August 2004

AUGUST 2

So much to write about.

Saturday - Strilek in good hands, what a relief.... moving out - the last stage.... I don't know how Leszek's spine endured this heavy lifting and carrying.......

hollow space of our home.... echo..... champaigne from Mary and Spiro...... bye to our landlord...... Leszek taking our van to Antek.... meeting at Aviv's.......feast with her brothers, Marek and other guests including an angel /really - a woman with hair, heart and a name of an angel/..... swimming in the pool......finally getting to Zosia for the sleep after midnight .

Sunday - Magda is taking us to the airport........ taking our place in a long line...... somebody familiar is sitting behind one of theAir Canada computers..... Steve - Kamila's school friend's father........ we wave to him...... he signals to come directly.... takes care of us........ we are at the gate for boarding...... the attendant calls Kamila's and my name....... writes something on our passes....... on the plane we find out we are seated in business class!.......Thank you so much Steve!..... What a treat we had!

Flying to San Francisco ...... Leszek staying behind to wait for his flight two hours later /first to LA then SF/...... landing after five hours....Maria is waiting for us........ my dear friend whom I've known since grade 1.......... together we are waiting for two hours for Ewa's arrival ......... another dearest friend and Kamila's godmother.......she is coming all the way from Poland so that the three of us could meet before we get to our fifties /as planned for long/......

driving to Marysia's house in Richmond - San Francisco Bay Area.........Marian......... emotions and great joy........... dinner.........waiting for Leszek to call from Bart - SF subway......... everybody falls asleep except Maria who about midnight directs through the phone a cab driver who is bringing Leszek and cannot find the address.

Long sleep at least for us the visitors - M&M are going to work in the morning...... talking on the phone to Nina and Jan - Mary's parents who are like second parents to me - Jan is coming over - I don't even try to describe the joy in such a brief........ going for a walk in the neighbourhood .... lots of pictures.................. may be tomorrow I will manage to put them in the gallery............ renting a car for tomorrow's trip to Yosemite National Park - a white Toyota Corrola........ dinner...... and line up for internet use on Maria's computer.

AUGUST 4

Morning. We are getting ready for a drive through Golden Gate Bridge . I have my little ritual on the bridge - walk to the middle of it - spit down to the water - this is suppose to assure my return to this place again. It worked before /at least 4 times/ so - I will not endanger my future this time by not doing it, although some are laughing at me.

Yosemite was awesome! I will not even try to give a fair account of all those mountains, sequoias and many beautiful views.

A day in the city.

We drove through downtown SF, found Lombard Street - the crookedest street in the world as they say, and drove down on it twice. Then to the Fishermen's Warf and the famous Old Buena Vista Irish Pub -Irish coffee tasted as good as always.

Then to the Fishermen's Warf and the famous Old Buena Vista Irish Pub - Irish coffee tasted as good as always.

Then Golden Gate - ritual fulfilled, Ewa, Kamila and Leszek joined me in. 

Sausalito - a picturesque town where the clouds finally went away and we had a marvelous view of San Francisco .

Evening - visiting Ula&Leszek in Lafayett.

AUGUST 5

Napa & Sonoma region - I'll write later - everybody is waiting for me at the door - coordinating plans is hard.

Marian's /the male part of our hosts/ birthday evening.

AUGUST 6

Shopping for shoes and swimsuit for Kamila.

Berkeley walking about - the three of us - Ewa, Maria and I.

Eluna what's up there in Lodz ? Stef, how is Strilek? Magda, you never came to visit.

Zosia how are things? Liza how was North Channel ? Iwona, wyobraz sobie ze mi

sie rozwalil caly krem w plecaku.

Kamila instead of writing her journal is talking constantly with her friends on MSN.

Tomorrow is the last day for Leszek here. The plan is to spend the whole day in the city.

AUGUST 7

...was spent according to the plan. We took Bart, the local subway, to Mongomery St, walked through Chinatown to Coit Tower from where there was a magnificent view of the whole Bay and the major city landmarks, then we got to Pier 39 and Fishermen's Wharf.

One of the best things to see there were seals /about hundred of them/ busking in the sun on wooden platforms which were formerly /more than ten years ago before the seals moved to the harbour/ used as docking stations for yachts. The final attraction was the famous cable car / together with a crowd of other keen tourists we had to wait more than an hour!/ which took us all the way along Hyde Street to Powell Station - from there - home on Bart.

I realize that my notes will be often limited to geographical places or landmarks plus a few adjectives - synonyms of 'amazing', 'wonderful'.

Well I'm not a fast writer, and the time I have for internet use is very limited and will be even more soon. Lori who is already in Rarotonga writes that it is not easy and quite expensive to get connected. I will have to turn to my traditional paper notebook then.

AUGUST 8

Leszek flew to LA early in the morning, had a long stopover so went out to see a bit of the city - Hollywood Blvd and flew again to Rarotonga on Cook Islands with a short stopover on Papetee, Tahiti . Kamila and I will do the same route on Wednesday. /Leszek bought a different package of tickets and much later than I - the reason why we don't fly together for now/

The day we spent in Elcerrito - shopping for a few essentials, then browsing and reading in Barnes&Nobles - an equivallent of our Indigo.

Walked to Marian's workplace - his own workshop where he handmakes bamboo fly fishing rods which he sells all over the world. Marian gave us a tour of his place explaining the whole process of building those expensive beauties.

Evening - at Joanna and Witek' s house / a palace rather!/ located on a hill with a magnificent view in Orinda - about 30 min drive from where we stay at M&M's. Joasia is Maria's younger sister who lives here with her husband Witek - a very succesfull engineer, two children - Monika and Michal and

her parents - Nina and Jan. Unfortunately Nina didn't feel well and couldn't join us for the yammy rib dinner we had outside.

Hi Agnieszka. Hi Magda. I co z tym Anki bagazem? Znalazl sie?

AUGUST 9

Dipped our feet in the Pacific - cold - hope it will be warmer where we go on Wednesday. Saw sea otters and pelicans diving for their prey. Ate clam chowder in Bodega Bay .

AUGUST 10

Here I am in the heart of University of California in Berkeley - in the reading room of a spacious Doe Library. Students around us / or visitors like us/ are reading magazines, some just having naps, maybe between classes. There are summer classes everywhere. We enter one lecture hall; try to figure out the topic: monopoly, margin cost - must be economy - not my domain, but I enjoy the air of lecture dynamic nevertheless. I guess part of me always regrets not being smart and focused enough to spend my life in this kind of scholary realm. I feel such reverence towards places like this - I could stay here for hours.

This is where Czeslaw Milosz - Nobel Prize Laureat - has his house and where he was a professor. It feels right to quote his poem - my favourite

Gift

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was nothing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails. 

Wish I could achieve this kind of state of mind regardless what view spreads in front of my eyes.

At home a gourmet dinner as usual - M&M are masters in the kitchen - Ewa is writing down recipes of all meals we are having here.

Long evening talk with Ewa and Maria, memories plus their serious concerns about my travel plans. My confidence / or rather I should call it complacency/ is undermined, but all the words are well grounded and I will certainly heed their advice.

Said good bye to Jan on the phone - thank you for all the kind words.

Tomorrow's flight at 17:15 to Los Angeles , and 20:05 towards the islands.

AUGUST 11

We are all packed, waiting for Marian to take us to Bart station. Marynia dropped in from work to give us a final hug.

Nina called with encouraging news about her ailments - feels better. But first of all she gave me her motherly blessings - feel empowered and teary again.

Bye San Francisco .

AUGUST 11 - 14

So we are in the middle of the Pacific. The flights together took about 12 hours, stopovers were in LA and Papetee, Tahiti . In Rarotonga we landed at 6 in the morning local time - 6 hours difference from Toronto , 12 from Poland . Leszek was waitng - good thing because I did not really remember the name of our hostel, which turned out easy - Rarotonga Backpackers - you can see pictures of it at rarotongabackpackers.com. First two nights we shared a bungalow with Lori, who has been here for a week. Today we move to the dorm for one night.

For me everything is amazing here - I have never been so close to the equator, never travelled to Carribeans, as many of you. So I had to pinch myself quite often to make sure it is not just a dream.

There is a road running 32 km around the island - you can take a bus, or hitchhike - we do both, whatever is first - just have to remember whether you want to go clockwise or anticlockwise and stand on the right side of the road. Since it is left side traffic - it's confusing at first. Locals are wonderful - give us rides all the time. That's how we get to Internet Cafe, to Avarua - town where we can buy groceries, to the beaches for snorkeling. The underwater life is awesome, and they say it will be even better around Aitutaki Island where we are flying tomorrow on a small plane and staying for 4 days until our flight to Fiji on Aug. 20.

AUGUST 15

Before flying to Aitutaki we went to Aroranga Christian Church for the service, singing and a feast. Among the foods we ate: Ika Mata - marinated fish, rukau - young leaves of taro plant i coconut cream, poke - cooked ripe banana mixed with arrowroot. A future pastor ate at our table - he's studying here in Avarua, we hope to see him again on Friday.

AUGUST 16 - 20

/Magda is helping me to post the notes on my sites because the computers here don't have Java. Thank you Magda and do it again if you can./

Good to hear from you - Ela, Agnieszka, Esio.

It's Friday - back on Rarotonga after Aitutaki - a chain of atolls, called motus which form a triangular area of incredibly beautiful turquoise lagoon.

Roosters wake us up every morning. The crescent of the moon looks like a smily face.

First day - exploring the island on rented bicycles and snorkeling on a few places on the beach / saw huge clams/

Second day - a cruise on a small boat with Quentin, the skipper, his helper and a couple from England . Snorkeling behind the reef - a bit scary: deep and wavy, swallowed water a few times - new kinds of fish and big ditches on the bottom. Quentin speared a few parrot fish which we ate for lunch later. On the lagoon we fed fish with bananas - hundreds appeared around us - they are crazy for them.

On the third day we climbed a local hill for the view - were lucky to see an entire rainbow from the top.

Yesterday Kamila spent two hours at the local school - she had a class of math and health. The principal not only agreed to her joining a class, also gave us a bag of tomatoes.

Later Leszek rented a hobie cat and we sailed / avoiding all the corals was not an easy task at all for L. the skipper/ to Honeymoon Island - a kind of a desert on the ocean with a few palms in the middle.

Today we have the whole day here before we fly at midnight to Fiji . This is the moment when we lose one day of our life - I don't think I can afford it - must do another trip in future in the opposite direction.

I already used up my hour on the computer / never learned to type fast and tried again to get to my site directly - failed and it cost me heaps of time /. So long then.

AUGUST 22 - 25

Bula!

That's how you greet people here. / Kia Orana was on Cooks/.

That's what we had to say before drinking traditional kava in Nakabuta Village yesterday - then repeat again three times and say vinaka - thank you. The drink is suppose to calm you down and bring a mood of friendliness among the hosts and guests. Fijians drink quite a lot of it and that's why they are much more laid back and relaxed than the other half of population - Indians, who are business oriented. /quite pushy in offering their services/.

On the second day here we took a two hour ride to Suva - the capital. An Indian driver made me close my eyes many times when he sped and passed other cars on a narrow road / inevitably came to mind my teacher - Mr Woloszyn who died here in a car accident/.

In Suva we visited a market, bought papaya - called here paw paw /by the way there is a lot of names in this country that have double names - Lomolomo, Vituvitu etc/ , pineapples, mangoes.

Went to museum - history of Fijians and Indians / cannibalism as the main feature of the first nation in pre-christian times; work on sugar cane plantations during the indenture times in case of those brought here from India by the British/. Highly regreted not having enough money for souvenirs in the museum gift shop.

First two nights we spent in Tubacula Beach Bungalows then moved to Vacavita Bure /home/

near Sigatoka town, where we do our grocery shopping. As for weather - we haven't seen the sun yet!!!!!!! except one evening with an unexpectedly beautiful sunset / like on postcards/.

All brochures say that during winter, which is now, it should be dry and sunny - well it is not.

Lori is going on a 5 day boat trip hoping for better weather in the Yasawa Islands / by the way Fiji means 320 islands! - I didn't know about it/.

Ewuna - are you home yet?

How are the pictures?

I'm afraid we left the cord from our

camera at Marysia's. Did you find it?

Ela, the name is Travel Cuts on King

St. across from Mountain CO .

AUGUST 26 - 30

Nadi , Fiji - Internet Cafe /$10 for an hour, but at least this time it's fast/

We took local buses a few times - no doors or windows, plastic screens to be unfolded for rain or wind, very bumpy and noisy rides when on side roads /and I mean bumpy and noisy so it really hurts your bum and eardrums/ full of local people ready to say "bula", smile and talk to us. To get to a bus though, you have to brush off all the cab drivers offering you better and better deals. They are earning their sustenance, we are budgeting our trip - finding a compromise involves a feeling of guilt. I prefer walking and buses especially if without backpacks.

Last Friday we decided to rough it up in a tent for three days to save money for a boat trip which has been tempting us from the beginning. Renting a tent and camping costs us $20 a day - a real deal. The campsite is at the Seashell Cove Resort, full of young people who came here mainly to do diving and surfing. 

They occupy the dorms and the bar in the evening. To get there we were passing sugar cane fields, goats, bulls, little houses scattered here and there and of course palms full of coconuts

There is a horse to ride for Kamila with no saddle and name - she named him Coconut and barebacked a few times. 

During low tide we walk about half a km toward the ocean to explore the bottom. There are all kinds of starfish - dark blue the most common, slugs, sea cucumbers, snake-like creatures that shrink when touched by a stick. We could have an impressive collection of seashells already - not having room in our backpacks we must restrain hoarding impulses.

The tent is rather small, but surprisingly we sleep very well squeezed in various positions. The only things that bother us are mosquitos /they love Kamila the most/ in the evenings and constantly damp towels with no chance to dry well as the sunless weather continues.

During one of the strolls we take , we make friends with a local Fijian - Mala, who invites us to his house. We go there next day to meet his wife and four children. 

They feed us with fish caught by Mala earlier that day and casava. We eat sitting down on the floor mat around a gas lamp. They are hoping to have electricity and a good road soon - Americans are building a Marriot hotel nearby, you can already see the area for a huge golf course and dozens trucks working on the site. Kamila gets a horse ride with Mala's 10 year old son next morning.

On Monday we are leaving for Nadi. We eat at Indian restaurant / chicken curry, roti, somosa, papadam/. We stay at Nadi Bay Backpackers - have a dormitory with four beds. In town we shop, look at gift stores, drink kava in front of one, and enjoy Fijian time. The famous quote about Fijian time reads: We searched high and low for the Fijian word for hasta manana, but found that there was no word here for anything so urgent. When we asked for example how long our bus trip would take - they said - an hour - it turned out to be three hour ride.

Tomorrow we are going to Yasawa Islands - back on Friday and to Australia . Thanks Susi for a visit.

Jolu- udalo sie!

SEPTEMBER 7

Happy New Year to all teachers and students out there! Yes!!!!!! I am in Australia !!! The country that started the whole idea of my trip, much later in planning it became round-the -world. /Internet access is much easier and cheaper - but still I'm not going to spend time to edit my notes so please everybody forgive all my errors, grammar inconsistencies and any misused words. OK?/ But before --- 

August 31 - now Finally our packs are lighter of sunscreen we must use in the tropical sun that now reminds us of its power. However, i'm getting heavier /yes, Ela!/ from the food /yes it's very healthy/ they give us on the trip to Yasawas. The cruise package /island hopping/ includes meals which is the only way to go as there are no stores or restaurants on the islands. The little resorts are run by Fijians - they do everything: welcome newcomers with songs, cook, serve, clean, take on fishing and snorkelling trips, entertain after dinner, teach to weave baskets, husk coconuts, wear sarongs in different ways and bula dance. We reach the islands from a big catamaran ferry from Denarau Marina close to Nadi. It is run by Awesome Adventures - all their vessels are in yellow and purple colours as well as staff clothes. We are going past Mamanuka Islands to the first in Yasawas - Kuata Island . We are taken to our dormitories with bunk beds and mosquito nets / luckily there wasn't any need for them/. Snorkelling from the beach is awesome again - blue and purple corals, shaols of colourful fish in all sizes, anemones, sea urchins, clams, slugs, shells and various algea. Before going to bed we swing on a hammock, watch the moon and southern cross, and sqeezed together we all fall asleep for two hours until discomfort wakes us up. Next day after breakfast two boys climb a coconut tree for us and we quench our thirst /after last night's rum?/ with the yammy juice. At 11 am the ferry takes us to Waya Island and another resort called Korovu. Turns out Kamila forgot her swimsuit on Kuata - emergency radio call for $3 takes care of it and she gets it back next day. At meals we sit with other - usually twentysomething years old travellers. Here in Korovu we are for two nights and make friends with a group from all over UK and Irealand. Most of them spent a few months in Australia and New Zealand working and earning for next stages of their trip. Kamila is of course closer to their age than we are and has a ball joining their conversations and exchanging jokes. I have to find time at last to praise Kamila for being a great travel companion. She knows how to make use of luxuries we are exposed to from time to time, but never complains when we choose or happen to be in harsh conditions. she has her "Lord of the Rings 2" with her and fills the time when there is nothing better to do. Of course we have all our moods and down times from time to time - normal state of affairs. Too bad she doesn't continue her journal on line - she does it though in her notebook. The second day in Korovu we are taken on a boat to a place with a strong current - a favourite passage of monterays. Whenever they are spotted by our boatsmen we jump to water geared with masks and fins and try to swim over them. We have a few seconds not being able to keep up with them any longer - they swim against the current. Then back to the boat and jump again screaming with joy at seeing those magnificent creatures again and again. That was definitely the highlight of our Fijian experience.