I very definately don't just stick to my comfort zone, however we all need mental comfort of sticking to those who are worth sticking to, that's my answer.
But regarding the rest he was right. I am a born traveller who got stuck on the couch a little bit for recent 2 years afraid of new chalenges and happy with safe mundane daily routines.
And yet I love being in different places which stumulate me enough to feel I am alive.
I remember how I got abroad for the first time. Not abroad to Slovakia via a mountain border, but really abroad and really to the West.
I was 19 when I won some contest for young brains. The reward was a summer school of National Trust with some collaboration with the University of Cambridge.
I packed my suitcase and went to London. First real challenge was getting through the border control. I heard so many stories of people who got returned at the Heathrow airport without any reason that my legs were a little bit trembling when I approached Immigration Officer.
My mom was wise. She told me: "Who cares you are just a teenager from a middle income household? I will give you my old credit cards and let's make sure you dress nicely. You must really look rich and they will let you in". So she was right, I had my best outfit on myself and made sure the IO had seen the content of my wallet as I pretended to look for some paper in it.
I was in :) And out to the airport hall of Heathrow Terminal 2.
My taxi driver was not there. It was really the first time I had to speak English not at school but to really English people and it was a bit of stress too. I approached the Information Desk, said who I am and what happened. They told me to patiently wait and soon indeed my taxi driver arrived. He excused himself and told me he got stuck in traffic en route.
It was late. I have not seen much from the car because it was already dark and I might have slept on the way. I learnt from that guy he was a single parent, a father of a teenage girl struggling to make ends meet. Courses to Heathrow to pick up clients of Flatford Mill was a big part of his monthly income.
I was greeted by the Head of the Field Study Council and shown my room. On later days everyone was so curious of me. They frankly had never met a foreigner from Eastern Europe before.
For me it also was a great experience. In Poland I was persecuted at school for my brains and probably for wearing one pair of jeans throuought high school as it was financially difficult time for my family. Used to being always poked and critisized I was initially scared of them all so hardly approached people. I remember it took my classmates 3 days to get me into the group.
I attended an Ecology class with kids from one of the English high schools. Bunch of them, few native English, Pakistani siblings - a brother and a sister and a Hindu from Kashmir - best buddies at school. They became my best buddies for forthcoming time. They also made me stop being scared of people...of how my life looked back in Poland I obviously never told them.
We have discussed a lot... I told stories about Poland and Polish life in general. They asked me lots of questions. I even got a first thing close to a boyfriend - my Kashmit friend used to walk next to me singing "I will follow you follow you wherever you may go". It was charming and sweet...even more charming was his natural shyness - real for a guy of my age back then. If compared to my British friends Polish people were agressive and spoiled. Also very narrrowminded.
We have learnt lots of things together :) I also got my interest in travelling and meeting new people back then :)
Later I was reassigned to a Natrual History class of professor Oliver Rackham. To meet even more new people and get a different experience. Young kids were much better than adults...adults were closed and stiff to some extent. But professor Rackham was a complete exception. I of course had no idea who he was back then and how influential figure in world science he really is up to date.
He took long hours discussing a lot of things with me. Asked plenty of questions... and given me a book with his dedication.
But he was nevertheless right when he said" Maybe one day we'll meet. But it won't be soon".
He was right because back then Poland was still undeveloped. My British friends had email addresses, blogs, yahoo accounts and chats. It all made them connected and I did not have it for years to come. I had first miliitary access to internet in 2003 or 2004... later an hour long dial-up and only later in 2007 a fixed line. Now it all seems so natural to be connected to friends globally, but then I was an alien from an alien culture who appeared in lives of my friends for only a while and soon disappeared.
I walked around a lot. I remember cute little streams and green meadows full of cattle and horses. Everything so green and each little village marked with a high tower of usually medieval church made of stone which was visible on the skyline from afar.
Villages were full of small tiny rock houses and little bridges. People enjoyed sitting in tea gardens quietly talking to eachother and walking slowly. A pedestrian however, like me - was a strange thing to see by the road as everyone drives everywhere even if it is a rather small distance - like a kilometer to a shop.
I took long walks, some of them even 50 kilometers long, and even reached a shore where a local river falls in to the North Sea.
Flatford is a native village of John Constable who specialized in painting local landscapes. Of course things have changed since his times as people switched from horse carriages to the cars, but trees and rivers and some villages remained the same. Later I learned that it was preserved countryside, something hardly met in Poland where plenty of historic places are simply moved to country parks to be visited instead of being left in place. New architecture in the neighboirhood has to match a style as well, no mess or ugly new homes are allowed.
He was born and lived in Willy Lott's House, a place which was visible from my window and where we had several meetups with the professor sitting by the fire. It is still run as a hotel attached to Field Study Council.
People were rather friendly but most friendly and open were those young and those who were over 60... it is remarkable what is the reason of it. And, is it so today as well, and also is it only my own impression?
After some days I was driven to the local train station with a suitcase and purchased a ticket to London. My family's relatives were supposed to let me stay there for 2 nights because my flight was on tuesday and my stay in Flatford was ended on Sunday.
I decided to walk around London... it was London up to 10th storey still, bit grey and a little bit full of rubbish and cigarette smoke stinking here and there. It was mess but it was an organised mess, unlike Warsaw. It made as grey impression on me as Warsaw did for many years but people were very friendly.
I walked by the riverside probably entering plenty of forbidden places as I ended up in some industrial area. But again there were no clear signs which side of the road or harbour am I supposed to go so I did use what I have seen.
I remember meeting some construction guys who whistled at me... it happened to me a lot when I was a teenager, no idea why. Cars have beeped and men were whistling even here in Poland.
I met some homeless people sleeping in the backyard of Victoria Station. They were rather friendly and asked me what I was doing there. I was en route to Tower Bridge so they showed me which way I should go further.
At Tower a nice guardian let me in with my Swiss Army Knife despite of regulations because I was scared of losing it. Probably I also looked harmless too :) He told me to stay quiet about it but after so many years I think I make no harm. Who knows if he still works there, lol :)
I could not reach my family's folks and panicked a bit as it was already late afternoon. There was an Indian elderly guy who asked me wether I am ok. I told him the situation and he called his wife and asked her to prepare a bed for me. I was so shocked with his interest because in Poland we just look straight and pass on strangers. They could die on the street and noone would help them probably. This is how I spent the night, hosted by a very nice family of immigrants from India. Everyone treated me like their own daughter or sister or at times even better. It was also my first ever contact with Indian cuisine, but spiced up to European taste.
Mr and Mrs Kumar were also so interested in me, who I am and where do I come from. We sat late hours and I kept telling stories about Warsaw life etc. They had a shop with souvenirs near the Westminster Abbey.
The next day I met a Polish guy who helped me to navigate around subway lines... some trains were leaving in two different directions from the same platform, unlike in Seoul were lines cross and platforms are separated with only connecting corridors. It scared me a lot as being lost is not nice.
We made to Notting Hill - I think it was already after that famous movie but I am not really sure what brought us there... and I have seen the Hyde Park Corner where London street screamers meet and scream out whatever they want, sense or nonsense.
I bought some stuff at Portobello Road. It was not top cheap but still it is one of the cheapest outlet streets in the world.
And then I reached my family at Ealing Broadway. I have not met them since that moment. It was a stay in a typical big suburban villa with a garden, what an average middle class Londoneer achieves at some point. They got British citizenship via two paper marriages they made to British friends who they later divorced with mutual consent. It must have been a great friendship indeed for people to agree upon this - and a lot of trust too. It was a way to enter UK job market on equal basis and my mother's cousin made tremendous success out of it reaching one day a Downing Street 10 address with his consulting expertise.
I went to Liverpool Street by subway and collected my suitcase. I had only 8 pounds left as I was too proud to ask my mother's cousin for cash. I was thirsty too...and a little bit panicked as the Liverpool Street was not the end station of my line. But a nice Sikh helped me again as he simply asked me if I was alright after he had seen me glancing with stress via the windows of the train. He even brought me to my locker and asked wether I needed any further assistance. I thanked him and went on to look for a cab.
Cab driver was a very nice guy originally from Kenya. A very tall nicely built Massai - very intelligent and it was visible he read a lot and took any opportunity to learn new things he only could. We stayed in touch and he later proposed to me but I was not ready to settle down so young - I just turned 19 when it happened.
He dropped me off at the Heathrow and helped me to find a right gate to my plane. I paid exactly those 8 pounds and also had a sip of water cause I was thirsty.
So I went home. It was my first ever real adventure abroad.
Since then I have travelled many places and worked at as well. I am very definately not a couch potato in a comfort zone but a born traveller and I simply research reality...taste it, feel it. Process it.
But one thing doesn't change. I don't enjoy bars and typical European drunk parties. One beer with close friends or a glass of wine in good companionship is completely enough for me. I also don't enjoy clubs or other venues like that because I dislike too much noise. And no I don't go to a bar alone. Nowhere. Do I have to?
I enjoy casual conversation on the train and a fortune choice of wether I stay friends with this person or not. Joining street performers to listen to their show is also nice. A discussion on FB... there are so many ways of meeting new people. I don't have to join typical European drinking lifestyle to enjoy my life.
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When I find and scan my photos from that time I will put them here. Now enjoy this guys. :)
