Legs and Borders

Today is the day when my passport came back through the post with the american B2 visa stamped and approved to use. It is a crucial part of the plan I made to hike Pacific Crest Trail in May. Here is what happened so far. First part of the plan was to get a PCT permit, which turned out to be organised in a matter of waiting room system on the PCTA website. I had to queue up at certain time with thousands of others, and being assigned random number, wait my turn to be able to register and grab a remaining starting date slot for PCT. Unfortunately I missed the first application date in late October when first 50 applications per day were issued, and applied on 14th of January, when additional 15 slots per day were being issued. I didn't get particularly lucky at rng game and got pretty far away in the queue (number 6783, picture below), after waiting for about an hour I eventually managed to log in and book a date for a mid/late May, all things considered the outcome wasn't ...

On my way out of Marks and Spencer where I went to buy some fish for today's lunch, I stumbled across tulips and suddenly realizing it's Valentines Day. I decided to buy a bunch and went for the cheaper £3 option of the red and yellow flowers, after all, at least in my own opinion it's the intention that matters, or perhaps I'm just a miser. When I was waiting in a queue a very old lady wearing a granny outfit, a scarf and a Coke bottle glasses stood behind me, when I looked into her basket all I found was two items: four scones and a simple bunch of daffodils, that's all she was buying. It immediately made me wonder, of why (other than financial reasons), she's only buying those two things. It was more likely than not that her husband was dead (she looked like she was approaching her 90s). Perhaps he used to buy her those same daffodils, or even cut them straight from the garden if the year was warm and gave it to her on Valentines Day. With him gone,...

Found out about these guys recently, and so it happened that they just came back together after a hiatus, and been playing in Camden Town, London upcoming weekend. It didn't take long to make a decision to go and watch them. They've been really fun and energetic, drummer called by the vocalist Stupid Swedish Bastard has been selling t-shirts and playing in one of the supporting bands, we had a chat and I didn't realize who he was until the last moment. Guy playing mandolin had hilarious logorrhea in the middle of 3rd video, which made everyone laugh. Only downside was that they didn't perform any of their great shanties, can't have it all I suppose. Turbo Island Roll the Woodpile Down (feat. Stupid Swedish Bastard beer journey) Sleep is for the Weak / I'm Two Ciders Ago (Polish logorrhea at 4:25) Thanks for watching and stay sober.

This post is to celebrate the newspaper feature of my fellow sesyjni mordercy crew members in local newspaper, take a look if you have a spare second. Well done guys! Interview can be found here . visited with: Adm, Luks, Moc, Natalia and R2r in May last year. It was sort of a permission visit, where security guard was guiding us through one partially active building, adopted as a gym by a group of football hooligans. Then he gave us freedom to roam around the rest of the place. This is where we climbed the taller concrete building and managed to take few nice panoramas. Building itself bears a significant historical value but due to the actions of a current owner who prefers to sell anything of value to gain minor profit, rather than join the Heritage Trail ( Szlak Zabytków Techniki ) scheme (where the building could become a museum and perhaps recover), this listed building slowly crumbles. Brewery was founded in 1840 by the German colonist Lamprecht. In 1899 it got purc...

Three days spent under Paris with some excellent company. Big thanks to Jobs for organizing, Maniac for driving and to everyone in the group for making it an awesome trip. Bombay mix of characters and temperaments worked out well. Treat this report as a general overview and my personal highlight of the Catacombs, place is huge it would take another ten visits to properly document it. This are few snaps i managed to take with my compact camera (dropped the idea of taking DSLR down there). Visited with: AndyJ, Bigjobs, Eliot5200, Franconian, Frosty, Gaj, Hils, Keïteï, Maniac and SirJonnyP. History:  Catacombs of Paris are built within a forty meter layer of Lutécien limestone, it built up over millions of years and was originally covered by ocean. As a proof, fossils of small sea creatures can be seen in the rocks in several areas of the Catacombs. The area began to be quarried by the Romans in open air quarries. It wasn't until 12th century until the technique of diggi...