W Warszawy - Ost Blog
Chapter V - No Business as usual
[Mon, Jul 23rd] Spirit Battles
I faced two of my inner demons in real life: On saturday, Michal and I were walking around on a tour around the area of the Jewish Ghetto. He knew an incredible lot of stories, so i stayed aware the entire afternoon. On one occasion, he left for a few minutes.
The next moment, two half-drunk thugs came around the corner, adressing me in some subguttural mumble. As i did not understand, they asked me, where i was from. My standard lie: "From Finland". It finally paid out. They replied: "That is your luck, for our duty as good Polish is to kill all Germans around here.".
The next evening i went home after twilight, riding my bicycle through the southern outskirts, cruising between abandoned factories and train lines. Took a wrong turn. Ended up on a bus parking lot. Suddenly i had two German shepherds on my six - a medium-sized one and a tiny one. I circled the place with the dogs on 50cm at four o"clock, looking for an escape route. Wielded a heavy bicycle lock. Avoided rough turns and hasty movements. I did not panic as usual, probably because i was mounted - on the other hand i wasn"t really determined to carry this out to death. So were the dogs.
[Mon, Jul 23rd] Greenhorns
Yesterday I ate lots of ostrich. Very tasty, without much grease inside. Maybe this let me sleep very peacefully in a train packed with backpackers. It is their season. Usuallly I offer a little guidance: some Koreans did not know how to buy tram tickets, some Italians did not know where to sleep, some British were surprised they need to change currencies again, most Spanish appreciate directions to an area with lots of bars. Conversation is often a little superficial, as if they are afraid to make friends to leave behind,like me sometimes. And then they travel on, not looking back. Like the Hattivatit in Tove Janssons books.
I consider myself an expert on the Berlin-Warszawa train line now. My time on the night train is optimized. Know what and when i should eat before going - Besides ostrich, any kind of noodles are also ok, heavy meat and chocolate are less, coffee a taboo the entire day. On the last 15 minutes of the trip, i pinpoint the distance to Warszawa Centralna station by the intervals between switches the train is rumbling over. Takes me something like 30 seconds, then, to grab my stuff and jump out.
[Sat, Aug 4th] The Geeksphere
Yesterday i made it into a club of guys who meet weekly to play board games. My colleague Michal and I tried some different games with different people. They are definitely cast from the same freedom-of-mind alloy that i am more than familiar with. I consider this a major breakthrough, because i was able to understand the oral instructions, and participate in the conversation.
[Mon, Aug 6th] Krakow
Spontaneously made a solitary expedition to Krakow. Needed to fill a big white spot on my map of Poland. Spent the weekend there, strolling through art galleries, gathering inspiration for scientific and painting things. Returned with lots of photographs and drawings. The rest of Krakow? If you avoid the hordes of beerathletes, it is a nice place. But you really need to go yourself.
[Sat, Sep 1st, 0:26] Improbability drive
Spent a day with Lena, one of our PhD students, in Poznan doing a major photo shooting. We produced a huge rack of pictures of my paintings. They are for a secret project I won"t officially announce yet.
There, I had the opportunity to be eye witness to the life of an average Polish family. First thing to mention is hospitality. I felt treated very generously as a guest, and the meals where abundant, and I could still walk afterwards. Second thing was lack of space. Four people and a dog sharing a 45 sqm flat. Made the bunker I call my home feel like a palace.
The family even arranged accomodation for me. So I have the opportunity to spend the night in an empty boarding school - one of the strange, improbable places that foreign eyes rarely get to see. The building looks like a school all over, but it is so devoid of life that an eerie whisper is crawling through the corridors.
[Thu, Sep 6th] Midterm Review
According to EU logic, the half of three years is eleven months. This is why they asked everybody in the 6th-MC-RTN to come to Vilnius to tell what they had done. I did not regret it. Vilnius has a very beautiful historic center, in a way a sublimation of everything i consider European. Worth to visit again!
It was very cool to meet my EU colleagues again. All of us have a lot in common.. including the need to continue our survey of European beer brands. Curiously, the Marie-Curie network is now almost half populated by Poles. Great opportunity to improve my language skills even when abroad. I wonder when it will be renamed to "Marie-Slodovska-Curie".
[Mon, Sep 10th, 22:30] Aussois
Gorgeous! Aussois is in the French alps close to the Italian border. Lots of calcium carbonate around here. Helping organizing a scientific meeting. Currently, I am walking with my laptop up and down the corridor scanning which of the rooms has enough wireless LAN to accomodate a Nobel Laureate and some other VIPs. Must look stupid.
[Thu, Sep 20th] Anniversary
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Its hard to put into words what summarizes the last 12 months aproppriately. The big adventure? A tough trip into exile? The pursuit for happyness? Have I become a better scientist? A trans-cultural messenger? Have I found greater wisdom? It is not upon me to judge.
Does the experience outweigh the price of it: Leaving one of the coolest places on earth and my beloved ones, spending countless hours traveling until I get sick from even think about it, trying to live in a city that is my home on one out of four weekends, looking back to two ruined relationships, feeling a rough wind each day contesting my limits. This is what it means, being alien. And the experience still outweighs it by far. But it is certainly not what I call perfectly balanced.
How about putting it into a picture? The painting to the left was painted around June 2006. It took about 10 minutes to finish. There was no plan, no sketch before, just an idea giving birth to itself. The painting to the right emerged by the same method three days ago, but includes some incense ashes, the remains of a wretched bank note and a six-months old chocolate heart.
[Fri, Sep 28th] Public Relations
A team from our institute spent the evening explaining science to lay people. After many years of abstinence, wielding a pipette and doing the Bradford test felt a welcome change. Explained the basics of protein structure in broken polish. Pushed back the language barrier far enough to qualify for a 20 second radio interview.
[Mon, Oct 15th] Marie Curie returns home
The 6th RTN plus guests came visiting us in Warszawa for the Bioinformatics Workshop. This meant four days of organizing around. Four days without sleep. Four days showing our guests some good places, read: bars. Learned several important lessons how to do right and how not. Hit the limit of how much vodka one person can bear, and most of Marie Curie with me. If it had not been for the terrible headache next day, it would have been funny to see most of the non-Polish colleagues trying to stay awake in the lecture hall. Kosa and Wojtek saved my day. The flag keeps waving.
[Sun, Oct 21st] The Order of the Snake
I organized a two-day Python Sprint. Had nothing to do with running, though. It was a programming session involving 20 people from our group. We rocked the house. Everybody made a tremendous effort, especially all the less experienced students. In the end, two important objectives were achieved: 1) Nobody ran away. 2) Everybody was programming most of the time. I count this as a huge success.
The evening of the second day ended at 2 a.m. in an eerie, void condo area construction site, me looking for a lost student after our after-sprint party. I remember being overworked. This was at least three weeks ago. After this, I had no time to remember anything. I need vacations. Need them badly.