Patryk's page

Last week we (or rather I) moved to our new place. I, because I sent my wife and kids to Spain, so I can renovate our new home without our 2 year old son running around trying to "help" daddy.. Lots of work to be done , even more difficult now that our stuff is here as well (we had to vacate our previous home by 1 december and I had no time to do anything major in the new place, except lay a laminate floor).

The good news is that our new place is much bigger and with some proper renovation will be more then adequate for our needs the coming years. I will put up some pics as soon as I have internet at home.

Friday 24 august 2007 was the last day I smoked a cigarette. Together with my wife, we decided to call it quits. So far no problems whatsoever... I used to smoke almost a pack a day, beginning with a few cigarettes a day from the time when I was 17 years old, slowly increasing over the years. I stopped for a few years in between, and there were times I only smoked in the weekends when I went out. The last several years I would smoke between 10 to 15 cigarettes a day.

I had some slight headaches on last saturday and sunday, directly related to my body wanting nicotine, but that has gone now. Best feeling of all is not being dependent anymore and thus feeling much more free It has been much easier then I thought...it's still early though..

Fanny (Funz81) has a post on her blog about a ghost experience she had had recently. This reminded me of a ghost story which my paternal grandmother experienced in 1940. She was stuck with my father (who was 2 years old) in her parents-in-law place, in a very small village in Lithuania, in 1940. My grandfather, a Polish naval officer, was interned in neutral Sweden together with his submarine (ORP Sep). Somewhere in 1940 she got the dreadful news that a sister ship of my grandpa's submarine had been lost in the North Sea with all hands (ORP Orzel). Dreadful because she knew some members of the crew very well: they were personal friends of my grandfather and her.

Sometime later, early in the morning in her bedroom, my grandma noticed a man, in naval uniform, and she recognized him as being one of their best friends who had been on the lost submarine!

She exclaimed to him: "What a joy to see you, so the news of the sinking was not true!" and he calmly answered "It is true, our submarine was sunk and I'm not alive anymore. However, this doesn't stop me from visiting you. I want to thank you for taking care of my wife when she needed help a lot and now I want to help you. If you want to see your husband again, you must leave today, and I MEAN TODAY, to Sweden."

After that, family-in-law came in the room, and the "ghost" disappeared. My grandma, pretty shaken, immediately took the advice. She travelled to Kaunas (Kaunas which was Lithuania's capital at the time ), quite a long and difficult journey in 1940, to go to the Swedish consulate. She arrived at around 19:00, just at that time the Swedish consul was leaving. In fact, the consulate was being closed to be evacuated back to Sweden! My grandma explained the situation and the consul gave her her visa to enter Sweden. When he asked who told her the consulate was being shut down, especially in that remote village, she answered: "A ghost". A few days later, my grandma together with my father were already in Stockholm. The story is written down in a (Polish) book by a mutual friend of the people in question. Unfortunately my grandma died in 1992, when I was 21 and I never really got the chance to ask her in person about the story.

Valentina was so kind to tag me

The first player of this "game" starts with the topic "six pet peeves..things about ME" and people who get tagged need to write a blog about their six weird pet peeves as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose four people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says,"You are tagged." in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

Ok, so here are my six pet peeves:

1. tailgating (when you're driving and another car keeps too close behind you)
2. cycling past a waiting car at a crossing and the car revs it engine, just to show who is bigger. Happens quite often here in Amsterdam.
3. picking up a slice of bread with nutella or jam and it falls out of my hands, always upside down...
4. boiling an egg and its either raw or way too hard...
5. reading a book or newspaper and somebody (usually my wife) tries to catch my attention. I can't stand it!!
6. thinking of the right reply AFTER the conversation instead of during...

So here are the 4 people I tag:

Amy_E
Samuele
Isabel
Kasia

I saw this at someone's blog and I liked it....still some countries to go




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