Too much walking, too much sun, too much wine and vodka and Polish coffee.  Too much too much too much.  My life feels dizzy.

Auschwitz tomorrow.  Need to go, fear going.  Their lives heavy, incomprehensible.

Lindsay left today –back to wherever in Germany she came from, her life with the National Guard.  She’s beautiful, all angles and hard bones, hard-talking, hard-drinking, Adam, too.  The light summer drinks feel heavy –one after another.  There is no pretense of sobriety.  No question that we will all sit and bake in the sun, downing Polish vodka or rum (being drowned) whatever it takes; to do what I am not sure.

After touring Auschwitz yesterday, Lindsay won’t talk about it except to say America’s Trump will lead us to Hitler, an extermination of Muslims, a stifling of people, a harbinger of fear, evil, hatred.  Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Half the time I am afraid to say what I think and the other half I don’t know.

You choose.    I feel only a part of myself.  In Berlin, there was Carol.  Same age. Same profession. She was married, but travelled solo.  After our dinner I felt sad –she was leaving, she was leaving me,   I don’t want to be in a shell, staying in my house for hours, doing nothing,  passing the time by wasting it, in a fog,  watching TV, becoming distracted, looking at other people’s lives and wishing for a different one, posting  pictures that scream: Look at me, look at me, look at me.  Go to work, go home, do the same thing all over again, missing something.

If I keep going from place to place maybe the answers will come, walking along the Vistula, seeing beauty in standing pools of water.

I have met no one in this hostel who seems forthcoming. I did not see red-headed John that Lindsay talked about, likely he is gone by now.  Young people hop from place to place, like a skipping stone along the river.  The best people-atmosphere was Hostel Postel in Cesky Krumlov, smoking dope and looking at the bridge, feeling mellow with no judgment, young or old.  Never getting lost because traveling in circles was the whole point, arriving back where you started soon enough.

I walk along the street and try to capture a shot with my phone, only just missing it –every single time.  It was here.  I saw it.   If you hesitate it’s gone, the perfect moment disappeared.

Today I am disjointed, somewhere else and all the people I have met are talking to me.  I shout one-word answers.  It feels real although I know it is just a dream.