An old gipsy witch

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Malbork Camping, 22-07-2001.

"Wie heissen Sie dann, lieber Herr aus Holland", A strange question for someone who claims to be able to predict one's future by merely looking at your palm. I mean asking for my name just after one quick glance at my hand that after nearly three weeks on the bike has become severely callused...a bit like trying to read a crumpled old newspaper I guess.

a parchment-like skin heavenly wrinkled by time and a long life time of living outside, olive colored skin with pink patches and despite the owner's advanced age notwithstanding she has long raven black hair with not a single stray of grey, coming out unruley from a brightly red bonnet, her piggy coal black eyes are locked on mine no doubt trying to overcome my scepticism...after all she claims to be a gipsy witch/magician who makes a bit of spare change on the side reading tourists' palms down at the Malbork Castle main gate - I suspect she would make more money asking Zloty for photography.

This huge camping on the bank of the Nogat River is full with beaten up caravans and rusty German Volkswagen that house whole families of gipsies from Eastern European states like Bulgary and Rumania waiting for Poland to join the European Union, waiting for the borders to come down and move to Holland, Germany and France and make heaps of money...or so they believe and I see no reason to convince them otherwise...

Not just half the Eastern European population of gipsies is waiting for unhindered passage to the fabled Rich West, down and out dark skinned Africans in old second hand clothes that were fashionable maybe centuries ago, are housing in pale old tents that can hold two but are used by tridouble that number....a massive inmigration is about to start...I seriously wonder if European politicians are aware of what is going on here...but then I have never heard of politicians travelling the world on a cr*ppy old bike nor do they stay on dirt cheap campings I guess...

I'm so into my own mind I don't even hear Miss Super-Old Gipsy Witch telling me her fantasy stories that apperently she can read from my callused hands...so sorry old lady.

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Photos

Young gipsy woman
in Malbork