Destination: Poland (Tuesday night)

Fine already, show your stuff, Krakow!

There is a travel book on the bestseller list in the States. It lists all the top sights in the world – the ones you should definitely see before you die. Three of them are in Poland -- two in Krakow alone (the castle and the main square). Okay, so the cynic will ask – what’s wrong with the rest of Poland? Wrong question obviously.

I am tired (and wired! My hotel room has a hook up!). But I go out to take a look at the holiday market on the main square (see photos below). I hear someone say in English “damn, that’s good!” They mean the hot red wine with spices that you can pick up at one of the stands. You can sip it while eating, what else – roasted meats, sausages and cooked cabbage stew. Now come on, stay open minded. Imagine: it’s cold, it’s dark, it’s late and you come across the smoky stand where someone is turning sausages. Better than brats, I’m sure.

But I pass on it. I’m aiming tonight for the Peasants' Kitchen, where they serve good old pierogi, stuffed with cabbage and mushrooms. What's this though? The old Peasant Kitchen isn’t full of Poles anymore. I hear German, or English with a German accent. Okay, okay, the Polish hosts were not ALL pandering to their western neighbors with disparaging comments about women , Warsaw and who knows what else. But I do hear one Pole tell his German guest: “Warsaw? There are lots of nice things about Warsaw, I just can’t think of what they might be.” Politeness forces me to keep quiet and concentrate on my peirogi.

Polish sausage: it's the real thing. 

Hey, do NOT neglect the cabbage and mushroom stew... 

Glass-blown ornaments from Poland. We're known for these. 

sheep's wool everything: slippers, sweaters, coats, toys 

smoked highland sheep's milk cheeses 

what else? ... pierogi. 

The Main Square at night 

Destination: Poland (Tuesday evening)

So do I introduce myself or stay quiet?

On the train to Krakow I sit compartment style. Everyone is shaking hands: they know each other. Enter me, the outlier, the one in the pink shirt and black pants amidst a sea of tweed. They are academics it seems, profs from the Academy of Agriculture. Slightly older than me. In Poland, everyone is lightly older or younger than me. What happened to my generation?

Everyone is reading, I’m writing. I’m “Polish” on this run, I already spoke it to them in Polish and so there’s no going back, I’m committed. But please don’t ask me about my work. I have been traveling all day, I am too tired to think lucidly about the law in Polish.

Central Station in Warsaw. All those people are waiting for the Krakow train. Popular run at a popular hour. 

My compartment-mates. Staid. Dignified. Bookish. 

Destination: Poland (Tuesday)

In flight from Paris to Warsaw: you can always spot a Pole…

It’s a skill, but we can do it. If I had to split the plane in two parts, one for the Poles and one for the French, I bet I could guess who would belong in which group with an error of no more than 1 or 2. My father, proud of his worldliness, used to say that he’d be indistinguishable, that is --within the error group. I humored him and answered-- yeah, sure.

It's in the mannerisms, the hairstyle, the movement... Poles. For sure. 

Ahhhh Warszawa!

I have to say this at the outset. I love Warsaw and I am fiercely protective of her. Krakow, the beauty queen, did not suffer in the way Warsaw did in the twentieth century. Warsaw has scars like the kid who once had a bad case of acne. Scars that are difficult for others to understand. Scars of destruction followed by poverty. Warsaw has grit and determination to make something of herself and I just love her to death for it.

Once when colleagues traveled here and later showed me photos they took – I remember vividly one of a decrepit park bench – I cried. Is this the way you see her? --I asked.

Loving her as much as I do allows me to look critically as well. Driving in from the airport is revealing. These are the streets I remember: blocks of apartments that westerners regard as quaintly decrepit in their ugliness. I think—oh how happy are the inhabitants! They have their own apartment in Warsaw and they have their neighborhood and I bet they feel at home there.

It is the new that appears to me more garish, more unsightly. Unregulated advertising. Big signs. Big towers of modern church spires. BIG, it has to be BIG. Aggh! Get me out of here! Thankfully, the city center is spared. It remains as I remember it.

Arrival in Warsaw, but then straight to Krakow

These days I do not initially stop in the capital for more than a few hours (I am in Warsaw now, unloading suitcases and presents). I head straight for Krakow (3 hours by train). My work connections are at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and it’s best to get work done first, before I forget that there is work to be done.

My sister acts as chauffeur. But for our childhood six years in NY and then a brief stint at an American grad school, she has always lived in Warsaw and she is street-smart, keeping up with the new ways that you have to pay attention to. I’m stuck in the old ways of safe streets and low crime rates. She is my protector. Don’t flash cash! Don’t drink tap water! Keep your purse to the front of you! Do not use unmarked cabs. Mafia!

Dilemma

Would you buy yourself some easy love and worship by speaking English in stores/restaurants/hotels even though you were fluent in Polish? I’m always torn on this and I cut it 50 – 50, depending on what I am after and how important it is that I get it.

[I do it for them too! If you are a Pole and the door opens to your store and the person says “dzien dobry” – ho hum, just another customer. But you hear a foreign sounding “hello” and you perk up. God, Americans have currency here. The dollar can plummet to negative numbers and it’ll still buy you a hero’s welcome.]

Off to the train station now.