Matt and I first got hooked in the fooz only a month or so ago when we visited our friend Mike in Revelstoke BC. Mike was entertaining us in the lovely province that I’ve spent way too little time in. At his service, he had his sisters lovely house, complete with a foozball table. After a long day of hiking, we were home at a good time, had a wonderful meal, and by 10 pm were so ready for bed. But let’s have one more game of fooz first. I don’t know the science behind it, but the energy realeased by one game of fooz—actually there is no such thing as one game of fooz, more like one installment, which is like 10 games minimum—but the energy released by one installment of fooz was enough to keep us going for another five hours, and I no longer felt like a tired old person. Ah, the fooz.

But I digress—Poland, it’s got the fooz. In fact it’s got the piłkarzyki.

It’s way more than mere pub games that has us happy to be here. We’re working with some wonderful people from North America and Australia, and our hosts here have gone way above the call of duty, and have been showing us a great time. Oh, and our appartment is more than we ever could have asked for.

I hope to get some pictures up soon so you can see what I’m talking about. If you can’t wait, I suggest getting your ass over here to what the locals refer to as the center of Europe, we’d love to have you.

Still not in phase with the EST.

I guess it’s a phobia.

And quite an annoying one, because I love to swim.

In bathtubs, and swimming pools, the fear usually subsides. In freshwater of any kind, the fear is there but my rational mind can usually keep it at bay.

But when I’m in salt water, I can never truely relax.

This summer, I spent a lot of time in the Mediterranean Sea. Supposedly no sharks. But when I’m swimming, every rock, other swimmer, piece of driftwood and suspicious wave is a potential shark. But again, the rational side takes over, and I have a refreshing swim ‘cause damn it’s hot in the Mediterranean in July.

And now we’re in Thailand. We spent a week on Koh Tao, a lovely little island off the east coast of Thailand. It’s a hot spot for divers because the dive schools are cheap and the sights are beautiful: coral, tropical fish, turtles, and oh yeah, sharks. Agnes and Warren, who by the way are insane, were trying their best to convince me that you have to be at a particular part of the island at a particular time to see sharks, so I shouldn’t be afaid of swimming at the beach because it’s very unlikely that we would ever see a shark there. Unlikely? I get the heeby-jeevies when it’s ‘impossible’ to see a shark. I wasn’t feeling so shit hot about ‘unlikely.’

I am compelled to tell you all, how very proud I am of myself. I did go in the water, and thouroughly enjoyed the beaches of Koh Tao, over and over again. While Warren spent 3 days getting his diving certification, Agnes, Matt and I did nothing but beach, and were all the happier for it.

Then Agnes and Warren decided it was time to go snorkelling. I thought this would be a great idea. I’ve always wanted to go snorkelling, and have never had the opportunity. Somehow, I think it might even have been me who suggested it, we decided the best place to snorkel would be the beach where the sharks come to feed between 3 and 4 pm each day. I guess something inside me decided it was time to face my fears. So we went to shark beach—clever name. On our way into the water, we met a guy coming out who had seen a few sharks, and a sea turtle, but to do so we would have to swim all the way out to the red buoy. It was at least an 800 meter swim. So, we entered the water and I was snorkelling for the first time, and totally blown away by the beauty. So many fish, and coral, and potential sharks. I was enjoying it immensely, but always on my guard. I think I got about 50 meters from the beach, and that was far enough for me. Agnes and Warren tried their best to convince me to swim out to the red buoy, but there was absolutely no way. I don’t think they grasped the enormity of my accomplishment, which was that I was swimming in waters where there were sharks only 750 meters away, and that was sooooooooooooooooooo good enough for me. I decided that I would swim just a bit further with them, and then stay behind as they made their way to certain doom. That’s when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see two HUGE fish about 2 meters from me. Of course my first thought was SHARK!, but it didn’t take me long to realize that they were barracuda. BARRACUDA! Very big barracuda. That was it for me, I made a B-line for the beach. I could hear Warren behind me, who had also seen the flesh-eating duo,

“Martha, it’s ok,”

“No it’s not!” I replied as I made a hasty retreat.

Later, on the beach, Warren told me that they were the biggest barracuda he had ever seen, but that I should remember that objects underwater are smaller than they appear, and that it’s ‘unlikely’ they would ever attack a grown up, maybe a small child, but not a full sized person.

Snorkelling was fun. I did it again the next day, and had barracuda for dinner that night.

I’ve only just left my air-conditioned hotel room.

We arrived in Bangkok last night, me with a raging fever and pain every time I tried to swallow. You never really realize how often you swallow until each swallow feels like burning.

We found the aircon room last night, and this morning, blessed be, we realized that there was a clinic on the first floor! Now I’m all drugged up and ready to go!

Actually, I’m just about ready to go back to bed…

We have one more day of Martha recuperation in Bangkok, and then Monday we get on a bus/boat for some island somewhere. It’s strange, since I’ve been sick, Matt has been doing all the planning and navigating… luckily he has Agnes to help him. Really, he’s been doing a great job, and taking very good care of me. I guess I’ll have to do the same when he gets what I’ve got.

3 hours on a bus.

In Gunsan by 7:00 am Korea time, just in time to start our full day of orientation.

Luckily, we got to bed by nine, and had a solid ten hour sleep.

Also lucky we brought boots, cause there’s like two feet of snow on the ground, and it keeps coming. Very pretty.

As Warren says, who would have thought a place whose name starts with the word ‘South’ would be so damn cold! (Other than the South Pole of course.)

We get three hot meals a day, and they’re all rice. And kimchi too.

Actually, the food is yummy.

We’re still getting oriented, and tomorrow the kids arrive.

Apparently we have to teach them English or something… I knew there was a catch.

We leave tonight.

It’s been pretty hectic getting ready on short notice, but the opportunity was too good to miss. For two weeks we’ll be teaching at a winter camp for kids. One of the perks is that the flight’s paid for, and the return can be used any time in 2003. Needless to say, we’ll be traveling in Asia this winter.

We took a drastic step, and finally sewed some Canada flags to our backpacks… I know, we swore we would never be one of those travellers, but we decided it was more important not to be mistaken for Americans in Korea, as they’ve been causing some shit over there.

Our itinerary is loose, very loose. We figure we should hit Japan, if we can afford it, and say hi to my friend Matt Snell who’s been living there for a few years now. Taiwan, and maybe China? Then perhaps Ho Chi Minh City, and Bangkok? Our pal Paul is in Bangkok teaching English, we think.

We should still be in Asia for Chinese New Year, which could be a little bit of all right.

We’ll be updating as much as we can, so stay tuned.

This Halloween, there isn’t any canoeing, but I’m not complaining. Kraków doesn’t really know how to do up Halloween proper, but it’s not a bad place to be celebrating our ninth anniversary.

I started the day by finally finishing Brothers K by the Doyster, which is good because we’ll be packing our bags soon and starting on the last leg of our journey, and that book is heavy! Of course, our gift to each other today was a trip to the English bookstore, where we picked up yet another book for the road.

Matt’s gift to me is that he is letting me cut his hair tonight. I keep telling him that this is also my gift to him, but he just can’t seem to see it that way. I’ve promised that I’ll only nip off what I’ve dubbed his ‘cape’ (he is way beyond mullet). Of course, I have no firm plans of attack, and will just have to see where the scissors lead me. Shit, he’ll probably read this and get cold feet. He has Samson-like delusions when it comes to his hair, but what can I say, I love him.

But we’ve been in Warsaw three days now, and his asshole-ness just keeps hitting me like a bag of frozen pierogi to the head.

I should stop being silly, because it really isn’t silly.

The night we got here, we went to the huge KINOPLEX, and saw Polanski’s The Pianist. We tried to see it in Gdansk, but torrential downpours kept us from leaving our room. And it was way more appropriate to see it here.

The movie really made me want to walk around the area of the former Ghetto, but of course, other than a few powerful monuments, there was nothing to see.

Today, in the History of Warsaw Museum, we watched a 20 minute film on the history of Warsaw. The footage and photos, by both Polish and German (Nazi) photographers and filmmakers, were of Warsaw from the 30’s to the late 40’s. Polanski actually used some of the same footage at the beginning of his movie. And I imagine that these same images were also invaluable to the architects and builders who rebuilt the Old Town after the war. It’s amazing what they were able to accomplish given the utter destruction.

Although it did cover the reconstruction and ended on an up note, the 20 minute film concentrated mostly on the razing of the city and the massive loss of life. Both Matt and I felt more like crying after watching this short film than we did after watching The Pianist. “Real” footage will do that to you.

I really wanted the movie to continue, to talk more about what it was like when Warsaw gained its independence on the 17th of January 1945, and when, as our free The Visitor guide book says, “the Soviets intentionally forgot to return home for the next 45 years…”. It seemed that this was not to be part of the coverage, but they did at least mention how the Russian army sat on the other side of the Vistula as the Germans, under Hitler’s order that there will never again be a Warsaw, blew up block by city block.

Assholes.