Random Encounters

Random people are hilarious! How fun would it be to just meet new people every day and try to find something interesting about them. Basically, that's what travelling is all about, being able to open up -and open up to- people that you've just met and maybe won't see ever again. It's what this trip is really helping me get good at because it's the only way to keep from being lonely when you travel from place to place.

To my surprise, I was at the recieving end today of someone randomly starting a conversation. I was taking a break and reading with a coffee downtown today when this 80 year old man who definetly has some bounce in his step sits down at the table beside me with a newspaper and a tiny chess set. I look up and nod and go back to my book

Old man: You look like you want a game
Dzido: (looking up) excuse me?
OM: A game of chess (opening up the tiny magnetic board)
D: haha naw, thats alright (thinking to self--> senile old man is crazy)
OM: Yeah, you do, its fun (setting up the pieces)
D: No, I'm good. Just reading my book
OM: You can read later whenever you want to, but you should play now.

At this point I think that the man is right, why don't I play? I can read at home! He sold me good. So I shift over to his table

Old Man: Alright, so we'll play for a coffee. (taking out 10 PZN and putting it under the board). I need to buy one for my girlfriend, she's late
Dzido: Your girlfriend?
OM: Yeah, she's a hot professor at the university here. Retired of course

Ok, so at this point I should make a note. Besides the fact that his girlfriend talk was ridiculously funny, has anyone ever seen a senior citizen hustler? Because until tonight the fact that old people have girlfriends or make money off stupid travellers was foreign to me. Anyways.

Three moves into the game as my master plan is just about to unfold, he looks up and the son of a vondruke checkmates me!!!

No, I'm jsut kidding. But the reality wasn't that different. Three moves into the game was about the time I notice this guy is not thinking at all about his moves! He knew exactly what he was doing, and more imporatantly what I was doing.

Well, long story short, turns out that this guy was a chess instructor in Warsaw. Yeah. He destroyed me. It wasn't even like that desperate kind of destroyed, where I'm hanging on at the end for a stalemate or anything. It was more like someone hunting for bunnies with a howitzer. And I was a fluffy pink bunny

After the 5 minute shlackking:

OldMan: You played great! Double or nothing now
Dzido: haha you jerk, no way!
OM: ok, 2 to 1. 10$ to your 5$
D: no chance
OM: 10 to 1
D: ...you're gonna kill me
OM: (smiles)
D: Alright, but I was faking last time, this game is for real
OM: haha ok, I'll be ready

We ended up playing w/o any money on the line, and this time he even told me where to move once or twice. But even with his help he still obviously won (the guy's a frikking chess teacher!) though this time I made a dent in his pieces. Losses aside, it was definetly fun. After the games he told me about being an instructor and that he used to do private lessons and stuff. We sat around for a bit and he showed me some basic strategy that he teaches.

Funny old guy, fun games. I like random people

Segue!

Now, since I have almost 1000 pictures sitting in my camera, I'm never in short supply for posting. Here's a couple of festive shots from my visit to Katowice last week with my dad. We went to see my family, so much family! Here's just a handful of photos of all the people that I can call if I get lost in Poland and need some warm piergoies or shoulders to cry on. We had some nice food and birthday cake for my birthday and some weird polish vodka of course. Aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents all came to say hi to the two canadians who seem to come back to Poland more and more frequently. Family is SO important so it's alway nice to see them, even if its just for a little bit. Check out the similarity between my dad and his brother (standing in the back) Twins like Vic and me!

And here's a shot of the lovely ladies that came to listen to my stories. They 'oohed' and 'ahed' at just the rigth times during my reinactment of the running of the bulls (which included photos, videos, sock puppets and live demonstrations) and made me feel very nice about my adventures. Thanks for the birthday wishes!

Business as usual (just more of it)

Well I had a busy week and a half. My new roommate probably forgot that i even live here with him.

The basic premise of the week was my dad visiting/business tripping to warsaw. Basically, a partner company of my current place of work sent 3 Canucks to come visit the Warsaw offices and learn the new systems that they are using. My position at the company meant that I was thrust into the middle of this, becoming half tour-guide, half-student, half translator (poor math skills?) What ensued was a week-long english/polish flury of presentations, questions and engineering. Team Canada (myself included) would arrive in the office at 830 and push forward with meeting and conferences up until the wee hours of 9pm. It was crazy. I remember the first day we all forgot about lunch until about 3pm at which point we ordered pizza which took two hours to arrive before being eaten in seconds. Suddenly all those days of 9 to 5 work didn't seem that bad at all

Whining aside, it was really such an interesting delegation to be part of. I learned a LOT and basically had a chance to see largescale company dealing in first person. Not to mention the fact that we would go out for dinner as a group at night and laugh about how crazy the week was going.

One of the highlights of the week was a tour of a current project. The Canadian team and I were taken to one of the newest Warsaw skyscrapers downtown to see how the
new control systems that were installed worked. We spent the day working with the engineers there to see how all the components and features are installed and fixed. Part of our work took us to the roof of the building to see the weather and daylight sensors that monitored the position of the sun, temp, etc. It really is cool to get to stand on top of a huge tower like that. We had a fantastic view of downtown, the old city and the death-defying window washers who were rappelling down the side of the glass tower. Sure, its no running of the bulls but it still looked crazy. (photos from the top: #1 the shiny building, #2 a shiny building of a man, #3 a shiny building of a man on top of the shiny building, with father)

Besides work, we spent the first weekend with my relatives in Katowice and this past weekend in Deblin visiting my dad's friend from school (who's family pretty much counts as our family now). The weekend in Katowice became my unofficial birthday party which was really fun, since I was expecting to spend my day of birth alone somewhere, sleeping on a picnic bench or in a ditch in some random eastern european country. Instead I was treated to (many!) cakes, friends and lots of fun talk. Here's a photo of me waiting for my dad to come with my winter stuff.

Time for me to clean up for young Paul Todd's quick visit tomorrow. I acknowledge that it's hard to live without me once you know me, so I'll be sure to show him a nice time in my new city.

My dad is currently in the air over the Atlantic, so mom, if you read this, he should be home soon

Stumbling Upon New Festivals - Part 3

I missed Halloween!

How lame is that? I really wanted to recreate some of the magic of H-ween costumes passed such as skimpy-short 70's tennis star or the infamous Dr. Broom. I suppose that I'll have to recreate some of that magic next year instead. Luckily though, I came upon a different tradition here in Poland, one that I've never experienced.

Nov. 1st in Poland is "Dzien Zmarlych" which literally means Day of the Dead. But it bears little resemblance to the candy/horror fest from America, or to the 1985 movie of the same name. Instead, it's can be described as a day of remembrance (not like Remembrance Day, now you're just getting mixed up). This is a day to remember those that have passed on, and to give them respect.

What happens is that (most) people go to the cemeteries where their loved ones are buried and light a candle, or some candles or places flowers and wreaths on their graves. Now, if you can imagine, a country that boasts an extremely high religious population will have thousands upon thousands of candles lit at cemetaries all over the country. I went to the main one Downtown this evening to see how it was and to light a few candles, and the scene was just incredible. It was cold enough to see your breath in the air, and as we stepped into the cemetary the glow from all of these candles made every exhalation visible. It's like nothing I've ever experienced before to see row upon row of lights, while walking through a quiet dark cemetary. Some graves had 5 or 6, some of the famous ones had hundreds. It was spectacular. Since my grandfathers' graves were out of town, I decided to light my candles on an empty grave, to even things out. My cousin and I walked around and couldn't even find one! That's how crazy it was.

All in all, a really nice experience and I'm very happy to have been here for it

Don't worry about these photos, I took them quietly and w/o any flash so it wasn't disrespectful at all. (edit- well, the photos will come up as soon as I figure out some technical problems here)

Come back soon, I'm going to post some pictures of my current residence and you can all compare to my last few accomodations (i.e german airport or spanish parking lot). I think this one stacks up quite nicely against those!

Getting chilly here!