Love my new watch. Shines in darkness. No way in hell a bystander can tell a time from it.

Got my first netbook, too. Acer aspire one. Relatively large screen (11”) and keyboard. Relatively good looking. Unfortunately, with Windows on it. Half an hour of updates and tens of warnings and reminders before the thing is ready to work.

So now I am an Apple fanboy, but if I looked closer, I leave more money with Ecco.

I’m not consuming, I’m investing. There is a bigger scheme.

Only couple of things left for tomorrow and off I go.

90% of the things inside were dirty laundry.

I noticed that all things in the backpack were shifted. And on top there was a paper sheet which listed all backpack contents with German scrupulosity:

Amazing, now Germans count my dirty laundry. Never had that before.

The rum, cigars and the vital ipod connector were there, but they seem to have confiscated Cuban coffee… and the batteries, for some reason.

Anyway, hopefully it’s the last time I flew with Condor Sheisselinie. 26h hour delay and lost luggage, for which they didn’t even do home delivery.

It’s was a nice feeling.

But still no luck with the backpack, which is missing after the Cuban adventure… I’m losing hope of seeing it again.

The return flight was delayed one day, I had to pay for connecting flight (and it seemed to be charged twice to the credit card), and the Cubans have either lost or confiscated by backpack (maybe it’s because of rom and cigars inside…?)

But these logistic difficulties aside, Cuba was surely a memorable experience!

Be sure to go there before it changes, ie. starts to be a normal country again.

One thing which seems known, but which I saw in new light is the Revolution itself. On the airport I had lots of time for reading Che’s memories, which were actually the only books available.

Che’s account from his fighting next to Fidel present valuable lessons. The main one is that of persistence.

Then the Cubans, amazing social products of the Revolution experiment they are forced to be subject to. Revolution is an economic disaster, but it creates unique social environment (unique even comparing to communist Poland).

Plane ticket to Cuba was not as straightforward as usual. I will fly charter for the first time, because there were no acceptable regular flights available.

But first, I will have an opportunity to revisit Moscow (I wish the opportunity were not in the heat season..)

They have a blog (but in Polish) and post pictures from time to time and in general make me think that traveling around the world might not be a bad idea.

Mexico gallery

Paris gallery

I cannot help but feel (also from the photos) that traveling this year was different than before. While previously it was a joy in itself, now I couldn’t fully separate it from the things I was dealing with through the year.

A mistake most likely, since I need careless wandering to reset myself, and I missed this last year. Of course some people have greater problems so no reason to complain.

http://www.owczarek.com.pl/blog/index.php?pagename=gallery&spgmGal=2007-01%20Russia

It’s a pain to write captions after such a long period of time.

I regret that I didn’t take photos of the things I actually remember the most, like hostel in St Pet, the area where I lived in Moscow or people I met. It never occurs to take photos in such common situation and later it is regrettable.

I plan to move this page from interia hosting, where nothing works, including wordpress, to progreso, where everything works fine. Then I will be able to move also to zenphoto and have some decent gallery.

The photos from Mexico and Paris are still pending..

Key lesson from the event: in Ukraine, technical universities, like one where fairs took place, often do without heating. Inside it is only slightly warmer that outside and people go around in coats.

Result: I am sick and one of my ears have not recovered yet from the pressure stress test on the plane and tomorrow I go to a concert.

On a different topic, even though recruitment potential seems promising, technical people in Lviv have serious problems with English. In fact even linguistics students had problems with English, which is quite ironic.

I wonder if it changed much since last time.