Gulags, vodka and wet roads

After the wonderful reception given by my great aunts in Grodno, I wanted to meet my great uncle. I knew that he wrote poems and built artistic bird-houses. Pretty cool for an 87 year old. In the end, I also had to find out why he ended up in a Siberian gulag, as my great aunts wouldn't tell me. My uncle took half the day off and we drove to the township of Mrągowo. It was the first time my uncle saw the great-uncle sober. This was soon to change, as we went through a bottle of vodka.

Here are some classic quotes:

"Nawet przy Murmańsku, dawali spirytus żeby nos się wytarło w razie mrozu. No... język się nacierało."
"Even near Murmansk, they gave us spirits to rub our noses if they became frozen. Well, we sure rubbed... our tongues."

"Jak w każdym małżeństwie, pobili się na wzajem."
"As in every marriage, they beat each other up."

"Ruscy (żołnierze) udawali ludzi, ale czy to bydło, czy diabeł to nie wiadomo było."
"The Russian soldiers pretended to be human. Whether they were cattle or demons nobody knew."

Oh, and I found out about Siberia...

During the war, my great-uncle made his living by trading horses. He'd go to Lithuania, buy a few, then sell them at 3 times the original price. Problem was that some of these were stolen. Also, under Soviet rule, all speculative activity was banned... with a penaty of 5 years hard labour. Around the time that my grand-uncle was getting was getting married, my great-grandmother quarrelled with the next door neighbour and didn't invite her to the wedding. The neighbour dobbed my great uncle in to the police.

On the way back, we stopped by Biskupiec, to visit my third great aunt - a lovely lady like all of her sisters. She looked younger and more lively than when I'd last seen her. Hope some of these genes rub off...

Another Village

It's good to see my aunt and uncle again. They seem younger than before. So maybe I'm ageing fast. Winter life in the village is slow. 3 pm it starts to get dark. I need to get things done, but the surroundings don't allow for this. Amazing how frustrated a person can get when they lose control.

Walking in the forest helps. I see herds of deer every time I go for a walk. I visit a hunters' camp with my uncle. Two of them are flaying a deer. Amazing how dead dead things are. A dead body is no longer a body, but an object.

Another Train Ride

544 km on the most overheated train I've experienced and I'm in the Mazuria. No interesting incidents to relate. Until Gdańsk (Danzig), I share the cabin with 2 middle aged Russian women who keep to themselves. After, a group of high school age guys pop in for a few stops. Then, a couple in their late 20s.

That part of the country is covered by a flat rural landscape of ploughed fields and grey skies. The occasional city is as bleak. The only exception is the recent trend of painting the Soviet-derivative housing estates in bright colours. I see a billboard of a car covered in pink cherry blossoms. It says "Japan. Beauty." I almost start crying.

Otherwise, I plunge into Kazantzakis' "Zorba the Greek." Too close to home for comfort, but a brilliantly insightful and harshly funny novel. I understand Crete better.

Cursed Village

I hoped for snow, but it’s all barren fields, mist and low clouds in Pomeranian Poland. Today we went for the annual family Christmas walk. Every second house in rural Poland seems to be guarded by a vicious dog, or a pack of dogs that runs by the fence, snarling and barking as you walk past.

Staying with my grandfather has been enjoyable thanks to his excellent stories and interesting attitude regarding life in general. Tomorrow I leave for Mazuria. Hope it's colder.

Where have all the angels gone

Flew in to Berlin around 12 pm. It was freezing. I found some free benches on the airport to sleep on and the whole hobo thing was really happenning once again.

It had been a dream for years to come here, with so many historical and cultural references gathered there. In the morning, the first thing I did after dropping my bags in a locker was to take a musical reference train ride: the U2, from Zoo Station, to Potsdam Platz. The underground train looked just like it did in ‘Der Himmel Uber Berlin’! However, Potsdam Platz looked nothing like what I hoped it would look like. Granted, those hopes were taken from the same movie, where the whole thing is just a plain of mud with some derelict housing estates in the background. The hi-tech Sony center completely upset that aesthetic.

At the ‘Film Museum’ at Potsdam Platz, I found a map of Berlin with all the locations of ‘Der Himmel Uber Berlin’ indicated. I thought I’d base my sightseeing around that, as it’s one of my favourite films. Unfortunately, very little of that kind of Berlin was left, with developers having ‘improved’ things. Still, it was interesting to walk around and see how much the city had changed. Much of the architecture in the new developments was absolutely stunning, and I enjoyed the decentralised nature of the city and the dyed hair, army clad radical youth aesthetic.

Slightly Wiser

In Athens, my friend Joel offered that I crash at his and his girlfriend Anna’s place. This was great. Fine company is always appreciated. As the weather was clear, we spent half the day walking around the hills which jut out of Athens. We could enjoy views of the concrete sprawl and of the Acropolis which seems incredibly incongruous in the midst of it.

But then we ended up sitting down to eat souvlaki in Plaka for lunch. Big mistake. The guy charged us 18 euros for 2 plates which consisted of a 2 souvlaki, a couple of fries and a few vegetables. ‘The prices are different if you sit down.’ After that, all the people driving motorcycles on the footpaths began to really piss me off.

Meeting up with Anna, we walked through the meat market and looked at mountains of severed sheep heads. Afterwards we made our way to the run down immigrant quarter – by far my favourite part of town. Finally, our moods lifted once we got home, made curry and had a Guns n’ Roses sing-along with a baffled Anna laughing at our admiration of Slash’s solos.

Leaving Crete

Foul weather and I was afraid the ferry to Pireaus wouldn’t run. It did. Taking the cheapest ticket was the thing to do after all. The entire ‘pilot seats’ area was full of Roma, Albanians and other minorities of Greece. This helped to create the ‘refugee camp’ atmosphere on the boat as everyone crashed on whatever floor space was available. Meanwhile, packs of bored teenagers roamed the corridors which reeked of vomit. I went onto the deck, and scared myself again by looking at the dark expanse of the sea.

The Sign

Almost a year ago I came out of the dingy depths of Tokyo’s ‘Loft’, to find my friend Adam conversing with a Czech ex-Hare Krishna monk, who was giving away CDs for donations. It was 4 am at the time. We had just lived through a Merzbow gig. I hadn’t slept for 25 hours.

Today the same thing happenned. On Hania’s main street, I get accosted by a Czech Hare Krishna monk, giving away his CDs. His music is pretty good though. He also plays in a Doors and a Nirvana covers band. I’m taking this as a sign that I’m on the right path.

Leaving another rut

Been sitting in Crete for over a month and I'm still wondering about whether the correct preposition to use is "in" Crete or "on" Crete. Intuitively, I feel that it's "on", but everyone else says "in". Doesn't really matter I suppose, as I've been put off wanting to teach English for a while, now that I'm finally qualified for that purpose. But I leave tomorrow.