dream_poland epitome of incomprehensibility (See also dream_Tunisia, but this mishmash includes more recognizable chunks of reality. Why I rendered it in second_person, I'm not sure...maybe because of new_dream_lessons and etc.) If someone drops you off at the train station at the western tip of Montreal, expecting you to walk home, you'll rebel and teleport to an airport. Congratulations, you're now in Krakow, Poland. And in a rental car driven by your uncle. You're sitting in the backseat next to your younger cousin, the uncle's daughter. In a few years they won't be speaking to each other, but now Lia is still a kid. You must be on the tail end of childhood. If she's 9, you're 17. You're headed to the famous outdoor amusement park in Krakow, which looks suspiciously like Montreal's La Ronde except that there's a giant model rocket ship painted white and red. You can see it from far away. Its imposing cheeriness seems grim, all of a sudden. Last year, on your Expensive High School Trip to Europe, your class went to the Auschwitz museum, and you're convinced the giant amusement park is too close to it. You think of saying something cutting about the contrast (or the similarity...war, rockets for weapons...), but then there's Lia sitting beside you. Would she know her mother had relatives who were killed there, albeit distant ones? Would she be too young to know? You say something angry but vague to your uncle, and now the anger comes from a smaller but more personal, more pointed objection: you know he's going to act neglectful towards his child and contribute to future conflict. And, right now, he's neglected to stop for lunch. You know you're not going to starve to death, but hunger makes you grumpy. He acts oblivious and cheerful, like the bright rocket ship. (Possible dream_mind influences: the Expensive High School Trip, which was to Italy. It was the site of a natural disaster - Pompeii - that unnerved me, partly because I hadn't had breakfast. Two years ago I went with some immer_immersion classmates to a former concentration camp called Sachsenhausen, close to Berlin, where I started crying about something mostly unrelated. Oh yes, and I visited the big indoor amusement park in Edmonton Mall years and years ago, but it was only a recent talk with an Edmontonian that confirmed this was a real thing and I hadn't dreamed it. I don't know where the image of the rocket came from, but both Canada's and Poland's flags are red and white. There's also a space museum north of Montreal that has a model rocket outside.) 251008 ... e_o_i ...is also the green_line of the Montreal metro sometimes, but why's this country toying with my emotions these days? It's not one I think about much in waking life. Hmmm. Maybe it's like stars for astrology enthusiasts. A faraway place interfering, actually or imaginarily, with one's closer sphere of reference. ... Anyway, I'm in dream_Germany when I get a message from the father of a former teacher, Mrs. Krakow, who died a few years ago. This man invites me to visit him in Poland. (Now, the only person I know with the last name Krakow is a Montrealer, a fellow writer. My dream_mind is doing some punnish mixing: not only is Krakow also a city in Poland, but who's the teacher of mine who died a few years ago? Mrs. Scott. Scott...person of Scotland...name of a place in Europe.) Anyway, I think, "No, he can't be her father. He'd be too old. He must be her son." Still, he's about fifteen years older than me and I don't want him to get ideas about hitting on me. If he tries that, I decide, I'll threaten him with my mini Swiss Army knife. (Which is maybe my dream_mind responding to the desire I felt yesterday to slap someone in the face. Even in my angry state, I wasn't in danger that time of actually doing it. It's a relief to be past that, but I know I have to be careful to *keep* being past that, if that makes sense, so maybe that's why I felt so guilty about just *wanting* to hit someone. Which, I guess, translates to wanting to wave a knife in front of an imaginary person for unrelated reasons.) So I have no qualms about going. From where I am, I can just take the metro. It's a long journey, west to east, and I'm yawning, distracted. Some of the stops are legitimate places in Poland, though maybe in the wrong order - Lviv is the second-last one. No, I just looked it up - that's a city in Ukraine. Okay, that *still* makes sense, because in the dream I got distracted and forgot to get off at whatever stop I was supposed to get off at. The terminus station is in Ukraine. Someplace starting with a B. Well, fine, I think, I'll take a bus back...but when I open the door to the upper floor I hear sounds like guns or explosions in the distance. The war! I forgot. I'll get caught in the middle of it! ... Instead I'm caught in the trap of sad nostalgia, waking up in another dream...but at least I get a dream_compliment out of it. 251201 ... e_o_i corrects linkage (dream_compliments, but there was just one compliment) 251201 what's it to you? who go blather from