Photo update

Hey folks,

quickie here just to tell you that I’ve uploaded some selective shots from the last 4 weeks around Europe. Yet to caption any of them so you’ll just have to guess where each is for now – sorry! May get time later.

Click here for them

it’s still going

rather a poor effort on my behalf to keep this whole blog thing going.
besides a little journey into the world of poetic-reflection (which, one might agree, was a half-hearted effort) it has been nearly 3 weeks since i last made some effort here.

With a diminishing readership – something that can really hurt a blogger with an audience of roughly 7 – as well as being rather busy my motivation for sitting down and getting something written here has been ebbing for some time.

Here I are, though! I are here! Complete with irregular speech and dodgy spelling.

Where is here, one of the seven may ask. Here is, presently, Gdansk. Or Danzig to any Deutsch readers (which are few, especially in 7).
Known as the home of Solidarnosc and the gateway to Hel , this delightful coastal city provides me with my home for the foreseeable future. If you can see into that future further than I then please speak up. At the moment it looks like at least a week.
I’m currently ‘working for accommodation’, though work has yet to begin. Tomorrow I shall begin work at 8am, though quite what I shall be doing is still rather unknown to me. The details, as you may gather, have been vague. It (ze work!) generally involves something around the hostel. Some days cleaning, others working on reception. The reception work is going to be really interesting considering I’m currently walking round with about 40 Polish words in my mind – and no more! They rarely appear in the correct order or the correct pronunciation either so the result is going to be an eye-opener I feel!

That’s the present sorted. The past is murky and filled with cold Eastern-European cities (and lots of homemade Polish food). I very much doubt i’m going to be short of time to write about such experiences so thee shall have to wait until another day. Tuesday, probably.

Until then let’s hope Robert Kubica makes a speedy recovery and Mansfield Town gain promotion from the depths of English football.

Bis bald x

poetic diseases.

I began this little effort on 11022011.
If you’re aware of what a palindrome is then you will be aware that that date was palindromic. Palindromy doesn’t seem to be, technically, a word within the English language, but to suffer from such a disease seems rather interesting. .

Maybe if only people called Hannah or Anna were to reply to this it would be complete. I’d allow a Bob or two but only if they were originally Trebor. Or racecar.
What’s your favourite palindrome?

Mine’s racecar.
A little search on wikipedia gives us this and credits a certain James Joyce with the longest palindromic word: tattarrattat. A word that also has a lovely poetic, onomatopoeic ring.

if i had a hi -fi

it begins (again)

well the ball has officially started rolling again on the ‘mark fell travelling ride’. quite where the ball stops, or even rolls to along the way is still unclear. in fact it appears to be a little confused and has already backtracked on itself!
let me explain the ball’s movement.
first it flew, cattle class, to krakow. it found its way onto a train from the airport to the city centre and, after careful navigation in some bitter weather, fell upon it’s bed for the night near the dominant castle towards krakow’s jewish quarter. only this ball is no standard size 5. it’s more of a floater. instead of bouncing its way around krakow, soaking up the sights, it decided it would do a bit of shopping, settle for some liquid then bounce back to it’s neighbourhood to consume some local ‘delicacies’ and then roll home. such a ball had little plans but those it had settled upon were to board a bus to Zakopane the following day and meet up with it’s fellow bouncy-balls (more commonly going by the names of Liam and Charlotte Wright). What this foolish round being hadn’t factored into account, though, was the influence of alcohol upon a journey and, following many welcome drinks into Krakow with some Australians and Belgians, the spherical object sat, forlorn, on a 140 minute journey south, to the Tatras.

Enough of the ball thing. I had a lovely weekend in Zakopane with the newly-weds (who really aren’t that new anymore but i still catch myself looking for Charlotte Parker on Facebook). They were done with their snowboarding by saturday so we ventured through Zakopane centre (after taking a little detour into the middle of nowhere. This would be my first mistake of the trip, and not the last!) and up the funicular railway up a mountain. Upon this mountain sat some ski-fields, lodges and many, many horse rides. Picture a small, horse-ridden sledge with up to 4 people (+rider) inside striding confidently around the main roads. Liam had a rather close encounter with such a sledge at one point resulting in him ducking narrowly out of the way of said oncoming traffic.
On Sunday we slowly made our way out of Zakopane to head back to Krakow (hence the backtracking reference). This journey, thankfully, wasn’t accompanied with a hangover (or indeed any references to spherical beings), and we arrived back into the city safely. Quickly to follow, however, was my 2nd error of the trip. I’d planned for us to go back to the accommodating hostel i’d previously stayed in on thursday. Upon arrival, however, the perplexed worker (who failed to recognise me) rang his boss (with whom i’d arrange my return with – he even gave me his mob. number to text) who then responded with the far from positive news that they were closed. We surmised that since we were the only people wanting to stay there that night the originally very helpful owner had had a change of mind and didn’t want to be helpful or friendly anymore. Cue some rather ill-feelings towards Ars Hostel (actual name) and its workers.
All was well ultimately, we settled for the ‘Goodbye Lenin’ hostel that LnC (new nickname…) had stayed in on a previous KRK trip and got ready for a few days in Poland’s best city.

More later. Maybe.
x