The good, the bad and the ugly
July 17th
The good — My sister got married over the weekend. I wasn’t expecting much for the ceremony itself, but the moment the Lady officiating walked in, we all stood up, and the young couple was walking down the aisle, I got emotional. Warmly emotional with no tears, but the fact that my kid sister was getting married, and she was so happy made me feel proud and sad and a lot of other things all at once. Then, during the exchanging vows, her voice quivered for a second before she continued and this time happy tears come out of my eyes. In all that, I was very surprised that so many people showed up. Some couldn’t with the new wave of Covid getting stronger (like our mom, who is still sick and missed the wedding), but there were so many of my sister's friends that it was quite overwhelming. I even recognized some of her childhood friends that she is still close to, and a lot of memories of years past come flowing into my mind. An amazing experience for all.
The bad — I found out some unpleasant things about one of my cousins. My brother spend some time with him and other cousins before the wedding, and he shared this information with me. My cousin is the most successful in the whole family (monetary-wise at least) — runs his own insurance brokerage company he built from scratch. Has a wonderful wife and amazing daughter. Great house and a new one being built, holds a yacht sea captain license and spends his free time yachting all over Europe. He also uses drugs — A LOT. Weed to take the edge off, amphetamines to keep going, and other stuff in between. Lost his driver's license some time ago (exceeded the points limit) but still keeps driving. Hired his brother (only 22 years old) which is good and provides drugs for him which is unbelievably bad. It seems that behind the wonderful made-up facade, there is a lot of darkness in his life and all that can end up very badly for him.
The ugly — tourists in tourist spots like downtown Warsaw, where I was staying during the weekend. And I am talking about one particular type of tourist — the one that goes on a trip just to drink, get wasted, and wreak havoc in some other community than his own. There were groups of them everywhere, walking, drinking, shouting, cursing, acting stupid, and making a general mess everywhere. And the morning aftermath — broken bottles everywhere, empty cans, garbage overflowing the bins, garbage on the streets, papers, wrappers, food, etc. Vomit and piss on the sidewalks being cleaned by cleaning crews. Terrible sights just on the morning walk by Vistula river. They are tolerated by police and officials because they bring money, and being drunk or high they spend money like there is no tomorrow. But that is just an awfully deformed and grotesque form of travel that seems to be popular among a sizeable part of the population.
Oh yeah — the movie is still one of my all-time favorites as well.
