Hanne and Bronek

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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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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In this stop-motion Katrien, the sister of Hanne enjoys a family New Year’s Eve of 2010 in Bruges in the company of the two most important men of her life – Gerbert and Merlijn. This day is also the birthday of Hanne’s father André.

Instead of long and boring galleries, this time motion picture which speaks for itself. In the movies you see the New Years Eve 2010 in Brugge, at the house of Hanne’s parents, the New Year’s dinner 2011 in Varsenare, at the house oh Hanne’s grammy, and Hanne & Bronek in the marina of Bruges.

Every time I was cooking something this week I thought how many times have I already eaten this with Hanne (ie. white borsch with sousage and egg), or otherwise I thought that actually we’ve never eaten it together (mazurek, babka – polish easter cakes). I thought also in general, how many times and with who I actually eaten them. With my grandmother Zosia, with family, the part which has not eaten with us for long, and also mother, father, brother… Easter 2010 is my first easter home with family since 3 years. I was surprised with the new tradition off hanging easter balls. Must have been invented when I was away :). Among easter eggs I also noticed a historic egg from the time of anthrax fever made by my aunt Zosia Domaniewska.

Things I have not eaten with Hanne yet I promise to catch up with them next year. Meanwhile we are going to see each other already on the 20 of April – I can’t wait for that!!! 🙂

Happy Easter

for you my Hanne

and everybody!

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Here are the long missing pictures from Hanne’s parents visit to Poland. As a bonus first goes the picture of my mother and Hanne on freshly refurbished DÄ…browskiego square. There is a new fountain over there, although not visible in the picture.

Then there are group photos from on our terrace: me, Hanne, parents of both of us and some of our animals. It was an official meeting. 😉 The later story is a picture of Hanne and Nicole, her mother from in front of Anatewka, the nice jewish restaurant in Łódź where we ate dinner on the first day, when Hanne’s parents arrived. However, André felt sick after the long trip and stayed at the hotel.

As the trip of parents consisted of two parts one in Łódź and one i Warsaw, Hanne and I we drove them to Warsaw after 3 wonderful days in my hometown. On our way we dropped in The Arboretum, a sort of jardin botanique for trees only, run by the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. Here on the vast area of ~55 hectares of land you can experience a wonderful variety of forestal landscapes from around the world. There is also a unique, so called rock garden presenting alpine flora. On the last picture you may see Mr Van obberghen tasting a polish beer after a lunch we had on a national road next to arboretum. As far as I remember we had a complete lunch over there for as much as €8 – cheap even as for Poland.

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In second time yearly tradition, I took the plane to Poland to celebrate Christmas in a Polish traditional way. A lot more tradition than I ever was used to in Belgium. But this is the way I like it. I love the cooking together and decorating the huge tree. Unfortunately a small flue decided a little bit different this year. I could luckily still manage to make more than 200 pierogi’s, give a little help with the so many christmas cakes and offcourse the christmas tree.  Also I had a lot of fun in making the presents. For Broneks adult family I gave several cd’s with Belgian music, some Belgian chocolate and marzipan. But most pleasure I had in making and giving the present for Zuza, the daughter of Broneks brother. I made her a doll Lala, this way all dolls in Poland are called. I wasn’t convinced at first if Lala looked nice enough. But when her mother asked: who is this? and Zuza shouted: Lalaaaa!!!, I knew the present was a succes.

Two weeks are quickly gone. So the last day when Bronek brought me to Warszawa to catch my plane, we decided to spent our last day together as nice as possible. We visited a very nice modern museum in an old hospital. Bronek was super guide as usual. And it was fun as well to practice my Polish.

For now Bronek is still in Poland, and I am in Belgium. We both hope that we can be back together as soon as possible.

Two weeks are quickly gone. The last day when Bronek brought me to Warszawa to catch my plane, we decided to spent our last day together as nice as possible. We visited a very nice modern museum (CSW Warsaw) in an old hospital Ujazdowski Palace, originally owned by Polish royalty, converted to a hospital (quite brutally evacuated by German Army during Warsaw Uprising in August of 1944), bombed, rebuilt and finally allocated as Contemporary Art Center – Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski. Bronek was super guide as usual. And it was fun as well to practice my Polish.

For now Bronek is still in Poland, and I am in Belgium. We both hope that we can be back together as soon as possible.

Remarkable: propably the last picture of Drapka our cat, as she passed away on 27.1.2010

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Being here in Poland for several months, I have to keep myself busy somehow. Weaving is very nice, but sometimes I am also in the need to meet new people and I love learning new things. By the way, one day I would like to speak fluently Polish. So I took this intensive course, which I enjoyed a lot. I could share the love and sometimes frustrations 😉 of being in a Polish relationship with others in the same case. My Polish improved, as we were forced to speak in Polish. And I started to see Lodz through whole new glasses. As at first, two years ago, I was not so fond of this city, but now I must say I really like it and see and appreciate its beauty.

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It is one of these few odd times when we split. We never split and we like it. 🙂 Therefore this time it is only me – Bronek – writing.

On Friday the 13 of March I flew to Poland while Hanne had to stay behind. You know hard hard work.

The last day in work always takes  so long. Finally I left the office and rushed to Gent to pick up luggage and some stuff from home. I had chosen the option to park the car in the airport – expensive but really time and fatigue saving solution. Hanne was so nice to accompany me to the airport, so I picked her up from the Sint-Pieter’s station from the train which brings her back from work.We departed to make our way through the complicated network of Belgian highways. I quit following the print from google maps and decided to rely on the existing road signs. There are signs for the airport in Charleroi already in Brussels. It is really a piece of cake. Travel time which I calculated using the formula google x 1,5 turned to be exact.

One of the reasons to go home was to meet the promotor of my masterproof project dr ing. arch.  Jan Salm. Though, the most important thing which brought me to Lodz this time was family.

Baptizing

Meeting friends, seeing my hometown, all this is important. Family is alwayas more important. Therefore I didn’t ask myself long whether baptizing is the ceremony I need to attend. I just went to see my little niece and the rest of folks.

It was a communal ceremony in the Church of Peter & Paul in Lodz – my Polish hometown – where altogether four children were baptized. Our family was represtented by the father of Zuza – my brother Mikolaj, the grandparents – my Mother and Father, aunt Broncia – an aunt of my mother, in other words – closest family considering everybody lives in one house – my family nest. Maja,the mother of the baby invited her parents and two sisters, one with a boyfriend, one with her husband and around five children (hard to remember those numbers). The train of Maja’s family was complimented with an aunt to help with the children. The sister and her husband became godparents .

The catholic ceremony, 1st of the kond which I’ve seen in my concious life, consisted of the three most important acts preceded by the declaration of will of the parents. The baby was babtized, nointed and the god father lit up a candle. The babies were given special “napkins” as memorial tokens of the babtizing act. Afterwards the mentioned family proceeded to a reception dinner in the restaurant of University of Lodz Conference Center. Really good food, and nice athmosphere in a reasonable price. Among other gifts Zuza got a walker of which she made immediate use – just as she never stopped walking before. Clever kid.

Thanks to the courtesy of the waiter children were amused to see the Roman candles on the cake twice.

Especially when you see the family so less you appreciate every moment spent together.

My aunt already handed to me an official invitation for the next meeting. The big, as I suppose, family meeting will be take place on 1st of May – the 85th anniversary of the aunt’s birthday and this time we will attend it together with Hanne. The event will take place in the Rogi Inn and as like as not will be presented here.

The pictures – mostly of my and my brother’s authorship – present the ceremony and the reception.

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