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 | Western Europe 2004In August 2004, on my first ever visit to Europe, I arrived in Cologne Germany where I was picked up by my Dad's cousin Edmund for a two week stay in and around Geilenkirchen, about 60Km west as the crow flies from Cologne. Geilenkirchen is less than 10Km east of the Dutch border and less than 30Km north of the Belgian border, so on this two week visit I got to visit three countries, sometimes even on the same day, including the "Dreilandenpunkt" or "Three lands point" of Germany, Holland and Belgium. Then in early September 2004, I arrived in Poland on the Berlin-Warsaw Express Train, for a ten month stint teaching English in the country of my ancestors. A wonderful experience from which I made friends for life. |
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 | Poland 2004-2005This is where I spent the bulk of my stay in Europe in 2004/2005. To live and work in the country of my ancestors was a most wonderful and rewarding experience. I spent time equally with other foreign teachers as well as Polish people which enriched my experience no end, and has left me with wonderful and indelible memories. While my home base of Radom, just 90Km south of Warsaw, seemed at times to have an image problem, I can never really denigrate the town. I had an amazing social life there, and despite the 30% unemployment, the fact that I was a native English speaker, meant that in this town of 300 000, with its 36 language schools, I never had trouble finding work, unlike in Australia. The great irony is that while my grandparents left Poland in September 1924 for Germany, due to lack of work in Poland, almost eighty years to the day, on the Berlin-Warsaw Express I crossed the same border in the opposite direction due to my inability to find MEANINGFUL FULL-TIME PERMANENT EMPLOYMENT in Australia. |
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 | Polish Holiday 2008This is the Polish leg of our Holiday 2008, from mid May to just before mid June 2008. A wonderful re-visit of my Polish roots. Starting with Gdansk, in Poland's north on the Baltic Sea, we gradually covered Poland to its southern extremity at the beautiful mountain town of Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains on the Slovakian border. |
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