Lately

Ditie is the main character in Bohumil Hrabal's novel, I Served the King of England. He works as a waiter in the Czech Republic, in the years before World War II. Starts low, builds his way to the top, owns a hotel and loses everything to communists. His main skill, which he develops in time, under the guidance of an exquisite waiter who served the King of England, is being able to tell what people will order the minute they enter the restaurant.

That's how I feel sometimes in the tent. I know what (almost) everyone will order, I spot them at the entrance and then grab a glass or a mug or even a plastic cup and pour their beer, sometimes I heat it for 40 seconds in the microwave, some other times I add syrup or honey or sugar or other spices to it. It's a very little possbility that I screw up (like a few days ago when someone wanted to surprise me and showed up at the tent half an hour before closing time, I poured him beer out of reflex and then he told me he was driving. But these situations are not very common). I sometimes see people in the street, at the university, in some other pubs, and even though in most of the cases I don't know their names, I can make a safe bet about their drinks.

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This morning I was in Sosnowiec. As part of my wonderfully useless project with Silesian citites, so I won't make any comments about it, for the time being. But the main purpose of my trip today was my first Spanish class. Well, my first in a manner of speaking, because I've been flirting with Spanish for quite a few years now, we've been on & off since the days when I wasn't even thinking I'd end up learning Polish. It's that time of the year when I crave for vowels and for that soft, velvety "s" that's impossible to find in any other language.

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I'm thinking of opening a Christmas wishlist. Not because I'm a selfish spoiled brat who'd expect presents on a daily basis, but because winter is now more wintery than in winter. And when I smell snow I smell presents.

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Yesterday was one of the "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore" days. The wind was blowing so heavily that it almost tore the tent apart. I feared we'd be roofless by the end of the night. And frozen, but that already goes without saying.