white flowers 

(From Krakow): interesting questions asked by my fellow travelers

Is there a hierarchy of nun habits? Is blue higher up than brown? Than gray?

Why do horses rest on only three feet?

horses, horses... 

Wouldn’t I be a better tour guide than Marta over at the Jagiellonian University who does the “Copernicus” tour?

Why don’t we get a tattoo?

Answers to some of the above and to random other questions buzzing around:

Not old things are worth preserving:

holding it together...

Some old things are really worth preserving:

the castle courtyard 

I don’t know about being a tour guide, but I’d consider working as a gardener at the Wawel Castle, so long as I'd have a hoe like she does:

all it takes is a rake and a hoe.. 

Polish (folk) costumes for girls, on sale at the market, reminding me of the days when I owned one, wore one, felt proud in one:

at the market 

If the sun comes out suddenly, brilliantly, you think differently about desserts, about life, about tatoos:

sunshine, desserts, ideas. 

as Polish as apple pie... 

And the musicians played on: in this case, Vivaldi, the Four Seasons.

brisk, intircate, exquisite. 

(From Krakow): the many stages of getting from one place to another

Before taking to the roads, skies and tracks, a morning walk in the Tuilleris, just to have a one last look...

the greening of Paris 

So then you depart: you take the train from Jardin Luxembourg to Charles de Gaulle airport. Then you do a period of obligatory airport waiting.

airport minutes, plus more minutes 

Then you board the plane to Chopin airport (somehow the name seems oddly out of place: like the composer should not be associated with suitcases and guards and the roar of moving aircraft) in Warsaw. Then you spot your sister, who is waiting to take you to her apartment.

Well no, not so fast. We are held up. The leaders of EU nations are congregating in Warsaw this week and they have chosen to land at the same time that we did. And the roads close to allow for their passage.

odd way they have of driving in this place... 

[I feel by now that Jeremy and Madeline are dazed beyond belief; the airport, the road tie up, the old buildings, the new, where are we and what are we doing here?????]

Okay, eventually we make it to the train station. We’re not talking about some fancy train station in the style of the renovated Grand Central. We are talking about the Central Station in Warsaw, where trains come and pick up additional passengers before heading out to wherever. In my case, Krakow. It’s a gray, somber building and if the country were under a different political system at the moment, people would shake their heads and say: it would not be so gray if only we had a different political system going.

Put two bloggers and Madeline in an old-fashioned compartment with two Poles and you have a remarkable combination of the friendly and the tired and wired.

Out in Krakow: wheeling the suitcases across cobbled streets that I last slipped on in a frozen drizzle last December.

It’s late. Dinner’s late. Hungry, tired. Hit the bread before the pierogi. What’s that in the dish beside the bread? Farmers’ cheese and chives? And in the other? Did you say lard??

dinner accompaniments 

(From Paris): promises, promises

This really truly will be the last Paris post.

It’s morning. The city obviously has been sprayed with some toxic chemical that has a different impact on different people. It makes my cotraveler, Madeline, sleep more. It makes me sleep even less than my usual four hours. It makes my other cotraveler, Jeremy, take on a mellow and relaxed manner (not something that I am used to seeing in him back in Madison). It makes some Parisians sing with reckless abandon outside hotel windows late at night. It makes waiters wink and umbrellas disappear. It makes women (and men, but especially women) wear (protective?) scarves all year long. It makes (Madeline’s point) normally sane parents pluck their ugly children off the streets and hide them in the closet, so that only the beautiful are ever seen in public. It makes frugal people spend money on yellow-polka-dotted skirts and chocolate laced with strong spices. It makes adult people with good, strong limbs give up “le promenade” in favor of this:

yes, but are they happier this way? 

(From Paris): and this will be the last one from Paris

It rained today. Why post about the weather? Is there a soul on earth who cares about yesterday’s weather in a place where they are not?

No, probably not. Of course, they can always set up their own blog, with the promise that weather will never be mentioned. I am not such a person.

Today’s weather was crucial to the progression of the day. It lead to lost umbrellas, borrowed umbrellas, purchased umbrellas, and broken umbrellas. It meant that you lingered less, entered sheltered paces more, ate more.

The rain stopped. The clouds stayed solidly together, though to me, Paris has the ability to transcend wetness, taking on a buoyancy and depth that defies images of grayness. Not unlike a Matisse painting, full of yellows and blues.

I want to post photos. I should go to sleep. Does anyone ever want to sleep in Paris? I don't, especially with the dwindling hours left here.

certainty in food ...and beverages 

Is the city that sure? 

In line, in the rain, incredible. (place: Centre Pompidou with collections of modern art; in the background, a golden flower pot.)

The sidewalk was that wet after a downpour at the sculpture fountain 

Art in the park or Madeline and Jeremy hiding in their own favorite bubbles? 

Q: who had what? 

(From Paris): catching up on the blogs of others

After reading Ann’s “10 things I’ve never done,” I decided to do my own, from Paris, limiting it to five items, because it is almost time to “wake up” and “get going”:

1. I have never smoked cigarettes while in Paris. I just smoke everyone else’s secondhand smoke. Actually, it’s not unenjoyable in a short-term “live dangerously” sort of way.

2. As Paris is en route to Poland for me (and I would willingly make it en route to just about every other destination in the world, including, I am sure, Cincinnati, were time and money not an issue), I come here often. But I have never stayed on the Right Bank.

3. I have never stepped on dog poop on the sidewalk, missing it by a hair sometimes, but still, I have clean soles thus far.

4. I have never taken a boat ride along the river Seine.

5. I have never gone to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

(From Paris): reasonable or … not so much?

1. Is it even fair to compare other Europe-bound airlines to Air France? No. A toast to the continued pleasures of (endless) fine wine with every meal.

It was a very good year. They all seemed fantastic, especially after sampling the first one or two... 

2. How long is it “reasonable” to wait for a suitcase to come off the plane? Is one hour reasonable?

3. How long is it reasonable to wait in line to purchase a city-bound metro ticket? Is one hour reasonable?

the waiting game 

4. What is the first thing you do when you set out to see Paris? Stop sightseeing minutes into the walk and sit down over a protracted lunch. Just like the French.

Langoustines over baby epinards 

5. What is the second thing you really need to do? Stand under the Eiffel Tower and wait for the bottom to fall out.

JFW author, puzzling over the construction of the E.T. 

6. What is the reasonable thing to do when you take your first-of the-day walk through Paris? Ignore the monument to the Statue of Liberty and ignore the splendid view of the Eiffel Tower, and act mesmerized by the graffiti honoring Princess Di in the spot where she was killed?

a commemorative moment... 

7. How likely is it that Jeremy will not allow his dark chocolate ice-cream to drip into his flavorful apricot? Into the cone? Onto his clothes? The sidewalk? The world??