Eight: done!

Okay, remember how I wrote, that I want to do something moderately crazy with my hair? Moderately enough to find a job? Don't expect any sort of Rhianna or Lady Gaga style, I just dyed part of my hair blue. Electric blue. And actually I have a job and new offers keep coming! Maybe this is what brings me luck, probably I should dye it all pink and blue.

It all took 24 PLN for a toner and 30 PLN for whitening my hair. It's my green-haired sister and I:

Things I actually did: Go to Cuba

Bad news: No pics. My camera died just before I landed in Havana. Which actually made my trip even more retro. A week without a digital camera, Internet and a cellphone, can you imagine? My dream was to see a communist Cuba before Fidel dies. Cuba without McDo's and Coke. Without iStores, Zaras, H&Ms and Wallmarts.

All my stay in Cuba was sort of a lucky coincidence. When I was coming back to Poland from Mexico, I managed to  find a super cheap (300 €, 400$!) and super complicated (Mexico City - Panama - Havana - Moscow - Warsaw. Long live Aeroflot!) flight with a 4 days stopover in Havana. Cuba is amazing. It's everything you imagine about it multiplied by 100. I managed to find an accomodation in an empty-ish former St. Clara convent. An old lady, who turned out to be a receptionists greeted me with perfect Polish. It turned out later that she came for some time to Poland for a student exchange, when both our countries were still trying to manage to survive having the best of the political systems...

This is what I noted down in my travel diary:

"(...) Shops here are pure poverty and just a sorry sight, one can choose between only two types of toothpaste - the green and the blue, there are portraits of Che at every wall and in a warehouse a female voice from the loudspeakers asks companera Hernandez to come to the backroom. Even buying stupid ice-cream appears to be a problem. You have to go to a huge ice-cream shop, Coppelia, and stay in a queue. No one knows what is in the beginning of this queue, but I remember my mom's memories from the time of communism in Poland, and I know that if there is a queue, there is surely something desirable to buy on the other side of it. I join it. When I manage to move to the beginning, I meet a gentleman, who tells people where to go: upper or ground floor, depending on tables available. I have to go upstairs. A grumpy waiter seats me with a three-persons family, and the fact that I'm not with them has no meaning. Coppelia has a wide variety of desserts: two, three, four or five chocolate scopes. Well, I choose two, I eat, (I pay) and I run away.

There is also a heat. A heat that you can't escape from, because there is almost no AC here. There is a moderately acceptable temperature only in a bar in Obispo street and few warehouses, which I enter in order to research on differences between two types of shoe polish, when the heat gets unbearable. Restaurants look great, however the food they serve is terrible. It doesn't matter if it's a dingy bar in Obispo street or a beautiful newly-renovated house in Plaza Vieja, in every single one of them you'll find  different combinations of a cardboard-like bread, plastic cheese and some other ingredients.

The atmosphere however, is mind-blowing. In every square, in every cafe and from every radio - salsa, mambo and rumba. Chevrolets and buicks from fifties and stunningly beautiful people. People, who in Europe would drag people's attention instantly. Dark, fit boys with perfectly shaped chests and long-legged doe-eyed beauties. And the feeling that time stopped here. Almost no one owns a cellphone here, no one has an access to Internet. Life goes on in the streets and an old-fashioned pianist, just like Sam from Casablanca plays elegant songs in a cafe of hotel Europa."

I would totally love to come back one day.

Tanabata and things I actually did

Do you know what day is today? It's Tanabata, a Japanese festival of "pleading for skills" and I think (I'm not sure however), "pleading in general" :-) People in Japan celebrate it by writing their wishes on small stripes of paper. Isn't it awesome? I wish we had such festival in our culture, I think that it could help people keep on track to make their dreams and plans come true. This could actually be a good habit. Tanabata means "evening of the seventh", and is celebrated only once a year, but imagine how useful would it be, to have a day in a month, let's say an evening of the seventh to sum up everything you did last month to achieve what you want to achieve. Not bad at all, huh?

I think it's a good day to start sharing things which I had done before I came across the idea of this project, dreams that already came true.

I had my moment of bollylove. I love India, I went there twice, and I could go there any minute. I've never felt like something bad can happen to me there, I love the crowd, cows, smells, monkeys, pushy salesmen, all the guys who want marry me instantly, all those beautiful women, kitsch, drama and tikka masala. And Bollywood of course. One of my big dreams was to be an extra in a Bollywood movie. In the end of my second trip in 2010, my friends and I went to Mumbai (which is a mind-blowing city by the way). We were travelling in a group of six, and it happened that I was going to depart few days later than my friends. I was spending those days strolling down the streets of Kala Ghoda, playing cricket in Oval Maidan, window-shopping in The Bombay Store, looking for Shah Rukh Khan's villa and hanging out at Leopold Bar. One day, I was standing in a queue of a Coffee Day cafe, and a stranger approached and asked if I want to be an extra in a (dramatic pause) Farah Khan's movie. Oh boy, I wanted. Even though this guy could potentially cut off my kidney and leave me in some narrow street instead. 

I was supposed to come to Colaba Causeway on the next day at 4.30 am. Sleepy crowd of backpackers awaiting a bus made me sure, that no one is interesed in my kidneys. They took us to a fancy shopping mall, which was playing a role of an airport, and gave us clothes. Stereotypical clothes of white Europeans, which made us look like hookers and pimps. I'd never guess, that a stereotypical European woman wears super high heels, embarassingly short skirt and a heavy make up while taking a long-haul flight. Indian movie industry dispelled my doubts. I got a (very) small black dress, an orang-y make-up and terribly uncomfortable shoes in a size 39 (I wear 36). We were walking back and forth in front of the mall, some blonde Swedish chicks were chosen to be the main character's psycho-fans and loop their arms around his neck. God, I swear, it was the only moment when I wished I was blonde.We were working for few hours, got something like 200 rupees (no contract of course, I could potentially sue them for using my image without permission :-), and a chance to see Farah and Ashkay Kumar. And a chance of taking a picture with him, which I didn't use because I was too shy. 

But I took a picture of Farah, Ashkay and two Americans playing French (?) policemen in a shopping mall in India, which was playing an airport:

So... if you ever happen to watch Tees Maar Khan, focus on the airport scene, that little hooker with black dress and superhigh heels is me!

It's not the only dream I made come true, so... to be continued!