pilgrim place - monastery jasna gora in czestochowa (PL)

at our 3-day trip home from wedding back to germany we have visited the most important polish pilgrim place - monastery jasna gora in czestochowa (PL)

it is a really interesting place with lot of positive energy, for poles a holy one ....

main entry gate to monastery

main entry gate to the church inside the monastery

john paul II, the polish pope

copy of the holy icon of black madonna ... (brings luck)

brought 1382 from russia

3 devils (germany, austria, russia) ... poland was divided and allocated to germany, austria + russia few hundred years ago, you know?

this is the 2nd interesting site in czenstochowa, we have seen and where we could fill-up our water bottles with holy (or healthy?) water :-)

more pictures here
#tschnastochau #czestochowa #czenstochowa #jasnagora
eof

think global, act local => #jarobuys local: data modul + KGHM (top world silver producer 2011)

even if i like nice 'cinderella' stories of small undervalued mining and exploration companies from all over the world, let's give the fat cats also their chance. my wife i.e. best of all wives is polish, so why not to include a polish company into my portfolio? especially a company, which mines in lower silesia (slansk, schlesien, sliezsko) we pass by on our trips from munich to lodz few times a year? what do you suggest, should i visit a mine (or the company museum) on our xmas trip to lodz on saturday? nope, not at our upcoming night trip, but maybe sometimes in summer.

dear KGHM polish copper, welcome to my portfolio. KGHM is not only one of the biggest copper producers in the world (#10 in 2011) but it is the single biggest silver producer in the world as well, just see the picture below. hmmmm, not bad for a by-product point of view, isn't it? although it employs 28,000 people it is still a relatively small company in terms of market cap with only approximately $9 billion. why so low? well, mr. market does not understand much about eastern europe, if you asked me :-). any other investment related topics? yes, there are at least two more: it is a partially state owned company (31.79% owned by polish treasury and 68.21? by other investors like me). what's the other issue? it is linked to the first one: KGHM pays fat dividends, often more than 50% of its profit. why? of course, 'the' state always needs money. that was an easy one, true?

top silver producers 2011

source: here

my 2nd purchase this week? data modul, my home town (munich) based high-tech company which produces displays, embedded systems, printers and the like ...

source: company's website

well, i had both companies on my watch list for a long time, but didn't had money to buy any shares, so i used my xmas salary payment from the end of november to finally add these 2 companies to my portfolio. of course, the price was much much higher than it would be after the summer market crash, but i do not worry too much about it as i know, that unlike the state i only can buy some stuff when i have the money to do so ...

good luck my two pretty portfolio fighters, good luck :-)

fino, a fat cat too

eof

lech walesa

i have met a great visionary 2day :)

former polish revolutionary leader of the movement solidarity / solidarnosc (which started in stettin / szczecin in 1980) and later polish president lech walesa hold a speach in the emperor's hall of  munich's residenz, the place where bavarian kings lived for thousands of years ...

lets share few notes, so u can create your own ideas abt the highly interesting evening ;-):

• faith, visions, freedom, solidarity, revolution, great sense of humor, nobel prize for peace
• the polish pope john paul ll was a major hope for poland and a force which has brought millions of polish people together and actually enabled the revolution ... 
• soviet union, communist party ... radish-like communists in eastern europe (only from outside red ;-) ... 
• helmut kohl, hans-dietrich gentscher, berlin wall, mikhail gorbachev ... btw all 'professional' politicians and other leaders/kings (both western and eastern) didnt believe the system change is possible/probable, theyve just rational counted the number of tanks, soldiers, rockets etc and compared that to walesa's vision of change ... thx goodness, all of them were wrong!!! even the so lauded gorbachev told german politicians only 1 month before the berlin wall has fallen forever, that they can start talking abt 'the wall' in 100 years. how wrong was he, my dear!
• egypt +  tunisia + arabic poverty & social disparity driven revolutions
• great chance 4 freedom + peaceful development in our generation without state boarders, badly needed consumers instead of enemies (a new era, isnt it?), globalization ... 
• grotesque western democracy, politicians led/driven not by visions but by television ... 
• common values, united europe led by germany (btw, in germany there isnt a single person who whould publicly speak abt leadership or even think abt stuff like that! at least ive never heard abt person/leader like that cos the hitler era collective guilt feeling/believes last still to heavily over germany!)
• even in western world there is soo much to do (so many jobs meanigful) like eg better multi-layer roads without crossroads and without traffic jams etc
• dont mix politics with religion, ...
• horrible classical music + yummy finger food + drinks ....

what abt my own resume? let's dream how the WORLD COULD LOOK LIKE and let's make that vision true. if people united cannot be defeated :-)

.... and much much more .... comimg soon or never ...

folks, pls don't worry abt my pictures quality, an other guest promised to send me few of his pictures which i will prolly post later on :-)

#1

#2

here we go! lets switch 2 high quality pictures now (source/copyright by robert stefaniak, may 19th 2011, residence munich)

#3

#4

#5 (there was some music as well :-)

#6 (giving advice 2 homo sapiens (via polish-german interpreters as well) how to create a better, free, peaceful, prosperous, fair, SOLIDARY WORLD!)

no crisis in poland ... OMG! what an airplane tragedy :-( ... RIP ...

(april 10, 2010) OMG! what an airplane tragedy in smolensk/russia ... 88 polish elites including president lech kaczynski dead :-( ... RIP ...

slovak singer martina schindlerova performs 'birds of paradise' for the 42 slovak ('peace force') soldiers who died in a plane accident in hungary on their flight home from kosovo in january 2006.

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(february 2010): folks, there is everything fine in poland

well, we are visiting my wife's family and i think there is everything fine here ... just look: on the very 1st day there was not a single parking slot for our car in front of the city's huuuuge shopping + entertainment center manufaktura (= the former textile factory areal). well, after a while we found a place in the very last row and could finally move to the shopping paradise ... ok, lets move to an ATM and withdraw some local currency (= zloty), u think ... well, i've tried 5 or 7 cash machines and all of them were nearly empty or had just small notes inside so i would have to take the money out in several steps (and pay the corresponding commission of 6 EUR every time). well, the last possible ATM in the 2nd floor offered me to withdraw 3,900 zloty instead of the wished 4,000 (approx 1,000 euros), i said yes, of course ...

the shops are full, cafes and restaurants as well an there was not a single cinema ticket out there (well, that was the valntine's day and therefore a very special situation, but anyway ... )

what else? very sexy clothed women despite the cold weather (-3 celsius), too expensive coffee shops (not much cheaper than in germany even if the folks in poland earn significantly less), soooo much food at family's dinner table, so much snow outside, shopping with wife + children (you still remember my horror experience few weeks ago, dont u?), visit in manufaktura's small but intersting museum ... hell, u wouldn't believe how loud the 2 textile machines were (loud like hell, i would say: http://www.youtube.com/v/iVD-1xBPiNo) and none of us could imagine the damned noise the former 200 machines produced in factory's active days ...

folks, i will post some pictures (but not the sexy girls!) and write some more comments later (just in case if s.th. interesting happens, of course).

well, 2day evening is a pub visit with few of my wife's school friends on the agenda (again in the sooo nice and intersting manufaktura). i knew few of them from my former visits already, so it could be a quite interesting beer/vodka evening again. FOLKS, I SWEAR I WILL NOT TOUCH ANY TEQUILA THIS TIME .... aaaaaaand im not going 2 start any poll whether beer + caipirinha + hot wine punch was a better choice than tequila, u agree?

any other observations? kindly people everywhere (except the waiters/waitresses ~ they prolly dont care whether the customers are satisfied or not), many bazaars with cheap local and chinese products of low quality, traditional local food in the markets + restaurants (prolly much better + healthier than the german industrialized food supply!), very good + still cheap bread, buckled streets (btw, by far not as bad as in bali/indonesia), sooo much waste + doggy sh*t on the streets, nice shops in the city's centre, still no fast intercity roads and you have to drive slowly from village to village in order to move forward (esp. in the area of poland's 2nd or 3rd largest city lodz), still no wind/solar power generators out there, still sooooo many shabby appartment houses, still no waste recycling at all (hell, that's sad!!! paper, glass, food leavings, plastic, everything into one can => waste depony and/or fired in the city's heat power plant => dont ask abt pollution ) ... well, poland has still a loooong way to go to reach western european standards ... but the sexy girls makes the country a "must see" event, i think!

any investment ideas? yep, there is the huuuge copper + silver producer KGHM which pays huuuge dividends, but the price is quite high now and i cant order it directly (traded just in poland, england + usa), so maybe there will be sometime in the future a buying opportunity ...

few more pictures? ok, here we go, enjoy

.