And life in and out of countries

Right. So, Amsterdam. I spent two days there after my last post.  What happened?

IN the morning, Cindy and I smoked a few spliffs and made breakfast for our lovely host. Seeing Gabs roll over with tired eyes (and tired minds, for EIS fans), almost onto a few fried eggs, toast, and some tea, was quite a sight and a great way to begin the day, as everybody who knows Gabs knows her smile is infectious. From there we made preparations, hung out with Gabs for a bit, then went to the outdoor market near where Gabs lives. This place is chock full of tiny knick-knacks, huge throws, hemp made clothing, bright scarves and sweaters, and all manner of delicious foods. It is so much fun to release your control in a place like this and sit, as on the edge of the ocean, with waves of color and smells and people washing over you, forcing your head towards the sky.

Schwarma is and the prices are negotiable. The Egyptians serving us are a small family, all smiling, and the men keep calling Gabs the beautiful girl. I think it's a good nickname so I use it a few times. Perhaps it will stick. Towards the edge of the market, Cindy finds an Ethiopian pillow case she would like, so she asks the tall, dark, rasta man with big teeth how much it is. Smiling he shakes his head. "I don't know," he says, and gives us a sheepish smile with a few breathy giggles. He is obviously not sober. I think to myself, this must be a bargaining tactic, so we try to rephrase the question and have him answer. He simply says the boss left him here, but he doesn't know the prices, but he doesnt want to he boss to be mad at him. He asks us how much we think it is. I am definitely suspicious now, being from the States I have an inborn mistrust of people's genuineness. Cindy says she does not know but she'd like to buy it. Maybe 5 euro she says, a very low price for such an item. The man simply laughs, holding both hands awkwardly high around his shoulders and swiveling a bit, his eyes vacant. In a very cute voice he echoes, "I don't know, I think this is ok." His eyes laugh and hug us as cindy pays and we go on our now merrier way.

From the market, Gabs and her friends leave us to go to class, abandoning Cindy and I to the city. Coffee shops, coffee shops, coffee shops. 

What does it mean to be a foreigner in a place? A tourist? It is more a framework for operating than anything else, unless it is placed on you. Cindy and I stroll the canals  looking incongruous with the old, traditional scenery, but also remaining unplaceable in most categories. We sometimes get weird looks from passersby, but more often than not we get head tilts and smiles, perhaps a Dutch greeting.

I have been craving beer ever since Ireland, so we finally find a nice pub with outdoor seating and we settle down with a delicious Lechasse and of course a spliff to people watch. Anytime I am by water I feel more fluid, less tense and more natural. Amsterdam is crisscrossed and inlaid with canals, making the whole place feel...good.

We go to the Van Gogh museum with the passes Gabs provided for us. I have strong deja vu from when I was here with my parents: all is different and all is the same. Everything as everything changes. The museum is brilliantly made-up, the writing is extremely well done, the arrangements of pictures by theme and time period is very effective, some might even say super. The way Van Gogh uses colors from one part of a picture to create others is superb and very true to actual observation I think. We do not really see separation between objects, they are all affected by the whole picture, exchanging and refracting light and associations as we perceive and our mind puts together an idea. Van Gogh conveys this so well by having the gold from wheat within the face of the gardener above, so that he is the wheat as much as he is a man, if not more. Gogh also gives movement and rhythm to his scenes, to the colors. This is extremely psychadellic. Especially when he paints fields and trees, the colors are going somewhere, they roll, not just the images, but the actual color and painting is dynamic. Brilliant.

Peasant workers turning to oil drills in the night sky. Every old man looks like Freud. The sky bleeds through the trees. Theo stares from beeath the Walnut tree. He now up points.

Ferdinand Hodler hobbeling blankly van gogh's step pedestal on his way to the sky's ocean felled rhythm into the paintings, brought color-motion.

George Frederic Watt's After the 21st Day, check it out. The waters themselves obey the great power and instead of touching upon the earth are ever-hovering as mist.

The wheat painting: Reaping, Levin stands above. All over bending, warping in his eye to sway down, as in prayer, if the scythe were to pass above, the wheat.

We've got to get back to meet up with Zeneva, Steven, and Gabs for dinner, but we can't resist another coffee shop. The relaxed atmosphere of Amsterdam has sunk deep into me now, time is relative, everyone is a friend, and all roads lead towards home, eventually. All water toward the ocean.

Getting back we find Zeneva and Steven, like little pixies flitting across the street. Bubbly, they relate their simple day and we relate ours back. A simple ritual, but it brings us closer.

We make a delicious dinner, share it with Stevie and Mariza.

Then the kitchen is invaded by Australians, oh well. We go to Stevie's room to play banana grams and hang out with a bunch of exchange students. One from Sarah Lawrence is strikingly beautiful and the slow words she forms exemplify how large and seemingly heavy her lips are. She is a poet. Of course.

I leave to speak with my parents. I miss them very much now. Each day on the road means more excitement, adventure, connection with people and places, and more knowledge of myself, but it also means less grounding, and less of an ability to completely unhinge in the way you can hwen you are at home, or with your family. I cannot wait to see them in a few weeks.

We go out to Blue Bird for late night vap'ing in a pretty big group. All is happy. A washed up version of Roger Waters has made an amazing playlist of Pink Floyd, all the songs from different albums flowing into each other seemlessly. He grins vacantly from behind the counter, a cannabis businessman.

The next day the morning repeats itself. Spliffs, breakfast, Gabs' smile, hang out. But Gabs has class earlier so Cindy and I hit the city with power and passion. We go to a thrift store where a beautiful canadian girl in a belly shirt and long, long straight chocolate hippy-hair sells cindy a pair of shoes.

We walk in the direction of the Anne Frank house. I am slowly realizing how effectively art is incorporated into this city. Benches, parks, buildings, traffic indications all are consciously aesthetically designed. It makes the city have a real feel to it, it provides jobs for people who are more aesthetically and artistically inclined, and it makes everything more pleasing.

I love the street art here.

We go to Anne Frank house and stay for a long while. The place is overwhelming in its reality. Nothing is just a story. When I am in the annex, much of the separation disappears. I imagine my family in such a situation. I imagine the fear, the horror, the confusion, and utter lack of understanding. I think of what it would be like to live with suppression of noise and movement, not leaving a set of rooms, always with a mind to what the outside thinks, sees, hears. To run and shout and scream and jump are basic human rights.

The people stare at themselves in holocaust mirrors, then pass on then pass on. It's true they say, the time of these walls is gone and yet they pen in droves of wool clothed walkers every day. They will always have power.

Back into the city is a tough transition but Cindy makes it easier. She is very easy to travel with.
We go back to Gabs, to cook, to clean, to hangout and do laundry. Tomorrow begins the hitch-hiking adventure. Of course we go back to Blue Bird, pick up, and say hi to the workers there. One gives us all free lighters.

When we get back to Gabs' place, we sit and smoke by the water. The lights reflect, the buildings look like stairways up from some less solid, fluid world. I love this moment. The chill of an Amsterdam night just barely holding off, my friends on the bench beside me, our eyes trained outwards but the feeling comes from each other. I tear up. How beautiful that we can do this, that this moment is here and ours.

I am ready to leave. This has been magical. In the morning, we will kiss Gabs goodbye and walk to the liftplaats to hitchhike.

We get to the liftplaats between 9 and 10. Cindy makes the signs as she has better handwriting. Berlin. A1. Amersfoort. Osnabruck. Anything along the way, please.
I try to make eye contact with every car. Smile. Look interesting. We do not get a ride in the first hour. Another hitcher arrives, he is also going to Berlin. Uh oh. People keep pointing down at their license plates. Not going to Germany. A nice lady picks us up. Says she passed by before going into the city and now that we are still waiting, she will give us a ride about 20k to another gas  station. She talks about video making in Amsterdam and her tech husband.

A man from Holand with a 20 yar old son and 21 year old daughter picks us up from the gas station. He saw us getting water, and checked us out a bit before offering a ride. He is worried about cindy, and jokes about not letting us out of the car. Hahaha. He is very nice, a bit strict and very proper. He seems German but is not. He drops us off another 60 k or so down the road. He is a very kind man and I get to talk with him about his children and about his wife. He tells us we will not get to Berlin tonight. Challenge Accepted. At the next station, we make a new sign and dance around by the ramp onto the highway. No takers, just shaking heads and smiles. It is very nice, very positive.

Then we see a young man who was just shirtless and dancing about motions to us. I am a bit wary as he points to his truck. But he seems very, very excited. Goofy. I had no idea then that I would spend the next 24 hours with this man, his highs and lows (mostly highs) and his innocence and quirkiness.

He says he is going to Estonia and will right by Berlin on the highway. We say that's fantastic, and get in the truck. It becomes immediately apparent that he is not normal, not from this planet. He is always smiling, saying things in a strange cartoonish voice and exaggerating the english syllables. I try to speak a bit of russian with him, but I have a lot of trouble.

Cindy immediately takes a liking to him, sitting in the passenger seat and smiling her coy smile.

We drive with him a long way, hearing of how he hates Estonia, how he just wants a place to settle down with a girl. Maybe Norway. His eyes go glassy as he talks about a solid job and a girl, this is obviously his dream. He says he wants to go to America, we say we will help him if he does. He speaks of his many travels to Spain, to Israel to find a place where he belongs, a job which is right for him, a girl who is perfect. He speaks of in Spain how everything he had was stolen and he had to hitch-hike back. But he still loves and trusts people.

There are frequent miscommunications. At times it seems like he speaks english very well, and sometimes not at all. He uses the word expensive to mean rare, or valuable. He says girls like cindy are very expensive where he is from. A couple hundred k into the ride, the freezer on the truck begins to have problems. He is transporting 30 tons of fruits and vegetables to Estonia but the freezer keeps shutting off. We switches it back on every couple of rest stops but eventually we must stop and really take a look at it.

Turns out it is caput. And it is dark. Still promising Berlin (though I'm not sure how Cindy and I will get from the highway into the city when it is this late) Sergey says we must go back to Hanover for repairs. When we get into Hanover, the repair place is closed. I think to myself it would be better just to make the drive all in one go than to wait around and get the freezer fixed but I don't say this. I am getting worried about tonight's plans, because we are not going to get to Berlin. I keep having trouble releasing my ego, my plans, my mistrust. I am upset that we are not in Berlin, that we won't get to Berlin tonight. I think this means we are losing a day in Berlin, out of a limited number of days. I am stuck in this mentality, and it makes me enjoy the time less. Cindy has no trouble relinquishing herself to this experience. She trusts Sergey and feels very comfortable with me there I think, so she is along for the ride. She is not unhappy we aren't in Berlin, she is enjoying getting to know this lifestyle and this man. And he is so innocent, so excitable and happy and completely unaffected by his truck troubles. He tells me, "this is not my problem" when the freezer does not work or his boss is mad. He is just driving home to Estonia where he will buy a car and study in Norway and hopefully find a girl to raise a family with.

Eventually I am able to let go of my control, my plans, my expectations, but it is through a long meditation in the car.

Sergey shares everything with us. He gives us apples, carrots, chips, anything he has. At night when we settle in, he gives us the beds, even after I try to sleep in the passenger seat. He cooks vegetables for us and turns on Harry Potter on his computer. He is just so earnest, so kind. He is the little prince, on his way to find a true home and a girl (cindy first voiced this idea). Going to sleep is hard, as I still cannot completely release my mistrust, completely let go of control, completely believe Sergey. I listen closely to the sounds of he and Cindy, worried that he may try to make a move and I must be ready to jump down and wrestle with him in the enclosed space of the car. They speak a few words together. Cindy tells him to get comfortable and everything is great for her. She thanks him profusely for everything. He says, "no no, it is nothing. this is all mine...yours. this time with you....is very expensive...for me." It may be one of the cutest most beautiful things I have ever heard. I fall asleep shortly after this.

In the morning we go to get the freezer fixed and pick up some food. Sergey gets 3 of everything and we pick up some sandwich materials. We eat together and then hear the freezer cannot be fixed due to a new problem. At this point I put my foot down and decide we must leave Sergey and hitch another ride to Berlin. It is sad to decide this, but if we want any time there, which I do, then we could not stay with Sergey for it was already noon on the second day of hitch-hiking. I sadly tell Sergey this and he smiles. He understands. Somehow, though he is simple, does not speak much english, and has known little other than truck driving and travelling, he understands and nods his head. He drives us to the next major gas station and lets us out. Our time with him was wonderful. It was very  expensive for me.

At the bus stop CIndy and I talk much of Sergey, who he was and why he was so special. We smile at every car that passes us and wave our signs. We are worried there are not many cars at this station. But a man sees the sign and signals me over. He says he is going to Berlin. After scoping him out a bit I say, oh would you mind taking my friend and I? that would be so helpful. He says, why do you think I waved you over, and chuckles. We are saved. We are going to Berlin. Andreus is a very nice older man, a portly gentleman who lives on his own in the city and enjoys his simple pleasures. Upon getting in the car, Cindy quickly falls asleep leaving Andreus and I for a few hours. Andreus drives very fast, about 180k/hr the whole way, almost getting pulled over by the polizei.He shows me remnants of the Berlin wall, the check point where you used to have to go through between East and West. An abandoned check-in at a forgotten border. He points out the mountains and river. The river Elba passed under a pale ribbon mill. He tells me different recipes and foods we must try in Berlin. He is very kind and obviously very grateful for company. He says he picks someone up every 2 years. It is nice to know I have an important place in someone's life like that. I am the 2 year event for him. He drops us off right in front of a hostel on the edge of the city.

We don't use that hostel but find one more central after a few hours of wandering. The comfy little corner hostel we wanted to go to is abandoned, and we are growing tired as it grows dark.

We arrive at Pegasus Hostel around 8 after successfully navigating the metro. Pegasus is a housing complex complete with restaurant, several dorms, a computer cafe and courtyard in the middle. We check-in, unpack, shower, check computers and then are off into Berlin. Instead of smoking here, we drink often because there is very good beer. A few drinks at the hostel and we are off in search of food.

We get currywurst and beer at a small shop around the corner, then head off in search of different food. We find a crepe place and sit down to eat there. Spinach, cheese, mushrooms, tomatoes. Delicious. And   scrumptious beer to go along with it. This is heaven.

We continue to wander the streets (a favorite phrase of mine on this blog) in search of popping clubs or cool nooks in the city. We find a park which is still open (at what is about midnight). We have a drink in there and play on the children's toys. There are large circular boards on springs which we jump onto and they immediately begin to wobble. We both giggle uncontrollably and hold on to each other as we try to keep from falling off. I eventually gain my balance and jump from board to board. I then feel the need to calm and center myself, so I try to stop the board from moving at all. This is very difficult but I achieve it. We then climb across some rickety logs, up a wooden structure, acorss a web of rope to sit on the edge of the park and smoke. It is beautiful out, and I feel like a young child.

We get a bit lost coming back. There is a nervousness of being lost, but it is never too powerful because I always have myself. A small unique point in darkness. What is the world but the consumption of world as part of awaiting and fearing death through time. I am temporally, temporalizing myself and there is no worry. I am a small point that will continue within a large circle for the time it has and will have.
At the quiet starts of cobweb conversations in midnight hostel cafes, the silence hums like computer screens, like the pregnantly still waters of a bridged canal.

In the morning, I'm caught by a waitress at pegasus trying to take a 2nd capuccino for cindy and I. We walk through Berlin taking in the sites, the incorporation of art into the city. The city is spread out with wide boulevards. It isn't hard to imagine mass demonstrations, riots, parades of Nazis marching down these streets. But God this city is beautiful.

We walk through the museum district, along the water and stop in the sun to have a beer and gaze at what I think is the Reichstag. In the presence of such old, traditional, infinite buildings Cindy and I discuss the vicissitudes of our lives, our friends, our small troubles and feelings. We do not feel too small. We are not too small. Love is not so small.

(As I write this, Smurf (a polish friend), comes in to try on my flannel and hat. She looks very cute in the oversized shirt, smiling and turning awkwardly.)

We go into small artists courtyard with restaurants, fountains and art galleries. 

We eat and drink some beer in the sun. Life is so very, very good. 

We walk past museums, churches, lawns full of drunk and high college students to the holocaust memorial. This place.

You cannot see the stones getting larger, but you can feel it somehow, somehow they are all the same size. Children are laughing and playing together amongst the forest of stone. Glimpses of faces, brief between he stones down long roads, sights of the outside down long winding but cut pathways. A maze, all open, graves all closed. The sky is burying, the people are lost. In the heart of the city. Look at medusa's face through the lens of a camera, that and laughter are protection. The stone rises above, confused whether the ground has changed or the world around has risen, climb up to the light, place a stone on a stone, I'm a stone of remembrance just like some of Nate's rocks were apologies.

Here is a video of walking through the memorial. It is hard to upload it to the blog. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNi-ERdpJ1U&feature=youtu.be

Later that night we came back to the memorial to smoke a j and drink a beer looking out on the city from atop the stones.

We go to a shopping center to check it out and buy some beers to go into the tiergarten. We buy a 6 pack and some gluhwein for insane cheap and head into the park. As we walk out of the center, the sun is setting over the cars and waters and buildings. All is reflective. Sometime I think everything is just a reflection. But what is that, just?

We find  a gorgeous peaceful spot beside a reflection pool in the tiergarten, across from an older gentleman smoking weed. We sit and drink for a while, shooting the shit, drinking in the night air, glowing with Berlin's glow.

We walk back somewhat drunkenly to the hostel. There we drink more and head out again for dinner. We find a good spot around 1130 and have a good russian meal in germany. Cindy is about to pass out so we head back. We part ways in the morning. I have mixed feelings. I am glad to be out on my own again, but it is wonderful to be with Cindy. She knows how to travel, how to live really. I have tremendous respect for her, as she lives with confidence but also with openness. But it will be good to be completely alone. She goes to Italy. I go to Poland.

She wakes me up briefly in the morning as she goes. I say goodbye groggily and head back to sleep.

I wake up, pack up, clear both of our beds, and head to the subway. I take a few free trams to Michendorf outside the city. I then walk a few kilometers, never sure if I am going the right way, to the autobahn. I get onto the autobahn on one side, not sure if it is in the right direction. Turns out it is. I begin to hitch, munching on red grapes as I do. 

Wroclaw. Please, wroclaw. A few hours go by before I get a ride.. Bartek and Gregory stop their truck on the on-ramp, holding up traffic to offer me a ride into poland. The can drop me at the E55 they say.

In the truck, the keep giving me polish beers. They teach me polish swear words. This bear of a man, and tattooed prison-inmate are so kind and friendly and warm. Gregory, the driver, barely speaks as his English is not so good. Tattooed on his arm is, there is only one for me. He is married. Bartek is not, he admits bashfully. They drop me off at a crossroads, telling me in a few kilometers is another gas station to hitch a ride. Great I say, thanking them profusely for their kindness. A bit tipsy after the 5 beers in the car, I stroll down the road, pausing to piss in the woods.

I arrive at the gas station, but something is not right. There are barely any cars and most just shake their head at me. After 2 hours, I go into the station to check my map etc. and realize the truck drivers dropped me off on the wrong road. I am on the 29 in the center of Poland going south, but I want to be on the 55 on the West side. No one will be going to Wroclaw here. I get very nervous, as it is getting dark. I try to get a ride with a car going either way. Any way to a city!No one picks me up until Johanis comes along. He scoops me off the road going back North. He says, "Hannover?" I say no, but I need the ride as it is dark now. 

I'm not sure where he drops me off on the autobahn, by a motel. It is close to where the road changes to go south for Wroclaw and I ask to be let out. I check into a motel, buy some beers and some mcdonalds and go to relax. I have hitched back to Germany for the night. I fall asleep in my towel after a nice shower, drinking good German beer and watching Game of Thrones in German.

The next day I wake up early to start hitching. It is a bad spot next to the hotel. There is an on ramp to the autobahn east, but not many cars go by it. I stare at each car with pleading eyes. Many bicyclists go by me and we laugh together as I stick up my thumb for them. They motion to the backs of their bikes and mumble in German. I laugh and say yaya ya. After 3 hours I stop using my sign and just use my thumb. A man pulls over asking something in Polish. I hold up the sign Wroclaw but say anywhere along this road. He says, in broken english, " I go to wroclaw, on way" I jump for joy and giggle. I throw my things in the car and hop in. His name is Jacek. He works on "classic cars." He hands me a brochure. It says, "Passion steers us well." A very clever phrase when he manufactures and installs steering parts in old cars.

I am with him for a few hours. Driving through the sunlight, we laugh as we try to communicate. English and Russian. He is frustrated I don't speak German. We use our hands. He speaks of his wife and children; he shows me pictures. I show him pictures of the other drivers, of cindy, and of berlin. He is amazed by my trip. He shakes his head a lot in wonder. We stop by a restaurant and he buys me soup. It is very good. He is so kind. On the way to the border we are pulled over by the police. They drive ahead of us, flashing a police sign. They don't pull us over but rather it is like they are asking us politely. Jacek is not upset and silently pulls off the highway at the next off-ramp.Their plate is BP-15-599.

They check his car, his documents and then move on to me.  I am very nervous because I don't speak the language and I don't know if what I am doing is legal. I sit silently until they ask me questions. Jacek explains that I am a hitch-hiker from England from America. I give them my passport and they check. I say I came from Amsterdam and one says something about cannabis. I blurt out, "No no no, I don't have any cannabis." Both police laugh. "We did not ask." My documents are ok and they let us go. Whew. Everything is correct and in order in the German way. A policeman with deep cut lines/wrinkles in a leather face with startling blu eyes tells me only 3 months. I say I'll only be 2 days.

As we get close to Wroclaw, I get a call from Birthright. They want to interview me now. I apologize to Jacek and say ok. As the interview goes on, Jacek pulls over outside Wroclaw. He is telling me goodbye and letting me out. I mumble something to the birthright person and put the phone down to hug Jacek. He is such a sweet man and he was so helpful. He drives off after a picture in the sunlight.

I finish the interview in the gas station. Beside me is another hitch-hiker. I go out, holding up my Wroclaw sign and he laughs at me. He says, "You are in Wroclaw." Go to the other side, take the Auchan bus into town.

I walk across, go in to buy some water and vodka for my hosts then take the free bus into town. On the bus I meet some fellow hitch-hikers. Magda is very pretty with a nose and lip ring; Pawel looks proper beside her. They tell me they will show me to Galleria Dominikanska where I must meet Arletta, Marta, and Klaudia, my couch-surfing hosts.

I walk around the city, which is spaced-out like Berlin. There are many abandoned buildings, old looking, like 1900, with graffiti all over them. 

I pass by some people speaking in English. They are dutch and Spanish. We have a laugh and I point them in the right direction. All water toward the ocean.

I get to the mall and buy a universal adapter. There is some kind of fashion shoot/show being filmed in the middle of the mall. I watch a bit and listen to Polish conversations. Lots of "ssss and shhhhh." In Russian, there is a lot of "ugh and uuuy."  I leave to wander.

I go to a park on the water and sit and eat. A few girls walk by me say something and all fall in giggles. This is beautiful. The place is old, crumbling a bit, but with new vibrant people strolling through the old streets. 

I go into an old church and mass is going on. The place is packed. There is no space to sit, so I kneel in the antechamber and watch and listen. Peace. It is so nice to go to any religious services. Peace.

I stroll about a bit more, then go into coffee heaven for internet and to sit and wait for my hosts. I skype with some people with headphones in in the place. I get many weird looks for my English, but I don't care. Klaudia, Marta, and Arletta stroll in and they look quite young. We exchange hugs and I pack up my things to leave. We walk a bit to their place and they show me a room all my own. They are so kind. They give me food and I give them vodka. We drink the vodka and get to know each other. We joke in English. They have a roommate Pola who is very beautiful. We immediately take a liking to each other, talking of Amsterdam and music festivals, house music and drugs.

One of Pola's collages

I spend the rest of the night there, taking a shower and getting set up.

The next day we wake up late because the girls are hung-over. I talk to Dan about meeting up, but we never do. I go to the Synagogue under the White Stork. It is beautiful, not so old, but in a very old courtyard. There is a museum of Polish Jewery inside. Such interesting information about Polish Jews since 1206. In olden times, Jews had their flesh stripped off while they were still alive then burned in front of them. It has been hard for Jews everywhere, always.

But not now. Life is easy for me. The girls keep asking if I am bored and I just laugh. How could I ever be bored?

We buy some beers and go to hangout at Vespa (the island). There are tons of young people all drinking and smoking in public, though it is illegal. Smurf, the girls friend from home, comes to meet us. They say together, "We are a bit wasted." So cute. We drink a bit more, joking in English and Polish, watching a few children on the other side of the water try to get their ball which fell into the river. Some police go by and throw it to them. 

We run around intoxicated, giggling. The whole city is our playground. They beg a restaraunt owner to let us use the bathrooms. We all file in. Next we jump on the tram for free and ride alongside many older people. I try not to speak much english. Chenkoye. Do vidaniye.

On the way I buy some wine for dinner.

Marta cooks a traditional polish dish which is basically fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and coleslaw. It is delicious. They will not let me pay or clean up or anything. I feel bad but it is so nice of them. We end up staying in all night though they wanted to go out and party. We drink  A LOT and a few go out to buy more vodka (3 bottles). We play wa, a polish drinking game, kings, and then it all dissolves into mumbling. 

I learn the phrase "Hokus pocus, charlie marlie, zapir dalley, po bravaley" which means, Hokus Pokus, go get us 4 beers. I love this and they make me say it every time I drink. I don't know when I fall asleep but I wake up in all my clothes a bit hungover. This is Poland. This is life.

And now, after 2 days of work I have finished this very long post. For getting through it I congratulate you. This is my life. It is so very wonderful. I am so very happy right now. These are the best days of my life. It is all too much, too beautiful, too present. And yet it moves as it stays, it changes as it goes, it wonders as it flows. All water toward the ocean. I meditate for about an hour. Then do dishes for an hour.

Until next time. See you Space cowboy. Budah dah duh doo dah doo dunh.