Fogg, cancelled flights and many movies

Sorry for not letting my creativ side express itself sooner here. But well you know that I am contemporarely a volunteer for Camerimage and this job is quiet timeconsuming , at least for me. Since Friday I've been meeting with Camerimage people to being organized or being told how to organize other people. SAturday the big opening Gala was closed to ordinary volunteers as the kind that I am, so I didn't see any movies then. (Although it turned out to be wrong info cause several volunteers suffered through a gladly horrible movie by DAvid Lynch (who was present)which opened the Fetsival). During the last 3 days I've seen 8 movies and most of them were great!I've also attended a workshop about lightning (had to be there casue my guest group taht I am partly taking care off held it). Here are the movies that I can definitely resommend.

undefined The best one was in my opinion a POlish movie called "Retrieval" which was nominated for the Oscar as best foreign film.It's about a 19 year old boy in east Poland who takes care of his older illegal ukranian girlfreind and her son and gets into lots of trouble casue he hase soo many responsibilities.So I hope that it'll be shown in Germany as well at some point of time. Then there is "Pan's labyrinth" a Spanish movie about a young girl that loves fairy tales and mixes them up with reality as she and her pregannt mother move to a military post where her step father lives a cruel life of fighting Guerrilas. Ahh and "Babel" which is in the movie theaters at least here in poland right now (with Kate Blanchet and Brad Pitt, but not at all a typical american production - otherwise it wouldn't be competing in the festival). Well there are of course mnay others but well, I can't see all of them.
Oh I have not yet explained the meaning of the titel. The fact is that's been horribly foggy for the last days and almost all flights to and from Warsaw are canceled what means for us that our guests can't leave or arrive. And that's pretty bad becsaue then they have to get other hotel rooms, flights have to be reschedueled and generally no one knows anything.
I suppose I conveyed the message clear enough that all in all I very much like the festival.Dobranoc muszę spać ( Good night, I gotta sleep)

Gdanks 2, the funny inofficial part

So here are some funny incidents about our little journey. First, we couldn't get into the dorms because ( as we now know) there are no visitors allowed after 11 pm, thus Fran can't have people sleep over at his place. Since we didn't have anywhere else to go the only possibility was the window. Unfortunately his room is on the first floor....(see picture for a better idea ). Our ultimate technique was to stand on the window sill off the lower window (there's a student's pup and we were later a little concerned that they would notice us), climb up the grill and then grap a scarf that was hung out the window. The Fran would grap one ahnd and pull us up. Man, that was some action!
As you might remember, I made a promise about the Baltic Sea. And yes I really did it although it was very very cold.

So much for Gdansk. On our way home though, we saw Malbork (and got there without problems, it was a bit off our way from Gdansk to Lodz) and we made it back to Tczew (where we were supposed to take the train to Lodz). Unfortunately we somehow ( i realle don't know why (-: ) got on the wrong train and were told by the controller after 2 hours that our ticket was not valid because we were simply going the wrong direction. So we got off the following stop, what was in Olsztyn (to prove it, there's the picture).
Well well well, we had to get back to Elblong then to Malbork and Tczew...took us 5 hours for 240 Km extra journey through Poland. But I really ahve to praise the controller, cause the first one did not chareg us anything despite us not having a valid ticket and the second one looked up a connection for us to get home to Lodz as soon as possible. Fortunately our little extra tour was not a big financial expense, only about 4 Euro for each one of us. Don't I love PKP?! According to the "master plan" of the conducter we were supposed to change trains 4 times and get to Lodz by 7 am in the morning.( We left from Tczew from around 4,15 pm and we were originally supposed to arrive in Lodz at 10 pm). But surprise surprise, waiting in Tczew for our next train, there was an announcement thata train to Krakow and Lodz would arrive in 10 minutes. So we after all we had a direct connection that got us home at least by 3,15 am. IN the train it was freezing though, somehow they didn't have the heaters working.
Of course we missed the night bus in Lodz but we just had to wait for half an hour and I finally arrived at my appartment at 4,14 am. And the same morning I rose and shone at 9 am casue I had to help at my organization with prepearing things for a conference . ( I was well off, the other two girls had to get up at 7 to go to kindergarten).
The whole thing was a lot of fun and I don't regret anything! Poland is great!

Gdanks 1 The Formal Part

Well well well, it was indeed a crazy weekend that we spent in Gdanks. The citys beautyfull and we got there without problems (we did not get robbed as some Polish people feared (-: ) , but to Polish trains later more. When we arrived on Thursday night, Fran (the guy on the pic) was unfortunately half an hour late and his cell phone dead because he had forgotten his recharger in Krakow the previous weekend. That wasn't much of a problem though, Camilla Lisa and I just got cold feet.
During our stay we saw the old part of the city, the harbour where the Solidarność movement (that lead to democracy in Poland)started and the beach.... and I did take off my shoes and went into the Baltic sea and got my feet wet and cold while wearing a winter coat and gloves. Our plan to visit some museum was thwarted by the Independence Day (Saturday the 11th) due to which all the museums were closed. Instead we went to ahve some cake at "greenway" , the place with the good carrot cake. And since my favorite cake was sold out, I tryed apple cake and came to the conclusion that every cake at Greenway is heavenly jammy.
Oh yes, and on sunday we went to Malbork to see room after room after room of this HUGE castle. I fyou ever go to POland, visit Malbork it's worth it. (Except for the fact atht you'er only allowed in wiht a guide who speaks POlish, unless you wan t to pay 40 Euro for a German or English guide). Fortunately there was a German couple in our group hat could translatefor us.
And since Ia've already spent some time here in Lodz ag\fter coming back, here a little crash- update:
I went to the unemployement office twice to hand out leaflets to "unemployed" women...unfortunately you can't distinguish them... (some employed women didn't have enough humour taking it easy when invited to a conference for unemployed women).
I participated in a gender awarness workshop, so now I am aware of gender and I still ahve to write an article about that. I had my Polish lesson and went to University where I watched an excerpt of "Desperate housewives" and "ER" for my "Race, calss and gender on American TV" lecture. Too bad that I haven't been in the possesion of a TV for the last 20 years and thus haven't been spoiled by the Cosby Show, AllyMCBeal etc....it seems like everyone else loves all the sequels except for me.Oh and I went to different High Schools to invite student to come to the CCC (Creative Converation CLub). Enough said.....dobranoc (good night)
There's another picture of Malbork....those photographs are from Lisa and Camilla, I am juts giving them credit for being so smart and having adegital camera (unlike me, who accordingly , can not put her own pictures online...grr..)

The ocean is calling

In one and a half hours I'll be sitting in one of the trains that will bring me to Gdansk (Danzig). Ahh, I am very excited to see another very old city and friends (not very old but very nice) and most importantly the sea (morze). Although it is supposed to rain and be cold (about 6 Degrees C) I'll definitely put my feet into the water (-:
If it's not raining we (meaning the two Austrian girls and I and maybe Fran, the Spanish Erasmus student that we're staying at) will see the old town and many museums and I hope to convince the others that we have to go to Malbork castle (Marienburg)the biggest brick castle in the world which was constructed by German knights in the 12th century and is located quiet close to Gdansk.
Well, I have furtehr news: The other host organisation in Lodz finally found a new Polish teacher for us. Her name is Pani Iwona and she's a pretty strict student of English and Polish...so we'll learn a lot I assume. The two first lessons have been fun so far.
OK, I have to pack some stuff now (predominantly food, because 7.5 hours of train have to be endured and that won't happen without snacks).
Thanks for the comment Marta, I will write back to you after I am back from my journey (that means monday)

Guess what...

Ha, crazy crazy weather here in Łódź! Today it snowed the first time! And it's just the first of November. I remember that the first snow last year fell on the second forthnight of November (when my lovely friend Cathy tryed to visit me (-;) , so this is very early. Anyway, I went to the cemetary today as well, because it is All Saints day and of course most Polish families celebrate it by putting lots of colourful candles and flowers on the graves. It looks pretty impressive , a little bit like christmas. (Polish people of course don't think it looks like christmas!) .
Ans not to forget, I "celebrated" Halloween by dresing up a little bit like a cat , watching a horror movies with the other Volunteers and eating jummy pizza. Not very scary though the whole thing