Tuesday, 15 September 2015

Au revoir to Gdansk


I will be going back to my second home tomorrow. With some regret I will be saying “see you later Gdansk”. A lot has happened in Gdansk for me. Good, fantastic, uplifting, bad and sad. This year it has been more good than during my last stays here. I have been able to reflect on what next and even if I do not have all the answers I feel that I have made progress. My proverbial “how to live prime minister?” has some answers now.

I have done a lot of flaneuring in Gdansk and I discovered a lot of beauty in the old streets, old parks, coffee places and European lash nature. I am aware that I lived through the summer best. The doom is just around the corner and I am flying away to my warm count
My favourite park
My favourite street
I always loved the concept of café life. The famous café Les Deux Magots in Paris the hub of literary life always woke up special feelings and reflections in me. Mind you it was in the first half of the XX century but some of that atmosphere is still alive in Europe. I do not know people in Gdansk I could sit for hours at a table in a corner of an atmospheric cafe and discuss important things. But I can go to a place of an old beauty and sit there for hours with a book, notebook or a computer. 


This is the view from one of such cafes 

 But I can go to a place of an old beauty and sit there for hours with a book, notebook or a computer. They usually even have a wi fi.  Nobody comes to indicate that my time in the place is up. Such is the case in Sydney and I think in the whole Australia. Coffee places are places of business and that requires that new orders are placed frequently. The European ways are not money spinners and I have no idea how it all functions from the financial point of view, I suspect not very well for the owners but great for me – a customer.

I will be missing all that.

3 comments:

  1. I have been in Sydney three days already and I feel again at home here. The memories of Gdansk linger on and I think I am still in transition between my two homes.
    I am writing this comment to check out if it will appear on the blog as I have been told that some of placed comments disappeared.

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  2. Let me try now. What I wanted to say was simply that I can relate to the emotions that leaving an ex place of residence to the current permanent address evoke. It happens to me whenever I go to Chennai where most of my family and friends live and return to Pune where the only family I have is my son and daughter in law.

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  3. I am so glad that it is working now.

    Yes, it is a bit strange. I look for things that are in Gdansk sometimes and then I remember - not the right home! Automatic pilot is not working very well yet. It is fun though.

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