"Refugees"

Biggest news stories nowadays are related with ‘refugees’ from Syria and few other countries. Naturally lots of people immediately felt sorry for them and started donating or judging some EU countries who limited migrant flow. I wrote ‘refugees’ as most of these people in my opinion are purely economic migrants who don’t really run from war, but look for better life and countries with biggest social support that’s the reason why instead of choosing countries good for working people like Croatia, Hungary, Czech republic they are desperate to reach Germany, Sweden or UK. Nothing different from economic migrants in Europe. This situation is one of the reasons why I didn’t get emotional about ‘sad, scared, poor people running from war’ propaganda. I ran myself looking for better life but since I was planning to work, not rely on social support, Czech Republic was just perfect choice. UK social support system is so poorly organized that looks soon one working person there will support two-three freeloaders.  I understand Hungary and Croatia protecting their boarders from people who just complains and trashes their territory and rarely even says ‘thank you’. Protecting oneself or family is not the reason to expect everything to be handled on silver plate.

I wonder what will be long term effect of this influx. Mix of nationalities and religions – for sure. But how it will affect social support and job markets? Are most of EU countries ready? I just think that forcing quotas are definitely not best way to deal with situation –some countries simply don’t have resources to provide enough support for such huge amounts of people.  Some, like Serbia just forces people into neighbors and then complains about their lack of enthusiasm. I read that lots of people were very judgmental about Hungary’s decision to build fence, but in my opinion that’s best way to protect country from being trashed. Country shouldn’t suffer purely for being on borderline of EU.

 

Look over my shoulder

This month I finally used my vacation properly and went to visit my homeland for 2 weeks. That was interesting time, experiencing what probably happens to most emigrants – feeling a bit lost in the country I was born in. With some people I lost contact, some left country to go as far as United States, so most time it was just me and family, except some close friends. A bit sad observation – even though in Lithuania salaries are lower than in Czech Republic, everything except mobile prices are more expensive, sometimes significantly. When I started living in Czech Republic I used to see positive side of Vilnius every time I visited but now I see what can be improved. First of all, it would be nice to see some activity going on not only in city center and not only on weekends as now at some moments city looks dead.  Also public transport has waaaay to go – trams are probably not happening any time soon, but night busses, trolleys on time and more busses can happen (hopefully).

Also another point – Vilnius is not my home anymore, so I am detached and can observe critically. Euro was bad decision on current economic situation – country simply was not ready for this so prices increased and salaries decreased, so as a result people got even angrier.

Bosnian trip

This summer is great time to be in Brno and Czech Republic overall – not too hot (most of the time), not too cold and only sometimes rainy. Most of coffees and pubs have terraces open and only minus is that smoking is still not prohibited there, although hopefully it will come to an end soon. There’s law in progress to prohibit smoking in restaurants and other eating places.

I finally took my much deserved and long overdue vacation and went to Bosnia for a week with few friends. That was exciting and on the same time exhausting time and our trip was very intensive – there were no lying down in the sun included most of the time we were hiking and having short stops in various towns to run around.

Due to my habit to see as much as possible and inability to drag my feet I was separated from group most of the time and going on my own speed. Also it was only way to be with myself for a while and just relax without talking to anybody.

Our route was Banja Luka – Jajce- Travnik – Sarajevo – Konjac – Visegrad – Mostar – Mokra Hora (in Serbia) – Trebinje – Dubrovnik (Croatia, as last stop) and some other places, whose name I don’t remember as I had no time to memorize. We also visited some nature parks and did one hardcore hike in mountains (I thought I am in good shape, but my feet was hurting for 2 days afterwards). It’s amazing how sporty and nature loving Czech people are – all group was very prepared with outdoors clothes and other special equipment and was going at quite fast speed (whole group being somewhere 40-70 years old).

It’s hard to decide which place I liked the most as there were not much time to properly enjoy any of them. Sarajevo didn’t leave me an impression as strong as I thought it would – it’s nice but very touristic city with everything other smaller towns has, except old abandoned Olympic buildings. But now I can put mark in my list ‘visited’. What I really liked about all these towns is stone everywhere and beautiful architecture. People in Bosnia also is imprinted in my memory as very open hearted, helpful and friendly, which is amazing, keeping in mind that they survived horrible sieges, wars and famines.

History and people

Even after living in this beautiful town for couple of years (3 this October), i know that there's many things is till don't know. So yesterday i went to walk organized by BEC. What i liked most about it is that it was focused not on buildings, but on Brno history and people. I loved this town from the beginning and now i think i know more why. The town's history is quite similar to my hometowns, just people resisted a big more. While we were occupied and killed by Russians, Czechs (Czechoslovaks at the time) simply kicked out occupants Germans (apparently some feels guilty about it which seems weird to me).
There's many great people related with Brno one way or another. Mozart visited there and has dedicated statue in Zelny trh (kids body with mature guy's head and one wing, representing being semi-divine) next to Reduta theater which apparently housed first opera outside Italy. Next to Petrov there's statue dedicated to Cyril and Metodius (i was surprised that they were originally from Greece, somehow i always thought that  they were from around Bulgaria, but well, good to learn something new). I also learned how unappreciated Mendel was - not taken seriously when he went ahead of his time but now random institutions fighting about his inheritance. And what was really new to me is that 'shitting green thing with the brick'  statue in Moravske namesti apparently supposed to symbolize justice (well, based on my experience and  education as lawyer there's no justice, just shit, so maybe statue makes sense). Pool is supposed to represent temporal things (again, interesting to say at least). And map is prudence. Guess that that's not for me to judge but these interpretation is maybe related with Czech identity and understanding of art.
I am really proud to live in this city which has such interesting history and heritage and apparently is very good for brain as it produced so many smart and great people ( :) ). Going to research more, definitely.

Speaking

After few years of being hopeless expat I finally kicked myself and went to Czech lesson. I don’t feel so hopeless anymore. Apparently it’s not so hard to learn when somebody actually lets you speak with mistakes instead of just switching to English. For all the time when I was trying to speak the language people were changing to English or even German all the time, so I gave up eventually. And apparently I am not so good learning language individually. Hope now when I have motivation it will go smoother.

Finally now I feel real spring mood : grass is getting greened, guys start wearing shorts over leggings for running and shaving beards. I started painting my nails in different bright colors (yellow, orange or green). With spring some movement also happened – my loudest flatmate finally moved out! Now I expect being allowed to sleep though the night undisturbed. My exercise routine now is stricter than ever as I want to look even more awesome in dress season. Legs are beautiful, back is strong, so now I am working on my tummy which is apparently hardest part. Only last year after getting paralyzed due to some nerve issue I understood how important exercise is. Now I can feel my leg normally and pain in arm is less severe, although I still cannot fully control my face.

No nostalgia

Just this week I started waking up after wonderful three weeks vacation in my homeland. This time it was so long partially to cover non-visiting for month, partially because I really really really needed rest. Somehow visiting Lithuania always makes me more sad than nostalgic as nothing changes there. Same streets, same non logical price increase, same people attitude, partially caused by our same bullish talking and doing politicians. I felt totally at home once some old lady hit me in the trolleybus without muttering a word. Most of my time there was spent with family as almost all of my friends already emigrated due to reasons mentioned above.

The best part of my vacation was awesome trip organized by my uncle. Main goal was to visit different Christmas trees in different towns – Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipeda, Palanga, Jonava, Siauliai, Alytus, Panevezys, Marijampole and Mazeikiai. Few of them – Alytus, Mazeikiai and Jonava I visited for a first time. It was nice to meet some cool people and see how people decorate trees in different towns. Somehow in my opinion smallest towns did the best job – for example my favourite was Alytus who has big, well lit and simply decorated Christmas tree. Siauliai was plain boring. In Marijampole tree was decorated with reflectors. While it was snowy and rather cold my favorite part was seaside – seeing stormy see after 2,5 years and walking in snow so strong it was rather hard to see the way.

Moving

The best things in life some in small sizes. Well, at least for me.

After spending two years in beautiful city of Brno I just recently discovered fun in sports. After getting paralyzed almost year ago I turned to exercising for recovery and now I’m almost first time in my life happy with my body and feeling much better. Lucky for me and all sports lovers there Brno is full of green areas and parks (that's why this city makes me feel at home – by reminding my hometown Vilnius) which is perfect place for outdoors activity. I usually really like walking or fast walking (never liked jogging) in Luzanky park which is just next doors of my place

Sometimes I feel I spent more time in that park than in any other place in Brno – in summer it's perfect place for picnics with friends even person who assaulted me still clings around. In autumn it's perfect for walks and runs when leaves changes color and it turns stunning. Last time there were snow in Brno was almost two years ago and trees covered in snow reminded me home a lot.