"I like maps, because they lie"...

I like maps very much. I can't explain it, I've always been like this. I can stare at a map for hours and I'll never be bored.

Above my bed there's a huge map of Poznań which you can see here:

(I'm sorry for the mess in my room^^')

I find interesting collecting maps. Nowadays people usually use Google Maps or other online app, but having a paper map has a lot of advantages. When you go on a long trip, especially in mountains, you can have some difficulties with charging your battery. In these situations paper maps are irreplaceable. What's more, you can easily mark by pen places you wanto to see.

Don't forget about old maps! It's nice to see how countries' borders change.
In my room is hung the map of Europe in XVI-XVII century:

One of my favourite poems is the Wisława Szymborska's last one - "Mapa" ("Map"). The same here, it's on my wall:

English translation by Clare Cavanagh:

Flat as the table

it’s placed on.

Nothing moves beneath it

and it seeks no outlet.

Above—my human breath

creates no stirring air

and leaves its total surface

undisturbed.

Its plains, valleys are always green,

uplands, mountains are yellow and brown,

while seas, oceans remain a kindly blue

beside the tattered shores.

Everything here is small, near, accessible.

I can press volcanoes with my fingertip,

stroke the poles without thick mittens,

I can with a single glance

encompass every desert

with the river lying just beside it.

A few trees stand for ancient forests,

you couldn’t lose your way among them.

In the east and west,

above and below the equator—

quiet like pins dropping,

and in every black pinprick

people keep on living.

Mass graves and sudden ruins

are out of the picture.

Nations’ borders are barely visible

as if they wavered—to be or not.

I like maps, because they lie.

Because they give no access to the vicious truth.

Because great-heartedly, good-naturedly

they spread before me a world

not of this world.