Spirit of the River

When I still lived in New Zealand, and also during my first year in the UK, I often dreamed dreams that included Lucy Lawless. Not Xena, but the actress herself. Last night, I had a dream that surprised me because I thought my years of dreams about Lucy Lawless were over because the last dream I had about her felt like the end of a series. The dreams were telling me a lot about my life, especially now that I am looking back at them. It once more makes me wonder whether our dreams are more than just random images and stories that come to us at night.  In the beginning: Lucy Lawless as an unapproachable, distant star My dreams in the beginning were usually set during conventions or shows, e.g. concerts during which Lucy was the singer. I was always only part of the audience, and as much as I wanted to talk to Lucy, and ask her questions about life, I never had the chance to get anywhere close to her. I was simply a powerless spectator who wanted something she could n

What this article will be about In the past few months, I have lived in a place where I get to interact with Eastern Europeans quite a bit. I tend to get along with most people (that does not mean they are friends though), and am interested in different cultures. I used to have a Polish friend when I was a kid, and a Russian best friend when I was 16-22 years old. I also used to get along with people from Eastern Asia, especially the Japanese - but that is another topic. In this blog article, I would like to discuss a few things about the differences between people from different European countries - and whether those differences can be overcome or not. What do I mean by Eastern and Western European? Of course, Europe consists of more than just East and West. Some people also make the difference between Central, Northern, and Southern parts of Europe, but to me (in this article) it is about the differences between countries like Poland, Hungary, the Ukraine, Romania, and other