#it's the only good translation program in poland

[galaxywhump]

Banking entirely on getting accepted into my major of choice feels risky as hell, not gonna lie

[lady-nightmare]

Google translation:

The expert talks about ordinary Russians. "They start behaving in a scary way"

The former Polish ambassador in Moscow told Wirtualna Polska about what ordinary Russians are like today. It turns out that we really don't know much about this nation yet. Włodzimierz Marciniak also talked about his vision of the future of Russia. The mood in this country is very worrying.

Russia has always based its policy on fear and threats. Many of us think that this country is remote and hostile. The success of Russian propaganda was to create a belief among others that they should be afraid of it. The situation changed in February 2022. After the invasion of Ukraine began, weaknesses came to light, gigantic corruption in the power structures, and above all, lies about its own military power.

Today in Russia, few people see the power, but it still inspires fear. Although we know quite a lot about this country, how well do we know the Russians themselves? Włodzimierz Marciniak, a sovietologist and former ambassador of the Republic of Poland in Moscow, talks about what the Russian nation really is like. As he claims, "in every stereotype we will find a particle of truth."

He knows Russian society inside out. "Programmed submission to expected terror"

Russians are educated but inhumane Russians are an uneducated, backward, cruel nation - we can meet such opinions about our neighbors very often. Negative sentiment is fueled by the fact that Russia has been conducting a brutal invasion of Ukraine for several months.

It is a country of highly educated people who look at social issues mainly from a technical nature - says Marciniak. - The phenomenon of the Soviet system was that a huge part of society was educated in conditions of lack of freedom of speech - he points out.

"In Russia, a man is a wolf to man" Russia is a country with over 143 million citizens. Its area could accommodate almost two Europes, and the entire country stretches across nine time zones. Włodzimierz Marciniak points out that there is no way to define Russians as a unity. The same applies to support for the actions of the Kremlin.

Russian society is extremely stratified. The degree of polarization in terms of property is huge, the expert points out. - Various sociological studies show that support for the war was clearly related to material status. Well-to-do people were willing to accept government policies, he adds.

The former ambassador reminds that in Russia the power was always held by those who could show strength.

Beliefs have formed that only individual survival strategies are justified and proven. When all people follow their own selfish motives, the strongest will always win. It can be interpreted that they need it. If there is no order, someone will naturally impose this order by fist, subordinating everyone to their own interests - says Włodzimierz Marciniak.

Russia is an extremely atomized society, man is a wolf to man - he adds.

At the same time, Marciniak points out that it cannot be said that the invasion of Ukraine is only "Putin's war". According to his words, nothing happens without permission.

Wondering if this is Putin's or the Russians' war, it makes little sense. The society is ruled by a dictator, but there is some synergy and a kind of shaky harmony between these parties, the expert said.

"A Russian sees his flaws in Poles" Włodzimierz Marciniak also talks about the attitude of Russians towards Poles. As he claims, the Russians need approval and respect to consider others as allies.

This society is a collection of narcissists. They are delighted with each other. Others are good when they admire them, says the sovietologist.

The man addressed historical issues between our nations. As he claims, the Russians never treated us as "one of them" - even when for half a century Poland was forced to be a political ally of the USSR.

Poles are not a mirror for a Russian. A Russian sees his flaws in Poles - says Włodzimierz Marciniak. - The Russians have always known that Poland is something else, that we are different - he adds.

What is the future of Russia? "Each version is worse than the last" Nothing indicates that Russia will change its political course and cease to be the opposite pole for the West. There is more and more talk that we are entering the era of "Cold War 2.0". Sovietologist Włodzimierz Marciniak also told Wirtualna Polska about his vision of the future for Russia. She is quite disturbing.

I have a feeling that something will emerge from this war that hasn't been there yet and will not be a repeat of the totalitarian USSR and I do not rule out that something even worse - he says. - In successive versions of the Russian imperial entity, each successive one is worse than the previous one. The one that emerges now could be even worse, he adds.

Marciniak notes that Russian writers described the already existing and changing nightmarish reality of Russia. Over the centuries, the way regimes functioned evolved, but retained similarities. - This system of repression is getting tougher, but it is still not massive - assesses Włodzimierz Marciniak.

If you look at Putin's biography, without the element of a criminal past, we will not understand this system of government at all. Something like an organized crime group has been taken over by the state - informs the expert.

"Their goal is to get rich, like any mafia," he adds.

The future of Russia in black colors

"Once, people who seemed decent - including those I knew personally - start behaving in a terrifying way," Marciniak admits during the conversation. - My friends used to speak human language and were considered liberals, today they say terrible things - adds the former Polish ambassador in Moscow.

Everyone has an instinct for self-preservation, and today's system is heading towards a "digital gulag", where instead of guards, barbed wire and dogs, electronic systems will perform the same functions as they do - he says.

Everyone thinks to save their own skin, but historical experience should suggest that if this roller starts rolling, it will crush everyone - sums up the sovietologist Włodzimierz Marciniak for WP.

[the-river-is-right-there-chopper]

I've just lost at least 4 braincells, 2 hours and my laptop is melting so storytime!

I have this class at Uni that specifically teaches how to write and format research papers/reports/theses. For our semester long project each student had to pick a random article from a science magazine and write a few pages on its topic, along with some pictures and graphs.

Mistake number 1: The article was in English. The project was supposed to be in Polish (my native language). And since the topic of the article was "Social outcomes of education" while the subject of my studies is nowhere near that field of science, I figured I'll just translate the thing, format it as the professor likes and be done with that course. It's not like I have to do my own research (that doesn't stand nowhere near my future engineering degree) in this class that focuses purely on mastering Word, Excel and PowerPoint, right? Wrong! I have to write the project myself and use real, accurate data to make my own graphs.

Mistake number 2: Remember when teachers in high school would tell you "You have to cite your sources. Wikipedia is NOT a source"? I've never had to use it but it was a well known lifehack to cite Wikipedia's sources instead. So where did my mind go? Just see where the article got its data and use it yourself. Fuck the text, I'll rewrite it later, now let's make some graphs! The sources are right there, it's that easy!

So I went to the European Social Survey website, feeling so good that my data will be up to date, downloaded the results of the latest survey, opened it with my spreadsheet,

which started lagging immensly,

after a few minutes I could move the mouse again.

There were THOUSANDS of variables and TEN TIMES MORE the amount of values. The only words I could recognize, while searching through the program ad 2 seconds per frame, were names of countries.

I decided that even for the course's standards this was way out of my league. Unfortunately I had a hard time finding any more casual user friendly data on the topic so I was back at the ESS. This time around I saw I can manually select variables I actually need. And they have descriptions what their values mean! This will go smoothly!

It did not.

Mistake number 3 and the reason I decided to share this: I open a clean soreadsheet with only 2 variables - educational attainment and life satisfaction. Entries are divided by countries. Goal: Make a graph that shows people with higher education feel happier. I need to take the average score (1-10) from each group (1-5). Let's start with Belgium. I go to the data spreadsheet, filter the score for only the grouop with the lowest education. Select first value, endless, laggy scrolling to the last value, shift, select. Average score: 7,6.

This made me feel weird, since it's a 1-10 scake and this score should be the lowest from the 5 groups. Oh well, maybe Belgians are just very satisfied with their lives. Jealous.

Next group's score was 7,2. Now that raised my suspicion. All 5 groups of people with different educational attachments scored well within error of 1 point. That wasn't supposed to happen. I double checked with the article and, well, on its survey the differences between Belgian groupse were indeed small. So I decided to check which country had the highest differences and check it next. What will it be? Poland. Oh, yeah, Poland do be having differences.

Back to the spreadsheet, I settled on only checking the lowest, highest and the group in the middle to save time. Group 1 scored... around 7. Similar to group 3. Didn't even check the last one, Poles can't be that satisfied with their lives, can they? I should know, I'm one! And right now I'm miserable!

Devastated I checked the data sheet. Maybe I screwed up with the filteres? Let's check. Country? Show only Poland. Education? Show only level 3. Life satisfaction? There it is, scores of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 88. Wait.

Well it turns out, that the survey, apart from the regular scores was also accounting for answers like "I don't know", or "I won't say". And values for these were 55, 66, 77 and so on. So no shit the average scores were coming out wrong when each group had multiple Happiness Georges who were living their best lives Adn. Should. Not. Have. Been. Counted. I selected the scores excluding outliers and Poles' life satisfaction dropped to 5,5. Yeah, that's more like it.

Anyway that's it there's no moral I'm just really tired and wanted to vent have a great day

[mariacallous]

ŠABAC, Serbia (JTA) — On a recent morning in the Serbian town of Šabac, 69-year-old Borka Marinković sat around a table with half a dozen schoolteachers, none of them Jewish, and opened up about her complicated life as the daughter of Holocaust survivors.

Marinković’s mother was interned at a concentration camp on the Croatian island of Rab, but in 1943, partisans rescued her and she joined the resistance effort as a cryptographer. She then met Marinković’s father, a Yugoslavian partisan.

Three years later, after the war ended, they married and began a family, but they rarely spoke of the horrors they had endured. Only at the age of 15 did Marinković, née Salcberger — whose first name means “fighter” — even learn she was a Jew.

“In 1983, I married a Serb and gladly took his family name. Somehow it helped me assimilate into the new society,” said Marinković. “But the ethnic wars of the 1990s gave me flashbacks of the Holocaust, and at some point in my life I felt ashamed that I had kept my Jewish identity secret.”

Marinković, who told her story calmly but brought her entire audience to tears, eventually wrote a book about the tortured experiences of second-generation Holocaust survivors like herself.

“This is my first time speaking with teachers,” Marinković told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency through a translator after her story, which was followed by a breakaway session in which educators discussed how to use the narrative in a classroom setting. “I get emotional when I talk about my parents, but I think this message is very important for future generations.”

Marinković and two other second-generation survivors were participating in a seminar with 30 Serbian teachers at the Hotel Sloboda in Šabac (pronounced SHA-betz), a town on the banks of the Sava River whose small Jewish community was decimated during the war. The hotel is only two city blocks from a branch of the national bank where in August 1941 the Nazis hanged 10 prominent Šabac Jews from electricity poles.

The event was arranged by The Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights (TOLI) — a New York-based nonprofit that provides Holocaust education programs to teachers in the United States and Europe — in conjunction with local partner Terraforming, a Serbian civil society organization that teaches about the Holocaust and fights antisemitism and xenophobia.

Svetlana Maksimovic, 43, an English teacher at the seminar from the southern Serbian town of Prokulje, said “Serbs aren’t familiar with the Holocaust.”

“Even well-educated Serbs don’t know much about it,” said Maksimovic, a Serbian Orthodox woman who visited Israel last summer. “I think it’s a really big step for Serbia’s educational system that this topic is now being taught in schools.”

Oana Bajka, the associate director of TOLI International Programs, said the Aug. 21-24 event marked the 54th such seminar for TOLI and the third of its type in Serbia; the previous two, in 2021 and 2022, took place in Novi Sad, about an hour’s bus ride north of Šabac. TOLI now operates in 11 countries throughout Europe: Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain and Ukraine.

“In every country, the teachers gain an understanding about the responsibilities of their governments during the Holocaust,” said Bajka, who joined TOLI in 2019 and works from an office in Timasoara, Romania. “That’s one of our big challenges, because often governments have difficulty acknowledging their collaboration with Nazi Germany.”

Frequently, said Bajka, people tend to identify with their nation’s good deeds while overlooking the crimes. For example, she said, “in Bulgaria they talk a lot about saving Bulgarian Jews, and not so much Bulgaria’s role in deporting the Jews from Thrace and Macedonia.”

Under President Aleksandar Vučić, Serbia — like Poland, Hungary and most recently Slovakia — has veered politically to the far right in recent years. Local fascist and neo-Nazi groups are motivated by traditional antisemitism and anti-immigrant sentiment. Anger over the 2008 declaration of independence by predominantly Albanian-speaking Kosovo — which most Serbs consider an integral part of their country — has also fueled the rise of intense nationalism in this country of 7.1 million, which includes about 3,000 Jews.

Antisemitism and Holocaust discourse are issues elsewhere in the Balkans and in parts of Eastern Europe, too. Last year, Romania’s nationalist AUR party issued a statement calling Holocaust education — which had just been mandated in Romanian high schools — a “minor topic.” His comments were condemned by David Saranga, Israel’s then-ambassador to Romania. But on Aug. 28, Saranga’s successor, Reuven Azar, met with AUR’s president, George Simion, after the latter agreed that Romania is indeed responsible for the killing of Jews on territory it held during World War II.

Šabac resident Natalija Perišić decided to take action on the subject after reading the book “Sophie’s Choice.” Author William Styron based Sophie on Hungarian Holocaust survivor Olga Lengyel, whose 1946 book, “Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor’s True Story of Auschwitz,” was one of the first published accounts about the Nazi genocide.

Perišić says the murder of six million Jews has particular relevance in Serbia, which helped perpetrate the July 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica during the 1992-95 Bosnian War. In 2013, then-Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić apologized for the “crime” of Srebrenica but refused to call it a genocide.

“We think of ourselves as a nation of people against fascism, and we like to think of Serbian bravery,” said Perišić. “But I do not see that we’ve drawn any lessons from the 1990s.”

Belgrade educator Alexander Todosijevic, president of the Serbia History Teachers’ Association, said that this program was especially timely, given the pressure teachers now face about how they present history.

“It’s very important for Serbian teachers to know about the Holocaust and to be motivated to teach it,” he said, adding that the seminar, which provided pedagogical approaches, has become popular in Serbia. More than 150 teachers applied to take part this year alone.

TOLI also takes its seminar participants to sites “connected to Jewish heritage and local history,” Bajka said. On the program this year was a scholarly presentation about the ill-fated Kladovo transport — a secret effort to help 1,051 Jewish refugees escape Nazi-occupied Europe via the Danube River and Black Sea to then-Palestine. The effort ended in failure when their chartered ship got stranded in Šabac, and the Nazis killed nearly everyone aboard or in the Sajmište concentration camp near Belgrade.

Teachers visited the burned-out remains of a mill that had temporarily housed about 500 refugees from the Kladovo transport, as well as a small synagogue where the Jews of Šabac used to pray.

Katarzyna Suszkiewicz, who heads the education department at Krakow’s Galicia Jewish Museum in Poland, said these teachers are “on the front lines.”

“They have direct contact with youth, and we must support them,” she said. “Local leaders or NGOs don’t have that kind of contact. And if teachers are incompetent or don’t know much, they’ll never risk interacting with students on such a difficult subject.”

Suzkiewicz, 38, isn’t Jewish, but she can relate to the Holocaust because her grandmother was a forced laborer in Germany. In Poland, where 90% of the country’s 3 million Jews were murdered in Nazi death camps, “historical facts put us in a spotlight, and this is something we will never escape,” she said.

“You cannot separate Jewish stories from Polish stories. At some point, I felt robbed because I wasn’t taught much about Jews at school, and so I wasn’t properly prepared for my visit to Auschwitz,” she said. “For many, the Holocaust is very distant. But atrocities are not that far away, and when the war in Ukraine broke out, they realized that Auschwitz can happen again.”

TOLI’s local partner in Serbia, Terraforming, was founded in 2008 by Miško Stanišić. A non-Jew born and raised in Sarajevo, Stanišić fled in 1992 during intense fighting between ethnic Serbs and Bosnians, taking refuge in the Netherlands and later Sweden. He now lives in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city that was home to a once-sizable Jewish community.

“I believe that the majority population should be in charge of protecting the minority, and giving voice to those who are weak,” he said.

Terraforming has also produced a series of educational graphic novels about the Holocaust based on biographies, said Stanišić.

“They’re not just stories, but combined teaching materials that include primary sources, maps and historical photos. It’s all digital,” he said. “We’re targeting youth from 10 years old up to young adults. There are obviously not enough visual resources to tell these stories.”

Nor are there many eyewitnesses to the Holocaust left in Serbia. In fact, said Stanišić, “just a handful, maybe 10 survivors all in their late 90s. That is why we invite the second generation.”

Maksimovic, the English teacher from Prokulje, became fascinated with the Holocaust after reading “The Letters of Hilda Dajč.” The graphic novel by Aleksandr Zograf is based on the recollections of a Jewish architecture student who volunteered to work as a nurse at the Nazi-run Staro Sajmište concentration camp and was later gassed there — along with 6,000 other women, children and elderly men — in the spring of 1942.

“Her letters really moved me. I compare her to Anne Frank,” Maksimovic said. “We’ve also had wars here and we know what genocide means. It’s very important to introduce this topic from an early age, so that it never happens again. And there’s a way to teach this to children, without the horror, in a way they’ll understand.”

[lewis-faith]

Trip 3, day 1. The past 2 weeks were spent at home in Cumbria, it went incredibly fast. I was even more exhausted this time, probably due to the multiple 3am starts. There wasn't a lot of time for rest though, the first week I had to get on with some important legal work, and the second week was mainly devoted to rescuing the garden/vegetable patch from 3 weeks of weed growth. At least 20 sacks of weeds now on the compost pile. I expect a similar catch up in a few more weeks.

Whilst at home I had time to finish off the airport guide I had started with Omah. I dusted off my graphic design programs and put together a 7 page booklet. Irina a Ukrainian now in the UK helped check the Google translation, which did need a few corrections. The finished version is available online, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t41beRBwb6GenIgnHkam6i_E6QhNUCJb/view?usp=drivesdk we will be printing some A6 booklets here in Poland.

Thankfully there were no travel dramas getting to Poland this time, an easy if early flight from Newcastle to Krakow, then a drive up to Warsaw.

The weather was heavy rain, the first I had seen in Poland for quite a while. I stopped for a toilet break on the way, the service station had a few old tanks milling around for decoration.

It was all change at Heavenly Hostel, a new set of Ukrainians, which is good that noone was still waiting, and four new volunteers. Only Nick was still here, Flo had left the day before. It actually turns out that two of the new Ukrainians have been near Przemysl for 8 weeks waiting for their visas, a record for us. They had been promised visas on Tuesday but were told another 3-6 days. I don't suppose there is any need for further comment on how bad that is.

Because it is now high season I was unable to hire a van and have a car instead, but I'm insured on a minibus here and put Nick on my car hire, so we have enough flexibility to make it work.

My main initial task is to find some more accommodation for the Ukrainians we register in Warsaw, not easy, again as it is now spring this will be more difficult. I will exhaust all possible leads until something falls into place.

[anothersievefistedfind]

Photo © by Jarek Goralczyk

Fugazi, Kazamaty, Wroclaw, Poland 9/21/1999 (FLS #0928)

(Words below submitted by Antti Väärälä)

“Fugazi in Poland after a long absence, and this would turn out to be their last show in the country. The band starts off in quite a pleasant mood and test drive a steamrolling Ex-Spectator as an intro. The show gets off to a really good start in general...

...Until problems ensue. There's some crowd control with the help of a local translating, and after that a double musical statement from the band in the form of Turnover and Reclamation. Ian seems to be losing his voice but still puts everything on the line in every song. In contrast, Guy is at his most sensitive sounding to me, which is just awesome. Later, Five Corporations is mostly cut in the middle. 

There's a really great flow of songs starting with a couple of Red Medicine tracks merging into a trio from the first EP. You can hear the crowd sing along and I can only imagine the party going on in the house. It seems that any problems with the audience are over. Another personal highlight is a groovy Recap Modotti. There's some funny banter further approving that the evening has turned into a friendly encounter. 

The encore is a nice catering from the In On The Killtaker album after Long Division jumps perfectly to Cassavetes. Ian has no mercy on his voice with the explosive performances of Great Cop and Repeater. A beautiful flow from Last Chance For a Slow Dance to Closed Captioned is up next as the evening draws to a close.

The sound rating is a bit problematic to me. As the mix is basically mono, listening on the headphones is not as rewarding as on a stereo, which in turn is a blast. Joe's bass and the drums sound surprisingly clear with the vocals being the most prominent element. 

All in all, this is another cool show with it's drama and performances.”

The set list:

1. Intro 2. Ex-Spectator Instrumental 3. Break 4. Place Position 5. Merchandise 6. Interlude 1 7. Turnover 8. Reclamation 9. Interlude 2 10. Nice New Outfit 11. Five Corporations 12. Interlude 3 13. Foreman's Dog 14. Interlude 4 15. Birthday Pony 16. Do You Like Me 17. Waiting Room 18. Bulldog Front 19. Suggestion 20. Interlude 5 21. Arpeggiator 22. Recap Modotti 23. FD 24. Argument 25. Interlude 6 26. Blueprint 27. Encore 1 28. Long Division 29. Cassavetes 30. Great Cop 31. Public Witness Program 32. Repeater 33. Encore 2 34. Last Chance for a Slow Dance 35. Closed Captioned 36. Number 5

[deadenthusiasm]

Queen in Poland, Fryderyki '95

Brian and Roger in Warsaw, 1996

The first visit of Queen's musicians to our country took place in 1996. In the Congress Hall in Warsaw, Brian May and Roger Taylor received the Fryderyk '95 for Made in Heaven in the "Foreign Album of the Year" category.

I will comment some little things like this. Also click read more, because it will be looooong. And English isn’t my first language, I tried to proofread this multiple times but there might be some errors, so shhh...

During the visit of Brian May and Roger Taylor from the Queen band in Warsaw, their caretaker was Kinga Siennicka from Pomaton EMI. Here are a handful of reflections from the meeting with famous musicians.

Initially, only Roger was supposed to come, but two days before the planned visit, it turned out that Brian, who returned from vacation, would also gladly go to Warsaw. It was also known that they would be accompanied by Jim Beach - the legendary manager of the band and the terror of the entire EMI. I have heard all sorts of stories about Jim, in general all my colleagues at EMI agreed that Jim is even a nice guy - until things go wrong. So, for my own safety, I checked everything three times: apartments in the Bristol hotel, limousine (eight-meter Cadillac), restaurants, the course of the Fryderyk and platinum awards ceremony, etc.

The big day has finally arrived - Tuesday, March 19. Jim, who lives in Montreux, Switzerland, flew first. He turned out to be an innocent-looking old man with a visual impairment called ... squint, which, I must admit, made contact a bit difficult during the conversation ... A few minutes after 3:00 p.m., the "right" plane landed with Roger Taylor, Brian May and Martin Groves - Roger's friend, his bodyguard, assistant and "a little bit of everything" ... Of course, there was a crowd of fans waiting at the airport, who in a way known only for them found out about the time of the band's arrival (some were supposed to have been waiting since 6 a.m.!) Also a dozen of television news programs reporters were there too (Teleexpress, Panorama, News). It was the latter that turned out to be the most troublesome. After about twenty minutes and the intervention of six security people, we managed to reach the limo and quite efficiently arrive to the hotel.

In the evening, a Fryderyk ceremony, but earlier a dinner in the Old Town was planned. As the gentlemen expressed their willingness to take a walk, Brian had the opportunity to practice Polish polite phrases, which he would use during his evening speech at the Polish Theater. Either I'm not the best teacher, or… Polish too difficult. In the end, however, the phrases were consolidated, the dinner test was positive as well, and everything seemed to be in perfect order until we stood backstage in the theater, just before the musicians went on stage. Then Brian said with horror in his eyes: I won't say it !! I'm gonna be a moron who pretends to speak Polish, and besides, I'll sound pathetic with my English accent! There was nothing left for me to do but say that if I can make a moron of myself speaking English all the time, then he can make himself a "moron" for ten seconds by saying one sentence in Polish! It worked. Brian took the stage and choked out, Good evening… we are honored. After leaving the stage, he threw himself around my neck saying: I did it! and you could see that he was really happy and touched.

Video backup

Video backup 2

2 minutes in

Wtf are the mics so low lmao

The guy says it sucks for such tall people

Brian says “And in my best Polish: Jesteśmy zaszczyceni” (We are honored) and Roger says “Bardzo dziękujemy. Dziękuję” (Thank you very much. Thank you)

The way they say it is brilliant. Brian has his English accent, but it’s not bad and Roger spoke like it was his native language

Mr. May is a man who lives in his own world, always focused on something, absent in thoughts. For example, he could choose gifts for his family for hours in an amber shop, while everyone was starving, waiting for him to decide on something ... It was because of Brian that we were almost late for the plane ... because he had to take a photo of the Palace of Culture and Science!

After the ceremony, we went to conquer the night Warsaw, but we did not stay in any of the venues for too long, because everywhere the musicians were immediately recognized and the signing of autographs began ...

The next day we went to see the Łazienki Park and the Chopin Monument, which Roger would gladly take home with him. The musicians also took a commemorative photo with the Polish policemen who turned out to be the escort of the (second) British Queen, they ate, packed up and with a little trouble (about which earlier) reached the airport. At 4 p.m. they happily left our country

Roger and Brian with Frederic Chopin Monument

Translated from this source

[hatari-translations]

Iceland Music News commentary on Neyslutrans - translation

In February 2020, Neyslutrans was featured as Rás 2's Album of the Week on the radio. The format of the show would usually involve playing through the album, with the artists commenting on each song before it starts; however, in true Hatari style, instead of commenting on their own work, Hatari instead sent Iceland Music News to do the commentary. The result is pretty hilarious, in the usual dry, sardonic style of anything associated with Hatari. Full translation (of their bits) below.

Introduction

DÍSA: We are media outlet Iceland Music News, the country's most honest media outlet.

GUÐMUNDUR: Yes. And possibly the entire world's.

HÁKON: And thus probably the most honest media outlet that's stepped into the RÚV studio.

GUÐMUNDUR: It's a sweet duty for us to present Rás 2's Album of the Week, which is Neyslutrans, by award-winning band Hatari.

HÁKON: To wit, my name is Hákon and I'm the editor for Iceland Music News; Vigdís is the assistant program director and thought the album was called Neysludans [Consumption Dance] but I corrected her just earlier, it's actually called Neyslutrans.

GUÐMUNDUR: And I'm Guðmundur Einar and I'm the CEO of Iceland Music News.

DÍSA: It should be mentioned that I'm usually called Dísa and I'm the program director and handle all published material. Well, the members of Hatari declined to present this album, and thus we were recruited for the job.

HÁKON: Right. As we understand it, they weren't offered enough money to introduce the Album of the Week, and therefore we were asked to come, and of course we jumped at the opportunity as soon as we had the chance.

DÍSA: Yes.

GUÐMUNDUR: Yes. It's of course amazing to get to introduce a masterpiece of this kind. The foreign media are tripping over themselves to declare this album the best album of all time.

DÍSA: Yes, exactly. It's a great honour for us as a nation that the songs will be performed at Hatari's release concert in Austurbær on February 22nd-23rd, and to perform such a masterwork live, as you say, is just... there are no words.

HÁKON: None. And we furthermore want to underline the great honour that it is to present this album. It's a masterpiece, and honestly I think masterpiece isn't a strong enough word to fully encompass the quality of it. But without further ado, here is the album of the week.

DÍSA: Neyslutrans.

HÁKON: Enjoy.

DÍSA: The band known as Hatari is composed of Einar Hrafn Stefánsson, Klemens Nikulásson Hannigan and Matthías Tryggvi Haraldsson, who composed and arranged the songs and lyrics on the album.

GUÐMUNDUR: But of course, in creating a piece like this, a multitude of other artists come into it as well. And what a list of magnificent artists. It will become clear when we play the songs. We should add that the album was recorded by publisher Svikamylla ehf.

HÁKON: In Panama.

GUÐMUNDUR: In Panama.

Engin miskunn

HÁKON: The first song on the album is called "Engin miskunn" [No Mercy], and the title really says everything that needs to be said. There is no mercy from the greatness of this song. The quality exceeds all measurements, and the listener is shown no mercy as it is played.

DÍSA: No.

GUÐMUNDUR: As the lyrics say, "Glory will descend upon the earth / All the Earth's children's doomsday drawing near". That's the feeling I felt when I heard this song.

DÍSA: Absolutely. I completely agree. You could just feel the glory taking over your...

GUÐMUNDUR: Body.

DÍSA: Body. It's worth noting that it was Magnús Leifsson who directed a music video for this song, one of the most respected directors in Iceland.

HÁKON: "Most respected" doesn't even cover how revered he is within the industry.

GUÐMUNDUR: Yeah. And this song is what's called the 'single' of the album, and is, so to speak, the outward face of the album.

HÁKON: Yes, exactly. And the glue that holds the album together.

DÍSA: Yes. We said the listener is shown no mercy in listening to this song, but of course that applies to the entire album, even though it's unusual for an album to begin with such a... really the best song.

GUÐMUNDUR: Yeah, this is the best song.

HÁKON: Yeah. We could say it applies to the entire album but perhaps especially this one, "Engin miskunn". There's no mercy in this, and this is really the song on the album.

Spillingardans

HÁKON: The next song on the album is called "Spillingardans". This is a magnificent song, and it's of course a special honour for Iceland Music News to have been the media organization present interviewing Hatari when the first clips from the music video for the song had yet to be released - so Iceland Music News was the first media outlet in Iceland to publish a clip from the video for "Spillingardans", and it's a really special honour because this song is, in most people's opinion, by far the best song on the album. If you were to apply some kind of adjective to it, there would be a lot of them, but this song is very barbed. Yet at the same time, the end of the barb is soft. The song says, "The watchful hand of the oppressor", and the oppressor in this case is the dishonest media, for instance, and, um, a lot of other things. But the song is called "Spillingardans", and I ask you to listen well, because this is the best song on the album. It could be mentioned that "Spillingardans" was originally released as a single, as one individual thing published by itself, in 2018, and the song is based on a song of the same name by the duo Plató.

Klámstrákur

DÍSA: It's a great honour for us at Iceland Music News to present the album Neyslutrans by Hatari, and especially for me to present the song "Klámstrákur", because if you listen to this song, I think most people can hear the lyrics and think, "Yes. Yes, I am a filthy boy." And it's especially an honour because this is, without a doubt, the best song on the album. It was released as a single last year and it only gets better with each listen. Klemens gets to come out and play in this song, where he kind of raps in parts, and I can only speak for myself, but my image of Klemens changed greatly. You could say something deepened there. This is the song "Klámstrákur" by Hatari.

Klefi/Samed

GUÐMUNDUR: The next song is the song "Klefi" or "Samed", by Hatari and Palestinian musician Bashar Murad. We at Iceland Music News have been lucky enough to meet Bashar a few times and interview him, and I can state for the record that he is one of the most magnificent artists to ever set foot in Iceland.

DÍSA: Can I add that he is also very polite?

GUÐMUNDUR: Very polite.

HÁKON: Unique.

GUÐMUNDUR: And a good boy. Samed means to be steadfast, and is widely used in the struggle for Palestinian rights. It's a special honour for me to introduce the song "Klefi/Samed" because this is in many people's opinions perhaps the very best song on this album, and thus in the history of Icelandic music. "I walk barefoot in the clouds," sings Bashar, "worthy," but when I listen to this song, I wonder if I am worthy. Either way it's a great blessing to be able to enjoy music of this caliber. "I am whole, and I am warm," and that's how you feel when you listen to this song.

Þræll

DÍSA: The song "Þræll" by Hatari is a new song on the album Neyslutrans by Hatari. In this song, Klemens presents a lovely contemplation on submissiveness, which I think will touch most people. This is without a doubt the best song on the album. It has been very well received, both in Italy and Poland and other places, and when I say well received I mean a lot of people sing along, and of course it has been widely praised. There is a piece of the lyrics that speaks to me; it's "You yank me, throw me around; you slap me on the cheek." I think this song does that to me. It yanks me, throws me around, slaps me on the cheek, and after listening, I come out of it a slightly better person. This is the song "Þræll" by Hatari from the album Neyslutrans.

Hlauptu

HÁKON: The next song is called "Hlauptu" by Hatari. I feel a little bad to be presenting this song, because to present a song like this in a time like this is really more than I am capable of. This song is, by every measure, by far the best song on the album, and there's just no way around that. The song "Hlauptu" is an incredible work of lyricism, an incredible song in every way, incredible artists working on it along with Hatari, it's Cyber that wrote it with Hatari. Cyber and Hatari traveled around Europe on the "Europe Will Crumble" tour where they conquered not only Europe but the entire world with this song, and if I just Google "Cyber" [typing noises] and press Enter, I get a lot of varied information about this song, which, uh, shows how big this song is. "Hlauptu" by Hatari!

Hatrið mun sigra

GUÐMUNDUR: So, the next song on the album is a decent song.

HÁKON: Yeah, it's a decent song. It's... you can debate its merits, as people have. But a decent song, sure, we of course are a media organization and must be fair and honest in our reporting, so, decent, I don't know.

GUÐMUNDUR: Fine. It's fine.

DÍSA: I'm - if we're going to have honesty as our guide I just have to permit myself to say that the lyrics of this song... I just don't know. I think it's too dark.

HÁKON: I kind of have to agree with that. See, I'm just going to read a bit...

DÍSA: I just had to say it.

GUÐMUNDUR: Perhaps it should be mentioned that the next song is "Hatrið mun sigra".

HÁKON: By Hatari.

DÍSA: Yeah - I can't even say that title.

HÁKON: And, and... let's see this, "Hate will prevail, Europe will crumble."

DÍSA: No.

HÁKON: I think it's distasteful. This is not in any way appropriate for our children to hear.

GUÐMUNDUR: No, that's the question.

HÁKON: Because you can say whatever you like about Eurovision, and reversing it, and that really they mean there should be peace and so on.

DÍSA: Yeah, blah blah blah.

HÁKON: But they're saying that hate will prevail and Europe will crumble. Under no circumstances is it healthy for children to hear that.

DÍSA: No.

HÁKON: And now the coronavirus is coming, and this is not a joke!

DÍSA: Hákon, I - sure, we are here to present the album of the week on behalf of Hatari, and I think we've entered a gray area, but we as the media outlet Iceland Music News, we just have to tell it like it is. We speak when others are silent. And I'm glad this has been said.

HÁKON: Nonetheless...

GUÐMUNDUR: Nonetheless, this song is... fine. And it will be performed, along with every other song on the album, at Hatari's release concert in Austurbær.

HÁKON: Yes, February 22nd and 23rd, for those who are interested. This song will of course be performed there, and who knows, perhaps if the audience shouts "Again! Again!" loudly enough, they'll perform it for a second time. Who knows?

GUÐMUNDUR: It should be said that the version on the album is a bit longer than the one performed in the Eurovision Song Contest, and this improved it significantly.

DÍSA: Yeah, that's true.

HÁKON: Yeah, it did. One thing to say for this song, and the band Hatari, it got a lot better when it no longer had to obey the strict rules of Eurovision.

GUÐMUNDUR: We are Iceland Music News and the next song is the song "Hatrið mun sigra", by Hatari.

Spectavisti me mori/14 ár

GUÐMUNDUR: Next we're airing two songs in a row, first "Spectavisti me mori, Op. 8", which means "You watched me die", and is a reference to the song "X" by Hatari. Pétur Björnsson composed violin for this song. And directly following this incredible musical experience is the song "14 ár".

DÍSA: Yes. Which is also new on the album. There is a lot of desperation in that song; there is a kind of Stockholm syndrome in the lyrics, our coercive relationship with capitalism. There are many connections to be made, and, really just a classic Hatari hit in terms of structure and so on, which flows extremely well from Pétur's melody. He studied the violin in Leipzig.

HÁKON: We at Iceland Music News of course recommend that listeners listen to these two songs together in one stew, so to speak, so that the former song precedes the latter. By Hatari.

DÍSA: Yes. I think it's very original to have two songs go together like this, and I think it's the unanimous opinion of the editorial board that this is the best song on the album.

GUÐMUNDUR: Yes.

HÁKON: Yes. It's the best piece.

GUÐMUNDUR: Best piece.

DÍSA: Piece of music.

HÁKON: This part of this work of art is really what glues it all together, what gives it life as art that we can benefit from, not just us, the individuals of Iceland Music News, or us the individuals who work at Iceland Music News as news reporters working in a difficult environment, but also we who love Hatari.

GUÐMUNDUR: Yes.

DÍSA: Yes.

HÁKON: And have listened to Hatari. And we who love music, we can say that too. And that's why there's no way around why this piece is the core of the piece of art that is the album.

DÍSA: These are the songs "Spectavisti me mori" and "14 ár", by Hatari.

HÁKON: And we thank Hatari for this.

Ógleði

GUÐMUNDUR: We are Iceland Music News, and the next song is "Ógleði" [Nausea]. But nausea doesn't have to be a bad feeling.

DÍSA: No.

GUÐMUNDUR: Sometimes you experience nausea when emotions overwhelm you and the art overpowers the body.

DÍSA: Exactly. That said, it is right to present this song with a disclaimer, as if you have acid reflux, it has been known to cause the acidity or Ph value of the stomach, which should be around 3 - it has been known to raise it to around 3.333, which can cause a certain illness. It should be stated; we won't sugarcoat it.

HÁKON: Yes. We at Iceland Music News must state this. We're proud of it.

DÍSA: Yes. It's important information. But it's an amusing coincidence nonetheless that 3.333 is not unlike 3,333 ISK, which happens to be the ticket price for children under 18 for Hatari's release concert, which will take place on February 23rd.

HÁKON: In Austurbær. And Iceland Music News of course wants to use this opportunity to express our deepest gratitude to our sponsors. It's a variety of sponsors, such as... many, who have taken part in supporting us with various grants that we have accepted, and we are grateful to be able to accept such grants, to make it possible for us to sit here and talk about the song "Ógleði" by Hatari, which is indisputably the most important song on this album.

GUÐMUNDUR: As the lyrics to the song say, "Everything that trembled shattered like glass; what was inside me, it wasn't me." Dear listener, let the music shatter your soul like glass, so that a more perfect self may be rebuilt from the ruin.

Helvíti

HÁKON: We at Iceland Music News are very proud to present the next song, the song "Helvíti" [Hell] by Hatari, and this is, as the title suggests, a hellishly good song, if you'll indulge me. And of course, to say something is hellishly good really means it's so good you need to curse to emphasize it. I'd rather not curse, I did it just now for the sake of the example, but I won't do it again. We at Iceland Music News are thus saying that it simply cannot be emphasized enough how good this song is. The song is called "Helvíti". And the lyrics can be quoted - it should be noted that Svarti Laxness is part of this song, also known as Stinni Steins. The song says, "a constant hardon". This is something that's not good for anyone, to have a constant hardon. I've heard that four hours is a very long time, but constant is something I cannot even imagine, and that probably happens only in the purest of hells. And no one wants to be there.

DÍSA/GUÐMUNDUR: [suppressed chuckling]

HÁKON: These are very explicit descriptions of what happens in the hottest of hells, which makes it incredibly evocative, and it really touches people deeply, and perhaps even cuts them.

GUÐMUNDUR: That's right, Hákon. And we should mention that we are approaching the end of the album, the end of this great journey that the album has been. And at this point we've reached Hell. The destruction of capitalism has here reached its peak, and the album describes in great detail the environments and experiences of Hell.

Nunquam iterum/Niðurlút

DÍSA: We've come to the end of the album Neyslutrans by Hatari.

HÁKON: Iceland Music News, here with you.

DÍSA: Well, an end but also a new beginning, you could say. Or a kind of...

HÁKON: Lullaby?

DÍSA: Yes, it's a lullaby; we're being led into a new world. These are two songs strung together, which is extremely original. It's "Nunquam iterum, Op. 12" - Nunquam iterum means "Never again".

GUÐMUNDUR: Yes. And it's fun to note that the members of Hatari are great academics and speak fluent Latin, just like us at Iceland Music News.

HÁKON: Behind the masks, there are voracious readers and bookworms.

GUÐMUNDUR: And this is followed by the song "Niðurlút", which is the final song of the album. Both of these songs are written to the same lyrics.

DÍSA: Different artists worked on the songs; the former is a melody by Friðrik Margrétar who arranged it for the choir of the Iceland Academy of the Arts, and then it's GDRN, one of our foremost singers, who worked on the song "Niðurlút."

HÁKON: Both of these artists are of course great friends of Iceland Music News and have of course boosted our reputation.

GUÐMUNDUR: This song is no less than magnificent.

DÍSA: No. I'll permit myself to say this is the best song on the album. A subjective opinion, some would say, but I am basing this on my education and experience in the music business.

GUÐMUNDUR: Yes.

HÁKON: This song being the best song is just not up for debate.

GUÐMUNDUR: This is the end of this incredible journey.

[stoicanalyst]

The Darkest Philosopher in History - Arthur Schopenhauer

Being one of the first philosophers to ever 

really question the value of existence,  

to systematically combine eastern 

and western modes of thinking,  

and to introduce the arts as a serious 

philosophical focus, Arthur Schopenhauer  

is perhaps one of the darkest and most 

comprehensive philosophers in western history. 

Schopenhauer was born in 1788 in what is 

now Gdansk, Poland, but spent the majority  

of his childhood in Hamburg, Germany after 

his family moved there when he was five.  

He was born to a wealthy family, his father 

being a highly successful international merchant.  

As a result of this, young Schopenhauer would 

be expected to follow in his father’s footsteps.  

However, from an early age, he had no interest 

in business, and instead, found himself compelled  

towards academics. And after going on a trip 

around Europe with his parents to prepare him  

for his merchant career, the greater exposure 

he would receive to the pervasive suffering  

and poverty of the world would cause him to 

become all the more interested in pursuing  

the path of scholarship and intellectually 

examining, down to its very core, how the  

world worked and why—or perhaps more accurately, 

how and why it appeared to work so negatively. 

After eventually going against his family’s 

readymade path of international business,  

Schopenhauer would attend the University of 

Göttingen in 1809, where, in his third semester,  

he would become more introduced and 

focused on philosophy. The following year,  

he would transfer to the University of Berlin 

to study under a better philosophy program led  

by distinguished philosophy lecturers of the 

time.

However, Schopenhauer would soon find  

academic philosophy to be unnecessarily obscure, 

detached from real concerns of life, and often  

tethered to theological agendas; all of which, 

he despised. Eventually, he left the academic,  

intellectual circuit, and spent the following 

decade philosophizing and writing on his own. 

By age thirty, Schopenhauer had published 

the two works that would go on to define  

his entire career, contain his complete, 

unified philosophical system from which  

he would never deviate, and eventually influence 

the entire course of western thinking with.  

The first groundwork of his philosophy 

was established in his dissertation,  

On the Fourfold Root of the Principle 

of Sufficient Reason, published in 1813,  

and his entire unified philosophical system, 

including his metaphysics, epistemology, ethics,  

aesthetics, value judgments, and so forth, 

was laid out in his subsequent masterwork,  

The World as Will and Representation, published 

in 1819. Despite these impressive works going on  

to hold major stake in western philosophy, 

influencing some of the greatest thinkers  

and schools of thought thereafter, during 

this time, they would go mostly unnoticed. 

Over the decades following his early 

work, throughout his thirties and forties,  

Schopenhauer would spend his time working to be a 

lecturer at university, as well as a translator of  

French to English prose, while continuing to write 

on-and-off along the side. He found very little  

success in all of it. His lectures were unpopular, 

his translations received very little interest,  

and his philosophical work remained mostly 

overlooked. Only by around his fifties,  

did Schopenhauer finally start to receive 

any notable recognition, at all.

And only  

after publishing a book of essays and aphorisms 

in 1851, would he achieve the status of fame,  

which he would remain in for the rest of his life 

until he died in 1860 at the age of seventy-two. 

In terms of Schopenhauer’s philosophical system 

established within his work, it is relevant to  

note that it leaned heavily on the work of his 

predecessor, Immanuel Kant. In Schopenhauer’s  

mind, he was completing Kant’s system of 

transcendental idealism. Building off his  

interpretation of Kant, Schopenhauer essentially 

suggested that the world as we know and experience  

it, is exclusively a representation created by our 

mind through our senses and forms of cognition.  

Consequently, we cannot access the true 

nature of external objects outside our mental,  

phenomenological experience of them. Deviating 

from Kant, however, Schopenhauer would go onto to  

argue that not only can we not know nor access the 

varying objects of the world as they really are  

outside of our conscious experience, but 

there is, in fact, no plurality of objects  

beyond our experience, at all. Rather, beyond 

our experience is, according to Schopenhauer,  

a singular, unified oneness of reality—a sort 

of essence or force that drives existence  

that is beyond time, beyond space, and beyond all 

objectivation. Schopenhauer would go on to explore  

and define this force by referencing and probing 

into the experience of living within the body,  

suggesting that this is the only thing 

in the world that we have access to  

that is not solely a mental representation of 

an object but is also a firsthand, subjective  

experience from within it. From here, Schopenhauer 

would suggest that what is found from within,  

at the core of our being, is an unconscious, 

restless, striving force towards survival,  

nourishment, and reproduction. He would term this 

force the Will to live.

Essentially, this would  

lead him to the conclusion that reality is made 

up of two sides; one side being the plurality  

of things as they are represented to a conscious 

apparatus, and the other side being the singular,  

unified force of the Will—hence the name of his 

master work, The World as Will and Representation. 

It is worth noting that the term Will can 

perhaps be misleading in that it might seem  

to imply an intention or human-like conscious 

motivation, but the Will, for Schopenhauer,  

is a blind, unconscious striving with no goal 

or purpose other than to keep itself going  

for the sake of keeping itself going. All of the 

material world operates by and through this Will,  

moving, striving, consuming, and violently 

expressing itself in order to sustain itself. 

Schopenhauer’s work was largely a response to 

Kant and the western philosophical tradition,  

but his work also contains distinct notes of 

Hinduism and Buddhism. His conclusion of the  

nature of reality is strikingly similar to that of 

both. And his qualitative assessment of reality’s  

negative relationship with the conscious self 

mirrors ideas central to Buddhism. This made  

Schopenhauer one of the first philosophers to 

ever really combine eastern and western thinking  

in such a systematically comprehensive way.

Especially similar to Buddhism, Schopenhauer  

would top off his philosophical medley with a 

layer of dark, unwavering pessimism. “Unless  

suffering is the direct and immediate object of 

life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim.  

It is absurd to look upon the enormous amount 

of pain that abounds everywhere in the world,  

and originates in needs and necessities 

inseparable from life itself, as serving no  

purpose at all and the result of mere chance. Each 

separate misfortune, as it comes, seems, no doubt,  

to be something exceptional; but misfortune in 

general is the rule.” Schopenhauer wrote. As a  

qualitative assessment of the nature of reality, 

he would describe the Will to live as a sort of  

malevolent force that we, as individual selves, 

become victims of in its process of continuation,  

deceived by our own mind and body to go against 

our fundamental interests and yearnings in order  

to carry it out. Since the Will has no aim or 

purpose other than its perpetual continuation,  

then the will can never be satisfied. And 

since we are expressions of it, neither can we.  

Thus, we are driven to consume beings, things, 

ideas, goals, circumstances, and all the rest,  

constantly hoping we will feel a satisfaction or 

happiness as result, while constantly being left  

in the wake of each achievement unsatisfied. 

"Human life must be some kind of mistake.  

The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if 

we only remember that man is a compound of needs  

and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even 

when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state  

of painlessness, where nothing remains to him 

but abandonment to boredom.” Schopenhauer wrote. 

As the best possible ways of sort 

of escaping and dealing with this,  

Schopenhauer would put forth two primary methods: 

one, engaging in arts and philosophy, and two, the  

practicing of asceticism, traditionally being the 

deprivation of nearly all desire, self-indulgence,  

and everything past the bare minimum. In this 

later method, Schopenhauer felt that by denying  

the Will from being fed, so-to-speak, one would 

turn the Will against itself and overcome it.  

However, he also recognized the sheer 

difficulty of this for the majority of people  

and suggested the average person should 

simply make their best efforts towards  

letting go of ideals of happiness and pleasure, 

and rather, focus on the minimization of pain.  

Happiness in life, for Schopenhauer, is not 

a matter of joys and pleasures, but rather,  

the reduction and freedom from pain 

as much as possible. “The safest way  

of not being very miserable is not to 

expect to be very happy.” he wrote. 

Alternatively, engaging in arts and philosophy, 

in Schopenhauer’s mind, served as another, more  

accessible method. He felt that good art could 

provide a source of clarity into the nature and  

problems of being, without any of the illusion or 

drapery. And while engaging in this sort of art,  

one would have a transcendent-like experience 

that provides a relief and comfort from existence.  

As a result of this concept, 

Schopenhauer would end up being one  

of first thinkers to ever really introduce 

philosophical significance to the arts,  

and would eventually become known by 

many as the ‘artist’s philosopher.’ 

Of course, throughout his work in general, 

Schopenhauer makes large, often unprovable,  

and unknowable claims about the nature of reality 

and the value of existing within it. Some of which  

is validly constructed and worth considering, 

but some of which is likely not. Ultimately,  

any attempt to define and assess the side of 

reality beyond logic and reason through systematic  

logic and reason is perhaps paradoxical in way 

that is beyond repair. What precisely is the Will,  

where does it come from, where does it 

end, and how can we know or prove it?  

And in terms of Schopenhauer’s suggestion 

that one should turn against the Will  

through an ascetic process of self-denial, 

if all of life operates through the Will,  

to turn against it, would seem to merely be the 

Will turning against the Will for reasons that  

favor it. And there can be no turning against 

the Will if the Will is doing the turning.  

Alternatively, considering the view of Friedrich 

Nietzsche, a philosopher who notably followed in  

Schopenhauer’s footsteps, the endless cycle of 

desire and dissatisfaction caused by the Will  

is actually a good thing that we can use as fuel 

towards the process of self-overcoming and growth,  

which we can then obtain life’s meaning 

from. Of course, this is the more pleasant  

of the two interpretations, but it isn’t clear 

which is more apt and/or accurate, if either. 

Ultimately, Schopenhauer is another surprising, 

yet seemingly common story where a highly  

important thinker, artist, or writer, barely 

caught any recognition in their life, if at all,  

only to die and end up with their name in 

nearly every history book on the subject.  

One trait these stories do all 

seem to have in common, though,  

is a refusal to stop, a refusal to budge from 

pursuing and defending the world as one sees it.  

Schopenhauer never deviated from the 

philosophical system he created in his twenties  

and never stopped confidently working to build 

upon it and reinforce it throughout his life,  

despite the world seeming to suggest to 

him he should do otherwise. And yet, now,  

it is hugely significant to the world that he did 

exactly what he did. For some, his work might be  

bleak and disconcerting, but for others, his work, 

like all great works of dark, melancholic honesty,  

is comforting, relieving, and legitimizing. It 

reminds us that are not crazy, and our sadness  

and suffering are not unfounded, even when they 

may feel like it. We are merely put in a crazy,  

sad, violent reality with a mind and body 

that are often all in conspiracy against us.  

Because of this and many other reasons 

unmentioned, his work would go on to  

influence artists like Richard Wagner and Gustav 

Mahler; writers like Marcel Proust, Leo Tolstoy,  

and Samuel Beckett; and thinkers like Friedrich 

Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Ludwig Wittgenstein,  

as well as many others, ultimately influencing 

the course of modern thinking, forever. 

Having been one of the first to properly 

and philosophically bring the value of life  

and the possibility of meaning into question, 

Schopenhauer helped locate the early budding  

problem of the growing agnostic world 

that philosophy would need to address.  

With humanity seemingly suspending 

further out into a void of meaning,  

his unyielding and fearless confrontation with 

the nature of existence, including all its  

horrors and miseries, revealed an opening of new 

possibilities towards finding answers from within.

[arcadianambivalence]

Babylon Berlin, S3E6

There are times when I get so invested in these characters or weary of their futures, I can spend half an episode with my heart in my throat.  

This was one of those episodes, packed with some rather seamless character introductions, chilling historical references, and a few moments of unexpected and touching bravery.

Spoilers under the cut

Katelbach’s article on the secret rearmament is about to be published on the first page of Tempo Editorial so everyone can see that the Treaty of Versailles is being broken. But amidst this victory, the ring of a telephone cuts in.  A team of SA members is on their way to destroy the article—and Katelbach.

Richard “Fritz” and Horst “Otto” are included.  Their boss, Stennes, leads the abuse of staff members, destruction of property, and other intimidation tactics.

The editor, Heymann, gives Katelbach the original documents, then stalls the oncoming SA members long enough for Samuel to escape. Heymann is then violently beaten in front of his staff as a threat against releasing any more information.

It is the day after General Seegers (remember him?) has taken control of the military.  His daughter, Marie-Luise “Malu,” ruffles at the sudden increase in the army’s status and regulations.  She also does not agree with her dad’s principles.  She’s a law student, a few years shy of being recognized as an adult capable of making her own decisions, and she (secretly?) works for Red Aid.  

SEEGERS: “German law dictates my responsibility to care for you and your duty to obey.”

MALU: “What do you know about German law?  As a lawyer, I can tell you—“

SEEGERS: “You’re a third-year student.”  (English dub says it’s her third semester.  That’s a big difference in translation.)

MALU: “That’s long enough to know that a separation of the official and private spheres must be maintained in all areas of civil life.  Except in your parallel universe of order and submission.”

Helga mistrusts the Nazi party, but Moritz only sees it for its youth programs.  In fact, he wants to go on a trip with some new friends.  His mom argues against it: “It’s important to give back to your community, not just take.”  When Moritz lets slip that this is like practice for the military, Helga immediately puts her foot down.  She didn’t live through a war just to have her son want another one.

Meanwhile, Gereon is fine with Moritz’s boy’s group, although I imagine there are some things Moritz conveniently forgot to tell him. Moritz also wants to move in with Fun Uncle Gereon who treats him like an adult but without the responsibility.  (I’m starting to see how this may be a reaction to how Gereon was raised…)  I could write a meta on what this episode says about the generations.

Gereon tries to contact everyone in the list of lawyers, reporters, and engineers (all the great thinkers and researchers) Graf uncovered, but as he goes down the list, he discovers with rising horror just how many people have been arrested and brutalized or even killed already.  One man not yet crossed off the list?  Hans Litten.

After his name was mentioned in almost every episode, we finally, finally, meet Litten, lawyer for Red Aid and another fascinating historical figure.  Lotte asks him to get an appeal for Greta, and Litten (despite a massive backlog of other cases of injustice) takes her on.  He’s not concerned about money, few of his clients can pay anyway, which is a relief to Lotte.

In a brief scene, we’re reminded once again that Zorgibel is not doing well.  (One interesting thing about many Weimar politicians and officials is how many of them died relatively young.  Would history have been different if more of them lived longer?)

Meanwhile, Gereon and Graf discover Fritz and Otto’s real names and link them to Benda’s murder.  Gereon goes to Horst’s apartment to question him (and guess who recruited Moritz’s youth group?), but Horst is busy trying to break into Elisabeth’s house and seize Katelbach.

True to her promise last episode, Elisabeth hides Samuel.  She uses a wardrobe with a false back to cover the door to his room, obscuring the door from view and keeping anyone from seeing any of Katelbach’s papers.  And if that isn’t impressive enough, she agrees to take the evidence back to Heymann for publishing that very day.  

Needless to say, Katelbach is supremely grateful to her.  

(Perhaps their Old Married Couple banter can become Actual Married Couple banter…I can dream, can’t I?)

Remember the doctor’s visit back in episode one?  Helga finally gets the results.  She’s pregnant.  So that’s yet another thing for her to worry about in the future that, more and more, does not have Gereon in it.  

And one more thing to drive her closer to accepting Nyssen, not that he’s even remotely a good choice.  

Ms. Nyssen is embarrassed by her son.  He’s literally kept out of view in some parties.  (The speed at which he latched onto feeling like he represented a “betrayed” Germany is becoming clearer with each appearance he makes).  

Marie-Luise and her sister swap seating arrangements so she can subtly get information from Wendt.  (Speaking of which...what kind of age gap is this?  It’s clearly set up that she’s flirting for information, but if she’s not technically at the age of majority, this seems wildly inappropriate).

He quotes the conservative Ernest Junger.  She shoots back with philosopher Walter Benjamin.  I’d call this two readers flirting, but refer to the previous paragraph.  

And both want to win the conversation more than win each other.  Wendt’s speech to the party seems to be directed down at her in particular.

In a private meeting with other conspirators, Wendt suggests the NSDAP use Nazis to intimidate their enemies and demoralize the people.  The military men are not interested in this plan.  

After a very long absence from this show, Gustav Stresemann arrives to interrupt their meeting and propose a union, which is a puzzling turn of events.  Wasn’t the real Stresemann supposed to be championing the Young Plan at this point, you know, the kind of foreign “interference” these guys would hate?  Or does this represent how he didn’t come down hard enough on the rearmament?  Or does this have to do with Poland? 

But let’s return to the season’s mystery thread.

While reviewing notes from the film case, Lotte realizes Vera lied in an official statement (no surprise to us).  When she confronts Vera (who is still staying at her apartment), Vera reveals Walter pressured her to lie and that she is in grave danger for speaking to Charlotte.  

All clues seem to point to Walter, but even he does not live without fear.  Esther makes her play to star in the movie, which Walter rejects.  “You’re the wife of Edgar Kasabian, the Armenian,” he protests, to which she throws a vase at him and completely shatters his nonchalance about his boss’s wife. 

The threat is silent: Yes, I am the wife of the Armenian, and don’t you forget it.

Suddenly, the Phantom of Wittenburg seems to have been acting with a particular goal, no?

Notes:

The famous journalist Kurt Tucholsky (aka Theobald Tieger, among many other aliases) is mentioned at the beginning of the episode.

Marie-Luise quotes Walter Benjamin, a philosopher and essayist known for “On the Concept of History.”  Benjamin lived in Berlin until the Nazis’ rise to power, after which he settled in Paris, but he could not escape persecution for being Jewish there, either. He committed suicide in 1940 when turned back from the France-Spain border while trying to cross Spain to neutral Portugal.

Wendt quotes Ernst Junger, known for the WWI memoir Storm of Steel (the anti-All Quiet on the Western Front, if you will). 

Gustav Stresemann was a statesman remembered for his part in the Kellogg-Briand Pact that made peaceful resolutions seem possible.  He was very good at making friends in unlikely places, although the desire to reduce reparations was generally at the root of his choices, which I assume is the end goal of this fictional version, too.

[lady-nightmare]

Google translation:

Kremlin propaganda has entered the next level of lies and hatred. In the program, which was broadcast on the Russian state television, a proposal was made to hand over five million dollars for the head of the former Polish president, Lech Wałęsa.

As revealed by the author of the Andromeda channel on YouTube, according to the hosts of the "60 minutes" program in the first program of the Russian propaganda television Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Wałęsa said recently in an interview that "Russia annexed 60 nations and it would be good if the population was reduced to 50 million ". This sentence outraged the Russians, who accused Wałęsa of "openly inciting genocide and instigating a bloody civil war" in the program.

Later in the program, propaganda "experts" spoke, calling the former President of the Republic of Poland "a scoundrel". One of them, Igor Korotchenko, portrayed as a military expert, proposed the following announcement: "Wanted. Five million dollars or euros for his head! For any European who brings him." Earlier, Korotchenko became famous for presenting proposals for an attack on Swedish Gotland. In an interview with the French "Le Figaro", the former president of the Republic of Poland stated that even if Ukraine wins the war in a few years the situation may repeat itself, another Putin with imperial impulses may appear. In the opinion of Lech Wałęsa, the population of Russia should not exceed 50 million people. The former head of state added that Russia should have been destroyed already under Mikhail Gorbachev. Moreover, Walesa believes that the West should liberate Russia.

The controversial words of the former president did not go unnoticed by the Russian authorities. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova replied to him on a telegram: "Nobel Peace Prize Winner, former Polish President Lech Wałęsa called for Russia to be reduced to 50 million people. She believes that Russia must be" fragmented "to achieve global security." "Arguments in the style of a maniac, the Ukrainian nationalist Chikatilo, who dreamed of" living like in Poland between the physical reduction of the population and eating dismembered bodies "" - added Zakharova.

We must tell Putin clearly: do not make us have to fight with your methods, because then we would have to destroy you. If someone does not respect peace solutions, then you have to deal with him differently, and not turn the other cheek - former president Lech Wałęsa said recently in an interview with Onet.

Peaceful solutions can only be used when the other party is peaceful. Here we are dealing with something completely different. Putin is not peaceful, so it is simply impossible to win against him this way, Wałęsa believes.

There would be no third world war and there would be no concept of an armed attack at all if we had not allowed Putin to behave like this, and since it was allowed to do so, he now does as he pleases, he said.

[olzalogistic3000-blog]

About us

https://www.olzalogistic.cz/

From modest beginnings to thousands of packages processed day-by-day and countless clients by all over Western world. It’s been a long journey since OlzaLogistic’s inception this summer. Our company today Olzalogistics is known as a tree that has continued to grow for almost a decade. And this communication is the key. Simply speaking, helping to build your and your brand’s good reputation! Our company started as bilingual (Czech - Polish), although these days, we all make use of staff who speak  English, German, Croatian, Hungarian, Romanian and other languages. And while it may take just a bit longer to deliver to the other European countries, fast delivery speed and low-cost prices are still a guarantee. Yet , as mentioned previously, reliable parcel and offer delivery is normally far from being the only thing we are able to give to our customers. Then you put all of your smaller plans into a bulk one and either send it to our address or let us pick it up directly. Every single one of your deals will find its way for the respective destination in no time! Each of the above mentioned additional services, together with countless additional benefits, will be available for you upon entering a long-time partnership with us. Consider it well! And that marketing must respect each country’s specifics. · Extensive customer support -- helping you reach out to the end customer in his or her native terminology, dealing with concerns and problems pertaining to your package both by mobile phone and e-mail. The others is normally our task. The whole procedure is simple and straightforward. If the years of being in the logistics business taught us anything, is considered that there are no packages being delivered in cases where there’s little or no advertising to propel the whole business frontward. If you’re extending your business and looking for a partner that is honest, hard working and constantly looking for ways to boost his solutions, then look no further! Let us explain… Logistics require a holistic treatment And we are definately be happy to provide that. You stand to only gain! Quickly and cheaply and quickly I takes a mere seventy two hours for your parcel to traverse the distance from you inside the Czech Republic to anywhere in Poland, Slovakia or Hungary and carefully reach the hands within the addressee - provided you choose us to provide it. And while there may have been a few difficulties and mistakes, they dished up only for all of us to learn from them. Today, we run a company with significant office and retail space, a network of reliable couriers and employees in various job characters. You prepare your packages and get access to the OlzaPanel -- an interface where you can manage your order and make address brands for each specific addressee. Even though bulk program shipping and parcel delivery provides been our strength for the whole time, we have as branched out into many other fields to deliver a complete services to your customers. · In addition to all that, we could help you handle formalities in your respective target country, which include setting up a foreign bank account, translating legal paperwork, official paperwork, or the communication with foreign clients. If you’re working an e- shop or maybe a business where you regularly provide large volume of packages to your customers, then consider each of our partnership. More or less all dedicated to not only make your bundle reach it has the destination in time, but to help your whole organization grow. With this in mind, we’ve enhanced the range of your providers to include:

[awed-frog]

Most ridiculous and bizarrely wholesome thing I’ve seen all week. 

(Translation under the cut.)

For context: Lorenzo Baglioni is an Italian Youtube artist who specializes in educational music; in particular, and as weird as that sounds, he wrote a wildly popular, Love Actually-inspired song on how the subjunctive works. This one was prepared as part of the EU’s This time I’m voting campaign (guys, we’re electing the European parliament next week - if you haven’t registered yet, get all the details here and remember to vote!). 

“UE!” 

[This is a pun - UE means EU, but also ‘hey!’]

Sei un ente, un'organizzazione internazionale 

[You’re an institution, an international organization]

Politica, economica a carattere sovranazionale 

[That’s political, economical and supranational]

Composta da 28 stati membri indipendenti 

[Composed by 28 independent member states]

O forse 27… ma so' comunque tanti 

[Or maybe 27...but they’re still many]

‘Sta cosa garantisce libera circolazione 

[This ensures free movement]

Di merci, di servizi, di capitali e di persone 

[Of goods, services, capitals and people]

Nel territorio dei paesi interni all'area Shengen 

[In the countries of the Shengen Area]

E la foto in coppa a ‘o passapuort' in chist’ manc’ serve

[So that passports are no longer needed] 

‘O saccio, ‘o saccio, ‘o saccio 

[I know, I know, I know]

Mi dici “Che follia! Io v’aggio rat’ tanto 

[You’re telling me “This is crazy! I gave you a lot]

E vuo’ vulit’ andare via..!” 

[And you want to leave!���]

Ti dico... UE! 

[I answer...hey!]

Ma comm' faccio a stare senz' 'e te…?! 

[How would I ever be without you?]

UE! Co’ ‘o parlamient’ sott' ‘a pioggia di Bruxelles 

[EU! With your parliament under the Bruxelles rain]

Fra le tue competenze spiccan le politiche economiche 

[Economic policies are under your purview] 

Mirando a precisi obiettivi socio-economici, tu stanzi fondi strutturali 

[You want to achieve detailed socio-economic goals, you allocate the Structural Funds]

Bandisci piani di ricerca con programmi pluriennali 

[You launch multiannual research programs]

Promuovi la pace fra gli stati nel ricordo della storia 

[You promote peace among countries because you remember history]

Accà  nisciun’ è fesso, non si invade la Polonia Io dico… 

[We’re not idiots, let’s not invade Poland]

UE! Con la moneta unica dal 2003 

[EU! With a common currency since 2003]

UE! Anzi era l'anno prima, mannaggia a me! 

[EU! No, that was 2002, goddammit!]

Chell'anno ero in Erasmus a Valencia e sulamente grazie a te… quant’ho pazziat’ 

[And that year I was on Erasmus in Valencia only thanks to you...and how much fun I had]

E non lasciarmi, dico (UE!) 

[Don’t leave me, I tell you ‘hey!’]

Al global Warming dico tiè! 

[To global warming I say ‘fuck you’]

Non sforo il deficit pe’ te! 

[For you I won’t breach the deficit!]

Sto al due virgola zero tre 

[I’ll stay at 2.03]

Nun fa’ l’offesa, mo’ pecché 

[Don’t be all offended now, but why?]

La Brexit, no, nun fa pe’ me 

[Brexit is not for me]

T’aggio voluto bene e ‘o sai cumm’a me, ma ch’aggio a fa’, ‘a serenata all’Europarlamient’..?! 

[I love you, you know how that goes...but should I do, serenade you in front of the European Parliament?]

UE! Ma comm’ faccio a stare senz’ ‘e te..?! 

[EU! How am I supposed to be without you?]

UE! Le linee guida della BCE 

[EU! The guidelines of the ECB]

Con Mario Draghi, il quantitative easing e il gruppo dello SME (Sistema monetario europeo), io mi chiedo... 

[With Mario Draghi, the quantitative easing and the EMS (European Monetary System), I’m wondering...]

UE! Ma comm’ faccio a stare senz’ ‘e te…?! 

[EU! How am I supposed to be without you?]

UE! ‘Stu sentimient’, UE, chist’amore che 

[EU! This feeling, hey, this love that]

Va da Posillipo a Strasburgo, da ‘o Vesuvio, comm’ lava fino a te.. 

[Goes from Posillipo to Strasbourg, from the Vesuvius like flowing lava all the way to you...]

Che sembri fredda e poi ti sciogli come neve al sole 

[You who look so cold but then you melt like snow in the sun]

Ascolta ‘sta canzone che agg’ scritto, dedicata solo a te

[Listen to this song I wrote, I wrote it just for you]

Uuuuh, ragazzi scusate gli eventuali errori di napoletano, lui ha avuto il coach ma io nulla...si fa quel che si può. 🙈

[jseindenmark]

The placement test

When my train reached Ødense, I thought the Danish voice on the loud speaker instructed those continuing on their journey to move to the front cars of the train, but I understood him even less when he repeated himself in English. I still had an hour more to go before I reached the Vejen station. I asked some young women. They thought I needed to get out on the platform and enter the front cars from outside, but they weren’t sure. I was afraid to leave on a ‘maybe,’ so I asked a porter. He gruffly told me to get off the train and pointed out the open doors and vaguely towards the front. Was I supposed to go there? I followed his instructions, but the cars in front weren’t even connected to the rest of the train. Wasn’t it supposed to be the same train? I wasn’t sure if they were the right ones, but with no other options I shoved my bags and myself through at least fifteen people and into the car. There were no empty seats. I squeezed passed people and stepped over huge bags in the aisles, looking for any indication that I was were I needed to be.

I was surprised when I heard someone call my name from behind. Who did I know in Ødense? I had only been to the city three times my entire life. I turned around on saw Roody, one of the students at the højskole from last year. “Oh good, I’m in the right place,” and he assured me I was. We immediately began talking in English to catch up, but I promise you, as soon as we stepped off the bus, it was all Danish. 

Fifteen other højskole students waited with us at the station, but there were only eight seats in the van that came to pick us up. Roody and I offered to walk the three kilometers to the school, if the bus could take our heavy bags. A young woman named Bridget decided to join us. The three of us began to exchange getting-to-know you questions in Danish on our walk, and I held my own. Even back at back the school, three of the teachers commented on how much my Danish had improved. I understood so much more than last year.

On our walk Bridget and I became pals. She’s from the UK, but lives in France. She picked up Danish for fun as a teenager—just taught herself for kicks—also studies Lithuanian. There’s another language I’m forgetting that she’s fluent in—beyond those five languages, she has a handful of others that she can “order a train ticket or ask for directions in.” Watched her flip between English, Danish, Lithuanian, French, then back to English depending on the native language of the person she’s talking to. Oh, and she’s only twenty-two years old.

Maria, a young woman born in Poland, but spent most of her life in England, quickly befriended Bridget and I. Maria has been studying Danish for less than a year and she struggled to catch what was being said. “Don’t worry,” I told her, “I was in the same boat last year. I never really knew what happening.” She was stressing about the placement test. “If you’re in the beginning class, then that’s where you’ll need to be.” She was fine with that. I explained a few things that were happening for her, just as people did for me last year. 

Maria wasn’t placed in the first group, like we had expected, or the second group, which I had been. She was placed in the third group. “I only understood little of what was said in class,” she told me, “but I asked around, and it seemed the rest of the class understood the same.” She knew more than even she realized. I expected to take her under my wing, but I don’t think she really needs it. It’s funny how intimidating conversation can be and suddenly you forget that you actually know. It did not surprise anyone that they placed Bridget in the fourth group. A couple of students from last year were disappointed that they didn’t make it to that group, but apparently, this year’s advanced group is at an even higher level than they were last year.  

I love it, because I can just listen to them talk. For whatever reason, I find the advanced students much easier to understand than native speakers, maybe they talk slower or maybe they don’t mumble as much. At any rate, they’re a good stepping stone for me.

I’m happy with the group I’m in. I have Henning as my teacher, and I just adore the man. I feel on par with my classmates. It’s a lot of work learning a foreign language. I shouldn’t expect more from my two years of study. I think last year I was disappointed I had less access to my knowledge, while this year I think I’m more realistic in my expectations of myself. 

I do look at my fellow students that have five or six languages under their belt with a little awe. I wish I would have applied myself more in high school French. I wish I would have learned more Spanish in my ten years at Rosti. I can see that reading and writing in other languages improves storytelling, heightens empathy, and broadens your options to a global level. I am determined to see my Danish studies through though. Maybe I’ll pick up French or Spanish in a year or two. The people I meet here are so smart and accomplished. Just as it did last year, they inspire me to work for more.

This evening we wrote down some fears we had about starting this program, and I’ll share them with you here. I’m not going to translate, but if you’re really curious, google translate should give you a rough idea. 1) Jeg er bange for at det ville tage en længe tid til at tale dansk godt. 2) Jeg savner min hund. Hun er meget gammel og kunne ikke huske mig når jeg vender tilbage. And then added, 3) Jer er bange at jeg er for gammel til at lære sprog… It’s one of constant echo, a fear seems to recycle itself over and over in other areas of my life. I’ve been giving it some thought, and I think I need to use this trip to figure out a way to let that fear go.

[roadjanus]

Onward to Slovenia. Hold on to your Wallet!

When we left the park we found ourselves on a tiny little road, with hairpin turns. The mapping program we’re using (maps.me) always chooses the closest way...not the fastest way or the easiest way. It is not easy to redirect. So we often find ourselves on tiny little mountain roads, cruising through tiny little villages, thinly populated land. We drove through land that is reminiscent of Switzerland. Tiny little villages, white houses, red roofs. Green fields. Tucked into mountainous terrain. We hadn’t booked a hotel and we popped out on the main road not far from Zagreb. Toll road! On we go. First of all Bestie’s man asked the man working at the toll booth where he would like to eat. So he writes down a name of a restaurant. We map it and it’s not far so away we go. Do not ask me what town we are in because I do not know. We pull up at a restaurant that we never would have found on our own because it was way off the main road. We tell the restauranteur that the toll booth man sent us. He was happy to see us and we sat down and looked at the menu. He explained it to us as it was a wholly written menu, with no pictures. (I really like the ones with pictures). But it turned out that he was offering wild boar. So all along we’ve seen signs along the highways to watch for wild boar. So we knew they were there. We must try this. Wild boar with mushroom gravy and roasted potatoes. Very tasty I must say. The rest of the crew found the meat to be strong tasting. I think I liked it cause I paired it with wine. They should try that! Anyway, once fed we asked about a room for the night. They sent us to a hotel and we found out that this town was hosting a football tournament. All the rooms were booked except at the very expensive hotels. On we go.

We ended up at a Bestwestern by Zagreb airport. We had decided to skip Zagreb because we are short of time. I know that you laugh at that...short of time, you have 9 weeks, how can you be short of time? Let me tell you, there is a lot to see. And we know that certain places must be seen. Zagreb fell off the list, but I regret not seeing the Museum of Broken Relationships. We are heading to Slovenia.

Onward. Slovenia is next. The home of Melania Trump. We leave Croatia and get our passport stamped. We cross the border into Slovenia and the police pull us over. They are waiting for hapless tourists at the border. We think we have all the right paperwork for taking the rental car across borders. This is the EU isn’t it? NOPE. We have failed to get a vignette, which is a sticker that you purchase to affix to your car windshield. It costs about 15 Euros. BUT THEY ARE GOING TO FINE US. FIRST IT IS 300 EUROS. THEN THEY SAY THEY’LL CUT US A DEAL...150 EUROS. THis is extortion of the highest degree. They’ll also sell us the vignette. We can’t turn around and go back to Croatia and buy the vignette. They don’t have a place for us to buy one. Only with the police. There are very good roads in Slovenia. Infrastructure is good. That’s cause they are extorting the tourists at the border. Also in the towns where they charge 3.3 Euros per person per night just to stay in the town. HOLY SMOKES! DON’T GO TO SLOVENIA! SKIP IT! The vignette is easy to find...and easy to know you need it if you speak Slovenian or Croatian. But no English signs. I have to tell you that we have had to buy vignettes as we crossed into Austria, Czech Republic but there, as you cross into the country there are English signs and lots of indicators that you need this pass. In Poland you pay the tax as you cross the border. No sweat. Only in Slovenia are they trapping the unwary.

Ljublijana, capital city of the tax grabbers. The old town is beautifully preserved and quite large as these things go. (You know why as the tourist tax dollars fund this). Great for strolling. We strolled on a Sunday. Many stores were not open, but there was a hamburger festival going on. A competition. Did that ever look good. The square was packed with people all munching on the charcoal brazed burgers. People sat on the wide steps, eating those delicious burgers.

We did not eat as Bestie and her man were not with us. We went back to the apartment to pick them up and headed out for dinner. Didn’t make it back to the burger festival but stopped at a cute as a button bar to have the local sausage (Carniolan sausage), and sauerkraut and pickled turnip. I had another schnitzel. Very excellent. I shared the Man’s sauerkraut. All through the Balkans you order the meat and then you order sides to go with it. For dessert I tried a typical Slovenian dessert...Prekmurska gibanica. How’s that for a good name! This dish originally comes from the eastern part of Slovenia, more specifically Prekmurje, but today, it is one of the most known and popular traditional desserts spread all over Slovenia. It is a type of layered pastry, containing walnuts, poppy seeds, apples and raising. It also has a unique name, as the word "gibanica" would translate to “something that is folded”, which describes this tasty dessert and its many layers well. It was delicious. When dinner was over, off to the Ljublijana Castle. Hard to get to. We drove in circles for awhile, then up the big hill and we were there. A defensive castle, as most are. Saw a pretty good film that told us about the history of the country. Haha. The Romans were here of course. LOL.

[kennedy-writes]

21 questions tag

tagged by @paleplutowrites, thanks!

Rules: Answer 21 questions (they don’t have to be the same questions) and tag 21 people who you’d like to get to know better. 

1. Favorite instrumental song 

I’m very fond of Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat Major. There are probably a million movie scores I could pull from too but I can’t think

2. Favorite song

ever? can’t pick! but right at this very second it’s one called “Ignorant Boy, Beautiful Girl” by Loney Dear because it reminds me of a very special transatlantic flight, which I just remembered and am now thinking about.

3. Height

5’3”

4. Pet peeve

Chewing noises, EWwWW

5. Pet?

a mini schoodle named Junie <3

6. Favorite writers?

Emily St. John Mandel, Jane Austen, T.H. White, David Grossman

7. Favorite color

red

8. dream?

It changes from day to day but right now I’m in my “I want to be an outstanding scholar and receive praise from my academic elders for my book on Yiddish culture and translations of poetry” mood so there’s that.

9. Thing i want

Acceptance into a decent master’s program :’)

10. Favorite youtuber

I love Molly Burke. but also listen.... I’ve been Dan and Phil trash for years. I’ve grown with them. They have a special place in my cold heart.

11. ring size

no idea. don’t wear rings. 

12. shoe size

women’s 7

13. favorite bug

oooh :D i don’t know! I like praying mantises. 

14. best chapstick flavor?

I only use the trader joe’s mint lip balm and i have no idea why bc I don’t particularly like it but my mom just buys a ton of it

15. best clothing item i own

This is also an answer that changes by the day. Sometimes I’d say my rock n roll cactus t shirt or my “have faith in your bad taste” sweater. But right now I really like my coat. It’s like black and white checkered and I wore it to Poland. It makes me feel nice and stylish. 

16. Creepy or Cute?

both at the same time.

17. Bedtime?

usually around 1 or 2am

18. secret?

I have cibophobia AND emetophobia and it suuucks.

19. favorite movie?

I.......don’t know? I’m blanking. Uhhhh rn Midnight in Paris bc I’m in a major mood. 

20. favorite TV shows?

Also don’t know, I’m weird and don’t watch TV. The West Wing is the last show I watched.

21!. name?

Ok so, I’ve this dream of changing it to Kennedy. That feels like a good name for me. I hate my actual name a lot. But obviously I go by Kit here, for some reason 

anyway thanks! i don’t really want to tag bc aaaaa i forgot who is ok to tag so if you see this do it if u want