Wednesday evening in restaurant Wesele in Krakow. Life music, good food. A couple was sitting next to me. She spanish 60plus , small painted blond hair. He dutch 65 plus bollheaded with grey hair at the backside flying like kind of wings. Living in London. He saw my dutch book and she told me everything. Wanted also to try her dutch vocobulair, dirty dutch words. It was excellent. I don t want to repeat that.Her husband obviously her teacher got kind of healthy tomato red head and told her she promised not to use that in public. What kind of promise is that? She needed public. With the 10.25 h train 3512 Krakow- Warsaw on thursday morning. At Krakow station has been built a huge shopping mall with over 200 high end shops. Went in Warsaw ... read more

It s obvious the budgets of people in Prague and Krakow are less than in western countries. The baskets and the shoppingcarts in the supermarkets are considerable smaller . After worldwarII Poland was in a bad shape. Lost 20% of the population during the war, heavily damaged cities, a communist regime they were not waiting for and no middleclass any more. Before the war the middleclass was 50% german and 50% jewish. The Germans killed the jews and Poland kicked out the Germans. Communisme did not bring a lot by lack of investments and an agriculture policy that did not function Taxation is nowadays heavy 50% . One of the reasons is that the farmers dont pay tax nor socialsecurity but have all the benefits. The farmers are a big group in Poland (18%) Bankingsystem is ... read more

I had a telephone conversation last sunday with my insurance company. They advised to take Tamiflu against Swineflu just in case. At least for 5 days and if possible more ( max 6 weeks) Went mondaymorning to an international clinique in Prague and got 10 capsules for 5 days and a prescription for more but they told me and I found out it s out of stock in Prague and the producer can not follow the request for this medicin. Anyhow I ve 10 now. Weather in Prague changed a lot its kind of autumn now. Went on my way to Krakow another 500 km via Prague station HL .N . They are reconstructing and what has been finished looks good but they are still building. There is a huge bookstore but only local language. In ... read more

Had a tour this morning in Weimar and saw another 3 Unesco sites. Classical Weimar , Bauhaus andGoethe manuscripts. The tourguide s name was Dietrich and Dietrich is hiding his gray hairs under a cover of violet. I liked it and will ask my wife Ditas if its o.k. for her if I do it to. Anyhow Dietrich knew a lot of Weimar and history of the city and the region and gave an interesting tour of over 2 hours. Probably Germany is the last country who has hotels with real single rooms. In the rest of the world you book a singele and get double. In Germany you get what you ask. 1 bed and a bit to small for my size. Anyhow the hotel Kaiserin Augusta is a good hotel. Tamiflu also not available ... read more

Scaring on a certain age is that you realize that sometimes you are seeing things for the last time. With me this started at rather early age, about 22 years ago at the moment I stopped counting my years. All the time I think it might be the last time to see it. Since the first " may be the last time" seeing the Notre Dame in Paris I saw it this afternoon for about the 10th time. But you never know. Scaring as well is Rue St Denis in Paris. Walking through at 8 in the evening all the women are greeting Bonsoir. Why? I don t know them. They are all ages betweeen 16 and 66 all colors, all sizes. Every 5th I greeted back in dutch. Really jealous I became when I saw ... read more