So for about two weeks or so, I had managed to vanish off the face of the internet, leaving YouChew with a blog and a review. During my absence I had gone from my comfortable house in Canada to an airplane flying me all the way to Europe and finally landing Frankfurt, whereupon I would be on another flight that would start my trip of eastern Europe. I was with a whole bunch of classmates and two teachers who were basically there to be in charge of us because you're not just gonna send a bunch of teenagers with lots of money into Europe alone now are ya? As an apology of being gone and leaving you all in the dark on the where and what of my situation, I'm gonna tell some stuff here and let you know a little more about my adventure.
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First, I was in the pearl of the Adriatic sea, Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik was founded some time in the 7th century, and it's name means "wood of oak trees", due to all the trees it had. It's patron saint is Saint Blaise, whom if you see, will always hold the city of Dubrovnik on his left hand. Dubr-oh...erm, sorry. It was a History trip and I was pretty much writing down a whole lot of interesting tidbits. I don't even take history, but one of the teachers recommended it to me and I figured why not go to all these places. Anyways, you don't really want to hear me blather on about that kind of thing, so I'll talk about experiences. Well, let's see, we went to see the old part of Dubrovnik, which still shows signs of it being affected by the Yugoslavian war. Most of the time when you saw cracks or holes, it was either from bullets or explosives. We went up on the wall, and it had a wonderful view of the inner city, the outer city and the ocean too. It's a very lovely city and I managed to make a considerable effort to speak Croatian since I had a travel translation book with me. Which by the way, I learned that travel translation books only help in general ways, not specific ones. It's sometimes better if you just ask "Do you speak English?" in the language rather than try to speak in the language. But still, I had a good time, and I was able to do some Croatian folk dancing too. I'd love to visit the country again or at re-visit Dubrovink. It's a very quaint, relaxed little place.
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Along the trip, there were a lot of mini-stops, and one of them was Mostar. As you can see in the picture above, we were at a bridge. This bridge by the way was rebuilt due to the Croatians destroying it. Yeah, one thing that I found while being in Croatia and Bosnia is that aside of the effects of Yugoslavian conflict still being a very fresh subject, there's quite some tension involving it. From what I was told I tried to think of it as the Croatians don't like the Montenegros and the Serbians, the Bosnians don't like the Croatians and the Serbians don't like the Croatians or the Bosnians, but it gets more complicated than that, especially when you add the other countries that used to be Yugoslavia as well as the president of Yugoslavia, nationalism and the fact that Bosnians go Croatia to find work because of a high double-digit unemployment percentage. 52% to be exact. Actually, Bosnian politics gets all kinds of fucked up when you consider they have three "presidents" which each represent the ethnicities in the nation along with 257 political parties which each have at least one seat in parliament. But yeah aside of that bridge, some reminders of the incident in '93 and some interesting souvenirs made out of bullets, Mostar didn't have much.
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Sarajevo was probably the city I liked the least. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice city, and I managed to fit in a lot better than the others. The Bosnians speak the same language as the Croatians, just with some certain changes. Also don't say to the countries that used to be part of Yugoslavia that they speak the same language. I didn't say that to one, but it's just something to keep in mind. That and the sights weren't bad. Here I saw the fountain of Sebilj (I thought it was spelled Sabille, welp), a mosque built by Husref Bey, the Tunnel of Hope, Sniper Alley, the street where Franz Ferdinand got shot and a lot of Sarajevo roses. What are those, you may ask? Well, they're these delightful little holes filled with red plastic that tell to you that where you stand, there once was a massacre which took place. The most outrageous story was the Sarajevo rose near the Sacred Heart Church which was a massacre that took place on Xmas Eve of '94. And right where the Sarajevo rose is, a nun and two children where standing, just about to be blown to bits by a shell. Anyways, the reason I wasn't too fond of Sarajevo was that there isn't much else but shops, bazaars and gypsies. At least, in the place we were in, but there isn't much interesting things to do there, unless you feel like throwing your money away.
Speaking of which I spent 40 euros on a wooden box. Basically I was trying to look for some Bosnian dice and I came across this little store. I looked around and I didn't see any dice. I saw boxes which I assumed had a game in it with some unique dice, but no. The owner was trying to sell me two boxes and making a deal with it but I was refusing. As soon as I was about to leave, the owner blocks the entrance. Not in a very aggressive way, mind you, but I was in a bit of a rush so I just told him I'd pay for one of the boxes for 30 euros. I only had two 20 euro bills, and I just gave him that. I left and he didn't bother to give me change, and it was only later I realized that I threw away $60 on a box. But hey I made the guy happy, unlike the gypsy I gave two pieces of bread. That occurred while we had prepaid dinner at a restaurant courtesy of the teachers. I noticed a gypsy with her two children begging and I figured that at the very least I could give her a piece of bread. After all, it's usually good to give poor people food. Plus I left my wallet in my hotel...anyways, I give her the piece and she asks for more. I assume it's for the children so I give another piece. But she still keeps asking. Eventually she stops, but her little boy keeps insisting that I give him a kebab. I felt very weird about all this and I went back in. I'll at least give the gypsy the benefit of the doubt because she did eventually stop, but that little kid was still outside of the restaurant, as if I was going to give him the kebab. Worse off, from what I was told by other classmates, that kid was being quite aggressive, even going so far to almost take one of the girl's purses. So yeah, there you go.
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Here, we came across another mini-stop. This is the capital of Croatia, Zagreb. Not much really to see aside from the church...or at least that's all that we saw. By the way, that church is called the Church of the Assumption Of The Blessed Virgin Mary. Here I was trying to see if I could find that ceramic doll I missed. Sadly I did not. Not much else, but hey look at that bitchin' photo.
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Aside from Dubrovnik, I'd have to say that Vienna was a very nice city to be in as well. It did certainly help that the kind of things I saw, did and got were fucking awesome. For starters, we saw the Belvedere, the Schonbrunn Palace, Albertina, the famous opera house, a Mozart monument and a lot of famous graves. We also went to a concert, where they were mostly playing Strauss, with some Mozart thrown in for good measure. In intermission, we were able to drink champagne! I felt so damn fancy, I almost wish I brought a nice suit, a monocle and a pocket watch to me for this. By far the best part of the concert was hearing O Mio Babbino Cara live. It is so damn angelic that I swear to god almighty and the heavens above I cried tears of joy hearing the singer serenade us with such docile tones. The tour guide was a fellow by the name of Gerhard and he was by far the best one. He was pretty funny and had a very approachable attitude to him. In the free time I managed to go to an area in Vienna which was basically filled with antiques. In there I found this place which was just filled with all sorts of stuff. I went in to buy a Soviet ring that cost 110 euros, but as soon as I noticed the visor cap and a medal, I got that, which was basically the same price. The owner was pretty cool too, he was a sort of gruff looking fella, but he was real nice and he got my hat down with a sword, which I think is pretty cool. In Vienna I also managed to find a Gustav Klimt exhibition, which was rad on it's own and I saw a Kurdish demonstration take place. Also famous musicians advertise chocolatethere and it still doesn't stop making me laugh. It was quite fun-packed.
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We went to a train from Vienna to Krakow, which was odd. Not because of being on a train but because we waited for a hour or so at night for our sleeping cars, and in the sitting car I was there was this old lady who had terrible foot odor. Once getting our sleeping cars, I had one of those "not sure if I actually went to sleep" kind of sleep. But we came up to Krakow, thank god. Poland for the most part was quite solemn, but I think Krakow and the city below did do enough to not be too solemn. I mean you have to remember that this place was decimated by the Nazis, and they do talk about the effects the war had on Poland on the tour. Plus we did see the original factory that Schindler owned, which is now a museum. It was powerful to see such a building stand, along with the plaque with the famous saying "whoever saves one life, saves the world entire". There was also the Iron Chairs memorial which represents how the Jews thought they were going to labor camps so they brought all they could and went to the square, later being told to leave their belongings there and ending up going to concentration camps. Aside from, there was the Wawel Castle, a church and a large square. In the square there were a bunch of street performers and I happened to go into a Hard Rock Cafe to have some wings, a Long Island Ice Tea as well as seeing a trumpet owned by Miles Davis. I also managed to get lost in Krakow, finding myself in a more urban, less touristy area of the city. Don't worry, I found it nice and happened to call a cab back to the hotel. Though I feel like if I had better prepared myself, the city would have been better to see. Though nothing prepared me for that fresh pool of blood I saw when we came off the train and went to the bus. There wasn't even a body or blood marks of the body being moved. Just a pool of blood out of nowhere. Yeesh.
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Along with Krakow, we went to Wieliczka, which is home to an old and humongous salt mine. It's a thing of pure glory because you'll see a whole bunch of structures that are built entirely out of the salt. More impressive was seeing the church, especially with the attention to detail and the salt crystal chandeliers. It's just insane.
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As for the more solemn part of Poland, we have Oswiecim, which is home to the infamous Auschwitz. We went to a part that was converted into a museum and Birkenau which is the one that you usually see in all the movies. It's chilling to be there, and I really can't think of anything else to say about it that hasn't been said already.
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In Prague we made a sort of mini-stop, and I say sort of because we had a hotel reserved there. It was basically a drive-by tour (not literally) which had all the sights but none of the juicy substance. Which is a shame because it was a gorgeous city. There wasn't much to say here other than the owner of a souvenir shop I went to figured out that I spoke Spanish so we spent a good while shit-talking the Venezuelan government. Which wasn't the first time on the trip I got some delightful interaction from the locals due to my roots. In Krakow, as I was walking down the street there was a Polish guy who was making a bizarre face. As soon as I noticed him, he stopped, and said something in Polish about me being Venezuelan and patted me on my back as he went to talk to his friend. Nice guy, mostly because he was close to me and didn't end up stealing anything. Not that he would or anything...erm...the only other note from Prague is that they love Thai massages. In every corner I saw a Thai massage parlor. It was weird as hell.
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Dresden became the last mini-stop we had, and the only thing we say of real note was this giant gaudy Protestant church. At first you'd think it's Catholic or something because Protestants don't usually like to show off or look all this illustrious, but when you see that organ in front, you know that it's Protestant. In there was also a burnt cross from the old church that was destroyed in WWII. I tried to find hassenpheffer and a DVD that had Gert Frobe in Germany, but I had not such luck. But in Dresden I did come across a restaurant with a Canadian theme called Ontario. It had some of the typical Canadian cuisine and it kind of had the vibe of Canada too, but the burger I got didn't really look Canadian. It was delicious as hell,though. Oddly I saw some ads in the German airports that were like "Come to Ontario for your next big breakthrough" which makes me wonder if the Germans seem to be really infatuated with the province or if Ontario suddenly got the deutsch-loving bug. Either way, it was nice to be there.
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Finally, we came across Berlin, with it's Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, TV Tower, parts of the Berlin Wall (which they try to scam you with in the gift shops. "Take home with you a real part of the Berlin wall" my ass) and a few buildings that are still from WWII. Not only that but there were a lot of memorials. Jewish memorials, a Romani memorial, hell there was even a memorial for the 98 members of the Reichstag that were killed by the Nazis just outside the building. I figured out that German people only half-abide to the serious stereotype. As in half the Germans I saw were stone-faced while the others were just your typical fun-loving goofballs. Also that effective stereotype is also half-right. I mean the plane I went on was Lufthansa and it was perhaps one of the greatest flights I had, but then you notice certain things (either by yourself or because the guide tells you) which aren't exactly what you'd expect. But that whole "don't talk about Nazis" thing? 100% true. The government was pretty clever about it too, I think. People would have been bitching that not saying anything about Nazis would be oppression of freedom of speech but since fascism is a crime against humanity and such crimes repress freedom of speech, mentioning Nazis would be going in contrast with that. Obviously there's a lot more subtleties to it, especially when you get with mentioning Nazis in the media, but it's not advisible to seig heil there lest you have 5000 euros you want to throw away. Once again, it was a fantastic place to be in and I find it so funny that where Hitler's bunker once stood, there's a parking lot.
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So that's all I can pretty much say. I'll be posting other pictures of my trip on my Tumblr under this tag in the coming days because photo limits are a bitch and I also have some silly videos that I took there. As for future projects, I got a lot, but I'm still dazed by jet-lag and real life to try and construct what I see ahead. Bye for now!
First, I was in the pearl of the Adriatic sea, Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik was founded some time in the 7th century, and it's name means "wood of oak trees", due to all the trees it had. It's patron saint is Saint Blaise, whom if you see, will always hold the city of Dubrovnik on his left hand. Dubr-oh...erm, sorry. It was a History trip and I was pretty much writing down a whole lot of interesting tidbits. I don't even take history, but one of the teachers recommended it to me and I figured why not go to all these places. Anyways, you don't really want to hear me blather on about that kind of thing, so I'll talk about experiences. Well, let's see, we went to see the old part of Dubrovnik, which still shows signs of it being affected by the Yugoslavian war. Most of the time when you saw cracks or holes, it was either from bullets or explosives. We went up on the wall, and it had a wonderful view of the inner city, the outer city and the ocean too. It's a very lovely city and I managed to make a considerable effort to speak Croatian since I had a travel translation book with me. Which by the way, I learned that travel translation books only help in general ways, not specific ones. It's sometimes better if you just ask "Do you speak English?" in the language rather than try to speak in the language. But still, I had a good time, and I was able to do some Croatian folk dancing too. I'd love to visit the country again or at re-visit Dubrovink. It's a very quaint, relaxed little place.
Along the trip, there were a lot of mini-stops, and one of them was Mostar. As you can see in the picture above, we were at a bridge. This bridge by the way was rebuilt due to the Croatians destroying it. Yeah, one thing that I found while being in Croatia and Bosnia is that aside of the effects of Yugoslavian conflict still being a very fresh subject, there's quite some tension involving it. From what I was told I tried to think of it as the Croatians don't like the Montenegros and the Serbians, the Bosnians don't like the Croatians and the Serbians don't like the Croatians or the Bosnians, but it gets more complicated than that, especially when you add the other countries that used to be Yugoslavia as well as the president of Yugoslavia, nationalism and the fact that Bosnians go Croatia to find work because of a high double-digit unemployment percentage. 52% to be exact. Actually, Bosnian politics gets all kinds of fucked up when you consider they have three "presidents" which each represent the ethnicities in the nation along with 257 political parties which each have at least one seat in parliament. But yeah aside of that bridge, some reminders of the incident in '93 and some interesting souvenirs made out of bullets, Mostar didn't have much.
Sarajevo was probably the city I liked the least. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice city, and I managed to fit in a lot better than the others. The Bosnians speak the same language as the Croatians, just with some certain changes. Also don't say to the countries that used to be part of Yugoslavia that they speak the same language. I didn't say that to one, but it's just something to keep in mind. That and the sights weren't bad. Here I saw the fountain of Sebilj (I thought it was spelled Sabille, welp), a mosque built by Husref Bey, the Tunnel of Hope, Sniper Alley, the street where Franz Ferdinand got shot and a lot of Sarajevo roses. What are those, you may ask? Well, they're these delightful little holes filled with red plastic that tell to you that where you stand, there once was a massacre which took place. The most outrageous story was the Sarajevo rose near the Sacred Heart Church which was a massacre that took place on Xmas Eve of '94. And right where the Sarajevo rose is, a nun and two children where standing, just about to be blown to bits by a shell. Anyways, the reason I wasn't too fond of Sarajevo was that there isn't much else but shops, bazaars and gypsies. At least, in the place we were in, but there isn't much interesting things to do there, unless you feel like throwing your money away.
Speaking of which I spent 40 euros on a wooden box. Basically I was trying to look for some Bosnian dice and I came across this little store. I looked around and I didn't see any dice. I saw boxes which I assumed had a game in it with some unique dice, but no. The owner was trying to sell me two boxes and making a deal with it but I was refusing. As soon as I was about to leave, the owner blocks the entrance. Not in a very aggressive way, mind you, but I was in a bit of a rush so I just told him I'd pay for one of the boxes for 30 euros. I only had two 20 euro bills, and I just gave him that. I left and he didn't bother to give me change, and it was only later I realized that I threw away $60 on a box. But hey I made the guy happy, unlike the gypsy I gave two pieces of bread. That occurred while we had prepaid dinner at a restaurant courtesy of the teachers. I noticed a gypsy with her two children begging and I figured that at the very least I could give her a piece of bread. After all, it's usually good to give poor people food. Plus I left my wallet in my hotel...anyways, I give her the piece and she asks for more. I assume it's for the children so I give another piece. But she still keeps asking. Eventually she stops, but her little boy keeps insisting that I give him a kebab. I felt very weird about all this and I went back in. I'll at least give the gypsy the benefit of the doubt because she did eventually stop, but that little kid was still outside of the restaurant, as if I was going to give him the kebab. Worse off, from what I was told by other classmates, that kid was being quite aggressive, even going so far to almost take one of the girl's purses. So yeah, there you go.
Here, we came across another mini-stop. This is the capital of Croatia, Zagreb. Not much really to see aside from the church...or at least that's all that we saw. By the way, that church is called the Church of the Assumption Of The Blessed Virgin Mary. Here I was trying to see if I could find that ceramic doll I missed. Sadly I did not. Not much else, but hey look at that bitchin' photo.
Aside from Dubrovnik, I'd have to say that Vienna was a very nice city to be in as well. It did certainly help that the kind of things I saw, did and got were fucking awesome. For starters, we saw the Belvedere, the Schonbrunn Palace, Albertina, the famous opera house, a Mozart monument and a lot of famous graves. We also went to a concert, where they were mostly playing Strauss, with some Mozart thrown in for good measure. In intermission, we were able to drink champagne! I felt so damn fancy, I almost wish I brought a nice suit, a monocle and a pocket watch to me for this. By far the best part of the concert was hearing O Mio Babbino Cara live. It is so damn angelic that I swear to god almighty and the heavens above I cried tears of joy hearing the singer serenade us with such docile tones. The tour guide was a fellow by the name of Gerhard and he was by far the best one. He was pretty funny and had a very approachable attitude to him. In the free time I managed to go to an area in Vienna which was basically filled with antiques. In there I found this place which was just filled with all sorts of stuff. I went in to buy a Soviet ring that cost 110 euros, but as soon as I noticed the visor cap and a medal, I got that, which was basically the same price. The owner was pretty cool too, he was a sort of gruff looking fella, but he was real nice and he got my hat down with a sword, which I think is pretty cool. In Vienna I also managed to find a Gustav Klimt exhibition, which was rad on it's own and I saw a Kurdish demonstration take place. Also famous musicians advertise chocolatethere and it still doesn't stop making me laugh. It was quite fun-packed.
We went to a train from Vienna to Krakow, which was odd. Not because of being on a train but because we waited for a hour or so at night for our sleeping cars, and in the sitting car I was there was this old lady who had terrible foot odor. Once getting our sleeping cars, I had one of those "not sure if I actually went to sleep" kind of sleep. But we came up to Krakow, thank god. Poland for the most part was quite solemn, but I think Krakow and the city below did do enough to not be too solemn. I mean you have to remember that this place was decimated by the Nazis, and they do talk about the effects the war had on Poland on the tour. Plus we did see the original factory that Schindler owned, which is now a museum. It was powerful to see such a building stand, along with the plaque with the famous saying "whoever saves one life, saves the world entire". There was also the Iron Chairs memorial which represents how the Jews thought they were going to labor camps so they brought all they could and went to the square, later being told to leave their belongings there and ending up going to concentration camps. Aside from, there was the Wawel Castle, a church and a large square. In the square there were a bunch of street performers and I happened to go into a Hard Rock Cafe to have some wings, a Long Island Ice Tea as well as seeing a trumpet owned by Miles Davis. I also managed to get lost in Krakow, finding myself in a more urban, less touristy area of the city. Don't worry, I found it nice and happened to call a cab back to the hotel. Though I feel like if I had better prepared myself, the city would have been better to see. Though nothing prepared me for that fresh pool of blood I saw when we came off the train and went to the bus. There wasn't even a body or blood marks of the body being moved. Just a pool of blood out of nowhere. Yeesh.
Along with Krakow, we went to Wieliczka, which is home to an old and humongous salt mine. It's a thing of pure glory because you'll see a whole bunch of structures that are built entirely out of the salt. More impressive was seeing the church, especially with the attention to detail and the salt crystal chandeliers. It's just insane.
As for the more solemn part of Poland, we have Oswiecim, which is home to the infamous Auschwitz. We went to a part that was converted into a museum and Birkenau which is the one that you usually see in all the movies. It's chilling to be there, and I really can't think of anything else to say about it that hasn't been said already.
In Prague we made a sort of mini-stop, and I say sort of because we had a hotel reserved there. It was basically a drive-by tour (not literally) which had all the sights but none of the juicy substance. Which is a shame because it was a gorgeous city. There wasn't much to say here other than the owner of a souvenir shop I went to figured out that I spoke Spanish so we spent a good while shit-talking the Venezuelan government. Which wasn't the first time on the trip I got some delightful interaction from the locals due to my roots. In Krakow, as I was walking down the street there was a Polish guy who was making a bizarre face. As soon as I noticed him, he stopped, and said something in Polish about me being Venezuelan and patted me on my back as he went to talk to his friend. Nice guy, mostly because he was close to me and didn't end up stealing anything. Not that he would or anything...erm...the only other note from Prague is that they love Thai massages. In every corner I saw a Thai massage parlor. It was weird as hell.
Dresden became the last mini-stop we had, and the only thing we say of real note was this giant gaudy Protestant church. At first you'd think it's Catholic or something because Protestants don't usually like to show off or look all this illustrious, but when you see that organ in front, you know that it's Protestant. In there was also a burnt cross from the old church that was destroyed in WWII. I tried to find hassenpheffer and a DVD that had Gert Frobe in Germany, but I had not such luck. But in Dresden I did come across a restaurant with a Canadian theme called Ontario. It had some of the typical Canadian cuisine and it kind of had the vibe of Canada too, but the burger I got didn't really look Canadian. It was delicious as hell,though. Oddly I saw some ads in the German airports that were like "Come to Ontario for your next big breakthrough" which makes me wonder if the Germans seem to be really infatuated with the province or if Ontario suddenly got the deutsch-loving bug. Either way, it was nice to be there.
Finally, we came across Berlin, with it's Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, TV Tower, parts of the Berlin Wall (which they try to scam you with in the gift shops. "Take home with you a real part of the Berlin wall" my ass) and a few buildings that are still from WWII. Not only that but there were a lot of memorials. Jewish memorials, a Romani memorial, hell there was even a memorial for the 98 members of the Reichstag that were killed by the Nazis just outside the building. I figured out that German people only half-abide to the serious stereotype. As in half the Germans I saw were stone-faced while the others were just your typical fun-loving goofballs. Also that effective stereotype is also half-right. I mean the plane I went on was Lufthansa and it was perhaps one of the greatest flights I had, but then you notice certain things (either by yourself or because the guide tells you) which aren't exactly what you'd expect. But that whole "don't talk about Nazis" thing? 100% true. The government was pretty clever about it too, I think. People would have been bitching that not saying anything about Nazis would be oppression of freedom of speech but since fascism is a crime against humanity and such crimes repress freedom of speech, mentioning Nazis would be going in contrast with that. Obviously there's a lot more subtleties to it, especially when you get with mentioning Nazis in the media, but it's not advisible to seig heil there lest you have 5000 euros you want to throw away. Once again, it was a fantastic place to be in and I find it so funny that where Hitler's bunker once stood, there's a parking lot.
So that's all I can pretty much say. I'll be posting other pictures of my trip on my Tumblr under this tag in the coming days because photo limits are a bitch and I also have some silly videos that I took there. As for future projects, I got a lot, but I'm still dazed by jet-lag and real life to try and construct what I see ahead. Bye for now!