My grandmother is a very special person. She was born just next to Lviv in 1937 and later she moved to West Poland together with her parents, as the borders changed. And so she lived first in Kluczbork, and then in Opole, when she got married to my grandfather. She had 4 children and worked as an university teacher until she was 75 or so. She's always been not only my granny, but also a very close friend. I always enjoyed visiting her, when I was a child and we'd spend long hours talking about everything in the world. Unfortunately, my family issues got very complicated a few years ago and therefore I wasn't able to see her for more than 2 years... My penpals know what I'm talking about, but it's not something I could write about on a blog. In any case, there was quite a long period, when I was really worried about her, because I didn't even know, in which city she was... Now she lives with her sister and nieces in Kluczbork and I can see that they really care for her. She'd love to be independent and it hurts her that she can't, but there comes that time in our lives, when we simply need others to survive. I'm really glad I was able to spend 3 days with her and hopefully I'll come back in a couple of months.
As for the town of Kluczbork itself, last time I went there was in 2000 on my great grandfather's funeral. So I couldn't really remember anything... Of course, it's not a very exciting place and I could barely find any postcards there, but it has a cozy town centre. I had to go to the town hall to get a copy of my granny's birth certificate. Why do I need it? Because she was born in a place that belongs to Ukraine nowadays and that's enough to get a permanent residence permit in Ukraine for me. I've been renewing my residence permit every year, but this way I'll be able to get one that lasts forever. I didn't have to come to Kluczbork to get this paper, they could just mail it to me for a small fee, but I wanted to come anyway :)
I've also bought a book in a local book shop. It's called "Different Ukraine" and it's about Transcarpathia, my favourite region of Ukraine, which is very multicultural and has an interesting history. I was curious to read the Polish point of view (even if it was anti-Ukrainian at times, but as I want to be a scientist, I should take all the points of view into consideration), but I was slightly disappointed in the end, because the book contained many mistakes, even just in the names of Transcarpathian towns... Still, I've learnt some interesting facts abot the Slovak and German minorities in Transcarpathia, which are rather small nowadays, so I've never met people, who belong to those.
Here's my letter for Olga, which I've posted yesterday :) I've also sent one to Stav on Monday, but I didn't have a chance to take a picture of it, as the lady at the post office just took it away before I managed to say anything :)
And that's me on a local train from Kluczbork to Opole yesterday. The distance is 45 kms and so it takes just about 50 minutes. Polish people tend to call those small local trains "szynobus" ("rail bus"), but I disagree! It's a TRAIN! ;)
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