Tag: warsaw

Wednesday: a day, well, spend

In any other city I wouldn’t hesitate to move about, but here in Warsaw I have old habits and they are difficult to break. My expensive Apple phone finally became useful with some creative use of offline maps and the GPS, and me and Tomasz managed to bus about with a minimum of confusion and lost time. Tomorrow we’re heading to a barn and then to a commentator for an interview; we’re actually watching the guy on TV right now, and I’m trying to come up with a lighting strategy. Somehow, it’s far simpler to tell other people how to take pictures than to improvise yourself, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

The Internets did lie to me as for the weather – I was told, in no uncertain terms, that there’d be 8 degrees and sunny today, but I really should have packed something besides my optimistic jacket. Also, I ought to be a better brother to my brother and get him a present, seeing as it’s his birthday today. (Which reminds me that I missed Matildas birthday three days ago. Oh well, I guess we’re even now)

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Funeral. Photography as coping mechanism.

After four days of travel to and from the funeral, I’m back in Gothenburg. Playing chess in granmas room felt odd with her not present, and suddenly every medicin and picture on her dresser took on new meanings. The blanket I’d used as a backdrop for her portrait was on her bed, and our youngest half-brother was sitting on it, dispensing dubious chess advice.

Once in Sanok, seeing relatives I hadn’t seen for years was truly a memento mori moment — gray hairs, walking canes, half-serious comments of “it’s us next” over dinner and photo albums. The jovial uncle who used to tell dirty jokes now tells of the dirty jokes he told the nurses when recovering from surgery.

Below are all the pictures I took in chronological order. I don’t know what grandma would have thought of the video, but she might’ve asked if doing it hadn’t made me hungry, and perhaps I ought to have some dumplings.

A bit of a rain, err, storm

With temperatures in the 40s, and with humidity that can only be described as totally fucked up atlantic, it was with desperate joy that I received todays short storm. And it really was a storm – during 30 minutes it literally poured down, making cars go “sploosh” through deep puddles.

Now it’s warm as hell again, and twice as humid. It’s bloody unbearable. I’m actually dripping with sweat and my pants feel like I’ve pissed myself!

—————update—

Here’s a video of the rain from the increadible stifling heat of the office. This is some ten minutes into the storm; it’s worth remembering that just ten minutes prior the temperature was in the almost-forties and not a drop of water in sight (if you don’t count all the miserable sweat, of course).

Travels of a sweaty gentlemen

Today is the first day that the weather has relented somewhat. It’s still almost 30 in the shade (that’s 86 degrees Fahrenheit for you metric-challenged) and the humidity is still horrible, but it’s getting better. (Or I’m getting accustomed to it)

Whichever way, I’m not going to Poland in the summer again. Ever, ever.

Caught a cold in Warsaw, and today is the first day that I’m not actually making diesel-engine sounds when I breath. Yesterday it was 48 degrees in the sun (118F). What the flying hell on a shit!

I’m keeping indoors until sundown. (Yesterday, after the sun went down, it was still 30 outside, btw.) Tomorrow onwards to Krakow to meet up a cousin.

As a result of my hiding, I’ve been online a lot and downloaded a pdf of Neil Strauss “The Game” — his biography of pickup artists and his way to becoming one as well. Fun read.

Other than that. I still haven’t found a good PC app to resize & crop images, so if anyone has any to recommend, let me know. I do take pictures occasionally, but can’t be arsed to download the drivers that would let windows recognize a stupid SD card. Stupid computer.

The less fuzzy but not quite bald eagle

I’ve always had trouble with my own haircut (and look in general): Occasionally I can appreciate the fluff, but asked how I’d like it cut, I just go meh. This presented a problem today as I didn’t know how to say “meh” in Polish, and ended up saying “just don’t make me overly friendly.”

Fair enough — it’s hotter today than yesterday, and I’m happy sheading at least part of that dead ferret which had been occupying my head for the past three months. Besides, it’s nice to go to a fancy schmancy hairdresser just cause I can afford it here; Services are one of the few things that still are cheap.

I’m in a rut and have walked up and down the same street I always walk up and down; This “autistic tourist” approach applies to wherever I travel, so I guess I’m just a very rut-oriented kind of person. Who wuddathunkit.

Got me a Polish cell today, so I can be contacted at number +48 698 861 180. I might check the usual number from time to time, but since it’s a painful process to change the simcard in the phone I got, that won’t be too often.

Going for some tea. Y’all be good while I’m gone.

The fuzzy eagle has landed

I left Gothenburg, a city shrouded in clouds which manages to be both cold and asphyxiating at the same time, and landed in Warsaw ten in the morning.

Got fed by granma, slept a bit, talked biz with dad and talked misery with my granma. The more I think about it, the more I suspect that the moody genes are a wonderful combination of my paternal granmothers worrywartines, and on the maternal side the fear of authority. More research is needed.

Really have to get a haircut tomorrow. Which, btw, is the aforementioned birthday on which you should send me smut cause I feel like an alpacka in heat and it’s not the good kind of heat; It’s way too bloody humid here, and the mosquitoes are on a killing streak so I have to stay indoors after sundown. (think “vampires with insectoid eyes”)

My plans so far: Stay here over the weekend, then go south to visit relatives, then visit cousins in Krakow. Yay. Just really really need that haircut.

Move on up, move on down. Da-dum da-dum

Mark Melvin, the promising and strapping young artist from England, left two weeks ago, and it was sad. There’s definetly a vacation feeling to all of this, only that I’m going to return to a university that doesn’t seem to have my best interests in mind, and it’s a bit unsettling – there’s five of us left in the class, and since the course is being discontinued, I’m looking forward to the curriculum…

On a more or less sudden impulse I bought me a ticket to Warsaw. Leaving tomorrow in the early morn.

The past week has been uneventful. I’ve been working at the store.

And that’s it.

OK, OK, last weekend I went out with a friend from work and his sister, and that was nice. I actually have some nice pictures of that, but since I’m on a stupid pc I can’t really be bothered downloading an iPhoto replacement just to resize the images off the camera (I mean, c-hraist).

I’ll get a Polish cell-number tomorrow and’ll post it here.

Have birthday on Wednesday. Send me pictures of you naked.