Thursday April 29th 2004

With a lot of luggage we left for the airport Schiphol, to catch a plane to Frankfurt and then on to Kraków, Poland. The journey went well, and Wojtek was at the airport to pick us up and bring us to his home. It was good to see Wojtek and Krystyna again, and also to meet their children Michał (18) and Kasia (9), and of course the dog Hera.
After a cup of tea, a tour around the house, a shower and a late nite dinner with rice-salad and bread we went to bed.

Friday April 30st 2004

After breakfast (cereal and bread) Gerard and I went to Kraków to see the old town and to buy origami- and Spanish(!) books. There was a little bus travelling every quarter of an hour to the centre of Kraków. The centre of the town is very beautiful, with a big market square, a couple of churches, many old buildings, the Wawel-castle with a dragon statue and a beautiful park around the centre.






On the way back to the house we were happy to meet Michał at the bus-stop, so we did not have to pay attention where to get out. After the tasteful dinner with wheat-soup and macaroni, and after browsing through their extensive origami-book collection, we packed our stuff again and went to bed.

Saturday May 1st 2004

Wojtek has a very mathematical mind and had not a lot of trouble to get all lugage in the trunk of the car. It fitted perfectly! We travelled via all kinds of small roads to the place where the convention was held, summercamp Poreba in the lower mountains near Myślenice. Around 11 'o clock we arrived. There were 2 houses rented, but we slept in the main building in a 2 persons' room. There were about 25 participants. First we went to one of the 2 houses, where I talked with Grzegorz (just Greg!), who happens to be on the o-list as well. He showed me some of his foldings, very complex folds. He and his friends are folding complex folds and also from crease-patterns. Pretty cool!
He designed a leaf and a base for the Kawasaki-rose, an angel and a bishop.


After the lunch (some meat, rye and lemonade) we went to the library in Myslenice to see an origami flower exhibition made by Izabella Ralska. Very impressive and a lot of work for one person! Unfortunately she didn't have the time to go to the convention.

Click on the picture to enter the exhibition
I folded along with Rafał and it became Giunta's Lizard, a very nice model I hope to remember by heart someday. I folded directly another one to practice. (But unfortunately I don't remember now, I have to find the diagrams to make it again. :-( )
Back in summercamp some tables were set out on the stairs in the fresh air, but with a roof over our heads to prevent us getting wet during the short but heavy thunderstorms in the afternoon. We folded each 32 units for a 3rd degree Menger Sponge, Krystyna will put it together. After the weekend she finished 4/20th of it, and had 1000 units, but needed 2000.... Rafał taught a design of his own, his angel.
For dinner we got some kind of pancakes made from potato-flocks and egg, with mushroom-sauce or with sugar and honey. For drinking there was tea.
Wojtek brought some videos with him, also the video by Thoki Yenn. What a nice man he was! I'm sorry that I've never met him... Krystyna held a short lecture about Thoki and Kalmon, and I showed some models I brought with me designed by Thoki. I taught those who were interested how to fold the Umulius Rectangulum.

Sunday May 2nd 2004

We had a good breakfast, with cereal, hot milk, tea, fresh cheese, ham, cheese, tomato, salad, cumcumber. I brought my own coffee-powder so I could make myself some coffee. After breakfast each table could come to us and choose one item of the stuff we brought: Japanese origami-paper, some NOA-magazines. And everybody got a Christmas-booklet and a paper-cutter.
There was no room which could be locked, so the exhibition-display was set up only for today. There were a lot of modular folds, but also complex folds, some of them made from Crease Patterns. Unfortunately I find that my pictures don't do the models right. But to see more of Polish folders you can visit some very good Polish websites.
Halina's extensive modular origami site
Rafał's professional site
Website of Krystyna and Wojtek Burczyk, unfortunately a bit outdated
Coming soon, Greg's site

I taught my Sprinkler plus rotating ring. I sat down with the ring and waited for someone who was interested. I started when there were 3 people. After a while others joined us. I didn't have to teach anymore, they taught each other! When the first people finished their Sprinkler, I taught them how to make a Mette-ring from the tea-bags I brought, and how to polish them with thinned wood-glue. Every ring looked different, and everybody liked it. Unfortunately I didn't bring the diagrams, but told them they could find them on the internet, on Mette Pederson's page.
I only thought about teaching this ring when I thought that I had to do something with the tea-bags. I didn't bring 6 kilograms of tea-bags for nothing! When I said they could take the whole box, some people took some bags, counted them, and at night still 2/3 was left in the box. The next mornign I fortunately could persuade them to take it all, because I would not take anything home with me!
After lunch Ada Zawadzka showed us how to paint paper with a piece of rope. It's a very easy method, but the effect is stunning.
Artur taught Maekawa's Devil from the diagrams from the internet. I gave him the diagrams I had with me, made by Komatsu Hideo, together with diagrams for Komatsu's horse. As a thank you I got his green devil! Thanks Artur!
After that I took a beer in the bar and folded a simple 2 store flower-tower from a crease-pattern. It worked, but I still don't like folding crease-patterns much. I like to fold to a point or a line or something, and I don't like to fold a given line so much.

Artur showed us that he could not only fold paper very well, but also himself! He's a break-dancer. He even holded still in mid-air so we could shoot some good pictures!
In the evening I taught how to make a simple box from free postcards, Gerard taught some people how to fold the talking frog and I learned from Grzegorz how to fold a Spider designed by Mark Leonard from a pretty thick black paper. We had a lot of fun with the sometimes strange folds we had to make. Greg liked my folding bone and I liked his pincers, so we exchanged them. We both thought it was a good deal :-)

Monday May 3rd 2004

After again a very good breakfast, we went outside for the group-photo. After that we were sent into the forest for a puzzle-tour. We had to search for papers on trees and write on our sheet the number on the paper with the pencil attached to the tree. Everybody had to follow the same route, 5 minutes apart. We ended 5th, not bad considering our shoes and climbing-experience (Holland is as flat as a pancake!).
Krystyna showed us how you can fold and cut a 5-pointed star, and also a duck. Special about this technique is that you first fold, and then make exactly one cut. If you do the right folds, you can make every figure you like this way.
More about this on Eric Demaine's page: http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~edemaine/foldcut
After that I taught my photo-album, and afterwards the "Santiago Flower Ball" designed by Mette Pederson. It started to rain and it got a bit windy, so we went inside to continue.
I learned a dragon-fly from Greg, who had made it from a crease pattern by Nicolas Terry, but now made a folding-sequence for us. It's a very nice and beautiful dragon-fly with a color-change for the wings. More and more people left, they had a long trip home. There are only a couple of big roads in Poland, but most of the travel you have to do over small roads. Halina told me that she lived 120 km away, and it took 3 hours to drive!
After lunch we packed and said goodbye to everyone. Wojtek packed the car again, but now there was space left. Rafał gave Gerard and me a beautiful roll of paper, we carried it in a separate bag, not to let it get squashed… wrong choice! We carried it with us all the way, in the car, the 2 planes, but when I had to change trains on my way home this beautiful paper stayed in one train while I got into the other... :-( so, I'm sorry to say I have only a picture of the paper.
Gerard also got a folding-bag from Barbara, it just jumps into shape, but to get it back in the small bag again... takes some practice!

We travelled not directly to the house of Krystyna and Wojtek, but first went to Wieliczka to see the huge saltmines. And huge they are! The tourists only see 1% of all the alleys, and the excursion took 2 hours, without visiting the underground museum! All the walls, stones, churches, statues were made from salt or wood. It was very impressive.




We took Krystyna and Wojtek out to dinner in a nice restaurant called "Grube Ryby". The waitress couldn't understand English, but surprisingly, spoke a lot of French! Because our French is better than our Polish, we were happy she spoke French. We had soup made from red beets. It was very red, but tasted very good. Afterwards we had some meat with french fries. For desert we all were too tired.

Tuesday May 4th 2004

Wojtek drove us at 6 'o clock to the airport, and at 7 we were on our way to Munich. In Munich we took the KLM-plane to Amsterdam and at 12 'o clock we were in our own country again. Gerard went straight to work, and I went home. We had a very good long weekend and made a lot of friends in this new country of the EEG, Poland.