I am connected

The phone is on. Thank God, the phone is on. Two hours on the phone to Ally, two calls from Mum already and I am plugged in to what my friends are up to again. I had almost forgotten that you could speak to the people that you miss and who miss you. I never have anything to really tell people because so many of my friends read my blog.

The sun is still shining in Warsaw and sutumn, while on its way, is not here yet. Tomorrow, I will go to Lazienki park to enjoy what I am sure will be the last of he great weather. I am still wandering around in sandals and it is October tomorrow. The dark days bring a different feeling to the city and wrapping up warm is a national sport around here. I am looking forward to eating pierogi to carb up while the cold outside is kept at bay by jumpers and thick socks. I love the summer, but I am always ready for the winter when it comes.

Yorkshire Home Rule - Phase one

Phase one in my grand plan to create the nation state of Yorkshire is to create an army. This plan has been really quite acidental and has caught me with the genius of a true winning strategy. When Yorkshire has an army with which to defend itself we can make tea drinking a weeky class in schools. Children will be taught how to moan about the south at an early age and each child will have elocution lessons to make their Yorkshire accent so strong that no-one outside of Yorkshire will be able to understand them.

I am doing what I can to spread the word by creating an army of small international children who are accidentally adopting a Yorkshire accent. It never occurred to me that while teaching phonics, I would acutally be teaching Yorkshire phonics. I plan to send these children into the world to infiltrate International communities and spread the message that Yokshire will one day be free from its oppressors and shall indeed rule itself once more.

Google earth

I am totally disconnected from every-one as my phone is still not on. I forget how used I am to my two hour chats with Ally, or speaking to Mum and Dad every other day, even if only for a few minutes. I am already getting into the habit of not calling people, I can't wait for the phone to ring. It is just another way that I feel seperate from those who live in other counries. I can still imagine that Ally lives in kabaty when I can chat at our leisure on a Saturday morning.

Life in Warsaw continues to spiral into new bizarre levels. Now that I am into my routine, I find that life here is just as it ever was for me. There are new people and there are the old ones, just like the coffee houses and streetlife. Something old, something new. As I wind my way down these roads that have led me back here, I wonder: 'Am I lost, or am I on the way home?'

Blue skies ahead

After a week in my apartment I am only now starting to feel like I have any sort of routine. I chatted to J the other night about how coming straight from my intense family holiday to Warsaw has left me little room to breathe. I have also been emailing D about her coming to Poland and it has made me think of Paris again. I don't understand why I feel so at home in Poland. I loved every minute of our time in Paris, life there was much more of an adventure.

As I am faced with the choice of leaving this city at Christmas or staying until next summer, I look at how much Warsaw has changed, even in the few years that I have known her. I hope that D comes at half term, if only because in 5 years time the Warsaw that I know and love will have morphed again. I still think that these years of feeling unsettled will be the ones that mean the most. I wish I were a true free spirit who would wander the earth forever, but I can feel that my years of travel in this way are limited.

The crying game

J and I left school last night and went to Zgoda. This was one of my favourite places to eat in Warsaw and I always have the potato pancakes and gulash, placki cyganski. This is also the place with the best surowki (salad and pickles) in town. We sat and chatted and talked about how we never have enough time to chat through things, school, boyfriends, family take up lots of time these days.

For some reason we got onto the topic of crying and how it seems to come about through stress for both of us rather than outbursts of emotion. When I first came to live in Poland I thought I was coping really well with the massive changes that were coming thick and fast, Poland was alien and so was being away from the UK. That is, I thought I was coping until I sobbed for an hour all over H, who was staying with me at the time.

This trip to live in Poland feels very different, but the stress of packing up my life, finding a place to live, seeing old friends, and starting work is bound to come round to bite me on the nose. I am waiting for the meltdown, I am sure it will come now that things have slowed down. When it does, it will be a quiet, solitary experience. I don't need anyone to comfort me, I can only do that for myself. Maybe I will call TFT, just to hear him freak out at my tears might make me snap out of it. I always think that I am stress free, that I cope with anything, but that can't last forever, can it?

Photos of Warsaw

I have cast out lots of photos, there are only a few that I am happy with. I need to spend more time taking pictures, but work gets in the way.

In the wings

I signed my new contract today and so things with my space in Poland are more settled than they were half an hour ago. Sometimes, I am not sure what has really happened these last few years, how I have managed to live in these places, why I still feel the need to move. Coming back to Poland has been a bizarre experience, and not an unpleasant one.

I still remember my Polish words, and am finding that more and more come back to me very day. I believe that I was destined to be in Paris, but I also believe that it was fate that made me move away. Here I am back in the arms of familiarity ready to look forward to a weekend of doing those polish things I love. Maybe I will have some Gypsy pie at Zgoda, go shopping for Boleslawiec pottery on Ulica Jana Pawla. Maybe I will spend Sunday under the shade of the Palace of Culture, I could go over the River Wisla to see the fast disappearing Russian black market.

My head is still spinning at the thought that I have made it back, at least for a while. I can't wait to go to Krakow, a place that I love almost as much as Warsaw itself.