arriving in Warsaw

Up early. Packed, showered and out of my room by 7. I go for a walk.

Just up to Stockholm's pretty waterfront...

... and back again. To watch a city wake up is a privilege. You see more in those few morning minutes than you might witness in a whole bunch of daytime hours. The pace of the stride as people walk from ferry stop to the tram, or directly to their workplace. Do they stop for a coffee, or is that a French thing? Bakeries seem to open at 7:30. Do they pick up a pastry for a later fiska? I wonder.

By 7:30, I'm in the little courtyard of my own hotel for breakfast.

Same: yogurt, granola, berries, sweet treats and coffee. And apple juice.

Yesterday it took me an hour to eat all that. Today? Twenty minutes and I am by the front desk, checking out, adjusting the bill and finally -- leaving Stockholm.

*     *     *

I fly Polish Airlines today. Initially, I booked with miles on a KLM connection, but in the end I did not want to waste the day flying first to Amsterdam and from there to Warsaw. The Polish Airline flight is cheap and direct.

I land in a cloudy, rainy Warsaw.

Cab to my hotel -- it's called Hotel Puro. Needless to say, it took me forever to find a hotel that would be a good bet for my nine night stay. Karolina, my architect friend helped me and so I booked a room here. 

There is a benefit and a drawback to being in such a totally central location. (And most would agree that being just a short block away from the intersection of Marszalkowska and Jerozolimskie puts me right in the epicenter of the city.) On the one hand, it's very easy to get to anywhere I would want to go to in Warsaw (and beyond, as I am close to the Central Station). On the other hand, I wouldn't call it the quietest neighborhood in town! Still, my room, on the seventh floor, looks out onto this (the photo is taken later, in the evening):

And yes, there are flowers.

(My room is large; here's a photo of some part of it)

It's altogether lovely. 

I unpack, glancing out the window as I put away clothes. I have the unmistakable feeling of being in the city of my childhood.

And at the risk of digressing too much into the topic of feelings, let me just say that it feels very strange to be back. It's a new rhythm for me. For the last half dozen visits, I'd developed a pattern: get to my apartment, shop, take a walk to my favorite spots, cook dinner for the gang, clean up, leave. In there would be some extra time with Bee, and certainly with my sister, maybe with Karolina. But basically, the pattern held. Then came the Big Pause. And now I'm trying out something new: a new hotel, a new social schedule, a new approach to this city that was for so long my home. 

So it feels strange. But why? I know Warsaw inside out! I know what people here eat, how they curse, where they shop. I know the parks, I know the streets, the buildings, the bakeries of my childhood. Why is it suddenly so disconcerting to be here?

I suppose one reason might be that I am so totally cut off from Poland when I am home, with Ed, at the farmette, in south-central Wisconsin. I think most people maintain some contact with others from their old country who have settled in the U.S., but I have never done any of that. My daily life is 100% without any markers, foods, references to Poland. Talk about assimilation! I went overboard on that one! 

And now, suddenly, here I am, in Warsaw.

Because it's drizzling a little still, I give myself permission to take it easy. To not do anything much. A quick trip to a nearby wine store to stock up on gifts. 

And then the rain stops and I go for a longer walk, to my old home blocks.

(just outside my hotel...)

(one block further)

I was a teenager here and so I find images of young people in that age group especially mind boggling: the faces are the same, the attire, mannerisms -- so different! The market economy brought a modicum of prosperity especially to the well traveled urban set. With it comes confidence. A certain stride...

 

It's 4 p.m. and I haven't had food for too long. I pause at a bakery that is one block away from my family home. I order a blueberry tartlet and then, not yet satiated -- a jagodowka. That's a yeasty blueberry bun and in the summer, they are sold all over Poland, in every small town and big city. Here, it has a crumble topping and I choose to eat it with a cup of tea. On a table with carnations. A Polish person would smile at seeing them -- carnations were the flower of choice year-round.

And now I am literally three blocks from our tiny apartment of my childhood, and one block away from our more spacious three room place, where I lived out my teen angst and dramas.

 

The buildings are as they were then, but the shops have all changed. Every last one. Where they once sold basic foods and canned goods, there is now a shop with Diptique candles from France. Where we picked up sour pickles from a barrel and loaded up on sauerkraut, there is a dress shop that has English words inviting you in. And where there was once a paper products store, there is yet another clothing store.

I'm not liking these new shops. Too much attention to clothing at inflated prices. Too much unnecessary stuff. But then, this is what progress is all about: to have that choice, so that you can decide if you want more stuff or not. Me, I miss the paper store, which I so loved!  Colored pencils, notebooks -- heaven. But of course, clothes were only marginally relevant to us kids growing up in postwar Poland. We wanted a pair of blue jeans.We wanted warm leather boots for winter. Our cravings pretty much stopped there. Now, Polish city kids look like American kids and French kids. I see make up on young faces. Progress?

Our second apartment had four windows: two to the south -- one was my mother's bedroom, one was from the room shared by my sister and me, and then two windows to the north -- one was the living room but really my father's bedroom, and one was the kitchen. By Polish standards it was an exquisite apartment because the rooms were not small and the building stairwell was clean. That apartment got passed on to my father's girlfriend of long duration when he died. She must be home, because I see one of the windows -- what would have been my mother's bedroom window -- is open. I toy with the idea of ringing the doorbell and surprising her -- she is a mere ten years older than me -- but I don't. I'm keeping this day to myself.

I'm half a block away from Park Ujazdowki, where I went so often as a kid and where I worked one summer on cleaning it up -- as part of a work requirement for all university freshmen. The park is pretty, though I see that the chestnuts have all succumbed to the disease that is weakening all the chestnuts in Europe.

You come out of the park and you face the American Embassy. Weird to read a sign on the gate informing you to vote if you are an American by casting an absentee ballot.

Two more blocks and I am at Alewino (which I suppose translates to "what a wine!" -- understandable, as it once was a wine bar. Now it's an eatery). It's well hidden: you pass into a courtyard and eventually come across this entryway.

I think it's fairly new. Very casual, but with really, really good food! (I found it on a quick online search yesterday.) I order chantarelles once again and I get the real deal! Many tiny orange mushrooms!

Fish and zucchini and a stuffed zucchini flower for a second...

 

And an exquisite dessert of blueberries, ice cream, cream and meringue.

 

I came early -- just as the place opened at 5 -- and so the dining room was still on the empty side, except for this one couple that came in. I hardly noticed. I was on the phone, first getting a report on my granddaughter's Shakespeare performance back home, then getting a worried report from Ed on a cat that's been missing for several days. So clearly I was speaking English. Which is why I was then engaged by the couple -- he's from Brooklyn, she's a Pole, living in New York for two decades now. They were curious how my own Polish-American story unfolded, so we talked. Even though this is not my favorite subject because I haven't pat answers that I can just put out there. If I did, I wouldn't have written a book about it! My relationship to Poland is complicated and unresolved. Even as I no longer feel Poland to be my home. I come here for the people and then I get sucked into my past. As I did this afternoon.

It's unavoidable. I walk past this building (below) and I am just so aware that this is where my father worked when he quit the Foreign Ministry. The building then housed the headquarters of the Communist Party and that story, too, is so complicated! Why did he work there, knowing what he did about the leadership of the party and who it was beholden to? What choices did he have in the end? To leave? He did leave, as soon as he could. Only to return. To  finish his life in Warsaw, surrounded by many bottles of alcohol and not a single friend from the past.

Neither of my parents ended their lives happily. (I write this as the phone rings and I let it go to voicemail... Yes, it's my mother.)

Across the street from the former Party headquarters, there used to be a store selling newspapers and records from around the world. I see that it stands empty now, but the exterior is still as it was in my childhood: with a slogan that's straight out of the country's postwar reputed commitment to collective socialism: CALY NAROD BUDUJE SWOJA STOLICE -- the whole nation is building our capital!

 

Indeed.

I look up the street of Nowy Swiat. Close to where my apartment was just six years ago. Here, too, some shops have closed, even in this brief period of my absence. There aren't flowers in hanging baskets. I hear languages all around me that are not Polish. Summer tourists? And where are the flowers?

How is Warsaw changing now? Is it for the better? I don't know...

Tomorrow, I begin my eight days of intense socializing. With all my friends, with my sister, nephew. Tonight, I do take it easy. And once again, catch up on sleep.

with love...

Stockholm Sunday

The Villa Dagmar (where I am staying in Stockholm) is lovely, really lovely, though I can see how you may find yourself in a room that is a disappointment. There are ones facing the courtyard, which makes you feel like you're in one of those big hotels with an atrium, shut off from the outside world. Being a very intense student of hotel offerings when I book rooms, I was lucky enough to have noticed this and so I asked for something with windows to Stockholm and that was a real win. The room is perfect.

(the view from the top 4th floor room)

 

That courtyard, though, does have its benefits. It actually is a space between the two arms of a U building and like my hotel in Copenhagen, it has a glass roof. They dont trust such a space to good weather. Outdoor dining n Stockholm has to be a rare thing. Is it ever warm and sunny here? The skies very much remind me of Scotland, though if you look at a map, you'll see that Stockholm is actually further north than the north coast of Scotland and because of its topography, it gets way colder here than it does, say, in Tongue.

The main hotel courtyard has a little sister courtyard (also glass covered) on the other side of the U and this is where you can have your breakfast. They ask you "do you want to eat outside?"  and if you say yes, they lead you there. Oh, those Swedes! If you can't lead the outdoor life, you can at least pretend.

It is a lovely space and the breakfast buffet is lovely too. A marker of a good one to me is when the fruit offerings go beyond the ubiquitous and tasteless hotel melon.

 

Of course they have the cinnamon rolls. We are in Sweden, no?

My breakfast, while I wait for my poached egg to arrive: fruit over yogurt and granola and the bread products...

What's the plan for the day? Well, it might rain in the afternoon, but for now it's looking good! I had the idea of going to a small park beyond the old town, but in writing to my nephew I changed my mind. The thing is, my nephew and my sister lived in Stockholm for a number of years. In fact, I don't know that they aren't both (or one of them?) Swedish duals by now. So when my nephew wrote that he really liked the bigger park called Djurgarden, it became a done deal -- I'm off to Djurgarden.

Djurgarden used to be the Game Park of the royals, but these days it is one green space, with small sections devoted to specific pleasures. A rose garden. A plant and plant products shop and orchard. A lake with some wildlife. A museum, a gallery... So, many treasures, surrounded by nature. What could be better for a Sunday?!

My nephew wrote that he used to take walks around the perimeter of the island (because the park is actually one big island), starting with the north shore and continuing around to the south. That is what I did. 

The park is about a half hour walk from my hotel, but the whole excursion took four hours (and just about 20 000 steps -- I just checked!) because I took small detours and paused to take a few photos. 

The northern shore was my favorite (and this is where 95% of the photos come from) and the Skansen Park -- a separate enclosure with buildings and activities depicting old world Swedish life which I visited toward the end  -- well, I could have done without that. We have an Old World Wisconsin, and I think both themed park areas are more of a kid thing. Old people don't really need to observe the habits of way back when. Their lives go back to way back when! 

So, let's go for a walk! On a Sunday in Stockholm.

(to the park, over the bridge...)

 

 (looking back toward the city)

(so pretty! I note they're all annuals...)

(a young mom and geese, though not the Canadian ones we have back home...)

(Impressive: the gender balance in the statues I passed! This one is of an opera star from Sweden)

(This one represents the desire for peace and disarmament)

Do you suppose Swedish parental leave laws have anything to do with this next picture? FYI, here, parents are entitled to 480 days paid parental leave; each parent can take up to 240 of the days, though if you're a single parent, you can take the full 480. 

(A bird in a rowan tree; yes, I'm still into birds. And rowan trees, which I never see in the U.S.)

(A statue of a child on a swan...  or is it a heron?)

I loved this center for growing things. It's called Rosendals Trädgård and it's a short detour inland: you could admire the "biodynamic cultivation of vegetables, fruits and flowers" in the garden, you could buy plants; you could sit at one of the tables in the orchard with foods and drinks from the cafe; you could go to the little gift shop and buy more foods and cards and books and dish cloths -- all organic, or about Swedish foods, or about Swedish plants.

 

(Like the Canal du Midi only different)

(Herons in the wildlife area)

Along the south shore, I thought for a moment I was looking at New Jersey across the Hudson... until I saw the cruise ships.

The rain came down as I climbed the hills of Skansen. No photos. Too much thunder and wetness. Here, do you see the storm coming?

 

 

Earlier than predicted but no matter! I came prepared!

 

By 2:30 I needed a chair. And a coffee. You know, a fika moment! My goal -- to find Pascal Cafe/Bakery. Another one of those beloveds. Back over the bridge, to the center of town.

 

 

 

Of course, the rain put that same thought into the heads of others. My destination -- Pascal Kafebar was crowded! Every tiny seat in their tiny space was taken!

So I studied pastries...

 

 

... chose my two (cardamon and a lemon/poppy) and my coffee, and waited.

It didn't take long.

I sat across the entrance-way from a small group of three women and two children. I dont know if they were sisters with mom, or friends, or aunts, or what. Indeed, I understood not a single word they said. So strange is Swedish to me that I could not even tell if they were speaking Swedish. Not being shy about such matters, I asked. Indeed. Swedish.

As I watched and listened (to their tone), it struck me how little I know about the culture here. About the manners and respected traits. Are Swedes stuffy and pretentious or mellow and laid back? Are they judgmental or indifferent? Everyone I have spoken to has been gently friendly, but of course, these were all transactional situations so all I can infer is that they appear to be uniformly kind to visitors. I can tell you one thing for sure: women and girls here do like white lacy frocks (note the one above). I see them not infrequently!

It's tough to travel in a country where you do not speak the language. Your observational opportunities are limited. Or at least you cannot make too many assumptions based on what you see. Only educated guesses. (The more you see, the more educated you become!)

 

I return to my hotel, take a short pause and head out again. Quickly. To the department store which happens to be in a mall about 12 minutes from my hotel, though I walked so briskly that I'm sure it was half that. What for? Well, just blame it on the grandkids. It was a hurried crazy run because I left the hotel at 4:25 and all stores close here at 5 on Sundays. Nonetheless, I am a skilled fast shopper! (Nor was there much choice, making it that much easier.) 

 

And now I am not moving from my hotel until it's time to go to the airport early tomorrow. Wait, what about dinner, you ask? Well, I'm eating at the hotel restaurant. My room comes with a package: a small credit for anything you purchase on the premises (except for alcoholic beverages). It actually comes out to be the price of a  three course meal. Of course I'm going to use it!

And it was okay. True, the chantarelle appetizer appeared to have absolutely not a single chantarelle in it (they say it was there...), but hey, let's not be fussy. The shrimp pil pil (above), on the other hand, were good because shrimp in Scandinavia are invariably great, and the strawberry dessert, too (below), was good for the same reason.

 

Tomorrow, a mere 48 hours after landing in Stockholm, if all goes well, I'll be landing in Warsaw.

With a gentle Swedish embrace, and love...

arriving in Stockholm

Luck was with me on my connection to Atlanta, luck was with me on my connection to Paris (where I landed at 6 in the morning on Saturday, thus in need of a morning breakfast treat)...

And luck remained with me on my flight to Stockholm (where I came in more or less on time, right around noon). I did have to check my suitcase -- it got too heavy for me to lift into the overhead. Once I decided to go that route, I relaxed in my packing and even threw in my flip flops in addition to the new sandals! The more useful item -- also a last minute decision on this one! -- for Stockholm at least, is an umbrella. The one and a half days I'm here are slated to have periods of rain -- tonight and tomorrow. And I am delighted. Rain means I need not be ambitious in my walks through the city. Rain means that I can take longer to head out in the morning and stay close to my hotel base. Yes, rain is my friend this weekend!

[An insert here about traveling alone as an "older" person: I have stamina. I have strength. I have drive. I have fortitude. What is less on my side is that I am easily distracted and thus forgetful. If I dont make a point of counting what I'm holding onto, chances are I'll put something down and forget about it. Like at the Paris airport, where I will have left my passport in the security screening tray. Or at the diner restaurant, where I will have put down my lens cap and then forgot all about it. Lost forever. I do that at home as well -- forget to take something while stepping out of the house, but of course, that is simply annoying and without much consequence. In travel, and especially after a sleepless night, I have to be more careful!]

In Stockholm, I'm staying at the Villa Dagmar. Finding an interesting hotel, centrally located (for me this means close to the best bakeries and to the market!) was not easy. Dagmar was a good fit. And my room is small but pretty!

Note the flowers. They asked if I wanted some in the room and if so, what kind. I said yes and please make them Swedish, in gentle colors. This is what I found:

Gorgeous!

So now what? It's not raining yet. I throw down my suitcase and head out.

Stockholm, they say, is a walkable city, concentrated in a small area and thus easy to navigate. Still, you have to have a goal, or at least a direction. This is a no brainer: I definitely want to see the older parts of the city (Gamla Stan, on the island). But before I get to that, I pop into the market, which actually has a secret doorway to it, straight out of my hotel.

It's a lovely and somewhat dignified market.

In addition to produce... (chantarelles! colorful tomatoes! strawberries!)...

 

 

... cheeses, fish and three kinds of lobsters...

 

 

 

... you could also buy one of these:

Their open-face sandwiches are so pretty and so tempting, but I resist. I'm focused on the bakeries, where I plan on following a Swedish tradition of stopping for "fika," which is their afternoon cake and coffee pause.

For this I go to Stora Bageriet -- one of the many bakeries with a solid following. There's a line, but not too long. And the pastries? Exactly as I had imagined them to be -- beautiful. My idea of the perfect, absolutely perfect companion to a milky coffee.

Which would you pick?

I walked away with two: the traditional cinnamon one (right, below) and the plum topped pastry (left, below). Superbly delicious, both of them.

I did not come all the way to Stockholm to limit myself to just one! I eat them at one of the numerous outdoor tables where I do some serious people watching.

(twins, dressed in Swedish colors...)

 I like my hotel neighborhood because it is on a street that for a good chunk of the day is totally car free, and the stores aren't for tourists, they're for Swedes. Or at least there are a lot of Stockholm locals. 

 

 

Walk over to Gamla Stan and everything changes: the old town is packed with visitors. I mean, not nearly as bad as some of the major capitals of Europe, but still, there are a lot of souvenir shops and people looking for souvenirs. 

 

 

 

Nonetheless, it's all very colorful. Much more so than I had imagined. And I also had not grasped the significance of the waterways here. I knew Stockholm was on the northern coast of the Baltic Sea, but the city itself is deeply inland -- part of an archipelago of many islands, and so I wasn't thinking I'd be always along a water's edge. And yet...

Stockholm is in fact spread over 14 islands and beyond that, there are thousands more and you can take a ferry ride to admire them. (If you stay on a ferry long enough -- like for about ten hours -- you can wind up in Turku, Finland.) Ferry rides take time and are a passive way of exploring a city you're visiting for only a day and a half, so I wont do any of that, but I do like walking along Stockholm's waterfront. (There is an unexpected cloudburst right as I get to the open waters, and of course I did not bring my umbrella along for the walk! Dumb me. No matter. I wait, it passes.)

 After crossing several bridges, I get to the island with the old town. I head toward its heart, which everyone would agree is at Strotorget Square. [On my walk there, I pass the Royal Palace. Sweden still has royalty -- the current monarch, Carl XVI Gustaf has been at it for quite a while -- since 1973! Talk about holding on to power past your prime!]

 

 

(Buildings along Strotorget Square)

 

I dont think of Stockholm as a real museum city, though they do have a very old ship you can admire at the Vasa (maritime) Museum and high on the list of popular sights is also the ABBA museum. No thanks. I prefer to just walk.

(Off the beaten path...)

((note pointy rooftops!)

Okay, I am officially tired. A brief pause at the hotel. And now it's time for dinner. I had chosen the Hantverket Restaurant for tonight's meal. I really do not remember why. I do these things back at the farmhouse when I have a spare hour -- I go through lists, check websites, and put in a reservation. 

People eat here at an earlier time and this makes me very happy, because I have not slept since my farmhouse night and even that wasn't restful because, as you may recall, I had to pack late into the night and get up early to catch my flight out. So I am tired.

And I want Scandinavian food! I order to fill that need. 

Mackerel, cucumber, potato crutons, yogurt...

 

Followed by rye bread toasts with chantarelles and spiced cheese, and finishing off with  strawberries with mascarpone ice cream and elderberry and strawberry consomme. I think there's a cookie in there as well.

 

The evening didn't quite end there. I'd been people watching and I'd noticed quite a few rainbow themed shirts and such out there. Too, Stockholm is bedecked with rainbow flags. Initially, I thought nothing of it. So the city is supportive of its LGBTQ community. No surprise there. But when I idly googled Gay Pride in Stockholm while waiting for dessert, I found out that actually this was Gay Pride week in Sweden and Stockholm had had a celebratory Gay Pride parade earlier today. Related to that, or maybe not related to it at all, there was a very glitzy drag queen joining some diners at the table behind me and after a while, she got tired of their company and came over to chat me up.

 

There was a lot of discussion of whether I should go out with them to some gay bars after dinner, but I gave a hard no to that. I'm twice their age and I've been traveling and I am dead tired. My late night bar hopping days are over under the best of circumstances. We settled for some photos and then I left.

So ends a very full day! Lovely city, lovely walks, great food, fantastic bakeries, friendly people. And aside from that one downpour, it didn't even rain. Yet. Maybe tomorrow! One can hope!

with love...