Cultural desert. That's what my city seemed to be for me after my arrival. And you should know it's considered as very cultural by Poles. Oh, it was hard too. I came back from place when even on holidays one could visit more than 20 exhibitions or one of four movie theaters showing noncommercial artistic movies. The next day after my arrival I learnt that the only movie theater playing such movies in Toruń was closed down two days earlier.
No interesting, beautiful people, no movies nor cultural life in general, no recreation. Do you see any reason to keep living here?
I was keeping trace of cultural events in Brussels. I still do! Klarafestival was (and is) coming at the end of August. Last year Il Giardino Armonico had its concert on that festival. I love them, I've never had opportunity to listen to their music live.
The concert of Ornette Coleman was announced to take place in October. I wanted to get to know about it one of my friends who is big fun of him but I've never done it. I was so out of live. That friend of mine couldn't probably go for the concert anyway since it would be too big expense but if he stayed at my friends and found some cheap flight maybe he would. I'll never know. It doesn't matter now. What matters I couldn't let the past go and I still can't.
Keith Jarrett will give a concert this year. He's also jazz of international renown musician but I have CD with his performance of Bach's sonatas for viola da gamba and cembalo.
sobota, 22 sierpnia 2009
piątek, 21 sierpnia 2009
United in diversity vs. United in uniformity
What I miss more, however, is not comfortable, fine life, it's diversity. All people here are similar, uninteresting, ugly, ordinary, united in uniformity. In Belgium even homeless people hide some interesting stories. At least yhey look like they would. At every corner you can meet African people wearing their ethnical dresses, orthodox Jews or Muslims praying on that grass that I mentioned in my last entry. Can you imagine the situation that someone approaches you to ask what time it is and precedes the question by the other one - Do you speak polish? It happed to me once. Belgium women asked if I speak French. Diversity is a norm there. And regrettably it's exception in Poland.
czwartek, 20 sierpnia 2009
Grassy grass vs. Polish grass
It's quite difficult to express why being back is so bad. The symbol which may illustrate pretty accurately the difference between living there and here is... grass. Yes, grass. And I don't mean marihuana by that. However access to the last one is also much easier in Belgium than it is in Poland.
I loved to go to Parc de Bruxelles (the one in the center) and lying on the grass in the sun. The grass was green, soft, thick and clean. Like a carpet. You really didn't need any blanket to lay on it. You will not find place like that in Poland even though we've got places which are supposed to be lawns. Usually there is no grass there, some remains of it only, which are brown, burned, full of dirt and weeds, very unpleasant and ugly. That's it. Things which could be nice and handy are not like that in Poland. Things which are supposed to be pleasant aren't like that either.
We don't have parks similar to Belgian parks. The ones we have don't look like the Belgian ones, maybe except for Łazienki Królewskie in Warsaw. One exception then, and still, I'm not sure what is the quality of the grass in there. They are dark, ugly, untended. People are rather afraid of going there since it's full of hooligans instead of being full of life, people playing, having fun and so on which is standard in Brussels.
Sad country with sad people. Not suitable for someone who prefer being cheerful.
I loved to go to Parc de Bruxelles (the one in the center) and lying on the grass in the sun. The grass was green, soft, thick and clean. Like a carpet. You really didn't need any blanket to lay on it. You will not find place like that in Poland even though we've got places which are supposed to be lawns. Usually there is no grass there, some remains of it only, which are brown, burned, full of dirt and weeds, very unpleasant and ugly. That's it. Things which could be nice and handy are not like that in Poland. Things which are supposed to be pleasant aren't like that either.
We don't have parks similar to Belgian parks. The ones we have don't look like the Belgian ones, maybe except for Łazienki Królewskie in Warsaw. One exception then, and still, I'm not sure what is the quality of the grass in there. They are dark, ugly, untended. People are rather afraid of going there since it's full of hooligans instead of being full of life, people playing, having fun and so on which is standard in Brussels.
Sad country with sad people. Not suitable for someone who prefer being cheerful.
wtorek, 18 sierpnia 2009
Small phenomena
Small phenomena that Jaana shared with me. She was trying to reach higher level. She was reading, she was watching, she was listening to, trying to understand things, making afford to meet others.
poniedziałek, 17 sierpnia 2009
Question
Polish media make so big deal of Madonna performing for the first time in Poland. Explain me, please, why they don't care about Orchestre des Champs Elysees conducted by Philippe Herreweghe performing for the first time too.
sobota, 15 sierpnia 2009
First contact
In case you would like to participate in contacting an alien species possibly living on the planet Gliese 581 d, you can leave your message on this site. It will be sent to them. The estimated time of arrival is however 20 years.
Mine goes as follows:
I am Sebastian Deka, a human from the planet Earth. My people are not only peaceful. We learn and evolve though. We are curious and willing to meet new species.
Mine goes as follows:
I am Sebastian Deka, a human from the planet Earth. My people are not only peaceful. We learn and evolve though. We are curious and willing to meet new species.
piątek, 14 sierpnia 2009
Jaana
As written in previous entry I gave one of Rothko's reproduction poster to Jaana. The artist turned out to be one of her favorites. And she gave me once postcard presenting Klee's reproduction. She did it not knowing that he was my favorite one. Isn't it special?
Jaana. She wasn't in my team. She was in Kathrin's one – foreign affairs. She has sent me an invitation on Facebook once. I accepted, sent some short message. She replied with an e-mail, asked for having coffee together and it went by, it didn't go by smoothly though. I had my reservations. You know, she was an official... Besides it was already time when I generally was troubled with establishing relationships there, didn't want any. I was rather avoiding people, wanted to be left alone, became very unsocial those days. I had to deal with my problems (really serious ones) and couldn't manage someone who seemed to be disturbed themselves.
She was persistent though. She wasn't stopping to invite me to meet and assuring of her good will. We've met few times and I finally gave up and agreed to pay a visit at her place. It was impressing and overwhelming. I experienced many situations for the first time being in Brussels. It was one of it. I believe I have been never before in flat as huge as Jaana's. I remember I felt kind of awkward, uncomfortable, like being in place which I don't belong to. But on the other hand I felt welcomed and was interested in the place, willing to discover it, to accustom to it. Jaana was lovely, she was calling one of her rooms as mine, she wanted me to stay at her place after finishing my traineeship. The visit brought the poster of "Besieged" by Bertolucci on my mind. Those stairs... like in Jaana's place. Her flat was like having four floors...
The thing that made making friends particularly difficult in that environment was time, short time. I got used to have plenty of time so it was new experience for me to make friends in few meetings. But that's how the life looks like there.
I will definitely think of Jaana as my friend for the rest of my life. Even though it's very likely we won't meet ever again (which may seem to be contradictory). She wanted me to live at her place, she wanted me to visit her in Finland. But it was clear to me it won't happen. I'm poor polish guy. I don't have money to for trips like that. I went abroad twice and in both cases EU paid for it. It was the only possibility for me to make such journeys, to experience this kind of adventures. I couldn't even invite her to Poland since it cost too much to have guests, much too much for people like me. And you know, I didn't send letters since I came back depressed. Neither did her since she was busy. Then she's got some troubles herself... It made me worried...
It's difficult to make friends on distance and it's even more difficult with those people. Many of them don't even bother to try since they know that people they meet will probably be gone soon. Jan explained me once his attitude on this matter and I would call it consumerist one. Let's get together, let's have some fun but not get deeper. Getting involved would be waste of time and emotions. Commitments seem to be waste of sources, some kind of luxury to them. I can understand their point of view. It may be seen as pointless to make friends with people one doesn't intend to stay in touch with. And it's not possible to stay in touch since one is short timed. However, this line of thought leads to become lonely and unhappy eventually which is wrong too. Life can not be based only on temporarily things, human beings requires permanent basis to achieve psychological balance. They want people and at the same time they don't allow them to grow closer. The second contradiction in this entry. Let mi finish with it.
I bought book about Toruń for Jaana (as an invitation) but I've never send it.
What I've written here seems to be so meaningless. Even meaningful things become like that on paper (unless one is a writer of course). Besides it's difficult to write about something which you are not allowed to reveal really. I don't have problem with making everything public but that's me.
Jaana. She wasn't in my team. She was in Kathrin's one – foreign affairs. She has sent me an invitation on Facebook once. I accepted, sent some short message. She replied with an e-mail, asked for having coffee together and it went by, it didn't go by smoothly though. I had my reservations. You know, she was an official... Besides it was already time when I generally was troubled with establishing relationships there, didn't want any. I was rather avoiding people, wanted to be left alone, became very unsocial those days. I had to deal with my problems (really serious ones) and couldn't manage someone who seemed to be disturbed themselves.
She was persistent though. She wasn't stopping to invite me to meet and assuring of her good will. We've met few times and I finally gave up and agreed to pay a visit at her place. It was impressing and overwhelming. I experienced many situations for the first time being in Brussels. It was one of it. I believe I have been never before in flat as huge as Jaana's. I remember I felt kind of awkward, uncomfortable, like being in place which I don't belong to. But on the other hand I felt welcomed and was interested in the place, willing to discover it, to accustom to it. Jaana was lovely, she was calling one of her rooms as mine, she wanted me to stay at her place after finishing my traineeship. The visit brought the poster of "Besieged" by Bertolucci on my mind. Those stairs... like in Jaana's place. Her flat was like having four floors...
The thing that made making friends particularly difficult in that environment was time, short time. I got used to have plenty of time so it was new experience for me to make friends in few meetings. But that's how the life looks like there.
I will definitely think of Jaana as my friend for the rest of my life. Even though it's very likely we won't meet ever again (which may seem to be contradictory). She wanted me to live at her place, she wanted me to visit her in Finland. But it was clear to me it won't happen. I'm poor polish guy. I don't have money to for trips like that. I went abroad twice and in both cases EU paid for it. It was the only possibility for me to make such journeys, to experience this kind of adventures. I couldn't even invite her to Poland since it cost too much to have guests, much too much for people like me. And you know, I didn't send letters since I came back depressed. Neither did her since she was busy. Then she's got some troubles herself... It made me worried...
It's difficult to make friends on distance and it's even more difficult with those people. Many of them don't even bother to try since they know that people they meet will probably be gone soon. Jan explained me once his attitude on this matter and I would call it consumerist one. Let's get together, let's have some fun but not get deeper. Getting involved would be waste of time and emotions. Commitments seem to be waste of sources, some kind of luxury to them. I can understand their point of view. It may be seen as pointless to make friends with people one doesn't intend to stay in touch with. And it's not possible to stay in touch since one is short timed. However, this line of thought leads to become lonely and unhappy eventually which is wrong too. Life can not be based only on temporarily things, human beings requires permanent basis to achieve psychological balance. They want people and at the same time they don't allow them to grow closer. The second contradiction in this entry. Let mi finish with it.
I bought book about Toruń for Jaana (as an invitation) but I've never send it.
What I've written here seems to be so meaningless. Even meaningful things become like that on paper (unless one is a writer of course). Besides it's difficult to write about something which you are not allowed to reveal really. I don't have problem with making everything public but that's me.
Subskrybuj:
Posty (Atom)
Posty
