Warsaw, 2021

Today I celebrate my 3 years of living and working in Warsaw (Poland).

This city is a vibrant dockyard of restlessness, so many things have changed in front of my eyes so fast: people, buildings, culture, weather, priorities.

Most of the capitals I used to experience have a strong identity. Rome, Paris, Berlin: they change day after day but they keep their personality, that special way of being unique and recognizable by anyone in any age.

Warsaw doesn't. Warsaw is a teenager, still trying to understand itself.

The more Warsaw opens to foreigners, the more it is gets racist.

It grows towers, the taller the better, so capitalist to keep a soviet monument as its symbol.

Warsaw is the technological hub of Europe, you can pay everywhere contactless, and you still have gorillas with weapons protecting the churches from invisible enemies.

Warsaw wants to breathe history like Rome, so it has an Old Town younger than its prime minister.

Warsaw wants to be revolutionary as Paris, so it aborts basic human rights to have something to protest about.

It wants to be dominant, a modern Berlin. And it is doing pretty good with all the gestapo we see everyday in every corner of the street. Even better if we consider the Wall of culture, mentality and education that separates people living in here.

Today, 3 years ago, I was walking around Rondo ONZ, carrying my 20kg luggage under the snow, with the wind at -14 degrees cutting my face.

Today, 3 years ago, I was looking at my future in a sunset from the top of the Palace of Culture. Now I sit in my balcony, close my eyes and enjoy the sun shining on my face.