Archive for 2006

it’s never pure

Saturday, December 30th, 2006

Some pics from Brussels:





Concert at the pub of 2 million beers.


My street in a morning.



My district. I like the contras - small narrow houses vs. big skyscrapers.

syndrom palonych miast

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Na Święta zwykle nastawiam się negatywnie. Rodzina bliższa i dalsza, te same rozmowy o tym kto ma ile kasy, kto na co choruje, a komu się zmarło. Jednak w tym roku nie było strasznie. W Święta wskoczyłem prosto z biegu. Zakupy na lotnisku, przylot z Brukseli, dół na terminalu lotów krajowych w Warszawie (żenujący jest ten “terminal”), i lulu. W piątek zdalna praca - praktycznie tylko rezerwacje i rozliczenie papierków i pierwsze frustracje rodzinne. A wieczorem wigilia klasowa i przedwczesne wyjście po angielsku. W sobotę sopot, piwko z Tomkiem i Lesiem, Atelier (puste - wszystkie porządne dziewczyny ten dzień spędzają przy garach), a potem jeszcze jedno miejsce i zapiekanka na Świętojańskiej.

Wigilia bez stresów większych. Chyba rodzina wrzuca sobie na luz i walka o egzystencję nie jest już podstawowym tematem. Wszelkie próby dominacji zbyte bez komentarza lub pogardliwym spojrzeniem. Dzieciaki się ucieszyły z prezentów, goście za długo nie siedzieli, czyli spoko.

Poniedziałek - nic.

A we wtorek już się trzeba pakować, uczyć, a wieczorem umówione piwko.i przegrałem w grze zwanej obsesją zapachów. i to ja byłem ten zły.

A rano w taksówce usłyszałem, że to już jest koniec.

syndrom palonych miast (burnt cities syndrome) - when you are about to leave a place and there is no return, suddenly everything starts to work out, you meet somebody, have great fun, travel, it’s better than ever before. The reason for that to happen is probably because when you are about to leave a place ‘forever’ you do things normally you wouldn’t do, you take some risks you wouldn’t normally take. Happened to me before going to Turkey, when I was leaving Turkey, before going to Iran, and yesterday.

One of those weekends that make you a few months older

Tuesday, December 19th, 2006

One of those weekends that make you a few months older.

Friday - going uninvited with Ignacio to a party of our neighbours. 3 girls+1 guy living in a fucking nice 2-storey apartment. Maaaaany people (students), Żubrówka with apple juice and beers. Somehow couldn’t find a common language with those.

Saturday - I cook my first ever tortilla! We were invited to some latino friends of Ignacio. They work here as corporate bitches in PWC, E&Y, etc. Having a good life here. Nice looking girls/wives, nice clothes and expensive watches. Good food and good drinks. And quite nice after all. And a funny Serbian guy - Slavic blood rules! And the quote of the evening ‘you don’t understand, cause you don’t have an MBA’. Bottle of Gold Wasser, wine, tequilas.

Sunday - having a walk (looking for a car which we left). Then driving to Antverpen. Seeing around (so crowded!), beer, red district, back to Brussels, Ixelles, falafel, beer.

Monday - corporate life - 9-20. Nothing works right, everything crashes, error messages all around. Fucking bad day except for the fact they I bought a ticket to Mexico. Princess, I am coming!… in may. And going with Ignacio to the Xmas fair - hot wine and beer at Monk.

pics

Friday, December 15th, 2006

corporate rats


they put xmas decoration everywhere. brussels is lovely now. just the snow is missing.


our girl

Tuesday, December 12th, 2006

There is a new girl in our apartment in Brussels. Ignacio brought her home and she just stayed. She is extremely cute and I fell in love with her at the moment I’ve entered the apartment today and saw her. Here she is (with Ignacio):

Warsaw defined

Sunday, December 10th, 2006

I’ve spent here quite a while working my ass off here and partying… Warsaw - the capital of Poland. About 2 mln people. People love it or hate it. Busy living, busy dying. Fast life in the pure capitalistic frames. People wanting to have fun right now and right here and willing to pay for that. I am a part of this mechanism. Overworked and with some extra money to spend - deep in this shit. Warsaw baby… yeah, right?!?! hell yeah! ;-)

Accelerating The Speed Of Light

Tuesday, December 5th, 2006


Moved to Brussels! :-)
Yeap, since Monday I am renting a room in downtown. Leaving with a Spanish guy (who went to Sweden at the moment) and feeling better. No more fucking hotels (at least for a while) and their prison-cell-like rooms, no more boring neighbourhoods. So if you wanna visit - just come.Some weeks ago I went for Poland-Belgium in Brussels.

I rarely watch games on TV and don’t care much about football… I’ve never been to a game like this, but it really was a nice experience. Thousands of Polish supporters and a good game. And we won!

Hard time at work - 10 hours per day at least. :( And it’s not even close to the end of the project. So it will be worse I suppose. :( That sucks. Totally.

And studies… Have to learn something from time to time. I never switch off.

Thinking about New Years Eve… Options: Poland (seaside), Brussels or Turkey. Will have to decide till the end of this week.

weekend in Brussels

Tuesday, November 14th, 2006

Alone, with a little backpack and a guidebook in my pocket I hit the city on Friday evening. My weekend in Brussels. They didn’t have any beds for me in the first hostel. Fortunately another one (crappy one) had one for me. Wandered around with a music in my ears a little bit more, read a book and went to sleep quite early. It was weird - pretending to be a traveller - sharing a room with these American guys traveling around Europe. Kinda lonely, kinda cheating.
Saturday wasn’t much better. Went thousand of kilometers walking in the old town, ate something shitty, drank a beer or three. Not so entertaining. And in the evening I felt like i’ve seen it all and planed to go to Antwerpen the following day. I had too much time for thinking. I re-thought my life. Twice.
Then back in the hostel I joined a Spanish guy and Canadian (my roommates) for a beer. Canadian one was funny - he had a belt with the Canadian flag on it. So each time he met a new person he was saying “hey, i’m Canadian” and showed his belt. Just imagine the gesture. Cok komik.So we had a beer or seven (0,25). And met some Greek guys going to a party. All dressed up, almost 30, came here for some conference for NGOs. One of them looked just as this Chechenian ruler (on behalf of Putin) - of course I told him that and he got a nickname “Chechenian”. Spanish guy took us fucking far away to a club where we had to wait in a queue and they didn’t let us in. Quote: “7 dicks = no way”. So we went to have some Greek pitas and tried to get into another club. They wanted 10 euros per person - so me and Ignacio (Spanish) gave up and went back to the hostel (3 AM) with beers in our hands. Greeks stayed.In the hostel I was there were me, Ignacio, Canadian (Zee) and another one. Another one I haven’t met and his was sleeping and stinking like fish. Ignacio had a bed side by side with Zee (who was half sleeping). We were laughing our asses off of the situation. Ignacio laid down next to Zee and I kept saying “oh come on, give him a hug….”. Positive evening.

“What time is it?” “Quarter to 10.” “Damn! So we are about to miss the breakfast!”
“Zee are you coming with us?” “No - I cannot eat dirty. I will take a shower.” “We go - we are dirty Europeans” and we went down with Igancio - again couldn’t stop laughing. Especially when we saw all those people at the breakfast. I think we were still a little drunk. And smelly. We had the same t-shirts and bad breaths. People were quite confused and we couldn’t stop laughing. Just our ugly faces - reasonable enough.

Sunday was chilled out. With Ignacio went to Ixelles - nice district of Brussels. Cafeterias, parks, cigarettes, young people. And telling stories. Ignacio is an engineer - chemistry, recycling. He just got a contract to Brussels and stayed in hostel while looking for an apartment. And now comes the crazy stuff. He’s been to Dogubayazit - my favourite place in Turkey. He’s been to Zakho! Crazy small world.
To sum up - I had a fucking nice weekend. :D

Came to my fancy hotel on Sunday evening. Smelled like fish. Shaved, took a bath and switched to the role of the corporate worker again. But maybe this weekend will have some follow-up.

Work - not so good. Starting to be stressful, demanding, not nice. If they don’t kick me out in the next 2 months it means they never will. :-) Anyway - trying to be positive. And I am sick of my hotel. 4th week here, 4th different room. One of the colleagues always asks for the same one. But that’s not a problem. Life in a cage is. But maybe I will try to do something about it.

living in a spa

Friday, November 10th, 2006

4th week in Brussels. Fancy hotel. For the whole week didn’t go out. Just work and hotel. Gym, sauna, book, TV.

Last weekend - another level of partying hard. And a song which messed up my head.

I am staying in Brussels for this weekend. With a little backpack, guidebook, no plan and no reservations. Could stay in another fancy hotel but decided to go for a hostel. For the social reasons. Wish me luck.

overworked, overlearnt, overpartied, underslept

Monday, October 30th, 2006

Monday. Taxi driver trying to cheat me at 5:30AM, telephones to his company, complaints and Important Guy calling me back to say sorry and to let me know that they are improving. Morning flight to Brussels. Finally I had 3 seconds to look out of the window and notice that the world is beautiful. 3 seconds during 3 weeks - not bad.Again I am speeding up. Project in Brussels (3rd week starting), studies (damn - homeworks! and exams!), partying in Warsaw (hard as always… or maybe even harder) and too little sleep. I never switch off. Trying to listen to the French courses on my ipod. Going fast forward without knowing were it leads. Just to keep myself occupied. There is not such a thing as “spare time”. There is always something to arrange. Dentist visit in 4 weeks, prepare 2 team projects for studies, new project at work, arrange new years eve, find a suitable moment (and destination!) for vacation next year, have a beer after work, catch a flight to Warsaw and go to party. I made up a joke that the first thing that i do in the morning is switching on the computer to check where the fuck i am today - Warsaw, Brussels, Gdansk, Bad Schonborn, Walldorf… and why is it dark outside and the clock shows 5am?
Oh yes, airport, taxi, 5:30. But, I guess, I like it. :-)

people get killed all the time in the fairy tales

Friday, October 13th, 2006

There was too little bullshit in my blog recently. So I’ve decided to change it. :-)

Here you can find the amazing time-waster. I can spend hours playing with it and re-discovering the gravity laws. Enjoy. :-)

NYC is a place for single people wanting to stay single

Sunday, October 8th, 2006


Last week was quite busy. 3 days of work in Walldorf (Germany), later 2 days of team off-site meeting in Hanau (Germany). 60 people from 11 countries. Power of diversity. Polish team is the second biggest after Germans. We got an unofficial nickname “Former Soviet Republic”. LOL. At least this one is funny. In fact I am proud to be Polish and I am really happy that these were Russians who colonized us in 1945 not the Americans. I mean the culture…

This week I am spending in Warsaw. After spending some time in Germany I must say I really like it. Trams, people, streets… it all makes the well known pattern - my natural environment.

I am sick again. Autumn’s coming and I can feel it in my old bones.

Next week I am starting in Brussels. New adventure. I hope to have nice time there. And maybe find a girl to practise French… dirty French. hłehłehłe