excitedCzarek came home at last yesterday and even after 30 hours without sleep he took me for a walk into Miłki. Later we went for a drive around the area and talked about the old group, Ukraine, Poland, and other such things. The scenery was beautiful – hills, trees, lakes, narrow dirt roads – I’ve never seen anything quite like it. There were many small farms in the area and not a whole lot of houses, but the present ones looked happy enough. There must be an interesting pace of life out there. It would be different to consider Miłki, the main village of Gimina Miłki, a centre of life: “Dad are you going to Miłki? Can I go, can I go too, can I, please?”
After dinner, we went out for a few Lech with Czarek’s cousin and another old friend. B’ata had been working all day on her architecture project, and she needed to print it off, but the printer was at their mother's workplace (the local clinic where she is a nurse), the cd burner was at the cousin's, and the required drivers were at the friend's. Or something like that. Anyway, I hope they get it figured out eventually.
Back home, Czarek made us some sandwiches and then we sat down with the rest of the family and watched an old TV movie called Shattered Innocence – it was a well-preformed movie emotionally speaking; I had no doubt of the sincerity of the characters’ feelings – but the dialouge and situations were almost unbelievable. It was also a little bit too moralistic in drawing an immediate connection between nude modelling and cocaine addiction. I know one such sometime model who probably wouldn’t touch the stuff in a 1,000 years and besides that I can’t believe that someone with such a conservative, countrified upbringing would have plunged into something like that so quickly sans any kind of self-questioning or guilt. Maybe the movie was cut for TV, but one minute we see her say “No, thanks,” and in the next scene her nose is bleeding. I exaggerate, but there was very little attention given to the logical development (or decline) of her character. Still, I was titillated enough to keep watching. Apparently the movie was loosely based on the real life of Shauna Grant.
So now I’m on the train again, but going straight to Wąbrzeźno (a small city less than 20km from Płużnica where Ashley and Dima worked). I will be meeting Przemek (my old host brother) or someone from the family at the station. Since the points between Giżycko, Warsaw, and Wąbrzeźno form a triangle, there’s no point in going twice as far just to drive up with Monika. She’s bringing along her boyfriend Voytek, anyway. They and Marcin will be staying at the Ostrich farm. I was tempted to do so myself, but it’ll be more fun to stay with my former host family. Gee, if I’m lucky I might get to pop down to Toruń to visit Karol and Mileena... maybe even over to Chełmno to see Kinga and Agata (my old English-teaching co-workers in Lisewo). Heck, I should go visit Lisewo and blow the kid’s minds – but do I have time? The student’s won’t be going back to school until the 3rd, and I need to be back in Ostroh on the evening of the 4th at the very latest. So I guess I’ll have to scratch that one. (Typing update: No, I won’t – I’ve got a semi-convoluted plan and will be able to see the school anyway. Plus the students actually start on the 2nd. Oh, and now we're going to be going to Kyiv on the 6th, changing things still further.)
Either way, the adventure continues! I’m in a compartment with three good-looking young girls and one other guy – the seats are really comfortable, and Emily across from me is cramming for an English exam. I’m so glad Czarek found this train – it’s such a coup: from Giżycko to Wąbrzeźno in only four hours for $15! Man, Poland rocks my socks. I really should come here to teach English; I wouldn’t make much money, but it would be fun. Eventually I would probably pick up Polish as well. We’ll see.
~ Will