--Today
I got some feedback about my blog, so I decided to translate this post, too,
even if it takes a lot of time and I didn’t want to do that. So, everyone, feel
free to give me feedbacks because it encourage me to continue writing! J
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I am sitting on the
top of my backpack in the crowded train. I am going home, to my Polish home,
Warsaw. Another weekend has gone and I have had another colourful adventures.
This time I went to Łódz, to the old textile industry town, to visit Réka (who’s
already visited me in Warsaw).
Saturday morning
(21.03.) I travelled by train to Łódz and Réka was waiting for me at the train
station. She advised a long trip with a lot of interesting places. Firstly, we
went to Piłsudski Park and we saw the abandoned Luna Park (amusement park) and
then we walked to the Manufaktura. The Manufaktura is one of the biggest shopping
centre in Europe. Here we met with Réka’s mentor, Alexandra. We had lunch
together and we went to the Piotrkowska Street, which is a famous and long
street in Łódz. Our Polish guide talked about the town, the buildings and about
her life. The meaning of Łódz is boat and below the town you can find water.
The water is the best here all over Poland. In the old town a lot of old houses
are situated and a lot of industrial buildings can be found. The town has a
real industrial city feeling. But the streets are very dirty, the houses are
grey. The parks are the opposite, because they are clean and nice. On some
houses there are modern “paintings”, called murals. They are really
interesting, they belong to a project. The artists would like to make an open-air
museum and they welcome the visitors to admire their paintings. Réka’s aim to
find a lot of mural and take photos of them. http://www.galeriaurbanforms.org/
Besides the
paintings we found some smaller and bigger statutes. During our trip we made
photos with the local ’celebrities’ (with their statutes). And we tried to feel
what these statutes’ atmosphere had, but sometimes I failed this task. Once we
visited a strange café with strange metal things. At the end of the street we
said goodbye to Alexandra. Although we couldn’t go into museums, Réka and me
decided to go to the famous places in Łódz. First we took a look to the Herbst
palace and made a photo of the garden behind the fence. After that we admired
the Orangery from outside again and we passed a nice park where there were free
Wi-Fi. Then we visited the gate of the Cinematography Museum and finally we’d
like to find the Se-ma-for museum. It’s about Polish cartoons. After some
difficulties (strange house numbers and local citizens) we found the door of
the museum, but it was disappointing for us. Probably the exhibition is better
than its door.
While I’m writing
these words, I am travelling by train and sometimes I jump up and down to give
way to the people in the corridor. The sun is going down and it makes the sky
pink and the landscape with pines becomes beautiful. This trip is both
adventures and absurd as well. Me and my mates are sitting in front of the cabins
in the corridor and jumping up to give way to the controller. I’m sure that I’m
not going to be lazy during this travelling.
Back to our trip
in Łódz, I can tell you that we visited the whole town and it was a really long
trip. Finally, we reached Réka’s place where she’s working and living now. I’ve
already heard something about this amazing hotel with big apartments, but what
I found there, it was much more than my expectations. The foundation, where
Réka has her traineeship, has big floors with a lot of rooms and offices.
Originally it works with children but nowadays making money is the main goal of
this foundation. When I was there, I realized this is a dying organization. The
offices were messy, everything was dirty. In a big gathering room tasteless furniture
and paintings about cartoons can be seen and unfriendly puppets scary the
visitors. There are a lot of toys and costumes in some rooms and everywhere
story motives can be seen but they are not so cheerful as once they were. Every
room and places are neglected and uncared. So, the whole place looks bad but
against this situation Réka is still cheerful. Although it wasn’t the best
place where I have ever stayed a night, we enjoyed our time. No one bothered
us, we didn’t meet any ghosts, only two windows opened mysteriously during the
night. The whole house were ours and our saying goodnight would have been a
scene in a movie if we went to sleep to a real apartment in a real hotel (probably
this sentence is not correct. I’m sorry.). We had a small party with beer and
Hungarian music. It was a good evening, but I’d never like to live here.
After that we went to the Poznanski palace (inside). The palace belonged to the Jewish Poznanski family. They were a famous family from Łódz and Izrael Poznanski revived his father’s textile industry. We visited their rooms but there are some rooms about other people from Łódz. For example, we saw a lot of interesting photos and objects of Rubinstein, the world famous pianist. He was a really sensitive artist with a lot of prices, awards and he had a long life. There is a documentary film about his concert trip in 1969 and it won an Oscar award. (Arthur Rubinstein – The Love of Life).
In the Poznanski palace |
Entrance to the Se-ma-for museum |
With Polsih men |
What a strange pose |
Hm.. I'm really enthusiastic |
And here you can see.. the Cinematography museum |