* Many people are so enthusiastic about LA 'cause they've experienced a lot of American (pop) culture. I -- haven't. It's not in my heart, in my blood, in my childhood memories, wherever. (Mind: pop culture, because I've read Mark Twain all right as a kid).

* But Britain is there, and that's why it was so incredible a feeling to stand before those English paintings at the Tretyakov gallery. It was as good as half a journey to the British Isles.

* Dog roses, meetings with friends, warm weather. Dear summer Moscow, the most childhood-ish of all seasons.

My first Skype meeting with my future host family.

Was really frigtened and nervous. 

And then -- oh my!

Five blue-eyed blonde people and one dark-haired, all in front of the camera; a house and lilac branches in the background.

Real French words, spoken by real French people, pretty gestures and all -- not as stunned as should be, maybe 'cause I'm already used to such experience (think Croatia and Poland).

But still -- absolutely REAL and sometimes even understandable French! Something so clear about it.

So beautiful. And -- feels I've known them already. Well, I had photos. Sometimes people's features, gestures seem so logical, so proportional that it causes those feelings.

Gestures, three languages, my magical memory/mind producing the word savage. Remembering the words I've just recently learnt and making awful (masakrycznie) errors when using the verb aller. And never sure of my pronunciation. And the lovely h-free English words, which I've read about in Wodehouse, in "What did Katey do"...

Adventures, adventures!

2 months! Crazy!

I recently told my friend: " I would like my future job to be connected with travel". And she pointed out that right now it looks like I'm successful: Croatia, USA.

But USA... never crazy about pop culture, that's why don't scream with happiness.

Learning foreign languages is an attempt to escape loneliness, but then when you're alone in your room with a French lesson, French radio, a notebook for new words and all that stuff, you realise that it doesn't make you happier. I do need classes, do need communication with people.

Soon to plunge into a whole galaxy of adventures. Lucky me. Could I imagine all those travels some 5 years earlier!..

 

Milosz, my travel to Poland... and I'm soo enthusiastic about learning Polish language, Polish culture! Finally loving smth I will definitely learn... I hope.
Milosz's book -- how exciting it is.

How strong must a person be in order not to inhale a single molecule of hatred towards other countries. You might be sceptical and moderately liberal, but that won't help; some pores on your skin let it pass into your body, without your being aware of it at all.