Destination Poland: Friday (evening)

Marketing in a market economy

I walked over to the grocery store tonight with my sister. They sell large quantities and vast selections of everything there. For instance, they sell the game “Scrabble” – a special promotion tonight! – but with Polish letters inside the box. It is an odd thing to buy with your dumplings and pickles.

Trying out Scrabble, in Polish... 

... and load up on the pickles 

The store, Leclerc, is part of a French chain. It is not surprising that they opened in Warsaw. The government gives the foreign companies a substantial tax break for doing business here. True, it drives the small local stores completely out of business, but in return we have Abundance. Great heaps of expensive Abundance. Across the street live the people who are trying to afford Abundance. They aren’t shopping enough though. The salespeople (eg the one with the fried dumplings) have to amuse themselves by weighing their hands on the empty scales.

The store has shoppers from neighborhood apartment complexes 

Look alive, the manager's watching. 

Destination Poland: Friday

If you outgrow referencing Warsaw’s recent history at every step, will there be anything left to admire?

For a Varsovian, yes. But ask what that may be – and we hesitate.

Consider these four major sights: the old wall that once surrounded the city, the buildings in the Old Town, the monument in front of the courthouse, and the Palace of Culture (all pictured below). Tell me, which one would you take a visitor to and speak only in the present, without mentioning the last sixty years? Not bring up the rubble? Or Stalinist architecture? Or the defense of Warsaw? None, of course. Is Warsaw beautiful, therefore, only if you carry her past in your pocket?

On the Old Town Square. "Old" should be in italics, no? 

It should look older than that... it should BE older than that... 

The gift from Stalin, looking twinkly and cheerful in the evening 

A monument to the Warsaw Uprising in front of the courthouse 

Food talk

I have been engaged in too many discussions about Polish sausage lately and I want to put the topic to rest. Each nation defends its sausage. The Germans stand by their bratwurst, the Italians love their pepperoni, the Poles cling to their kielbasa. I posted a photo of the grilled stuff in Krakow, but for the everyday you head to the local butcher and admire this:

pick your (poison or) gold 

You’re a fan or you’re not a fan. I’m not a fan anymore for the same reason that I’m not heavily a hotdog fan: what goes into the mystery meat is too much of a mystery. But kielbasa is a staple and no Pole will admit to preferring something from across the border, any border.

And let’s lay down the rule about poppyseeds: densely packed in between cake layers. None of this “sprinkling” into the batter. Keep it rich and keep it sweet. Here’s an example from Blikle, the premier bakery in Warsaw (ah yes, afternoon snack time for me).

poppyseeds in the middle, candied orange peel on top 

The small details of being Polish (generalizations, I know, but to me they are as real as apple pie):

- Polish men like to talk and tell stories. I mean, you can’t get a word in sometimes, they get so wrapped up in a story. They’re good at it too. Yesterday, on the train back from the mountains I listened to a highlander tell the story of last week’s earthquake – he shook his body to demonstrate, he expounded, elaborated, making it into a one-man show. Then his buddy chimed in. The three hour ride was filled with their booming voices. No one minded. Other passengers chimed in. It was fascinating to watch and listen to. I threw in a comment or two as well, but I was shot down, having had no experience with the earthquake here, loathing to admit that I was then in the States, thus too far to have felt anything.

- Women talk so fast that you, the listener, cannot drift off for even a second or an entire chapter of a life may have been offered and you will have missed it.

- If they don’t shut off the background music everywhere, I will seriously injure someone. Frank Sinatra, loudly, for breakfast. Light pop in the judge’s chambers during my meeting with her. Some odd instrumental twangy twang in the psychologist’s office when I discussed abuse and neglect issues with her. It doesn’t stop the conversation, no, not at all, but why is it there in the first place?

- We need to introduce the slob factor into the dress code in Poland. Coming from Wisconsin, I do not have the habit of dressing up for, say, a train ride. Here I am right now, in a train compartment (speeding back to Warsaw) with three women, all dressed and made up as if they were going to a fine dining place. Me, I am in my trusty comfy cords. At least I don’t have my jogging shoes on. No one here, male or female, wears jogging shoes ever.

- Poles have the endearing habit (shared by those in other countries in Europe) of greeting each other often. You enter a store, it is absolutely obligatory to say “good day” to the sales staff, and then “thank you” and “good bye” as you are leaving. It is rude rude rude not to exchange such greetings. In the States, if the salesperson is obsequious, she or he will say “can I help you find something?” setting up a negative exchange as you are most often forced to say “no thanks, just looking.” If they aren’t helping you find things, you are nothing to them nor they to you.

- Poles are physically initmate with each other in public. Maybe it’s because there’s not much privacy at home, what with all these generations living together, but still – men kiss and embrace the women in public, clap each other on the back, hold hands with their sons, women walk arm in arm together, people greet each other with kisses, they touch! It’s nice.