how do you know that?

You actually read this… and you even remember it!

My mouth was to the floor. I couldn’t believe it. Here is a person that knows about me, about what we’ve been doing over the past few months, and she remembers names and places, and has questions that need clarification, and and and… hold on, we were just introduced. I was shocked! Ok, you might be thinking that I am a bit stupid to be shocked but no, not really, just innocent maybe even naïve (come on now, a little diplomacy goes a long way). Lets rewind a bit.

Back in Ponferrada, when we were at Eva’s house, I suggested to Nisarga that we start a blog. I have only read two blogs in my life, my friend Kuku’s and Eva’s. and both on just one or two occassions. Eva’s blog was a way to keep in touch with her family and friends in Spain while she and family were in India, and now that they are in Spain again to keep in touch with new friends in India! I thought, wow, brilliant! And it inspired me!!! You see, I’m not so technologically apt, I’m pretty slow, and hesitant, and pretty much have an aversion to all things mechanical. But this Nisarga fellow I’m attached at the hip to, he’s pretty all right with machines. So I threw the idea out there while we were in Ponferrada, and within 24 hours he had set it up! Wow!!! Sometimes his efficiency scares the daylights out of me. Anyway, within 48 hours of that, he had shared the address with all his friends, family, acquiantances, and generally anyone he had ever even bumped into. I on the other hand have only now, yes, 2.5 months after creation, shared the address with my friends.

Sounds rather odd right, because Nisarga has made all of 3 entries on our blog, out of 50, up until now. A little side note: sometimes I had the feeling of a housewife, dutifully typing a mass end of the year or christmas update to be mailed out to friends and family along with the annual family portrait, reporting on the highlights from the hubby and the kids and the dog and whatever; I laughed at myself for feeling this way. I didn’t complain much about this mind you, because it was my idea to begin with and I was greatful that he set it up and that I could post entries. I didn’t think anyone was reading it, and as far as I was concerned since I didn’t share the address with anyone, no one was reading it. I just wanted to write and put up pictures for the sake of doing it. Because I simply wanted a space where I could do that. Like somewhere to document things. Sharing it with others was not the point, documenting it was. That was my coccoon phase; I believe all beings and concepts and entities, basically all things, have coccoon phases, where they are protected or nurtured or looked after specially. So that was the coccoon phase for the blog according to me, and now it’s time for the butterfly to fly (I am aware that the life span of a butterfly is 1 day, it’s just an analogy).

So, when we were in Northhampton and we met Gemma and she started referencing the blog, I was shocked. I felt exposed, seen, known. I swear it felt weird. I think I turned red for a while and giggled a whole lot, I was a bit embarrased. I felt transparent, knowing full well it was me who wrote all of that which she was referring to. So to our faithful fan and scrupulous reader, Gemma, thank you for reading these entries and taking them to heart. You asked me to tell you when everything had been updated with pictures and text so that you could re-read it, and so I’m letting you know, everything dated before this blog entry is set in stone… period.

And to Eva, our inspiration and number one fan, thank you for reading it from day one and for supporting us in so many ways!

And thank you Dave for asking about how to see the pictures in larger format. We included instructions just under the description about us, but just in case anyone misses that, please know that if you double click on any picture you see on the blog, it will pop up full screen. Also, at the end of some of the entries, there is a picassa link. You can copy and paste that onto a separate window and it will take you directly to that album. We have pasted the link for specific albums at the end of the corresponding entries. If you just want to go to all the albums, there is a link at the bottom of the huge picture of us at the beginning of the blog (I swear we are trying to figure out how to make that big boy a bit smaller), and that will take you to a page where all the albums are listed and then you can click on any of the albums you want to check out.

Also, at the end of some of the blog entries you will find links to wikipedia in English and in Polish, since some of you are interested in knowing more about some of the places we have been to. If anyone is interested in any other language, like Greek or Spanish or French, go to the link in English, and on the left hand side you will see a long list of languages, click on the one that suits you and you will be automatically taken to that page; it may not be as extensive as what you would get in English but there is usually something there. We admit we haven’t really written much about the history, politics, economics, architecture, geography, etc. of these amazing places we’ve been to, so this is a way to supplement this kind of info.

And thank you Pawel for asking if you can send comments. Yes of course, anyone can share comments. You can do that by clicking on comments at the end of a particular blog entry, and whatever you write everyone else who checks the blog will be able to read as well. Or you can send us an email through the blog, or to one of our personal accounts which you know from before. And we would love to get comments from you, any of you, please share thoughts, suggestions, reflections, clarifications that you think are needed, questions, whatever.

And I feel the need to write this, for Nisarga’s sake, who is either frustrated or humoured at the pictures I “correct” before posting. I just learned how to use the basics, very basics, of Photoshop and I’ve become addicted to saturating pictures… you’ll see what I mean when you see the pictures. So if we look orange… don’t be scared, we don’t actually have skin cancer or anything.

So check out the blog whenever you want a little virtual piece of either one of us! To all of those of you who were used to mass email updates, there aren’t any plans for more of those. We’ll try to post something on a weekly basis. So now the butterfuly spreads its wings and plays with the wind. Happy reading and viewing everyone; yes, I really mean everyone now.