POLONIA-VARSOVIA- PODLASIE- LAKE DISTRICT

by Aisha
Varsovia es una vieja conocida:
feucha, cielo de grafito, caprichosa,
malhumorada y sin encantos especiales: LO QUE PASA ES QUE
NOS GUSTA DE VEZ EN CUANDO
PERDERNOS EN SU BORDONEO
Y VER SU ROSTRO GRIS
Y QUEDARNOS EN SU ABRAZO...
NO por mucho tiempo!
Ah, olvide que este ano me toca escribir en ingles...!

Warsaw as a place is pretty ugly( sic!) with gererally bad cold weather reinforcing its unatractive post communist face BUT WHENEVER WE COME BACK, WE ARE HAPPY TO BE THERE! NOT HAPPY TO STAY MORE THAN A COUPLE OF DAYS , though, but happy to encounter the familiar cross of post-communism and modern era, ever changing new capitalistic traits, happy to meet our TANGO FAMILY, faithfull group of students who have become friends, and therefore the private classes we still give, are followed by generally an invitation for a dinner, or go out together.... happy to meet the family, like my brother Andy who flew over all the way from London...
WE are happy THIS TIME, BECAUSE WARSAW STOP MEANS HOLIDAYS! IT is our AUSTRIAN ALPS-CZECH BOHEMIA-PRAGUE-WARSAW-PODLASIE LAKE DISTRICT itinerary of NO TANGO TIME!
I 'd better say a TANGO BREAK than a holiday, because , as Victor likes to repeat, FOR MANY YEARS NOW WE ARE ON SEMI PERMANENT HOLIDAYS...
The first foto is, however false: Warsaw showed us her goomy face the first days, AS USUAL. WASAW IS A GRAPHIT CITY. Its graphit skies are there to say ' hallo' and ' good bye'. This gloomy landscape of wilde avenues and post- soviet era buildings can be quite depressive. The day of our arrival even Palac Kultury i Nauki ( PKiN) looked more communist than usual:

Till today we do not solve the enigmatic TOVARISHCHS adorning its upper parts ( the builders? the communist leaders? a metaphor?Their faces had an expression like" 150 % norm, 400% norm...).
This was the WELCOME BACK IMAGE for us. Monday. On Thuesday the graphit skies were still there. On Wednesday our Princess Warsaw started to get friendlier, some sunny intervals, some shy smiles.
But on Thursday... IT WAS A BIG INVITATION TO GET out and acomplish a couple of our missions outside: round PKiN and Old Town, Rondo ONZ with my flat and Nowy Swiat Street to buy Victor' s must " El Pais".
One of them was invitation of my London brother, on a short family trip in Warsaw, to HAVE SOME SWEET TIME: he invited us to WEDEL, the oldest CHOCOLATE FACTORY IN POLAND!
There, outside, under the shadow, we could taste liquid hot chocolate,but the No 1 was COLD CHOCOLATE: VANILLA GLACIAR! DELICIOUS!
Have you know that you can go on one cup of chocolate for a whole day? Well, we did not!And we did not try! WE went on to have a wanderful lunch afterwards..
















The interior of a place is really ROYAL! I want to go back there,sit inside and have a cup of hot chocolate in a cold, winter day. It will not happen though.... NO POLISH WINTERS IN OUR LIVES WHATSOVER!

Of course, there were some pretty little feet waiting for the divine tango shoes to be brought from Buenos Aires!

Mission completed and the shoes, made from the same fabric as the tango dress were gracefully exposed!
Even during NO TANGO DAYS there are many ' tango touches'. No wander, we are surrounded by our tango students and tango friends, tango organizers and people who know we are tango dancers and always refer to this activity. Tango music accompanies us in the car- our drivers want to listen to the last fusion of electronic tango with flamenco or rock or techno...

We could not go through Warsaw without meeting our TRIO of dancers- brothers Wozniak: Marcin and Piotr with his girl friend Agnieszka. We have shared a month with them in our house in Buenos Aires: they were the part of our family. On the photo below the historical photo from Buenos Aires, April 2007- the Eastern Table prepared for us according to the best Polish traditions.

They are not only experts on the Eastern cuisine, but... on beer and wine drinking! The collection of the empty bottles in the guest apartment was impressive even for the most active drunkards in Buenos Aires. A foto proof coming soon.

There can be no meeting without a milonga: we were invited by THE TRIO to go out, ulica Chlodna, where we got the VIP (special guests) treatment. And we saw many familiar faces of our students. Some of them we know for 4 years- when we first got to Warsaw as a part of our TANGO CONQUEST of POLAND. It was a special night- hot and with lots of beer invitations... the last one in Warsaw before GOING EAST!

But...it was a very short night ( some 4 hours) and my hiperactive-super businessman brother Leszek threw us out of bed to take us for the GRAND EVENT OF HIS COMPANY ( RIVAL GROUP): he was just sending off the EXPEDITION TO MONGOLIA! You can read about this project in http://www.benedyktpolak.pl/

Briefly: an expedition of 4x4 carswith a famous Polish race driver, a film director a TV presenter plus Rival company member set off following the medieval route of Benedykt Polak (Benedictus Polonus), a messanger to the Mongol king. The route is long and complicated, but instead of covering it by horse,like in the historical times of 12th century, our intrepid crew will cover it by those splendid NISSANS!
With my brother's company logo ALL OVER THE PLACES: you can see it as big as Master Card or Generalli logos! There is one on the spare tyre on the roof!
I' m not a car freak, but to be honest, I was totally flabergasted by the sight and power of those modern horses!
Of course, it was a pleasure to meet the famous figures of the Polish TV and be photographed by the most famous photographers, hired specially for this event. My modest photos are just to adorn this blog.


Victor and the organizers of the expedition all agreed that Aisha looked great on the mask of the 4x4 with her olive green jacket on.
Next expedition will be equally exotic, but the members of the crew and the protagonists will be AISHA & VICTOR, and the exotic places on the route, like Russian stepas, Gabi desert and Chineese landscape up to Mongolia will be the background for the MOST INSPIRING TANGOS THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN!
Dreams will be dreams...
It goes without saying that handsome young men like Victor and Leszek also fit into the 4x4 scenery...Leszek likes being photographed with the LOGO OF HIS COMPANY.

Now, however, our destination will not be less exotic: real countryside, european bisons, lake districk and NO TANGO DAYS WHATSOEVER....

My brother took a a little toy to entertain small and big boys of the family cirle: CNT! For THE BOYS:

it's a little race car run by airplane petrol, operated by remote control.
It is like a real car, in scale 1:5 with all the parts of a genuine car: gears, suspention, breaks...Capacity:
4,6 cm 3, that is 2-3 mechanic horses.
Speed: up to 80 k m per hour!
It can jump up to 4 m and even in the air it can be controled and the direction can be changed. This little gadget's service is more expensive than a real car!Even Victor was taken aback by this toy..
You are never too old NOT TO BE A LITTLE BOY at the same time!
Here is a group of big little boys playing together with a tody!


And finally together! Only for a couple of hours though...


My family is DEFINITELY UNIQUE! Although me and my three brothers live as far apart as it is only possible- the oceans and languages between us, we stay as united as ever! The reason might be, that we are very different too...