All posts filed under: Blog

5 Places in Wroclaw I Always Go Back To

Published by Magda Olchawska

Wroclaw is a wonderfully cosmopolitan city in the south-west of Poland, where I was born and where I go back to at least twice a year. The city has changed massively since I was a child and I’m beyond grateful for that. When I’m in Wroclaw, apart from visiting friends and family, I always go back to those five places for food, coffee and drinks, and I can honestly recommend them to anyone who is travelling through, visiting or thinking of settling in Wroclaw (the order is random):   Pod Papugami – and old, established a restaurant on the Main Square (Rynek). The food they serve is traditional but with a touch of modern spin and the menu is always changed a bit with each coming season. The interior is full of old classic Hollywood posters, which gives the place a unique and one of a kind feel. Over the years the quality of food and the service has not changed and has always stayed delicious. Pod Papugami has been opened for as long as …

The Receipt for a Good Family Movie

Published by Magda Olchawska

As a parent, I watch a lot of PG, family-friendly films and over the years I realised that the most successful family films have those five things in common: 1. One of the characters is an animal. It doesn’t have to be the main character, but the animal is an integral part of the whole plot, like ‘Babe’ or ‘Stuart Little.’ 2. The main character is usually an underdog and comes from the background with either financial difficulties, or emotional baggage, has a lot of self-doubts, and their confidence is either very low or doesn’t exist at all. During the film, the character discovers that the confidence doesn’t come from the external possessions but the inner strength. Good examples here are ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, ‘Hugo’, or ‘Karate Kid.’ 3. Kids can easily identify with the character because they experience the emotional upheavals often felt and agonised over by themselves, such as lack of friends, feelings of isolation and not being part of the group, feeling alienated at school, especially when they struggle or …

Monster

Published by Magda Olchawska

Who is the Monster that lives under my bed? Who is it? How did it get there? Why did it choose me? Is it possible that I chose it? Will it ever leave me alone and go away? Go, go, find another person to torture with your relentless sarcastic, repetitive screams Will you try to stay and destroy every single bit of my life and me? Why do you get energised by bashing me, kicking me, and seeing me suffer? I did nothing wrong. I was simply born like children are, So, please, pretty please leave and never, ever come back. London, 20 Nov.2018

How Is Star Wars Inspiring Little M.?

Published by Magda Olchawska

I was planning to write about how Star Wars films have been inspiring a new generation of filmmakers to tell visual stories. However, I must honestly admit I’ve never been a massive fan of the franchise, so I know very little about all that inspiration filmmakers feel while watching or analysing it. I felt that writing about that would be somehow dishonest. However, what I do know for certain is that Little M. has been hugely inspired and influenced by the Star Wars. Before we started home-schooling Little M. attended a Steiner School, and Steiner education is in strong opposition to a modern day entertainment. Of course, he watched films, videos, and TV shows, we weren’t Amish, but for a very long time, I thought that Star Wars was too violent for his developing sensitivity. However, when he started coding and animation classes as part of his home-schooling education, I didn’t want him to feel left out since all his new classmates knew the films well. So finally I allowed him to be introduced to …

“Sensitive Skin” with Kim Cattrall

Published by Magda Olchawska

I realise that a lot of people don’t like, or perhaps even hate Netflix, but for a working and homeschooling mum, Netflix is a Godsend. One of the shows I recently discovered is “Sensitive Skin” with Kim Cattrall. I’ve always liked her and thought that “Sex and the City” without Samantha wouldn’t have run for longer than a season, maybe two. In “Sensitive Skin” however, Kim Cattrall’s character Davina is nothing like Samantha from “Sex and the City”. Davina has been in a long-term relationship, she has a son, who is not so keen on his parents and blames them for everything that has been going wrong with his life. However, Davina doesn’t try to fix him; she is trying to fix her own life, which only recently she came to realise that has not been as satisfying as she imagined would have been when she was young, full of dreams and hopes. When we meet Davina and her husband Al, they have just moved back to the city, leaving their suburban lifestyle behind, which …