Life in Szczecin

I think there is no stronger drug in the world than type of jobs I find or create for myself. They suck you in and one cannot live without them. I never understood it totally what is happening with me but the thing pumps you up so much that it takes a couple of hours every Friday before my adrenaline goes down to a normal level so that I feel I will have a normal sleep. It has nothing to do with the benefits that the job brings - it is only the urge to accomplish or improve whatever I am doing. It is incredible. It is fun but not much different from being permanently stoned...

Rita gets sucked even more so we are always in the same boat :)))

Amsterdam

It is already the third time this year for me in Amsterdam. The more I come the more I like it. Though I still have trouble navigating. Nowadays I always go for bicycle rides. It does not help much with finding my way but is definitely my favourite pastime there. I love the thing that you can go anywhere on the bicycle - even more that you can go in the evening for a drink and then ride back home not fearing that the police will take your driving license away (like in some other countries were I spend most of my time now). The variety of people and generally the relaxed atmosphere makes me a bit depressed when going back to my highly regulated country where for my own safety I am forbiden to ride my bicycle back home after a nice dinner.

We have had a great dinner at a Thai restaurant where for some reason I started talking to the owner and embarressed my brother. I somehow asked the guy whether he brought himself a girlfriend from Thailand - actually he did but a boyfriend not a girlfriend. I apologized for somehow assuming that it should be a girl and my brother bluntly told me that I have been hanging around too much it those highly tolerant countries like Russia, Poland and Peru...Somehow the openness and variaty of possibilities to live managed to be replaced with some sort of highly unified view of the world hammered into my head by the surrounding environment. I started forgetting that the world is so colorful - I still feel very bad about it.

Whenever I make it to Amsterdam I also try to go to some nice art venue - this time we went to see the Worldpress photo exhibition - good place to see it since the Dutch created the event. I must admit the photos were great and the setting even better. They were on display in the old church in the middle of Amsterdam. I was surprised by the fact of many photos either taken by Poles or having to do with Poland. As soon as such exhibition will be hosted in a church in Poland and at the same time there will be a gay marriage ceremony taking place, I will think about returning to Poland for longer (this is what was going on during our visit there). Until then somehow things are still very depressive here. Somehow Amsterdam manages to remind me why I should not stay in one place - especially a place where I have spent anyway too much of my life...

Back to business

Back to business - this short phrase explains why it is so hard even to write the blog. In the meantime in order to deprive ourselves of free time we moved to Szczecin in the north western part of Poland. It took us ages to find an apartment and in the end we made sort of a mistake with our choice. Since there is no way out of it for the next 12 months I guess we have to live with the choice. It will make us appreciate the next flat better.

About business - Rita has her own company www.asvanyi-plci.com and in that sense became independent. I think she likes it. Suddenly buying things became cheaper as we get VAT etc. back but suddenly all we own is kind of company property.

My life on the other hand is confronted with the absurdity of Polish law. Starting a new manufacturing plant made me understand why for 20 years it is impossible to build highways in this country even if the government has money for it. Talking about all sorts of permits makes me feel like in the good communist comedy from the eighties (I guess only people from the former communist block will understand what I am talking about). The rest are lucky not to know and should feel chosen not to have this pleasure. It is in general kind of schizofrenic experience because you have shopping malls and on the other hand places which survived 20 years without any changes (visit hotel Brda in Bydgoszcz where we went for Macy Gray concert?!)


Alternatively check some former communist companies that still exist - I suggest Famabud in Szczecin or one of the shipyards perhaps...We might even start a travel agency offering such tours. I find it fascinating. Below the beauty we found in our room at Hotel Brda...Classic...


As absurd as things are in Poland one has to say that things are also quite comic in some other places. I had a chance to visit Amsterdam a couple of days ago and noticed that in coffeeshops you can still smoke joints but only without tobacco. If you want to smoke with tobacco or cigarettes you have to step out onto the street :))) - this is what you call real civilization.


A fringe benefit of moving to the north of Poland is the fact that we are one hour drive from the seaside. Things did change there during the last 20 years - but still finding a decent place to relax is quite difficult. If you feel like having a good coffee in a place with nice ambience - well Polish seaside is still not the place to go (we found only one and we have visited already around 10 different villages/towns around here. If you feel like going for cheap holidays then you found the place. Most of the huts serving food even upgraded the plastic chairs to wooden ones :)) And the fish is great!!!