Hanne and Bronek

We decided to take a new shot at hb.gracz.pro. New stories soon!

How do I look like at a picture and how to photograph that uncle…

Monday evening with super nice dinner and a surprise dessert. Why not? Saturday after hearing it on the radio that the mussels season had some grand opening somewhere I spotted them in the local Aldi market. 2kg should be about fine for two people.

After scrubbing the mussels thoroughly and checking that all of them close nicely (“dispose off all broken and open ones that do not close after irritating them with a needle inside gently”) they got boiled in a delicate stoved ragout composed of typical soup veggies and fried (butter) onion. Usually it’s just onion and celery. The latter I did not have therefore the veggies – which turned out to be a great idea! Midway through the cooking I added 100ml cream and a solid dash of white wine. Parsley also, naturally! After 8 minutes boiling, shaking and stirring all mussels were open and ready to meet Belgian fries and deep-fried breaded courgettes.

The dessert was chocolate pudding with a secret layer of red currant underneath… Who is hungry?

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It was the evening of Thé Dansant – dance project of Joka. A Flemish youth volunteering organization which puts young people to work with inter alia, elderly people. Hanne danced in that performance with her charming partner Charles. Later we had some guests – first dinner-guests in our just-moved-in appt. Fien, Sien & Valerie are originally friends of Hanne. What was in the pancakes Hanne made, or the sauce I made, I still wonder… Don’t forget to click through to the second page of the gallery! 😛

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For the summer of 2011 holidays for two long planned did we have. My ready diploma was supposed to wait in Łódź while Hanne and I would be baking under the Adriatic sun. Joka, a charity connected to Caritas Belgium gathering volunteers willing to help in elderly homes, offered it’s veteran – my Hanne – a  10-day trip to Jerusalem in August, during the second part of her summer holiday.  A bargain – the trip was for free! I said “Hanne, you should go!”. The time we planned to allocate as our Croatia holidays has suddenly shrinked to 10 days. The planned route led through Poland. In Łódź Hanne was supposed to have an LPG system placed in her car. Recalculating our time once more it turned out that instead of resting we will spend all holidays in the car. It was the end of May – there was still time to change plans.

Maybe something closer to Łódź??? Considering our marine aspirations, together with my friends and Hanne we thought of going to old good Masuria to sail a little bit. Hanne & Bronek haven’t been there yet together. Hanne could finally see how it is on the swinging deck.

Masuria is a beautiful region in the North-Eastern Poland. For it’s forests it is called the Green Lungs of Poland. It is also famous for it’s post-glacier landscape full of holes and hills formed by the withdrawing glacier – lakes and moraines. And most of all, Masuria is famous for it’s Route of Grand Masurian Lakes – a water route with the length of around 100km consisted of lakes and canals, including the two “most” lakes of Poland, the largest with more than 100 sqkm area – Åšniardwy, and the deepest – Mamry. The region is one of favourite holiday destinations for sailing Poles as well as Germans who love to cycle around the grounds of their Prussian ancestors. Amateurs of quiet agricultural holidays will also find this place a heaven. Masuria used to be a part of the Teutonic Knights Order country, part of Prussia and part of Poland. Around the area you will find historical attractions of all these cultures – like the Wolf’s Lair – German headqarter-bunkers from the 2nd World War, the still carrying nazi symbolic Masurian Canal with it’s forest burried gigantic locks. The canal was supposed to link Masuria and the Baltic Sea. The legend says it was developed to lead to a secret nazi U-Boot shipyard in the lakes. Nextly urban locations like Mikłajki or Giżycko villages will allow you for summer art and entertainment. The Grand Lakes Route is full of fauna and flora natural reserves like the one on the Cormorant Island (the name speaks for itself).  Masuria has a very well developed tourist base, which allows for camping, sailing, fishing, water-skiing and much more.

The sailing team gathered quickly and spontaneously. In the beginning it seemed that we will be sailing with an entire fleet. After all it settled at 2 large (as for Masuria) boats – Marconi sloops. We rented them in the friendly Marina Evelyn in Bogaczewo n. Giżycko.  We payed advances, signed charter contracts and the only thing which was left was to wait for the 23rd of July. In the end the team consisted of friends of Bronek: Maciek & Asia, Łukasz & Paula and Staszek with his study-mate Kamil with Gosia. From the side of Maciek we were joinded by Maruda & Sylwia, from Asia’s side Karolina has joined us. On the spot it turned out that Patryk, the brother of Gosia will also sail with us. Together with Hanne & me we were with 13 people.

The time before the cruise passed very quickly. On the 13th of July I left to Hanne to bring her and her car to an LPG installer in Łódź. We bought new rubber trousers, sandals, batteries, a waterproof map and departed to the lakes. The new LPG didn’t blow up on our way! The installer was a trusted Łódź company. We left all the Belgian car formalities related to LPG for later…

On the way I practised assertiveness. Because of the car we were a little late and bound to arrive around dusk. Crews burning to sail were waiting for us. Even for a while I didn’t  think of leaving the port in the darkness – what a SILLY idea. 🙂  When we got to the marina Hanne was slightly intimidated by the yacht. She declared she will pass all the stuff to me from the land. OK. After boarding and denying to depart from the harbour in the masurian twilight, we all proceeded to inspect the bottles of vodka and other specifics.

The crew composed of me, Hanne, Łukasz, Paula & Staszek (Kamil & Gosia joined us later) accounted for Evelyn 2 – the Antila 26 class boat. The other part of the team with Maciek and Maruda (the Nagger :P) took Evelyn 4 which was a Janmor 28 class.  Both boats were fresh, clean and broadly equipped. Sailing fittings included: lazy jack – the main sail pocket, mast patent – used to easily put it up and down, rolfok – rolled front sail, convenient cleats, capstans and engines. Evelyn 4 had a stationary built-in engine. It turned out to be quite fuel inefficient and prevented the boat from being moored with the stern at shallow places. Under the deck we had chemical toilets, equipped galleys, cd-radios. Antila even had a gas fridge! Interiors of both boats were separated with little doors which provided better comfort and privacy. Communication between the two boats was held depending on capacity and distance with the use of two radio-telephones which we brought with us (European PMR standard).

With regard to sailing,  the slightly sharper going Antila 26 showed a higher sensitivity to weaker breeze, Janmor 28 on the other hand reached better speeds at stronger winds. Janmor sailed slightly faster also because it’s crew showed a tendency to get up and depart earlier. 😉 Antila was 26 feet or 780cm long and had a total of 30 sqm of sail, 28 feet Janmor was 840 cm long and had 40 sqm sail. Janmor suffered also a bigger draft – while in the wild it could only moor to our stern or to the end of a little pier. Both crews managed to stain the bottom of lakes with their centreboards.

The route took us from Bogaczewo, through Mikołajki, Kaczerajno Bay, Kula peninsula, Sztynort and Mamerki.  In 7 days we managed to visit both the south and the north end of the Route of Grand Masurian Lakes. On our way back from Kaczerajno bay to Kula we picked up the late Kamil, Gosia and Patryk.

Hanne shyness for the boat ceased quickly. The helm of Evelyn 2 was taken mostly by Łukasz (Captain, Captain, Captain), Bronek (Captain), Hanne (deck-hand Majtek Bow String) and also sometimes by Staszek (Captain, Captain). Due to the presence of Hanne we used a very funny fake English sailing vocabulary. You could hear us saying “sword” while referring to the centreboard or shouting PULL UP while giving command for topping lift, lazy jack or the mentioned sword. We also used a lot of Polish-English mixtures.

A lot of good laughs in general. Every morning we swum in the lake, during day we sailed, in the evening we drunk beer, sung at the camp fire, fished, played games or did all that together.

On the 30th of July, after a 7-day cruise we were back in Bogaczewo. The time came to clean and part with our boats. After reclaiming the warrant me, Hanne, Paula, Łukasz and Staszek went to Signor Caffetano – an Italian restaurant located close by the marina. This turned out to be a superior choice for the farewell dinner! After the meal Łukasz, Paula and Staszek hit the road. Me & Hanne took advantage of the beautiful weather, jumped once more to the lake and scampered to Łódź afterwards.

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As we always need to take the maximum of our spare time to spend it together, I did so again in this four days of Christian holidays in the beginning of June. Immediately after work I left to the airport, so the same evening I arrived in Poland. After some nice sleep together we had a walk in the city centre of Łódź and did very little shopping. Next day I visited for the first time Poznan, very nice city. Only the market square was little wasted. The houses around the square were so nicely painted in different colours, but unfortunately they were hardly visible because of some ugly block building they build in the middle, than some ugly advert, too many terraces and so on. Still it’s a big, nice city worth paying a visit. On Saturday we visited the Zoo of Łódź for the first time since Broneks mother retired from there. So many nice things we did together, so the short weekend flew by, and quickly came the time to say goodbye again.

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I took off some days extra of work so we could make some small trip while Bronek was visiting me in Belgium for Easter. We took camping stuff in our car, took a map, and left to the Somme Bay. Weather was very nice. We did’t take only highway but also some smaller roads through nice villages in the north of France. This way we saw some very nice big cemetery from First World War, about which(without knowing back than) Bronek had to learn for his exam of Architecture.

The first day we went for what we thought will not be that big walk. But we were a little wrong. Sun was shining very bright, not a cloud in the sky, only some small bottle of lemonade we took and our camera. The walk turned out to be a walk of about five hours. We started to dream of some ice-cream shops or some bar, but there was only the reserve: endless sand, sea and birds. Completely tired we arrived at our campsite Les Crocs and refreshed ourselves with some nice 6-minute-shower ;-).

Next day we visited the nearest by city Rue and bought some nice sweet bread from a French bakery. From here we went to the gardens of the Valloires to makes some nice drawings together and have an espresso. We stayed till the bell was ringing several times to scare the tourists away as it was closing time. Back in the car we headed straight away to the beach to have some nice sunset with our very tasty sweet French breads.

Today was the last day of our small trip. We packed all our stuff. Last was the tent as we first wanted to try to drive my car inside of it J. We visited Amiens, which was quit dead on this Easter Sunday. But after all we founded were all the people were hanging out. The old part of the city was a lot more busy, there was a nice big park were all the people were relaxing, playing sports and so on. There were small swinging roads paved just like in Brugge, you know with all those stones which completely shakes you awake while driving a bike. I immediately felt at home.

Next day we went for a family Eastern dinner next to a canal somewhere close to Brugge. Bronek and I took the bike, and probably drove in some record time for us, as we left home a little late. With nicely filled tummies we took another ride to the city centre to have a little last taste of Brugge before end of small holidays.

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During Easter of 2011 we went to camp a little bit in north France. Here’s a sneak peak.

On the 23th of December after coming home from work, I packed my stuff for my yearly Christmas trip to Poland. And what a long one. I was supposed to leave early morning next day, but the weather decided differently. My father and me left in the evening around ten a clock, as there was some snowstorm announced. I slept a little in the car, but not very peacefully as it really started to snow hard. I guess we arrived in the airport Zaventem around midnight or one a clock, my father went home immediately after notifying my trip so far wasn’t cancelled. A long night a head with no sleep. I was fighting and fighting in order not to sleep, but after all I installed my self somewhere in a corner and got some other not very peaceful sleep again. When it was my time I noticed my flight was still not cancelled so far, so I went for check-in of my luggage, the guy behind the desk still couldn’t assure me the plane was going. What a long time of insecurity if I will or will not see Bronek, and I missed him so hard, so I really wanted to get there. I went for security line and started to wait and wait and wait at the door to our plane. After all we weren’t getting so much later as planned on to the plane, here I felt little more secure I was going to see Bronek, but after like more than four hours of sitting on the plane, we got the message there came an urgent-meeting in Zaventem to decide which planes could fly and which couldn’t, again fear came to me and my neighbour, who also wanted to see his girlfriend in Poland. After another hour of waiting we finally got to know we could fly, whole plane very happy, which was off course full of Polish people who wanted to visit their family for Christmas. After like six hours spending in a still stand plane, we only got some water, I had no food, as I was supposed to arrive in the morning in Warszawa, we finally took off. In the meanwhile at the other end in Poland, a guy named Bronek was waiting for his girlfriend. He also didn’t sleep in the night, as he took the train straight away after some evening with friends. He was also waiting and waiting and not knowing and suffering if I will ever come after all. But eventually we could find each other after all in each others arms. We were both so starving, that without realising, forgive us our tiredness, we sinned and ate meat on Christmas eve in some Kebab place in the railway station of Warszawa.

Home in Łódź we had a very late Christmas eve family diner, I was fighting in order not to fall a sleep. We had to cancel the trip to church, because the bed was calling for us to sleep.

A long text about one long day, but during the Christmas holidays it was the most spoken subject.

Many diners with family came after this one and a lot of nice playing with Zuza.

The 31th of December we were heading again to the airport to go and celebrate new years eve in Brugge with my family. The waiting was a little shorter this time, but we got to hear that we were the last plane who could take off, as there came a sudden snowstorm.

The rest of the story you have to figure out from the pictures…

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