End of the Year Update

Saludos! Here we are, at the end of a wonderful 2011, one that saw members of the Macmillen family move to Poland, start their year abroad, finish school and start university,

Here are some snapshots from the last few months:


Andik and Zhanik visiting Mimi in Strasbourg, France



La Petit France District, Strasbourg

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The splendour of Warsaw's Keatsian autumn.



Our new living room, with our beloved piano included!


A lovely visit from Vilnius from our great friend Lena.

Krakovian Times!

Hi everyone! We've just recently come back from a fantastic trip to the city of Krakow, 300 kilometres away from Warsaw, after miraculously making it in one piece after a 5 hour train journey on a packed Polish train. In our stay in Krakow, Dmitri, Daniel and Andrew went on a day trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau, while Katrina, Alex and Zhanna went to Europe's largest salt
mine. Here's some of what we saw in a little over a day.

The main square in Krakow, packed with herds of tourists:

Something you don't see every day - an Argentine-Czech resto bar!

The notorious sign which marks the entrance to Auschwitz:

Flowers left behind in the only gas chamber that wasn't destroyed by the Germans:

Plaque at the foot of the Birkenau memorial:

A cattle wagon used for transporting prisoners near the Birkenau gate:

Carriages on the Krakovian streets:

The global reach of Juan:

Lost in translation: urod means "very ugly" in Russian; not sure if this is the best name for a beauty treatment centre...

Happy Polish/Argentine youngster:

The famous Wieliczka Salt Mine chapel, carved by hand by 3 miners!

Apart from the trip, everything has gone better than we could've asked for. Alex and Zhanna went to Rimini for a week of outrageous, Italian fun, while Dmitri's already settled down in Strasbourg. The rest of the Macmillen Six are in Warsaw, enjoying school, work, and time off before university. Un saludo para todos!

Greetings from Warsaw!

Dzen Dobri from Poland! This is our first family blog post, and we hope that you can follow us through here on our global adventures.

It's been the end of our first amazing week in Warsaw. After all the stresses and troubles that any move can bring, we've had time to immerse ourselves into this fascinating Eastern European city, and begun to explore many of the attractions it has to offer.

We've encountered Polish samba dancers,







felt nostalgia for social realism,







met our childhood heroes,







saw some quality Varsovian street art,







got immersed into local agriculture,

met the Polish Piazzolla,

ate some local food,

went shopping at the local hypermarket,

explored the district of Praga (where The Pianist was filmed),

strolled through the market of the Old Town,

and located Warsaw's finest liquor shops:

Apart from our adventures in Warsaw, Andrew has gone back to work, both Sasha and Katrina are back in school, and Dmitri is soon off to Strasbourg to start his year abroad in university.

For now, we say farewell. Hasta la proxima!