we won’t move out to smaller house, we will fill this big house with people.” – or a lot of square meters of blue sky.

Translated by Maja. Translation fixed by Dawid Pieper.

Bernie and Tim Websters live in typical Irish house, which is huge; it does not look as if it was, though.
Downstairs there seems to be only a living room connected with some sort of a dinning room, down to those a kitchen.
Does it matter, although, as you do also have a staircase with six corners, and a room (bathroom at least) on all of them.

When, on our first day there, they opened the door and almost immediately showed us our room, I must admit to having bad feelings about that all. Not about accent nor new experiences, I just had an impression that it would be more sort of a hotel than home. House is huge, there could be a lot of things to do, I don't know these people and their habits, maybe we would be going to spend time with ourselves, not with them. I couldn't be more wrong.

A few days later, when we were, as always, talking during the meal, mr Tim Webster told me the following story.
"WHen our kids lived with us, it was obvious, why we had got such a big house. Then, when they moved out everyone had wondered and we had as well, if we could find something small for us. And you know what… I said: no, we won't move out to smaller house, we will fill this big house with people."

You were right, amazing idea! It all started like that and now Websters have been taking in many different tourists from different countries since about fifteen years or so. Or maybe more, I'm sorry if I don't remember correctly.
Loads of interesting stories can come out from that because Websters can hear something from their guests, their guests can find out curious facts from them… and that's how Websters get along very well with many countries and it isn't surprising me at all. Bernie always has an eye on things and knows exactly where everything is, thank God. For me, she always has a smile, a good word and, of course, a lunch bag, which she used to hand me everyday before school.
Whereas Tim got at once what's the most important to me, what, when you think about it, wasn't so strange taking in consideration their national culture.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" Who knows me well, does know that tea is one of necessary things in my daily life. Tim also came up with this observation quite fast and after a few days, just after this question we used to burst into laughter admitting it was needless question. What more I can tell you about him? Maybe what he told me himself: that he loves notebooks (we gave him some as a souvenir from our town) and that he is always loosing things. Yeah, I must agree with that.

And, to be honest, here's the place where I have ran out of ideas how to describe my visit in writing. I'd like to tell you about our breakfasts, everyone a bit tired but instead of moaning about it, laughing at it. About our dinners at 6 p.m., seriously, for Polish people that hour for eating was magical. :p We sat around the table and talked about our day, what we had done and how we liked the meal. My friend would have killed me if I hadn't written it, so am I. For dinner we usually had things I like the most, I'd call it chicken with something. With rice, different sauces and seasons, vegetables and stuff like that. Delicious! When you, after school day with lessons and workshops, take your seat at the table and get great lasagne, you get seconds, you get strawberries with icecream for dessert and then, without asking, you get a cup of tea in the front room, you soon find yourself in a paradise. I can also mention our fireplace in the front room which sometimes was lighten up. We could just sit there, on comfortable sofas, eat those strawberries, drink tea and just exist in peace. It was nice when my hosts were sitting there watching some series on TV, I was sitting with my laptop and, from time to time, we could exchange opinions about our activities, relaxing together. It wasn't forced, there wasn't stiff atmosphere at all. It was their representative quality in general.
I wouldn't like to be missunderstood but try to imagine something like that in Poland. Lets just say in your house there are guests, from foreign country, staying for a week! You set up breakfast on half past eight and what? The Poles are downstairs at least quarter before that time for everything to be set when guests come down. My Irish people would woke up with me, come down with me, at least in some days. "Breakfast? Here you are. We usually eat flakes, would you like some?" The theory of heavy English breakfasts was also disprooved. I ate flakes or toasts, as far as I know so Websters did. And, of course, a cup of tea after breakfast.

An other interesting fenomenon in Derry was its' weather. When I came outside on Thursday morning mr Webster looked at the sky and said in a pensive tone: "there is a big, round thing on the sky. It shines. I googled it and they call it the Sun".
We considered it must have been a new invention. The next days we welcomed with remarks like: What a beautifull morning, nine square inches of blue sky!

Dear readers, if it's raining outside your window, please, think twice before considering it to be rain. I saw rain in Derry. When I came on heavy rain there, after coming back I have water on my jacket, sweatshirt, T-shirt (I have no idea how it happened) and all over my trousers. This rain falls horizontally or what?
When Bernie saw me that day she immediately noticed: "it wasn't good idea to go outside, was it? I'll plug your bed in, you will unplug it when you will be going to sleep, OK?"
You worth a small explanation here. We had electric beds there. A strange association with an electric chair comes to my mind right now so I'll explain. They called it an electric blanket and it is simply what the name says. You just put the right plug into a socked and your mattress warms up! It was great! Especially after that rain.

Bernie cared not only about me not being hungry but also being healthy maybe because of her backround in medicine. Of course, I made a point of telling her my favourite joke about medical schools.

"Some students were asked to learn phone book by heart. University students asked "what for", students of polytechnic started to prepare crib sheets, and those on medical studies just asked "on what date?". Bernie laughed and I added some information about my friend learning massage technics and professional latin for her job. I said that I don't understand her at all. By the by we talked over my blindness and Bernie asked if I follow medical notifications about eyes. Talking about eyes, I must admit my host family handled the problem very well. Bernie clearly explained how to pass the kitchen not to bump into it, Tim graphically described these wonderfull pieces of blue skies and I owe them both a thank you.
Thank you for not having a panic attacks when I was running up and down these stairs with all of my stuff or for helping me to reboot the system when my laptop stopped talking to me. Tim was describing what he was seeing on the screen knowing neither Polish Language nor Windows. And that was an achievement! We deserved a cup of tea, didn't we?
A memorable moment was also our last evening. We were sitting in the front room and "the biggest weekend" (music festival from BBC) was on TV. Ed Sheeran was one of the performers so obviously I had to stay and watch to see it. Tim told me later that it was a first time he had listened to Sheeran's lyrics. I'm glad I have brought such an eyeopener. 🙂 During the concert I had something to say almost about each song and after it had finished I said good bye as it supposed to be said. Tim's reaction was priceless.
"you're waing him good bye?! It's a radio program!"

And that is how the week passed, with people I underestimated at first. I supposed that I had been going to the house of serious, elderly people who for sure would have more importand engagements than us. But I arrived at Webster's home. Who always asked what was at school and if I liked it, almost every day met up with differend friends and went to the town, in their leisure time watching series like "the game of thrones" and few weeks earlier they had gone to Rolling stone's show. Amazing it was!

And now a handful of curiosities.
Electricity. In walls there are socked with on/of switches. Yes,, to have a working socked you are required to flick a switch, similar to turning on the light.

Water. Let alone two tabs, one for hot and the next one to cold water, I was defeated by shower with a string. To make this machine work you have to pull a string before you go into a shower cabin, only then water can run. I always forgot to turn it on or of.

Traffic lights. As I told you in the first part of our story, the rule followed on the streets of Derry is: green light – go, red light – look around and go! In ENgland as well as in Ireland, I'm under an impression that people just go as they wish. No cars around? So why should I wait for some lights to change? The next interesting thing is there's no zebra crossing. They have only kind of squares on the edges of the road so I don't know what they're sorting things out. It was a lovely view when we were standing on the edge of the road and trying to guess if we are letting this car go or this car's letting us. It seemed to us that we would make this decision simmultaneously with the driver. In my house the theory has been made that each time you want to cross the street or start up your car, there're always thirteen cars round the corner waiting for going in front of you. They're always the same cars making you wait on your way.

Fish and chips. I ate it on my last day in Derry. There is really a lot of it. I suppose nobody had finished. Denis, my friend, you could make it!
On the end – the Polish language. Words my hosts have learnet are: dzień dobry (good morning), Warszawa and do zobaczenia (see you).

We flew home on Saturday and I haven't many interesting things to say about that journey maybe because nothing fascinating happened. Maybe apart from the moment when the Ryaner's signal was immediatelly associated with our Polish "happy birthday" song. When we heart it above our heads one of my teachers sang the next part at once. It says something about states of our minds then, doesn't it?

We happily came back home so I will happily end this entry. Greetings for you all and please comment.