I was not really excited to go to Timisoara at this time of the year because of the cold weather, but the perspective meeting good old colleague-friends kept me warm.
We came together for a doing2learn project meeting, sharing our work we have done, difficulties we had and still have and discussed how to proceed.

I have been doing these European projects since seven years now and it is very often quite disenchanting and frustrating. There are many players in the ring with different motives which are not always conform with the meaning of the project or the European framework. Mostly, those people who created the project and carried out the work are enthusiastic at the beginning, trying to bring fresh ideas into their organisations and trying to motivate people to broaden their horizon by learning something.

This was my third trip to Poland. The first one I made in the early 90s, private, searching traces of someone's family. I have uncomfortable memories from that trip, not only because we visited the Auschwitz concentration camp, the whole environment was a bit strange. The second time I travelled to Poland, at the end of the 90s, I stayed in Krakow and I was surprised how vital the city was, even though the whole centre was a big re-construction site.

Now also my third trip, the time couldn't be worse. It was very cold, wet and dark and I haven't seen any blue sky for 4 days.
A French teacher picked us up at Krakow airport to ease the conversation during the two hours drive to Cieszyn (usually, French people do not speak English, might be a prejudice, but it is often true).
On the way to Cieszyn, we passed Oswiecim, saw the museum of the concentration camp and I still got the creeps. I can't imagine how to live in such a place with the visibility of the horrifying past.