut was simply... amazing. I do not know why (and probably will never know) but for some reason I spent quite a lot of money there and surprisingly did not seem to care about that at all. I also hardly slept and did not feel like I needed to rest much. I was partying till dawn and waking up quite early too. It felt magnificent, even though it did not feel like me at all.
Yes, I met someone too - we danced, we made out and we stayed up till 7 AM wandering around the streets of Beirut. We ended up in some random breakfast place for hungover people at 6 AM. I fell asleep at the table waiting for my pain au chocolate and orange juice.
There was something extremely frustrating about Lebanon - the language. After spending 2 years in Morocco and picking up quite a lot of the street Moroccan Arabic, it was totally useless to even attempt to speak it there. People could hardly understand anything. But the Gods decided to give me a permission to speak my (!) Arabic for one night only. I was introduced by a good friend of mine to his friends in Beirut and they took me out for a dinner on Saturday night. There were a Canadian-Lebanese, an American-Lebanese and a Danish-Lebanese - well, most of the Lebanese are Lebanese and something else so that should not come as a surprise. But the highlight of the soirée was an Algerian trans-sexual who was a political refugee in Lebanon. Algerian and Moroccan dialects are quite similar and mutually understood. So Kamil - a white European guy ended up speaking in his [broken] Moroccan Arabic to an Algerian trans-sexual man-turned-woman, a political refugee in Lebanon while enjoying his noodles at a Chinese restaurant in Beirut, Lebanon. None of the Lebanese guys could understand us. It was a fabulous and positively grotesque situation.
The other highlight was my last 2 days in Lebanon which taught me quite an important but, at the same time, simple lesson - the bad and good people are everywhere. I was going to visit an Australian-Lebanese friend from Sydney who was spending a month with her family in the north of Lebanon. In the morning of that day, my friend from the south was supposed to drop me off at the bus station in Beirut but for some reason we could not find the entrance to the station while we were driving on the highway just above it. I was a little bit stressed about the trip mostly because I was traveling with 2 big and very heavy bags. Let me just remind you that I left Australia after a year of living there and I had all of my stuff with me. At that time, I had no stable home. Whenever someone asked me where I lived I would say 'nowhere, I'm in Lebanon now'. That was true - I left my home in Australia and I was yet to arrive in my Polish home. For that 2 weeks, I considered myself homeless. So with all my bags and luggage, we ended up driving around on the highway looking for the entry to the bus station underneath us. Frustrated, my friend pulled over at a gas station and asked for directions. The guy told her something in Arabic after which she told me 'You can take the bus from here'. We were in the middle of an inner city highway full of traffic and we stopped at a junction where traffic from a smaller road was joining the highway. I was puzzled. 'I don't think I will be taking a bus with all my heavy bags from the middle of the highway. You've got to be kidding me' I said. A few minutes later a bus pulled over and I ended up taking the bus with all my heavy bags from the middle of the highway. Impossible things happen. The bus was supposed to take me to Enfeh - a small coastal town south of Tripoli (not the Libyan Tripoli, there is a Lebanese one too). The bus was more than half empty (or less than half full if you want to change the perspective) but at least my bags and I felt more comfortable. However, city by city and village by village, it got more and more empty. It started feeling too much like 'the-driver-and-I-only' which was kind of an disturbing feeling given that the driver did not look friendly. About 10 minutes before the destination and while in a fabulous city of Byblos, the bus was totally empty and it was just the driver and I. He stopped the engine, looked at me via the mirror and started speaking to me in Arabic (the Arabic that I don't understand at all). His English was as bad as my Arabic (my non-existent Lebanese Arabic to be precise) but I figured that he wanted me to get out of the bus since it was empty and it would be uneconomic to drive further. Unless I decided to pay more so that he would drive me to where he had initially promised to take me to. He mentioned something about $25 which was at least a few times more than the regular price. I gave him $10 (still 3 times of the normal ticket price) and suddenly new passengers came so we took off. I texted my friend, she called me back and I put her through to the driver who got quite angry. But I could not understand anything so I tried to speak to one of the new passengers. She did not have good English or French either. After I gave up on communicating with her she only asked me if I was Australian. As it later turned out my friend asked the driver to drop me off at a certain point but the smart ass decided to get rid of me a little bit earlier so that he would not have to face my friend who was angrier than the asshole driver. So as I entered the bus on the highway, I was also kicked out of it on the highway again. But before that, I managed to get back some of the change. It was not a lot but at least I knew that the bastard did not rip me off totally. I felt he was insulting me although I could not understand a word. Again, I ended up with the bags packed with my Australian year in the middle of a highway. There were some stairs luckily so I climbed or rather crawled up the stairs with all the 35 kg of my Sydney life. I found myself on a bridge over the highway in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly, a few seconds later, a car passed by and stopped next to me probably understanding that if there was a foreigner standing there with a lot of bags, something must have gone wrong. At the very same moment my friend called me, so without explaining too much I just passed my phone to the mysterious man in the fancy Mercedes and he started talking to my friend. Initially, she started shouting at him while she thought he was the evil bus driver. After a while of a normal exchange of information on the phone, the Mercedes man handed the phone back to me, smiled, tried to say something back and drove away. Again, I ended up being by myself in the middle of nowhere under the heat of the Mediterranean sun. This only made me laugh to myself at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. I actually thought that at that moment my life was like a good vs. evil fairy-tale where the good wins over the evil and everyone lives happily ever after. The evil of course took the form of the fat and vicious bus driver who kicked me out in the middle of nowhere out of his ugly, white bus-mobile. The good was embodied by the gentleman in the chic Mercedes who saved me from the mortal peril of that difficult situation. A few minutes of waiting later my friend picked me up and I started the last chapter of my Lebanese trip. I spent a day an half with her, her family and friends visiting the north of Lebanon, tasting the local cuisine and learning more about the country. It was a great way to end my stay in the Middle East.
All of the experiences I have described above were very exciting bordering intense but none of them was as intense as the one I had in the middle of my stay in Lebanon. It was quite harsh and challenging. It only underlined the contrasting aspects of the country and how diversified and difficult its reality is. The intense experience I went through was a visit to the Museum of Resistance a.k.a. the Museum of Hezbollah. It is located on a mountain peak in the south of the country, not far from the border with Palestine/Israel. I went there with 3 French friends, a little bit curious of what I could see but not expecting too much. I was dressed casually or casually bordering inappropriate - my Balinese flowery shorts, Moroccan sandals and my (in)famous, second hand Mickey Mouse T-shirt. We entered the place and were quite surprised by how well it was organized and how packed with tourists it was. We could see a real touristic facility ready to welcome hundreds of people every day. There was a gift shop at the entrance selling Hezbollah flags, T-shirts or key rings with mini guns or kalashnikovs. The whole place was apparently financed and built thanks to money from Iran. It looked like a temple of victory of the Zionist enemy - full of spoils of war, guns riffles, boots, cans, street signs and many many more. People would take pictures with a barrel of a tank or a giant map of Israel/Palestine with all its weak and strategical points revealed, explained and described with details. It was quite an interesting and amusing experience in the beginning but my feelings started to change while we were walking around the place. The past few days in Beirut flashed through my memory - two sleepless nights of heavy partying, amazing brunches with delicious food (one of it happened to take place in a restaurant called Casablanca) or an afternoon with drinks at a rooftop bar with a swimming pool overlooking the city and the Mediterranean. And while I was having those flashbacks and walking through the museum of war, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the strong energy and the intensity of the place. I was taken aback by the contrasts of the country. From a rooftop pool or a loud nightclub full of fancy people, I ended up on in a museum where the war was glorified. It was not about judging whether Hezbollah's actions were right or wrong. When I looked at the whole place and its idea without any context I just realized I was at a place where violence and war were admired. Suddenly, I sensed this feeling of extreme sadness. Lebanon - the beautiful and small country full of nice people, beautiful beaches and thriving cities - was also a place of wars, conflicts, fleeing and suffering. You kind of know that from newspapers and TV but it's easy to forget about it once you're totally carried away by a city like Beirut. But right there, on that mountain I was faced with the other side of Lebanon and the Middle East... and the dark sides of the human nature. It felt sad to have realized that instead of having museums of arts, local craft or other beautiful things, it was a museum of war. All those intense feelings made me feel so down that I started crying and I could not really stop it. I felt so sorry for the country and its people - all the ones that died, were wounded, captured or had to flee. I guess I felt what people sense when they go to Nazi concentration camps in Poland or Germany. I don't really think my experience would be complete, had I not gone to that place. It showed me the other side of Lebanon. It might sound a bit weird but a crazy night at a nightclub was as important as going to that museum. Both were quite transcending experiences - and both give you a good glimpse of Lebanon.
The 7 days in Lebanon felt definitely as if it was a few good weeks there. Maybe because I slept so little, I went out a lot, I met many fascinating individuals and I traveled extensively. My love affair with Lebanon and Beirut was a very deep and intense relationship fueled by a unique connection. And I do hope that soon there will be a 'part deux' of that.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
From down under with love
It is funny to see how eleven months of ignorance, judgment and dislike bordering hate can change into one month of love and passion that override all the past negative feelings. Maybe love does conquer it all. I am not talking about a toxic love affair with a person. I am talking about something we usually do not pay too much attention to - love with the place of our residence.
I am now sitting on-board the plane bound for Abu Dhabi. I left Sydney, Australia about 30 minutes ago after a year and a few days of living here (now, I should say 'there'). For various reasons, I did not want to move to Australia (even if I knew it was only for a year because of my work contract). I always thought that it was a great city in an amazing country but I did not like the idea of me being there. My mind was somewhere else and Sydney was a geographical obstacle. But a few weeks ago, circumstances changed and suddenly, I became mentally and emotionally available to fall in love with the city I was living in. Unsurprisingly all the mounting tension in my life dissolved and disappeared. There was no more pressure, no more haste. It was only about me. I had quite a lot of love to give and Sydney turned out to be the lucky receiver of that feeling of mine.
The fact of my quickly upcoming departure only accelerated the whole process. I got to really like and enjoy the city and its people. The hardly dressed-up Kings Cross girls miraculously stopped being annoying to me. The over-tattooed boys were no longer ugly to me either. I realized that they were not the issue or the problem. The problem was me. I got to clearly see how judgmental I had been over the past few months. I decided not to try to make Sydney what I wanted it to be but accept it for what it was. It worked. I commenced to appreciate it.
But my days were numbered. It took me almost eleven months to fall in love with the city and the price to pay for that delay was high - a limited amount of time to actually embrace and enjoy the new feeling. I only had several weeks. But it was beautiful, it was amazing, it was blissful. I learned to enjoy the small things - my morning walk to work with the view of the harbor, going past a gorgeous park and marching into the city jungle. I enjoyed my weekend brunches (solitary or accompanied by some good friends). I even started liking clubbing and going to night clubs I would normally never go to. I started being nostalgic about my departure not wanting it to happen at all.
And right now, still on the same plane while listening to Fleetwood Mac, having left the magic land down under behind, I am experiencing this bitter-sweet feeling. Two days ago, while cleaning up my room and starting to pack, I had to throw away old bus, ferry or cinema tickets and a lot of other souvenirs of Australia. It all brought the memories of the past twelve months and made me realize that at that moment the clock had started its final countdown. My hours in Sydney were counted. At that very moment, it began to become my past. I will miss it dearly. I will miss it for giving me a great professional opportunity, for allowing me to live in an amazing city, for teaching me to take things for what they are and not judge that much anymore, for kicking me out of my mid-twenties crisis, for reconciling me with the Western World and telling me that I do not need to live in North Africa to have a transcending experience.
And while the feeling of missing makes me a bit sad, I am also very happy to have experienced all of that during the past year.
I have had an amazing year.
I am now sitting on-board the plane bound for Abu Dhabi. I left Sydney, Australia about 30 minutes ago after a year and a few days of living here (now, I should say 'there'). For various reasons, I did not want to move to Australia (even if I knew it was only for a year because of my work contract). I always thought that it was a great city in an amazing country but I did not like the idea of me being there. My mind was somewhere else and Sydney was a geographical obstacle. But a few weeks ago, circumstances changed and suddenly, I became mentally and emotionally available to fall in love with the city I was living in. Unsurprisingly all the mounting tension in my life dissolved and disappeared. There was no more pressure, no more haste. It was only about me. I had quite a lot of love to give and Sydney turned out to be the lucky receiver of that feeling of mine.
The fact of my quickly upcoming departure only accelerated the whole process. I got to really like and enjoy the city and its people. The hardly dressed-up Kings Cross girls miraculously stopped being annoying to me. The over-tattooed boys were no longer ugly to me either. I realized that they were not the issue or the problem. The problem was me. I got to clearly see how judgmental I had been over the past few months. I decided not to try to make Sydney what I wanted it to be but accept it for what it was. It worked. I commenced to appreciate it.
But my days were numbered. It took me almost eleven months to fall in love with the city and the price to pay for that delay was high - a limited amount of time to actually embrace and enjoy the new feeling. I only had several weeks. But it was beautiful, it was amazing, it was blissful. I learned to enjoy the small things - my morning walk to work with the view of the harbor, going past a gorgeous park and marching into the city jungle. I enjoyed my weekend brunches (solitary or accompanied by some good friends). I even started liking clubbing and going to night clubs I would normally never go to. I started being nostalgic about my departure not wanting it to happen at all.
And right now, still on the same plane while listening to Fleetwood Mac, having left the magic land down under behind, I am experiencing this bitter-sweet feeling. Two days ago, while cleaning up my room and starting to pack, I had to throw away old bus, ferry or cinema tickets and a lot of other souvenirs of Australia. It all brought the memories of the past twelve months and made me realize that at that moment the clock had started its final countdown. My hours in Sydney were counted. At that very moment, it began to become my past. I will miss it dearly. I will miss it for giving me a great professional opportunity, for allowing me to live in an amazing city, for teaching me to take things for what they are and not judge that much anymore, for kicking me out of my mid-twenties crisis, for reconciling me with the Western World and telling me that I do not need to live in North Africa to have a transcending experience.
And while the feeling of missing makes me a bit sad, I am also very happy to have experienced all of that during the past year.
I have had an amazing year.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
200
I am back to blogging. It has been a long time since I wanted to restart it and finally I decided to do it. It was unsurprisingly easy. Last night while dancing my ass off in a trashy nightclub I said to myself - 'Tomorrow, I am going to write about it. Tomorrow, I am going to create the first post after 2 years of not doing anything here and publish it on my blog.' If you want to start something, do it now and don't postpone it.
Funny to have realized that it is actually going to be my 200th post on this blog. Restarting to write will be a great way to celebrate being back here and having my 200th post.
'Keeping a diary supports personal development' someone said.
Actually, instead of a small diary in a book/notebook from, a pen and some ink I will have Internet and a blog but I believe that after all the idea is the same. It is not about the means but about the content.
And I agree that it does support personal development. I guess I would not be who I am had I not been blogging at a certain period of my life. It makes you put your thoughts on paper (or screen) and you also get a record of them for the future.
What about the 2-year gap? - I will use one of my favorite writers' tools - retrospection. Every now and then I will throw a post to write about the past 2 years.
Feels good to be back!
Funny to have realized that it is actually going to be my 200th post on this blog. Restarting to write will be a great way to celebrate being back here and having my 200th post.
'Keeping a diary supports personal development' someone said.
Actually, instead of a small diary in a book/notebook from, a pen and some ink I will have Internet and a blog but I believe that after all the idea is the same. It is not about the means but about the content.
And I agree that it does support personal development. I guess I would not be who I am had I not been blogging at a certain period of my life. It makes you put your thoughts on paper (or screen) and you also get a record of them for the future.
What about the 2-year gap? - I will use one of my favorite writers' tools - retrospection. Every now and then I will throw a post to write about the past 2 years.
Feels good to be back!
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Kamil goes to Morocco - part deux
le 28 juin 2009
Le Maroc - part deux.
If you have not heard any updates from me you must be really surprised now. You would probably expect me to still be in Brussels, working, partying and living there. Airports became my home - that is the truth. I was traveling a lot in order to get outside of Belgium as often as possible. You should not be confused because of reading I am at the airport. But this time you might be confused. You actually should be. You must be. I am. A few weeks ago, I would not have believed if you had told me I would be coming back to the Kingdom. Especially within such a short notice.
So listen to what happened to me.
It has been a while since I last fed you with any news. Less than two months but way too much for one person to handle within such a short period of one's life. It was both positive and negative. To summarize the two aspects - it was very intense.
First of all, in the last week of May, my employer decided not to prolong my contract after my internship. I was kind of happy to hear that actually. I did not want to take that job for another year(s) and for sure I did not desire to continue living in Belgium - a very weird country placed in the heart of Europe. On the other hand, the job was socially perceived as stable, predictable and comfortable. A job not to put away because in the long term it will allow you to have a settled life. A job you do not need to like for its content but rather for all the financial and material aspects it provides you with. Saying 'no' and quitting would be a difficult decision. 'Will I regret it? Will I want to be back, have a decent salary and all the social benefits? Won't it be too late?' I was confused and freaked out about the idea of having to choose between staying with the boring and predictable company or going for something that I would like more but also that would be more exciting, unpredictable and dangerous. Luckily for me, someone else made the decision. I was not given the choice - and even though their decision frightened me, I was relieved.
A few days later, I went on my planned trip to the Kingdom. Back then, I was not anticipating to return there. I booked it more than three months before and it was just a five-day trip to see the people and places I had been missing. I forgot how intense Morocco can be anytime you interact with the country. It was when I was there that my relationship finished and I had to abandon my plans to move somewhere else. Less than a week after losing my job in Belgium (or rather not being given the extension of my contract), I lost my relationship. In a way, it spoiled my trip. But the atmosphere and my friends in the Kingdom made it much easier for me to deal with it. My relationship ended in the same place (even in the same neighborhood) where it started one year before.
At the same time, I decided that it was probably a sign that things had ended that way. I realized that it could be an opportunity to move back to the Kingdom. A friend of mine told me about a European company opening up in Morocco. I got the contact and a recommendation and a few days later, I had an interview in Brussels. I was invited for a dinner that lasted so long that I managed to get drunk with the served alcohols (champagne and red wine) and still get sober after a while. A few days after the interview I was asked to complete an application form and another few days later, I was invited for a second meeting. Having discussed all the details, financial conditions and work aspects I decided to take the opportunity I had been offered. 'Book the ticket for the coming weekend' said my new boss to me last Tuesday. So on the night from Tuesday to Wednesday (from the 23rd to 24th of June) I booked the ticket from Brussels to Casablanca. To make it more meaningful and dramatic, let me gently remind that on that day exactly year ago, I left Morocco. How could I ever dare to expect that a year later, on the exact same day, I will purchase a one-way ticket back to Morocco. I guess that was the best way I could celebrate the first anniversary of my departure.
So right now, when I am writing this, I am still sitting on a chair at the airport of Brussels-Charleroi in Belgium, waiting for my flight to Casablanca, Morocco. I am sad to be leaving my friends in Brussels and I feel bad about seeing my relationship did not make it successfully. I am afraid of the new job and returning to Morocco where things could be different than before. However, for the moment I think this is the right place and the right job. I think it is Morocco where I will be the happiest. I do think it is my job that will be very exciting and it is a right thing for me to start. Within a few past weeks, many doors closed for me. But many opened at the same time.
Although very scared and stressed, I am doing the right thing.
All in all, I will live in Rabat again. Isn't this unbelievable?
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
God is a DJ
I do not entirely understand why it happens like this but it is the fact and the statistics prove it too. If you count all the great parties I have been to during the last few months there will be a disturbingly high percentage of parties in Brussels. Scarily high comparing with partying outside of Brussels or Belgium.
This implies that parties here must be cool. I have to admit that. Many of them are.
On the last weekend of April, I got invited to a birthday party of a new friend. She is British and works in a language school, she is super cool and is a nice escape from the corporate/eurocrat crowd of Brussels. She has got most of the characteristics of a person I usually connect quickly and easily: she's smart, liberal, funny, intelligent, a bit cynical, has extensive international experience and loves partying. A perfect match.
So on last Saturday of April, another good Polish-Bruxelloise friend of mine and I found ourselves at her birthday party. She had gathered a very tasteful and interesting mix of people: a theologist, a bisexual girl from Scandinavia being an au-pair in Brussels and another au-pair from the US currently living in Brussels whose mother turned out to be lesbian and having divorced her husband found a girlfriend and started living with her. Some other cool personalities included a big crowd of random but funny Polish people. Plus all the characteristics I have mentioned above that always attract me to newly met people. The red wine as usual was a profound support of deep conversations and silly laughter.
Around 11 PM it was time to hit another place - a party in the church. But some obstacles in the meantime prevented us from reaching the shrine on time. Having drunk too much wine (and not thinking of stopping it) I was enlightened enough to decide not to drive the car myself. I then asked a sober girl from the party to do it for me. She agreed and soon we all found ourselves in my car driving towards the centre where the church party had surely taken off. But the devil was not on our side. On a very sharp turn the satan suggested me sipping some more of the red wine. I followed his idea and unfortunately spilled quite a lot of the good old red on my lovely black and white sweater. The pure whiteness of my snow-white stripes of that piece of clothing was damaged by the bloody redness of the wine.
'Shit' I said to myself.
'Shit' I repeated.
'We're changing the direction!' I shouted and everyone looked at me. 'We're going home now' I continued. 'I need to wash off the stain'.
No one objected. I bet no one dared. After reaching home, I threw away the empty cup of wine and headed towards the door. I rushed in and went straight to my room. Still being drunk I took off the sweater, dropped it on the table and poured some anti-stain liquid. Then I put some salt on it and then placed it in the laundry machine.
'It's in God's hands now' I thought to myself 'and I will have to pray in the church so that it disappears'.
I rushed off my room and told everyone to leave for the party. A few minutes later, we were at the door of the church of Gesù in Brussels. Unfortunately, the door was blocked by an incredible long line of people. Pretending to have some friends in the line I started waving to some random strangers trying to make everyone believe they were my friends. That way, we managed to end up in the line being only a few minutes from the entrance. I do not know until now how that happened. I am normally a very obedient and good boy (too good?) who always waits in queues for his turn, who always pays the expected amount, never bargains or argues. That night I was very rebellious and it is only the universe that might have the answer.
After a few minutes, we entered. It was startling. The huge interior of the shrine was packed with people. The soaring arches of the pillars were finishing in the ceiling and were highlighted by the red, blue, yellow (and who knows what other colors) lights of the bunches of reflectors all over the place. The sounds of the music were gently blurred by the sizes and the cubature of the nave. The high altar was replaced with the DJ. There was much wider choice of the different alcohols than only the communion wine. Listening to confessions of all the sinners were highly acceptable and appropriate. And finally everyone had the possibility of doing the two at one time: having a party and a morning Sunday service (a perfect two in one). The place was awesome and the party was ultimately fabulous. We finished it around 4 or 5 AM and headed home. Then a nice brunch in the morning with a good friend.
A perfect weekend. And it included going to the church.
Amen.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
the brighter side of life
Even though, I am very neurotic and often cannot really appreciate some aspects of my life, there is unquestionably a lot of good things and it has to be made clear.
Despite the fact that Brussels is not the most exciting city in Europe it is definitely very international and if you really struggle hard enough you will manage to find great places and people who will make your time spent there amazing. It works well for me.
Secondly, I have quite a lot of free time after work. My job (so far) does not require me work overtime and my studies are not very time consuming either. Sometimes, it is not a blessing to have to much time but I try to use it as effectively as possible. I manage to travel a lot - within the last month, I went to Geneva, Annecy (a small French town close to Geneve), Paris, Trier (Germany), Vienna or Venice. Having friends in some of these places or wonderful community of Couch Surfing make my experience unbelievable.
I earn enough to live, travel and have a nice lifestyle. It is the first time in my life that I have a decent salary and that I can actually save some money. Moreover, I have all the boring and sometimes scary or overwhelming things in my life like social insurance, retirement plan even though they are probably necessary.
Despite the fact that Brussels is not the most exciting city in Europe it is definitely very international and if you really struggle hard enough you will manage to find great places and people who will make your time spent there amazing. It works well for me.
Secondly, I have quite a lot of free time after work. My job (so far) does not require me work overtime and my studies are not very time consuming either. Sometimes, it is not a blessing to have to much time but I try to use it as effectively as possible. I manage to travel a lot - within the last month, I went to Geneva, Annecy (a small French town close to Geneve), Paris, Trier (Germany), Vienna or Venice. Having friends in some of these places or wonderful community of Couch Surfing make my experience unbelievable.
I earn enough to live, travel and have a nice lifestyle. It is the first time in my life that I have a decent salary and that I can actually save some money. Moreover, I have all the boring and sometimes scary or overwhelming things in my life like social insurance, retirement plan even though they are probably necessary.
So why am I still unhappy?
Monday, April 13, 2009
une nuit dans la boîte de nuit
There are sometimes (often or maybe even very often?) days when we cannot really recognize ourselves. The times when we look at each other and think 'I would never think that I would do this' or 'I would never expect that I would enjoy that'. Are they the signs of permanent changes that we become part of? Or maybe rather a small trigger to carry us away from our common ourselves?
Whichever of the aforementioned it was, it happened to me last night.
Around 8 PM, I got a message from a friend of mine who invited me to a party at a fancy night club - Mirano - a place to be where a theme night called 'Folie Burgeois' was about to take place as it does once every month. Usually refusing to go to that kind of places, I decided not to do so that time. Maybe because I really felt like partying or because I had already refused to go out a few days earlier and I did not want to do it again. Probably both. I replied 'YES' and started getting ready while drinking some red wine in order to put myself in the right mood and avoid paying exorbitant prices at the party. The latter turned to be inevitable.
I left home and headed to Mirano that luckily is just about three minutes on foot from my place. At the entrance, I met up with my friends. All fancily dressed up, fragrantly perfumed and trendily combed. Everyone hoping to drink some indecent quantities of alcohol, dance on the tops of the tops of the spinning dance floors and of course - meet potential dates, boyfriends, girlfriends or at least (in some cases - only) candidates for one-night-stands.
I found myself among people with that kind of desires.
We entered ending up in a spacious but still very crowded vestibule of Mirano. Whenever you are inside it is better not to have a jacket or want to pee - the queues to the toilet or the cloakroom seem never-ending. Luckily, I had none of those wishes so I freely walked to the main dance floor - it was even more crowded. The thick air smelled of cigarettes and God knows of what else. A drag queen was dancing on the stage in the middle of the dance floor that was spinning around its axis. There were much more shows later that included - some hot, muscled guys wearing leather, dancing with fire and walking on stilts or hot female dancers hardly dressed up, moving seductively and drawing attention of all the guys around. The techno music was extremely loud and aggressive. As expected the drinks were very expensive. Nevertheless, in my excitement, I turned out to be very generous buying whiskey to some random, freshly met (straight!) guy. Having been drunk enough, I led myself to the main room where I bumped into another friend of mine with whom I crazily took over the dance floor staying there for at least one hour of unstoppable dance.
The place and its ambience had to remind me of similar places in the Kingdom - Theatro in Marrakech or another night club in a fancy and expensive neighborhood of Casablanca. I partied in the latter in the end of May last year. I was drunk and I ended up there with some friends and random people. I would have normally disliked that kind of a disco but that time it was different. Loud techno music, crowds of rich and spoiled Moroccan boys and girls and killing prices did not put me off. I enjoyed myself while dancing, wandering or stumbling over; glass of some drink including vodka in hand.
Pretty much the same atmosphere as casablancoise was last night in Brussels.
I still do not know why I normally hate this kind of places but then it was different e.g. last night. Is it the matter of my attitude? Or maybe it is because of some rare conjunction of the planets of our solar system that made me like things I normally do not enjoy. Then it is only approximately once a year that it happens so I will have to wait until 2010 for another party like this.
I must then hope for more frequent conjunctions. May the solar system help us realize our dreams!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
the theory of probability
Sometimes to be lucky… you just need some luck. It is not so much that you can do in order to get it. It is rather the theory of probability in mathematics that can explain this phenomenon.
You just need to happen to go the right place, pass the right street or bump into the right people. If today you leave the office too early, then maybe you will miss the love of your life who left the office later than usual and therefore you will not happen to meet by chance.
Two weekends ago, the theory of probability was on my side.
On Friday, I went to an Irish pub called ‘Wild Geese’ where I met up with a girl from my office who had suggested to all Poles working with us to hang out in that pub on that day. We were the only ones to show up. She came over with a friend who used to work in marketing for private sector but hated it so much that she decided to apply for a prestigious diplomatic-consular course organized by the Polish Foreign Ministry and ended up working in Brussels at the Polish delegation by the UE where she deals with the Iran’s nuclear programme. She never regretted her decision and she finds her current job much more interesting and exciting. Her husband works in consulting and truly hates it. A friend that came over there with me also hates her job so we connected over the mutual, negative feelings we had for our professions. It was us – the unhappier ones trying to find our way in our confusions and her – the happier one who decided to go for something totally different and out-of-the-box. And she succeeded while we were failing.
No matter how sad it sounded it at least gave me the idea of how things could be handled.
Around eleven PM, we decided to leave. We said goodbye and everyone headed towards their cars. When I was about to get in I heard my name being said and then I saw two friends of mine standing and smiling to me. I was happy to see them. We talked a bit and later they suggested coming back to Wild Geese where they were heading too. I did not oppose and spontaneously accompanied them.
Le part deux of the night was even more amazing. We spoke about the escape from the convenient golden cages of social insurances, retirement plans and decent salaries – all paid in order to keep people doing the boring jobs. We thought of going to places like Goa, South-East Asia or at least to charming and lovely Mediterranean region. Out of sudden, she reminded herself about my blog and started praising my writing – both the writing and the language skills, the topics I write about and the thoughts and remarks I have. She said I should start doing that professionally. To make it even more meaningful, a few seconds later I bumped into another person who kept reading my blog and she also praised it saying I was writing in a smart and funny way while at the same time it was also very intriguing. I was speechless to receive so much flattery. I must have looked like a fifteen-year old, ugly and full of complexes girl who was just a subject of attention of the cutest guy in the school.
If I had not wrongly booked my plane tickets to Italy and thus if I had gone to Venice on that weekend (that was the plan), if I had not received the email from my colleague, if I had not left the pub at eleven PM only to bump into my friends and return there, that all would have never happened.
The next days were full of reunions with friends from different parts of the world who at that same time all happened to be in Brussels. It was wonderful and just made me realize that long-distance friendships were also possible.
On Saturday, my Polish friend, Aleksandra, invited me for a Portuguese dinner she was going to. It was organized by the Couch Surfing community and it involved different nationalities, different personalities – all sharing many things in common – being open-minded, with international experience, speaking a few languages and being extremely interesting, funny and smart. A fabulous mix I always adore. These people seemed much happier and reconciled with their lives and occupations as they looked like they had been enjoying it all.
If my friend, Aleksandra, had not been blown off by her friends who did not go to Amsterdam with her, if I had gone to Venice or decided to answer another invitation I would have never ended up in that place, enjoying the conversation, food and great people.
Even tough, we can never totally control the theory of probability and where it might take us I am sure that we still have a lot of room for manoeuvring and increasing our chances.
And thus we will live happily ever after.
You just need to happen to go the right place, pass the right street or bump into the right people. If today you leave the office too early, then maybe you will miss the love of your life who left the office later than usual and therefore you will not happen to meet by chance.
Two weekends ago, the theory of probability was on my side.
On Friday, I went to an Irish pub called ‘Wild Geese’ where I met up with a girl from my office who had suggested to all Poles working with us to hang out in that pub on that day. We were the only ones to show up. She came over with a friend who used to work in marketing for private sector but hated it so much that she decided to apply for a prestigious diplomatic-consular course organized by the Polish Foreign Ministry and ended up working in Brussels at the Polish delegation by the UE where she deals with the Iran’s nuclear programme. She never regretted her decision and she finds her current job much more interesting and exciting. Her husband works in consulting and truly hates it. A friend that came over there with me also hates her job so we connected over the mutual, negative feelings we had for our professions. It was us – the unhappier ones trying to find our way in our confusions and her – the happier one who decided to go for something totally different and out-of-the-box. And she succeeded while we were failing.
No matter how sad it sounded it at least gave me the idea of how things could be handled.
Around eleven PM, we decided to leave. We said goodbye and everyone headed towards their cars. When I was about to get in I heard my name being said and then I saw two friends of mine standing and smiling to me. I was happy to see them. We talked a bit and later they suggested coming back to Wild Geese where they were heading too. I did not oppose and spontaneously accompanied them.
Le part deux of the night was even more amazing. We spoke about the escape from the convenient golden cages of social insurances, retirement plans and decent salaries – all paid in order to keep people doing the boring jobs. We thought of going to places like Goa, South-East Asia or at least to charming and lovely Mediterranean region. Out of sudden, she reminded herself about my blog and started praising my writing – both the writing and the language skills, the topics I write about and the thoughts and remarks I have. She said I should start doing that professionally. To make it even more meaningful, a few seconds later I bumped into another person who kept reading my blog and she also praised it saying I was writing in a smart and funny way while at the same time it was also very intriguing. I was speechless to receive so much flattery. I must have looked like a fifteen-year old, ugly and full of complexes girl who was just a subject of attention of the cutest guy in the school.
If I had not wrongly booked my plane tickets to Italy and thus if I had gone to Venice on that weekend (that was the plan), if I had not received the email from my colleague, if I had not left the pub at eleven PM only to bump into my friends and return there, that all would have never happened.
The next days were full of reunions with friends from different parts of the world who at that same time all happened to be in Brussels. It was wonderful and just made me realize that long-distance friendships were also possible.
On Saturday, my Polish friend, Aleksandra, invited me for a Portuguese dinner she was going to. It was organized by the Couch Surfing community and it involved different nationalities, different personalities – all sharing many things in common – being open-minded, with international experience, speaking a few languages and being extremely interesting, funny and smart. A fabulous mix I always adore. These people seemed much happier and reconciled with their lives and occupations as they looked like they had been enjoying it all.
If my friend, Aleksandra, had not been blown off by her friends who did not go to Amsterdam with her, if I had gone to Venice or decided to answer another invitation I would have never ended up in that place, enjoying the conversation, food and great people.
Even tough, we can never totally control the theory of probability and where it might take us I am sure that we still have a lot of room for manoeuvring and increasing our chances.
And thus we will live happily ever after.
Monday, March 23, 2009
the theory of relativity
The bad season came unexpectedly along with the New Year of 2009. It showed me its nasty images and did not let enjoy my life in this city properly. Or maybe it was me who went to the DVD store and took the wrong CD with the wrong season. Was it my entire fault not to be able to enjoy my life as it deserves to be enjoyed? Did I make enough efforts to get the new season? Or maybe I had too much of a bad attitude?
Why can't we (or rather I) be happy the way we should be especially when we have few worries around? Are we too idealistic? Requiring? Neurotic? Unfair towards ourselves and our achievements?
If 10 years ago, someone had told me how my life would look like in 2009 I would probably not have believed them. It would have sounded to me like a never-attainable dream. A paradise. Living and working abroad. Having great parties and travels. Going out and spending time with wonderful people. Earning decent money and having promising perspectives for the future.
In 1999, if someone had said offered all that, I would have accepted it without a sign of hesitation or questioning. I would have taken it all with my eyes closed. I would have embraced it and thanked God for the rest of my life.
And now, that I have it all I am often not able to fully enjoy it and live it the way it should be lived. Is it because I am neurotic, over-demanding and always-complaining?
This all just shows that happiness is a very relative term. And I am not speaking about how it is perceived by various people because then we will obviously see it is very relative. But even us – we see it differently depending on what we currently have and what we still want to achieve. It is much more difficult to stop, look back and smile. Instead we just look forward and run with tired faces.
But on the other hand, maybe we should keep questioning what we have and make sure that what we have is what we really need. Do I really require too much when I say I want to like what I do? Or simply I did not try hard enough to be convinced it would be something for me? Does it take time to start liking it or you should know it right away? Should I give it more time? Should I be punished for not entirely enjoying it while other people from my country and of my age say I am extremely lucky to have this kind of life given the current economical situation? If I change it will it make me happier or will I find other aspects to complain about? Should I fight for something I am not sure I want to win? Maybe, once achieved I will love it. Or maybe I will want to toss it away and struggle to get something new.
I guess the bad season is not because I like something or not.
It is definitely because I do not have enough answers. Instead there are too many unsolved equations.
Why can't we (or rather I) be happy the way we should be especially when we have few worries around? Are we too idealistic? Requiring? Neurotic? Unfair towards ourselves and our achievements?
If 10 years ago, someone had told me how my life would look like in 2009 I would probably not have believed them. It would have sounded to me like a never-attainable dream. A paradise. Living and working abroad. Having great parties and travels. Going out and spending time with wonderful people. Earning decent money and having promising perspectives for the future.
In 1999, if someone had said offered all that, I would have accepted it without a sign of hesitation or questioning. I would have taken it all with my eyes closed. I would have embraced it and thanked God for the rest of my life.
And now, that I have it all I am often not able to fully enjoy it and live it the way it should be lived. Is it because I am neurotic, over-demanding and always-complaining?
This all just shows that happiness is a very relative term. And I am not speaking about how it is perceived by various people because then we will obviously see it is very relative. But even us – we see it differently depending on what we currently have and what we still want to achieve. It is much more difficult to stop, look back and smile. Instead we just look forward and run with tired faces.
But on the other hand, maybe we should keep questioning what we have and make sure that what we have is what we really need. Do I really require too much when I say I want to like what I do? Or simply I did not try hard enough to be convinced it would be something for me? Does it take time to start liking it or you should know it right away? Should I give it more time? Should I be punished for not entirely enjoying it while other people from my country and of my age say I am extremely lucky to have this kind of life given the current economical situation? If I change it will it make me happier or will I find other aspects to complain about? Should I fight for something I am not sure I want to win? Maybe, once achieved I will love it. Or maybe I will want to toss it away and struggle to get something new.
I guess the bad season is not because I like something or not.
It is definitely because I do not have enough answers. Instead there are too many unsolved equations.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Rabat for you, Rabat forever
Today, I got thrilled having received an email entitled 'Rabat dla Ciebie' which meant 'Rabat for you'. After getting back to a normal state preceded by a heat wave of excitement I read the email and then to my disappointment I realized it was not about the capital of Morocco. 'Rabat' in Polish means also 'a discount'. And I was just informed that the development of the large size photos now costs the same as the development of the small ones...
Damn it!
the eternal clash of the South and the North
On Saturday, on the Couch Surfing Portuguese night dinner, someone suggested an idea of Latin and Germanic brains. For some people it is easier to learn Latin languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian etc) and for others Germanic ones (English, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian etc).
Is that truth? It might seem like in my case. Even though it was not a problem for me to learn English, it was much more difficult to learn German. I did not like the fact that there were three genders (masculine, feminine and neutral) - I not only struggled to memorize the vocabulary but also the corresponding gender. Often unsuccessfully. Even if, the grammar was not so difficult (I hardly have problems with grammar in any language including my dear Polish) I had problems with learning vocabulary by heart - especially the verbs. None of these issues is the case for me while learning French. I do not confuse the genders too often and I guess it is not such a big case to memorize the words. I studied German for around eight years and now I cannot really speak it. Unlike French of which I have a conversational level after less than two years of studying (and although French is widely spoken in both Morocco and Belgium I still would mostly be part of Arabic/English/Flemish and less often French speaking groups). I also understand some Spanish and Italian although I never studied any of them. Is it just that they are easier or more similar to French? Are Germanic languages (i.e. Dutch or the Scandinavian ones) more difficult than the Latin ones? So what about the people who say they have Germanic brains?
Are we more likely to learn more easily only Germanic or only Latin tongues?
Is that truth? It might seem like in my case. Even though it was not a problem for me to learn English, it was much more difficult to learn German. I did not like the fact that there were three genders (masculine, feminine and neutral) - I not only struggled to memorize the vocabulary but also the corresponding gender. Often unsuccessfully. Even if, the grammar was not so difficult (I hardly have problems with grammar in any language including my dear Polish) I had problems with learning vocabulary by heart - especially the verbs. None of these issues is the case for me while learning French. I do not confuse the genders too often and I guess it is not such a big case to memorize the words. I studied German for around eight years and now I cannot really speak it. Unlike French of which I have a conversational level after less than two years of studying (and although French is widely spoken in both Morocco and Belgium I still would mostly be part of Arabic/English/Flemish and less often French speaking groups). I also understand some Spanish and Italian although I never studied any of them. Is it just that they are easier or more similar to French? Are Germanic languages (i.e. Dutch or the Scandinavian ones) more difficult than the Latin ones? So what about the people who say they have Germanic brains?
Are we more likely to learn more easily only Germanic or only Latin tongues?
Joseph Conrad
Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish writer from Istanbul, in his book about his home city really praised and enjoyed his childhood and whole life he had lived there. It was like a promised land to him. Even if it was not a heaven on Earth, it definitely was a special, magical and meaningful place and no other city or country in the whole world could be more important and close to him. In the same book he contradicted himself and the fact of him having strong roots in a certain place (Istanbul in his case) to writers like Vladimir Nabobkov or Joseph Conrad who travelled all their lives, spending years abroad and living there, hardly ever coming back to their home countries. Joseph Conrad, who grew up in Poland and whose native language was Polish, was a writer who wrote his novels in English - a tongue that he learnt in his twenties having already spoken fluent French. Most of his life after leaving Poland, he spent working as a sailor and later just living abroad and being a writer. He never returned to Poland for good.
As even the dumbest reader (not to insult anybody whatsoever) of this blog may guess I am rather a Conrad or Nabobkov than Pamuk type. I left my country at the age of twenty-three and even tough I was not planning on staying abroad permanently it did happen to me and probably I will never come back to Poland for good. Not only do I live abroad but I am rather the type who feels like living everywhere and thus settling down nowhere. Once while waiting in the queue to Mirano, I met a friend of my friend who initiated the standard interrogation with a freshly encountered Brussels' expat (me). He asked me for my name, my profession and for how much longer I was going to stay in the city. I answered 'I have been here for nearly five months and I will stay for another half a year. Then I will probably move to another country'. 'Oh, I understand' he replied 'you are this kind of a person' he continued meaning that I was not an expat who settles down but rather lives everywhere for a fixed period of time and then changes the place. I was unceremoniously put on a labeled shelf but on the other hand his response meant he had perfectly understood who I was. And that was the truth.
I have friends in so many countries and cities all over the world. I have visited quite a few places in Europe and Mediterranean region and as soon as I have the chance I will go everywhere in the world. I love being abroad but I guess I do not like the idea of settling down for good in one place. I live everywhere and nowhere in the end. I have friends everywhere but in the end will they be in one place with me once I need them badly? My family is always far from me (or it is me who is far from them?) and they do not really understand why I want to live abroad (but I might understand why they do not understand that), travel and live this kind of life. We keep in touch obviously but it is nothing really strong or profound. It is never enough time for me to really understand the culture I live in and plunge into it deeply because I tend to leave the countries pretty quickly. Do I learn enough about the politics, the famous people, the history, the well-known places? Maybe if I did so, I would understand the people and their actions more instead of complaining about their awkward behaviors. In the same time due to not living in Poland I keep getting further and further from the country and culture I grew up in. Once my friends and I laughed at a person who asked one of my frequent traveling friends 'oh boy! You travel so much. Don't you get confused?' We did make a lot of fun of it once we were told that. But it is not that funny sometimes. Isn't it sometimes confusing to live abroad? I.e. to be part of a discussion among five locals speaking their own language when you do not understand a single word of what they say? The worst thing for me about living abroad is when I start hating the country but on the other hand I know I do not want to return to Poland because it is not going to be better there and I do not want to go to another country either as I do not presume it would solve my problems. It happened to me in Morocco in the middle of my stay. I stopped liking it. However, I did not want to be in Poland or in any other country. I just felt trapped. No place for me where I could have been happy.
Have I become rootless? A true citizen of the world without a real home but still having it anywhere he moves in? Is it bad or good? Do I need to have roots and feel part of a place, city or a country? Or is it better to just feel a human being who can live anywhere? Do I need to define it? Why is it sometimes so amazing and wonderful and sometimes so confusing?
As I wrote in one of the previous posts - most of the times it is better than anything else. But sometimes it is not the most of the times.
As even the dumbest reader (not to insult anybody whatsoever) of this blog may guess I am rather a Conrad or Nabobkov than Pamuk type. I left my country at the age of twenty-three and even tough I was not planning on staying abroad permanently it did happen to me and probably I will never come back to Poland for good. Not only do I live abroad but I am rather the type who feels like living everywhere and thus settling down nowhere. Once while waiting in the queue to Mirano, I met a friend of my friend who initiated the standard interrogation with a freshly encountered Brussels' expat (me). He asked me for my name, my profession and for how much longer I was going to stay in the city. I answered 'I have been here for nearly five months and I will stay for another half a year. Then I will probably move to another country'. 'Oh, I understand' he replied 'you are this kind of a person' he continued meaning that I was not an expat who settles down but rather lives everywhere for a fixed period of time and then changes the place. I was unceremoniously put on a labeled shelf but on the other hand his response meant he had perfectly understood who I was. And that was the truth.
I have friends in so many countries and cities all over the world. I have visited quite a few places in Europe and Mediterranean region and as soon as I have the chance I will go everywhere in the world. I love being abroad but I guess I do not like the idea of settling down for good in one place. I live everywhere and nowhere in the end. I have friends everywhere but in the end will they be in one place with me once I need them badly? My family is always far from me (or it is me who is far from them?) and they do not really understand why I want to live abroad (but I might understand why they do not understand that), travel and live this kind of life. We keep in touch obviously but it is nothing really strong or profound. It is never enough time for me to really understand the culture I live in and plunge into it deeply because I tend to leave the countries pretty quickly. Do I learn enough about the politics, the famous people, the history, the well-known places? Maybe if I did so, I would understand the people and their actions more instead of complaining about their awkward behaviors. In the same time due to not living in Poland I keep getting further and further from the country and culture I grew up in. Once my friends and I laughed at a person who asked one of my frequent traveling friends 'oh boy! You travel so much. Don't you get confused?' We did make a lot of fun of it once we were told that. But it is not that funny sometimes. Isn't it sometimes confusing to live abroad? I.e. to be part of a discussion among five locals speaking their own language when you do not understand a single word of what they say? The worst thing for me about living abroad is when I start hating the country but on the other hand I know I do not want to return to Poland because it is not going to be better there and I do not want to go to another country either as I do not presume it would solve my problems. It happened to me in Morocco in the middle of my stay. I stopped liking it. However, I did not want to be in Poland or in any other country. I just felt trapped. No place for me where I could have been happy.
Have I become rootless? A true citizen of the world without a real home but still having it anywhere he moves in? Is it bad or good? Do I need to have roots and feel part of a place, city or a country? Or is it better to just feel a human being who can live anywhere? Do I need to define it? Why is it sometimes so amazing and wonderful and sometimes so confusing?
As I wrote in one of the previous posts - most of the times it is better than anything else. But sometimes it is not the most of the times.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
erase/rewind?
It has been a bumpy and rocky road with many ups and down recently. Probably they were mostly caused by me and not necessarily by the world surrounding me. Some people call it a mid-twenties crisis. The others say it is just the inability to live and appreciate what you have achieved and been blessed with in your life. And some other of them just think it is just what you deserved due to not having followed your dreams when you were younger and having chosen something convenient, predictable, stable and boring instead.
Quite possible that all of them are right. I do not know whether I made a mistake starting to study economics. It did make me who I am now and whom I know which is not too shabby whatsoever. But also, it is for sure not something that will make me do a job that I will be crazy about. And I think I need a little bit of the craziness. On the other hand, my course of studies allows me to do a job that provides me with money for doing things I love. I have quite a decent amount of days off and I am well paid which helps me travel, go out and save. But can't we have it all? To do what we like and earn money in the same time. Is it only the shitty jobs that are paid so good in order to attract people to do them? Will no one pay a sufficient money to a person who likes their job? Are there people who both adore their jobs and make enough money? Or are they like Yeti? You know they exist but they were never seen.
Quite possible that all of them are right. I do not know whether I made a mistake starting to study economics. It did make me who I am now and whom I know which is not too shabby whatsoever. But also, it is for sure not something that will make me do a job that I will be crazy about. And I think I need a little bit of the craziness. On the other hand, my course of studies allows me to do a job that provides me with money for doing things I love. I have quite a decent amount of days off and I am well paid which helps me travel, go out and save. But can't we have it all? To do what we like and earn money in the same time. Is it only the shitty jobs that are paid so good in order to attract people to do them? Will no one pay a sufficient money to a person who likes their job? Are there people who both adore their jobs and make enough money? Or are they like Yeti? You know they exist but they were never seen.
This is all not only black and white. It is a very risky territory. What I do now is not only boring and meaningless. I am saving money for the first time in my life. If I stay a couple of years I will get promoted quite quickly and will be able to make more money and e.g. buy an apartment. Changing it all? How should I know the new thing will be much more exciting especially if now I presume there are some drawbacks stopping me from quitting my current job and starting some crazier and less predictable like i.e. teaching English around the world. How do I know I will be a good teacher? I was a private math tutor back in Poland and it was not the easiest job in the world. How do I know I will easily find and employment not being a native speaker. It is very unstable in terms of incomes and they are rarely relatively low.
Speaking about the current job can I say that I have given it enough time to like and accept it? Maybe I still need some more weeks or months to be fully inducted and much more comfortable with it. Should I give up on things that easily and change them so immediately having realized I do not like them? Yes, it is good to be flexible and change the negative aspects of our lives. But shouldn't we sometimes wait a bit and let things adjust in our lives so that we are more convenient with them as time passes by? On the other hand, you always have to do what you truly like and what makes you enjoy it. On another hand, I am afraid that as a job is always something that you have to do you will never be able to enjoy fully as it is always a must. So will I ever like my job? Is it possible?
A job-hunt process is something that makes me work really hard and be very efficient but when there are problems or when I am rejected I am very upset and it gets me very down really easily. Last week, I started sending some inquiries about possible jobs in the same field and company I am in now but in different countries. After receiving a few negative replies (mostly due to lack of needs of new employees usually because of the economical crisis), I realized that 'here we go again'. I am again in this frustrating process of looking for a job. It will be very hard given the circumstances. I will suffer again. But in this case there will be no happy end. Even if I find a suitable job that fits my profile I will not be satisfied because this job is not something I am excited about or I want to do later. Don't you think it is really sick? Getting frustrated while looking for a job that you know it will not make you enjoy that and thus being later frustrated again once you start the work you even do not like? It is like being upset because you cannot have the thing that you not only do not need but even do not like. I felt like this last week. And it just got me very sad when I realized how fucked up that was...
I believe it is the first time in my life that I have such a multidimensional dilemma. There is so many options, possibilities and sets of solutions. So many questions and so few answers. And it is not the situation I deal with well. I need to have if not the full answers then at least clear options of the future. Even though I am not entirely sure what I will choose I need to have some paths I will later follow. I need to have a plan that will lead me there and once executed will make me achieve it. This is not the case right now. Plans change. Options come and go. No stability, no good road to follow. I know I should go after the voice of my heart. But I should not mute the voice of my bank account, health insurance and pension fund either. And both of them seem to say different things, don't they? Unless I do not hear well or I misinterpret them.
I am thinking a lot and I cannot stop that whatsoever. I am analyzing, asking questions, investigating, fitting different options, talking to people, attempting to learn from their mistakes and not to do mine anymore, creating different scenarios, calculating financial projections. And this drives me insane. It drives me crazy on a bumpy and rocky road with many ups and downs. It does not seem I can see the end of the road from here where I am now. But I know it does not mean the end is not somewhere there. I know this road a bit. I went through it a few consecutive years in the past. It always took slightly different turns but it would always end. And it was a good end. A happy end.
The end... (a happy one)
Friday, March 6, 2009
The truth is out there
One of the most amazing thing about having great friends in different locations all over the world is that they also have a lot of great friends in other locations all over the world. It often works out to have them shared with you. It happened to me a few times.
In December last year, I was introduced to the mother of my American-British-Belgian friend Noellie who lives in Morocco. Noellie's British mom, Jennifer, lives between Mozambique and Brussels. She is a great person who thanks to her skills, education and her two husbands - first the American working for CIA and the second Belgian working as UNDP Ambassador - managed to live her life all over the world - mostly in Africa. Although she is forty-something years more experienced than me and we are different we managed to find the common language and a lot of things that make us alike.
She was born in a loving and caring family somewhere in the countryside or suburbs deep in Wales. She spent her twenty-three years over there. Although her life was decent and good she always wondered how come she was born in that boring environment where everything was predictable, not interesting and simply dull. She did not feel she really belonged there. She even said that the stork bringing her to this world must have confused the directions and instead of ending up in some exotic destination it carried her to boring and predictable Britain. At the age of twenty-four she decided to leave the UK for good and she has not lived there permanently ever since.
I guess I can totally say my story is (or will be) pretty much similar. I was born in a decent family in this hardly exciting or interesting part of Poland. I was always excited about being abroad or at least in a different city - far from my hometown. Although I love my family I have been always wondering how it is possible that I am so different from most of the members of them. Where did I get my dreams, values and desires from? It does not look like it is genetics (no no I am not adopted - the physical resemblance is too obvious) and I do not know whether this is an example of someone else from real life or from TV.
The fact is that at the age of twenty-three I left my homeland and decided to live abroad. Back then it was just temporarily for one year but I guess that subconsciously I knew I would never return for good.
So far this is really great and despite my occasional outbreaks of neurotic nature I am loving it.
As I was told last night - it is never going to be perfect but most of the times it will be better than anything else.
In December last year, I was introduced to the mother of my American-British-Belgian friend Noellie who lives in Morocco. Noellie's British mom, Jennifer, lives between Mozambique and Brussels. She is a great person who thanks to her skills, education and her two husbands - first the American working for CIA and the second Belgian working as UNDP Ambassador - managed to live her life all over the world - mostly in Africa. Although she is forty-something years more experienced than me and we are different we managed to find the common language and a lot of things that make us alike.
She was born in a loving and caring family somewhere in the countryside or suburbs deep in Wales. She spent her twenty-three years over there. Although her life was decent and good she always wondered how come she was born in that boring environment where everything was predictable, not interesting and simply dull. She did not feel she really belonged there. She even said that the stork bringing her to this world must have confused the directions and instead of ending up in some exotic destination it carried her to boring and predictable Britain. At the age of twenty-four she decided to leave the UK for good and she has not lived there permanently ever since.
I guess I can totally say my story is (or will be) pretty much similar. I was born in a decent family in this hardly exciting or interesting part of Poland. I was always excited about being abroad or at least in a different city - far from my hometown. Although I love my family I have been always wondering how it is possible that I am so different from most of the members of them. Where did I get my dreams, values and desires from? It does not look like it is genetics (no no I am not adopted - the physical resemblance is too obvious) and I do not know whether this is an example of someone else from real life or from TV.
The fact is that at the age of twenty-three I left my homeland and decided to live abroad. Back then it was just temporarily for one year but I guess that subconsciously I knew I would never return for good.
So far this is really great and despite my occasional outbreaks of neurotic nature I am loving it.
As I was told last night - it is never going to be perfect but most of the times it will be better than anything else.
land down under (aka. Southern Turkey)
Having come to Istanbul for the third time in my life (and counting) I knew I could not stay only in the city for the whole 9 days. So with my habibi last Sunday morning, we decided to have a look at the flights to various destinations around the country. God bless Onur Air airlines. We found a 50 EUR per person, all included return ticket to Antalya in Southern Turkey and a few minutes later we booked the trip for Monday-Wednesday. A few minutes later I asked 'so where actually is it that we are going to?' Although I travel by planes a lot I have never managed to find that cheap flight just one day before its departure. The fact that it was the low season helped a lot.
We woke up Monday morning at 5.30 AM (for me it rather felt like the middle of the night) and went to Atatürk airport. Two trams, one flight, two buses and one minibus later we were enjoying the noon sun of Olympos - a small village by the Mediterranean where you can admire the old ruins of an ancient Roman city. Beautifully located by a stream, surrounded by the mountains on the West and the sea on the East it looks like a paradise. We explored the ruins, climbed the hills picturesquely overlooking the valley, the mountains, the beaches and the sea. Simply amazing. People were extremely nice and generous. We took a tree house as our hotel room and once when we realized that it was a bad idea to sleep in the freezing cold of the night and that the light did not work we were given a nice room with TV and bathroom. No extra costs. The next day we walked to the neighboring village of Çıralı and stayed in a hotel there. The price was pretty low and it included dinner and breakfast. Our breakfast was amazing - delicious eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, bread, cheeses. We enjoyed that in the warmth of a morning sun while sitting at table on the beach and admiring the snowy peaks of the mountains and the turquoise blue of the Mediterranean. It was like a dream. The last night, we went to the forest of Chimaira where in the middle of a meadow located on the hills of the wood we could discover a never-extinguishing fires that apparently have been burning there for centuries. As it was a cold middle of the night and we were tired after walking in complete darkness through the hills of a forest, we laid down by the fire and fell asleep for a few minutes .
The last day, in order not to miss the plane from Antalya back to Istanbul we had to hitch-hike until the highway to Antalya to later catch a minibus to the city. We were given a ride by two guys driving a tractor and since there were no more free seats they carried us on the trailer. Getting a lift on a trailer driving through a gorgeous valley surrounded by the mountains? I cannot imagine a better adventure. After a quarter on the trailer, then another car, an hour on the minibus and twenty minutes on the urban bus we were in the downtown Antalya. We could not believe how beautiful the historical centre was. The ancient Roman walls and the old Turkish wooden houses mixed together and tightly packed between the narrow streets of the downtown - different centuries or even millenniums, two pretty far from each other cultures but one perfectly filling another. The quartier was situated on the hills just by the sea and one could see the mountains in the distance. We found an open air café near a garden - the memories of a similar place in Rabat (unforgettable les Oudayas) came in a flash. We wished we could stay there forever. We took advantages of the views and the ambiance as long as we could and later we grabbed a cab that drove us off to the airport.
We were back in Istanbul. I still keep insisting on the fact the city is rather ugly. But the country is definitely fabulous. It is magical.
We woke up Monday morning at 5.30 AM (for me it rather felt like the middle of the night) and went to Atatürk airport. Two trams, one flight, two buses and one minibus later we were enjoying the noon sun of Olympos - a small village by the Mediterranean where you can admire the old ruins of an ancient Roman city. Beautifully located by a stream, surrounded by the mountains on the West and the sea on the East it looks like a paradise. We explored the ruins, climbed the hills picturesquely overlooking the valley, the mountains, the beaches and the sea. Simply amazing. People were extremely nice and generous. We took a tree house as our hotel room and once when we realized that it was a bad idea to sleep in the freezing cold of the night and that the light did not work we were given a nice room with TV and bathroom. No extra costs. The next day we walked to the neighboring village of Çıralı and stayed in a hotel there. The price was pretty low and it included dinner and breakfast. Our breakfast was amazing - delicious eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, bread, cheeses. We enjoyed that in the warmth of a morning sun while sitting at table on the beach and admiring the snowy peaks of the mountains and the turquoise blue of the Mediterranean. It was like a dream. The last night, we went to the forest of Chimaira where in the middle of a meadow located on the hills of the wood we could discover a never-extinguishing fires that apparently have been burning there for centuries. As it was a cold middle of the night and we were tired after walking in complete darkness through the hills of a forest, we laid down by the fire and fell asleep for a few minutes .
The last day, in order not to miss the plane from Antalya back to Istanbul we had to hitch-hike until the highway to Antalya to later catch a minibus to the city. We were given a ride by two guys driving a tractor and since there were no more free seats they carried us on the trailer. Getting a lift on a trailer driving through a gorgeous valley surrounded by the mountains? I cannot imagine a better adventure. After a quarter on the trailer, then another car, an hour on the minibus and twenty minutes on the urban bus we were in the downtown Antalya. We could not believe how beautiful the historical centre was. The ancient Roman walls and the old Turkish wooden houses mixed together and tightly packed between the narrow streets of the downtown - different centuries or even millenniums, two pretty far from each other cultures but one perfectly filling another. The quartier was situated on the hills just by the sea and one could see the mountains in the distance. We found an open air café near a garden - the memories of a similar place in Rabat (unforgettable les Oudayas) came in a flash. We wished we could stay there forever. We took advantages of the views and the ambiance as long as we could and later we grabbed a cab that drove us off to the airport.
We were back in Istanbul. I still keep insisting on the fact the city is rather ugly. But the country is definitely fabulous. It is magical.
in the ‘World’s Hippest City’
Here I am again, in -according to Lonely Planet and others but definitely not me- the World's Hippest City on the frontier of many different cultures, in the former capital of former empires, in the commercial and cultural center of the country, in the city built hundreds years ago and larger and more populated than Moscow or London, the only metropolis located on two continents - Istanbul.
And I am not really excited or astonished by the city. Ok, it has the great monuments like the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazzare, Aya Sophia etc but still I find the rest of the city ugly. The architecture is a mix of old buildings from different centuries and a lot of 'once-upon-a-time new', concrete'n'glass'n'steel, shabby buildings mostly from the second half of the twentieth century. A mix I truly hate and that reminds me of what communism did to Poland and how it made cities like Warsaw, Gdansk or Lodz ugly.
I went to Istanbul for the first time in summer 2007 and back then I did not feel the vibe of the city. Maybe because I was coming from Morocco with whom I had fallen in love by that time. Luckily, there were places like the picturesque Princess Islands that made up for the rest of the huge metropolis. And I am sure that there are places I have not discovered yet and that I will surely fall in love with.
So clearly in my 'people versus places' never-ending dillemma Istanbul is losing as 'a place'. The people part makes up for it and it is not only about the hospitality and the politeness of the locals (which is for me considerably better than i.e. in Morocco).
Last night, we went for two house parties thrown by two different expats living in Istanbul and working as English teachers. I felt as if I were at home. Dozens of interesting individuals, mostly English native speakers, a few Europeans and some Turkish who traveled around the world or lived abroad and all ended up in Turkey. People for whom careers or money are not the supreme values. People who love traveling around the world and being more than some tourists. People who love learning languages, meeting new people, discovering new cultures and sites. People who like enjoying their lives, challenging it and who are sometimes slightly neurotic. People like me. Yesterday Istanbul -the city I am not too excited about- gave me it all and made me very happy. After a few glasses of unbeatable red and several people I had the pleasure to talk to, walking down the stairs of an old, funky, dark and spooky building on the last floor of which my friend's apartment with a magnificient view over the city is located, I praised my life, people in it, travels and all I love and happen to have.
Does it then deserve the ‘World’s Hippest City’ title?
And I am not really excited or astonished by the city. Ok, it has the great monuments like the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazzare, Aya Sophia etc but still I find the rest of the city ugly. The architecture is a mix of old buildings from different centuries and a lot of 'once-upon-a-time new', concrete'n'glass'n'steel, shabby buildings mostly from the second half of the twentieth century. A mix I truly hate and that reminds me of what communism did to Poland and how it made cities like Warsaw, Gdansk or Lodz ugly.
I went to Istanbul for the first time in summer 2007 and back then I did not feel the vibe of the city. Maybe because I was coming from Morocco with whom I had fallen in love by that time. Luckily, there were places like the picturesque Princess Islands that made up for the rest of the huge metropolis. And I am sure that there are places I have not discovered yet and that I will surely fall in love with.
So clearly in my 'people versus places' never-ending dillemma Istanbul is losing as 'a place'. The people part makes up for it and it is not only about the hospitality and the politeness of the locals (which is for me considerably better than i.e. in Morocco).
Last night, we went for two house parties thrown by two different expats living in Istanbul and working as English teachers. I felt as if I were at home. Dozens of interesting individuals, mostly English native speakers, a few Europeans and some Turkish who traveled around the world or lived abroad and all ended up in Turkey. People for whom careers or money are not the supreme values. People who love traveling around the world and being more than some tourists. People who love learning languages, meeting new people, discovering new cultures and sites. People who like enjoying their lives, challenging it and who are sometimes slightly neurotic. People like me. Yesterday Istanbul -the city I am not too excited about- gave me it all and made me very happy. After a few glasses of unbeatable red and several people I had the pleasure to talk to, walking down the stairs of an old, funky, dark and spooky building on the last floor of which my friend's apartment with a magnificient view over the city is located, I praised my life, people in it, travels and all I love and happen to have.
Does it then deserve the ‘World’s Hippest City’ title?
Friday, February 27, 2009
happiness is not only a destination, it is a journey...
Yes, I have been really upset recently. Too many confusions and thoughts on the future, two not really good weekends and boom! I am in a weirdly bad mood.
But hamdullah! (thanks God!) I still have the power to drive myself out of this shitty road. A few phrases from good friends or from ‘The Secret’, a few thoughts on who I am, what I have, where I live and travel and most of all whom I have in my life and right away it makes the view on my life and this world much more positive.
Life is great! Do not be afraid of taking certain decisions, especially those ones that you think will make you happy. Even if you are afraid of taking them. It is better to risk than to regret. The future is unpredictable and certain events are inevitable.
You do not need to know all the answers. Things around you change constantly and the ones that are unattainable now will not necessarily be this way later as time goes by. A lot of answers will come up themselves in the right time and they will be the good answers.
If you had a lot of successes by now why shouldn’t you have more of them later? It is not only about the luck but also about who you are, how you behave, what you do or who you are with. No matter where you are and what job you do you will always be you. Prepare a short plan but do not try to answer all your doubts. You will achieve what you want.
But hamdullah! (thanks God!) I still have the power to drive myself out of this shitty road. A few phrases from good friends or from ‘The Secret’, a few thoughts on who I am, what I have, where I live and travel and most of all whom I have in my life and right away it makes the view on my life and this world much more positive.
Life is great! Do not be afraid of taking certain decisions, especially those ones that you think will make you happy. Even if you are afraid of taking them. It is better to risk than to regret. The future is unpredictable and certain events are inevitable.
You do not need to know all the answers. Things around you change constantly and the ones that are unattainable now will not necessarily be this way later as time goes by. A lot of answers will come up themselves in the right time and they will be the good answers.
If you had a lot of successes by now why shouldn’t you have more of them later? It is not only about the luck but also about who you are, how you behave, what you do or who you are with. No matter where you are and what job you do you will always be you. Prepare a short plan but do not try to answer all your doubts. You will achieve what you want.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Truman sleeps
So here I am - almost 25 years old, sitting at the office of a well-known and world-wide recognized company, starting great career and earning good money while the storms of financial crisis destroy the reality around, taking advantages of the health insurance and the retirement plan, having experienced life in various destinations, being able to travel a lot, go out, socialize with people, not to forget - being in a great relationship, living an international life, having many friends all over the world and perspectives of living where I want to ...
The world is mine then, isn't it?
So why do I feel it is not mine? Why am I depressed and neurotic? Why do I feel that the financial crisis has transformed and is taking over me? One day I am happy with all I have and feel blessed the other day (like today) I curse it all? The job that, I do not think, is for me, the other job that, I think, is for me but I do not know what it is and whether I will be able to find it, the relations I am not sure will survive the distance, the will to live in different countries that, I am afraid, will destabilise and ruin my life and the will to stay in one place and settle down that, I am afraid, will kill me too. Recently, I do not have even willingness to try to figure things out and be strong to strive for what I want (what is it actually?). I fought persistently to achieve what I have just achieved and now I even do not know whether this is something what I want. Maybe I believed I needed that but 'what one wants is not necessarily what one needs...'
Am I just unable to appreciate what I have or really what I have is shit and I should change it for something better? Did all those years I fight for what I wanted without realizing it was something that I did not really need? Do I just have a bad day, bad week, bad year or maybe I simply manage my life badly? Do I make myself unhappy with the wrong choices or with not being able to appreciate the good choices and the great achievements.
This is so confusing... I need a good film.
The world is mine then, isn't it?
So why do I feel it is not mine? Why am I depressed and neurotic? Why do I feel that the financial crisis has transformed and is taking over me? One day I am happy with all I have and feel blessed the other day (like today) I curse it all? The job that, I do not think, is for me, the other job that, I think, is for me but I do not know what it is and whether I will be able to find it, the relations I am not sure will survive the distance, the will to live in different countries that, I am afraid, will destabilise and ruin my life and the will to stay in one place and settle down that, I am afraid, will kill me too. Recently, I do not have even willingness to try to figure things out and be strong to strive for what I want (what is it actually?). I fought persistently to achieve what I have just achieved and now I even do not know whether this is something what I want. Maybe I believed I needed that but 'what one wants is not necessarily what one needs...'
Am I just unable to appreciate what I have or really what I have is shit and I should change it for something better? Did all those years I fight for what I wanted without realizing it was something that I did not really need? Do I just have a bad day, bad week, bad year or maybe I simply manage my life badly? Do I make myself unhappy with the wrong choices or with not being able to appreciate the good choices and the great achievements.
This is so confusing... I need a good film.
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