Where are you going?
Where am I going is as interesting as where I've been. I find myself in this incredible warp of time and space, where I am a Traveler. I didn't see this coming, I really didn't. I though being able to travel required many things that I didn't possess. We are constantly amazing ourselves.
Mike Dooley says to imagine how it will feel to live your dream, and don't waste precious energy worrying about "the cursed Hows". I tried to balance getting to Costa Rica with chasing down options of how to get there. Then options for staying there. Minus the worry. I had my doubts about how to pull it off for a month, let along 7 months. But I wanted to believe, and that was a good place to start.
Day 1 of arriving in Costa Rica was September 2. Day 1 of leaving Costa Rica was April 6. Day 1 of arriving in Denmark was April 9th. We left on Denmark on Day 12: April 20th. Which was also Day 1 (the only Day) of Sweden. And Day 1 of Poland. We are now on Day 18 of Poland. We have stayed in 3 cities in those 18 days. We start in Swinojscie, then Warsaw, now Lodz (pronounced Wooge) Next week we are going to another one. We stayed up last night to make plans to take the train to Krakow next week.
Sounds surreal to me!
I am going to the archives building tomorrow, my hope is to come out of there with the birth record of my Great Grandfather Szpradowski. Wish me luck. We found the building while exploring a part of Lodz that I read about. The longest pedestrian road in all of Europe. We rode a red rickshaw all the way to the end, then walked back. So fun, and the sun finally appeared, which was lovely.
Oh, the pictures I took. Such great buildings. So many hidden courtyards and alleys to peek into. One was stark with dark brick walls of buildings. One was like a passage into Mexico, where we found the only Mexican restaurant so far. Not that we ate there. We ate at some place that had Egyptian pictures on the walls inside. Not that we ate inside. I had a gyro, and it was incredibly tasty. Ron had a huge plate of lamb and fries and coleslaw. There were pink carnations on the table.
Another little alley led to a big alley of buildings covered in mirror mosaics. Very cool. (These pictures are on Facebook, maybe if things slow down some more, I will post them here). Another side street caught our attention, because of the big church at the other end of the block with large spires. The street we had to walk was very gloomy with dark brick buildings, almost completely empty compared to the other more famous street. A lot of graffiti everywhere. Half way down it was feeling pretty creepy, the buildings were not in the best shape. One was torn down. But then half way to where we thought we wanted to go - we found something much more interesting.
We stepped through an opening and found a hidden world. There were half a dozen restaurants spilling out into a courtyard full of people and shops. The buildings were still dark brick looming all around, but people had created a cool little shopping area. We walked through and found another area with a stand selling earrings and things. I bought some earrings, they were only 5 zlote, which is just over a dollar.
I have so much that I want to do! I have some learning to do, some reading to do, some editing to do, and a lot of notes to finish organizing. And more travel plans to research after our time is up here in Poland. Guess what? We're going to Macedonia next! We still have to figure out which way we want to get there. It's in Europe, I told Ron he should pick the next place we should go. The Republic of Macedonia used to be part of Yugoslavia, and it borders Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania.
http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/PL explains stats on Poland compared to the United States, it's very interesting. Poland is about the size of Colorado, if you squished it into nice neat lines. It has 28 million people.
http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/MK explains stats on Macedonia compared to the United States. Macedonia is about 1/8th the size of Colorado, and has 2.08 million people.
Oh, the joys of exploring new places. But that's the only part of the story I'm telling you. The parts that interested me. Who wants to hear about little old lady in the cemetery who passed gas really loudly, and we were the only people around, trying so hard not to laugh out loud, turning away finding great interest in a tombstone we just went by. Or how it's weird to go to a new place and have to work hard at the basics, like where the light switches are when you have an armful of things. Or how I fell out of bed this morning, as I was thinking of sitting up to get out of bed. Man, it was funny though. Then a few minutes after that we heard some poor lady yelling at some other poor soul for over an hour, in the upstairs apartment. If I knew Polish, I would be able to tell you exactly why she was upset.
Mike Dooley says to imagine how it will feel to live your dream, and don't waste precious energy worrying about "the cursed Hows". I tried to balance getting to Costa Rica with chasing down options of how to get there. Then options for staying there. Minus the worry. I had my doubts about how to pull it off for a month, let along 7 months. But I wanted to believe, and that was a good place to start.
Day 1 of arriving in Costa Rica was September 2. Day 1 of leaving Costa Rica was April 6. Day 1 of arriving in Denmark was April 9th. We left on Denmark on Day 12: April 20th. Which was also Day 1 (the only Day) of Sweden. And Day 1 of Poland. We are now on Day 18 of Poland. We have stayed in 3 cities in those 18 days. We start in Swinojscie, then Warsaw, now Lodz (pronounced Wooge) Next week we are going to another one. We stayed up last night to make plans to take the train to Krakow next week.
Sounds surreal to me!
I am going to the archives building tomorrow, my hope is to come out of there with the birth record of my Great Grandfather Szpradowski. Wish me luck. We found the building while exploring a part of Lodz that I read about. The longest pedestrian road in all of Europe. We rode a red rickshaw all the way to the end, then walked back. So fun, and the sun finally appeared, which was lovely.
Oh, the pictures I took. Such great buildings. So many hidden courtyards and alleys to peek into. One was stark with dark brick walls of buildings. One was like a passage into Mexico, where we found the only Mexican restaurant so far. Not that we ate there. We ate at some place that had Egyptian pictures on the walls inside. Not that we ate inside. I had a gyro, and it was incredibly tasty. Ron had a huge plate of lamb and fries and coleslaw. There were pink carnations on the table.
Another little alley led to a big alley of buildings covered in mirror mosaics. Very cool. (These pictures are on Facebook, maybe if things slow down some more, I will post them here). Another side street caught our attention, because of the big church at the other end of the block with large spires. The street we had to walk was very gloomy with dark brick buildings, almost completely empty compared to the other more famous street. A lot of graffiti everywhere. Half way down it was feeling pretty creepy, the buildings were not in the best shape. One was torn down. But then half way to where we thought we wanted to go - we found something much more interesting.
We stepped through an opening and found a hidden world. There were half a dozen restaurants spilling out into a courtyard full of people and shops. The buildings were still dark brick looming all around, but people had created a cool little shopping area. We walked through and found another area with a stand selling earrings and things. I bought some earrings, they were only 5 zlote, which is just over a dollar.
I have so much that I want to do! I have some learning to do, some reading to do, some editing to do, and a lot of notes to finish organizing. And more travel plans to research after our time is up here in Poland. Guess what? We're going to Macedonia next! We still have to figure out which way we want to get there. It's in Europe, I told Ron he should pick the next place we should go. The Republic of Macedonia used to be part of Yugoslavia, and it borders Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania.
http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/PL explains stats on Poland compared to the United States, it's very interesting. Poland is about the size of Colorado, if you squished it into nice neat lines. It has 28 million people.
http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/MK explains stats on Macedonia compared to the United States. Macedonia is about 1/8th the size of Colorado, and has 2.08 million people.
Oh, the joys of exploring new places. But that's the only part of the story I'm telling you. The parts that interested me. Who wants to hear about little old lady in the cemetery who passed gas really loudly, and we were the only people around, trying so hard not to laugh out loud, turning away finding great interest in a tombstone we just went by. Or how it's weird to go to a new place and have to work hard at the basics, like where the light switches are when you have an armful of things. Or how I fell out of bed this morning, as I was thinking of sitting up to get out of bed. Man, it was funny though. Then a few minutes after that we heard some poor lady yelling at some other poor soul for over an hour, in the upstairs apartment. If I knew Polish, I would be able to tell you exactly why she was upset.
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