Marcin Juszkiewicz - vacations

Vacations in USA and Canada

2015-06-25T17:20:00+02:00

Few years ago I told that I would not fly to USA. Then I changed job and had to fly there for conference. And another one and another… But it was always travel just for conference and one or two days of sightseeing. But not this year.

In August I am going to USA for Fedora Flock conference which takes place in Rochester, NY, USA on 12-15th. But I plan to spend a bit more time on american continent…

First flight is Berlin, Germany to Reykjavík, Iceland where I could just change flight and go to Boston, MA, USA. But why would I? Price of tickets does not change if I stay there for 24h. So I will do some sightseeing, buy a fridge magnet to my collection and then fly.

Boston is a place where I would like to spend few days. Take a look at city, visit Cambridge, MA just because it is younger brother of Cambridge, UK etc. Hope to go to Westford to visit Red Hat office and met some team members and co-workers there. Nothing planned yet, not even hotels.

Then trip to Rochester, NY. Probably by train or bus. Then conference, sightseeing, meeting people etc. I share hotel room with Paul Whalen so probably there will be some interesting discussions ;)

Another part will be visiting Niagara Falls. Hope for both US and Canadian sides. From there I go to Toronto and then on 19th August flying back home.

If someone want to meet me then just ping me. Hints for Canadian prepaid are welcome (in US T-Mobile with 30$ plan should be fine).

Road trip dates setup

2014-06-28T12:08:00+02:00

So this year we are going to Moomins World, Naantali, Finland. All dates are set, PTO granted, car checked.

Trip will start on 5th July with Szczecin -> Łódź trip. There I will take my 6 years old daughter Mira to event named “Old computers & games” to show her which kind of computers I used. Then Łódź -> Olecko to visit my mother. Will spend few days there.

And then crazy trip starts. Friday 11th will take us to Klaipėda, Lithuania to see dolphins. Next day we go to Rīga, Latvia through Hill of Crosses in Šiauliai, Lithuania. Look around and on Sunday -> Tallinn, Estonia where we will spend ~24h as this direction is mostly to not drive everything in one day.

Then ferry to Helsinki, some sightseeing and on 15th we will go to Turku and stay there in yet another hotel.

Finally on 16th July plan is to spend whole day in Moomins World in Naantali. Walk, see, take photos and have a good time.

Next day equals Tampere. Moomins museum and visiting Thomas Ruecker. Then quick run to catch ferry in Helsinki so we can spend some time in Tallinn again and do some proper sightseeing. Similar with Riga and finally Devils’ Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania on last day.

Few days of rest in Olecko and go back home probably through Gdańsk.

I hope that it will be the adventure. One of those nasty disturbing uncomfortable things which you remember for long ;D

Time to plan vacations

2014-03-17T14:59:00+01:00

This year I want to take my family for long trip. But not just a trip but Moomins influenced one because my daughter likes to listen when we read books about them.

So from Szczecin to Olecko (where my mother lives) for few days. Lakes, few old friends, family. Then go north.

Through Lithuania to Latvia to Tallinn, Estonia. Sight seeing here and there to not just drive through all those countries. But probably skip Vilnius as it is on a side.

Then ferry to Helsinki, walk around for a day. And the next step would be Moomin World in Naantali, Finland. No idea how much time it requires. From there to Tempere to visit Tampere Art Museums Moominvalley.

The whole trip needs to be in July when Mira has vacations. And it is also the only time when Finland has summer (but have to check which days :)

Have to check where to stay, who to meet (Riku? Thomas? probably few more), which way to go, what to see. And also I need to get new ID for Mira.

Hope that it will be a great adventure ;D

I want Euro in Poland

2007-11-02T10:52:00+01:00

One month ended, another started so it is time to prepare invoice. As always value is in Euro even if it is not ‘native’ currency for me or client. But what to choose in today’s times…

USD is useless — value goes down faster then leaves from trees, yesterday it had lowest value compared to Euro or British Pound.

PLN is strong but I prefer to use more universal currency in payments.

Euro is strong — many countries use it so it will not drop too much compared to other currencies. But it lost few percents to PLN during last months.

GBP… it is currency of current client so probably we can even discuss about switching to it but exchange rate GBP/PLN changes are bigger then EUR/PLN.

So I want to live in Euro part of world but without having to move from Poland. All hope in new government that we will switch to Euro during next few years (without too big price changes)… It would simplify many things — transactions between companies, no need to exchange PLN to Euro when going to visit friends, conferences or vacations…

Greece vacations: part 2

2007-10-07T15:37:00+02:00

This time I will write something about roads on Greek islands and how people behave on them.

First thing which is easy to spot is amount of vehicles on road. There are cars, buses, mopeds, quads, motorbikes driving in any directions in different style. People on mopeds, motorbikes or quads goes without any helmets, in swimsuits only — probably they did not ever see “Live to Ride — Ride to DIE” website. Talking via cellphone during driving is very often — never mind does it is in the car or on motorbike, driving on rear wheel only is popular (I do not know — maybe they wanted to get some chicks?).

Roads are full of curves — many times 180° ones, mountains ones usually do not allow to see how goes road after curve or does someone goes from that side so drivers use horn to warning other side. There are mirrors on some curves but usually vandalized. Many times you get few hundred of meters altitude difference in few kilometers…

Road to nowhere

People parks cars where it is good for them (people, not cars) — it can be right after curve, on curve (never mind that there is double line on road). Hopefully in the city they tries to park only on one side of the street so buses are able to go. Bus drivers are other thing — they are awesome. With so tight streets they just go into and are able to turn on overparked intersection…

When you go outside of city you gets other interesting stuff like lack of barriers on gorge side, nearly no space to get two cars pass each other on the road.

Road to Porto Vromi

After our first trip I decided to rather not rent a car…

Greece vacations: part 1

2007-10-07T13:03:00+02:00

I decided to write about our honeymoon in few parts. Instead of writing day by day I will write about misc things in each part.

We spent two weeks on Zakynthos island (also known as Zante). It is one of Ionian islands with only few small cities full of tourists. Due to fact that most of them came from UK there are many annoyances everywhere:

all meals contains chips (french fries)
even fast food contains chips (hopefully not all)
all informations are in English and many of them do not even have a text in Greek
informations like “when you go home to UK you can take xxxx cigarettes” in shops
fat British girls are ugly
English looks like main language on island as it is hard to hear other language on the streets

But all of those annoyances can be ignored :)

View from window

We had a room at Katerina Palace in Argassi. In catalog it was written that it is few houndred meters from the beach but I would not call it a beach — it was just sea. Nearest sand beach is few kilometers from Argassi — you can get there by free bus from “Avalon” pub and it is really nice place to spend some time (the beach of course).

Speaking about sea… It is very clean but also awfully salty :)

Ionian sea

Back in Poland

2007-10-03T13:48:00+02:00

Today we returned from Greece to home. It was great holidays and we enjoyed them. I plan to write more about it soon.

Now it is time to dig through mails and prepare to OEDEM 2007.

Greece - we are coming

2007-09-15T15:10:00+02:00

Yes — next two weeks I will spend with my wife Ania on Zakynthos island in Greece — we are going there for honeymoon trip. Whole too weeks without working on Poky, OpenEmbedded, OpenMoko, without computers — just we, sun, water and walking, taking photos etc.

I do not promise any texts from our honeymoon as I usually forgets about writing them :)