to Warsaw

Well, they said it would be a blustery day and it turned out to be just that.

An early breakfast at the hotel...






...and then a walk to the train station in Krakow. I neglect the camera. It's too hard to dig it out in the rain and frankly, not much between the hotel and the train station inspired a reflective moment.





Well, maybe this one thought: it used to be that you'd approach the train station past stalls of highlander goods brought in from the nearby mountains. Smoked ewe's milk cheese in wicker baskets -- that kind of thing. Is it a sign of better times that you no longer see that? Or maybe it's just too cold now?

What you do see at nearly every corner of Krakow is the stand with the traditional pretzel. I don't really like it much -- it's just lots of doughy white bread to my taste, but I'm always tempted to buy one, only to make the load lighter for the seller. Imagine -- standing outside all day long and selling what? A few dollars' worth of pretzels? That can't pay the bills. It seems to me to be, especially in the off season, a miserably cold and tedious set of hours. Here's one such stand -- she still dresses like a highlander. Behind that umbrella you may catch a red, flowered scarf over her head.






The other notable thing about the train station is that it is beautifully new inside. Modern, well marked, gorgeous! But the approach now is through a mall. See the old building below? No longer in use. You go in through that glass piece of crass commercialism to the left and make your way through there.






The walk through the mall is, of course, convenient on a rainy, blustery day, but it is a walk through a mall. Hello, Krakow. And McDonalds and Cinnabon and racks of clothing and shelves of creams. Now, which way to the old town?

Today, of course, it's good-bye Krakow. And McDonalds and Cinnabon... and hello train.






The connection to Warsaw is actually slower than it was just two years back. They're changing over to fast speed trains and so the work on the rail lines slows things down a bit, but I don't mind. I find train rides very calming. Though I am surprised that these cars are still the old models: we sit in compartments. I don't know that there is a country in Europe that still has these in service. It's very intimate. For three hours, what you read, say, eat -- is on full display. I'm thankful that  I have a quiet gentleman in my compartment. A helpful type who explains to me why it is that we come to a stop in the middle of nowhere. (Work on tracks.)

I alight in the early afternoon at the Central Station in Warsaw and I turn the wrong way and again I alight at a mall! I so dislike malls and here I am -- leaving and entering cities through mall space!

I should not complain. It's dry there.

My suitcase -- light on most every trip I ever take -- is clunky right now. I threw stuff in at Krakow and now I have to pay the price of lugging it up and down stairs as I make my way through the underpasses to what should be a bus stop.

But I come up the wrong stairs and I have no great desire to go down then up again so I decide to walk the distance to the next bus stop. Can't be far.

It is far. And it is raining. The suitcase is wet, the camera stays hidden, the umbrella twists in protest with every gust of wind. And here we go again: next intersection and I still have to go down to the underpass and up again.

At last. The bus stop. The bus. And the short ride to my new home in Warsaw.

I'm using an AirBnB this time and it is a complete gem. Perfectly situated just at the edge of the "old town." [Remember: Warsaw is a city that suffered almost complete destruction 70 years ago. The foundations may be old. But every building is either a laborious reconstruction of something old that once stood there, or  a hastily built post war housing project, or a brand new statement on what it means to be welcoming in capitalism; those are your three choices. That's Warsaw for you.]

Inside, Bartek, my AirBnB host is waiting for me. Just one glitch -- the elevator is not working and I am on the fifth floor, but truly it doesn't matter for the three days I am here. Besides, he's the one carrying the suitcase for me.

The apartment inside is lovely. Probably the best one yet of all my Airbnb rentals. A tall, spacious studio, carefully restored. And less than half the price of a decent hotel room.





But I don't stay in it for long. My friends (my most solid Polish friends from days of the university) are hosting a dinner tonight and it's a bit of a walk from here. And I have to pick up some wine.

And it's raining. And the wind keeps blowing in all directions.

And I am both surprised and pleased to see a car pull up and an old chum -- a guy dating back to my high school years, comes out and greets me and hustles me into his car. (He'd been warned that I was en route and he set out to rescue me from the elements.)

Not much of the evening will be properly commemorated here, on Ocean. Age-wise, my friends here are on the cusp of the new reality -- few (none?) participate in social media, no one blogs or reads blogs and we have an awkward history of me trying to explain my different take on all this, only to realize that it just can't be done and so now I just avoid mixing the two worlds and I rarely post more than one general photo or write much about our times together. Here's a general photo:







Except this time, I want also to insert a comment on what it's like to rejoin a group of friends who were once as close to you as members of your own family. Before, that is, at 18, after two and half years of university years together (I was a very young student -- they're all older than me), I decided to move to the States. On the occasion of this dinner, another couple joins us -- friends whom I hadn't seen for forty years. Forty years!

But here is the crucial point: you'll nod your head and say --- yes, yes, with old friends you can just pick up where you left off and it's as if nothing's changed.

It's not that way for me. We are so close, so very very close, we adore each other, we hug and kiss and talk for hours. But, I am so aware, so very aware of the fact that I have a whole chunk of life back at the farmette, back in the Midwest, back in America, that gets omitted from the equation. I'm not who I was then. I try to explain that right now, I am more American than Polish. I'm sure they have their own interpretation of what this means. I cannot fill that text in for them.  Instead, during these rare meetings, we share reflections on what it's like to be now in our sixties, on how it feels to be retired (out of the seven that were there, only two are still going at it full time, though retirement was thrust upon some for idiosyncratic reasons). I listen to them talk about books they've read, about political figures who have blundered and stumbled their way to power. We discuss children (some of theirs come to the dinners), they tell me how they perceive Obama, and they ask why the hell the Americans still require Poles to get a visa.

And so this is the difficult part for me and maybe you have experienced it as well if you have returned to a place that was once your home: you fit in because this was once you, too, and so now there you are, laughing and talking, but some small corner of you is trying to rise to the surface and say -- hey, remember me? The Midwestern farmette person who retired from teaching on January 10th but still is on the mailing list of the Law School and who has Paul's cafe just up the rural road and a friend who moved to Florida and another to New Mexico and who has two daughters, two daughters who are 100% of another world, having not even an iota of a personal connection to the world that you now so brazenly call your Polish world?

At the end of the evening, I am exhausted. And yes, it's all the travel and, too, a five hour dinner is intense at any level, but once again, here I am in Warsaw and it's midnight and I cannot sleep.

in Krakow

We live in a simple world of warm and cold, likes and dislikes, of comparisons and categorizations.

It's raining in Krakow. Cold, winter rain -- making its way in cold trickles down your face, hands, from all sides really. Because it's windy, too. I don't like the weather here right now.

I know! Unfair! How can I love my visit (and it is only for a day) when the weather is so rotten, especially since it was so grand in France?

It doesn't help that I had no breakfast today. I left Paris before 5 and the terminal from which Easy Jet flies at CDG airport (That airline again!) has no cafe to help you out. A fast food counter and a vending machine, that's it. Gee, thanks.

So my first meal isn't until after 2, in Krakow. Forget breakfast. I walk into an old world cafe-restaurant on Market Square. Oh, let's admire first the Market Square -- arguably the nicest such square in all of Europe.







Now to the cafe -- called, as many old world establishments are called -- Europejska. Of Europe. I guess once it imparted an aura of worldliness. Now it just feels old. In a nice, traditional way, if you can get yourself out of the mindset that everything in Poland now has to be modern and hip.






I dislike Polish mineral water. It tastes like minerals -- medicinal almost. Yuk. So I order Perrier, but I'm uncomfortable doing so. I carry the burden of thinking that ordering foreign foods or drinks is bourgeois. In a bad way. (Times have changed here and most young people would think this to be sort of strange, but I am born of a different epoch.)

I do like Polish mushroom soup. And Polish cheesecake (it's less sweet than other cheesecakes and it has a wonderful delicate texture, if done right). So I order both for my breakfast that's past lunchtime. And the Perrier. And coffee. Two cups.



(with bread cubes and lots of parsley)




(with whipped cream and orange rind)




(cup no.2)



But I still don't like the weather here.




(one of the prettiest streets in Krakow)





(my generation)



By the way, this is my first ever flight into Krakow. I don't think international flights actually landed in Krakow until recently. The airport is tiny - it makes you feel like you're at one of those island airports in the Caribbean or Greece. But the weather has you face the reality that you're in neither Greece nor the Caribbean.

I look around at the flights that now come into Krakow: there's a daily Lufthansa (German) and a newly established (discount!) Norwegian, and there are a handful of Ryanair flights -- from cities up and down Great Britain. Oh, I get it! Krakow has become the next Prague. A cheap party destination for German and English men. Yep, I see them later in town. Groups of men, walking around like bands of boys ready to take on the city. Here's one band.







Ugh. Sorry, but this city deserves better than to be the gateway for an all night drunken brawl. Loud -- they're so loud! And just a tad disrespectful. A street vendor is handing out promotional leaflets. The young party guy, the one with the monkey draped around his shoulders (see above) takes it, glances at it, tosses it over his shoulder.

I want to pick it up and run after him and shout -- you are a fucking guest here! Litter your own back yard please!

But I say nothing.

[Of course, you could argue that they "fit in." We have, unfortunately our small share of drunks in Poland. I pass three  inebriated types sitting on the street behind a collection box and a sign, printed in Polish and English: FOR BEER -- it reads. So that maybe the Englishmen will chip in and share? Double ugh.]


I like my bus ride into town. There are only two ways to come in from the airport: the expensive and quick way (cab), or the long and cheap way (city bus). It's raining hard and I am so tempted by the waiting cabs (especially since I'll have to walk to my hotel after I get off the bus), but, I respect public transportation and I want to stop the leak from my purse and so I follow the frugal crowd of Poles to the bus stop and I actually nab a seat on the bus, right next to a fellow traveler from Paris -- a Polish man about my age.

I learn a lot about entrepreneurship and Poland in the hour I am on that bus.

My seat mate has a company that operates in France, though he uses Polish materials for it (he is in the business of renovating old houses) and so he travels back and forth between the two countries. His wife and daughters live in Poland. That's the set up.

I listen to him complain about labor protections in France and smirk at the work obsession of Americans and so I have to ask -- so what about Poles? Are they good workers?
No hesitation there: Yes. But that's our generation. You know why? Because say what you will about communism (he assumes I left to escape it), it gave us two things: we're very well educated and we have the smarts: we know how to make much of very little. I worry about the Polish kids being born now.

Asking if I'm from Chicago (oh, come on!), he tells me that he once wanted to go to America, just to see it (you have such interesting construction tools there!), but after being "herded like cattle" outside the American Embassy, he went inside to learn that he was denied a visa. He came out smiling. You got it? asked the eager crowds outside. No, you fools. I'm smiling because now I don't have to go!

But he admits to me that he is bitter about the denial. The Americans think I want to immigrate? I got my business in France, my family in Poland, why would I want to immigrate?

A religious man, he describes to me his visit to the Vatican for the inauguration of John Paul II. He sees a Polish woman crawling up the steps to come closer to the Pope. Climbing on your knees, are you? He asks her.
No, I got a bad knee. I injured it twenty years ago and I never had it fixed.
Why not?
I live in America. I don't want them poking around in my leg... You know how I injured it? I had applied for an American visa and when I went to learn of the decision, I was so amazed that I got a "yes," that I wasn't looking where I was going. I tripped and fell on the sidewalk.
You lost the use of your leg for a visa to America! -- he tells her. Thereafter, he, himself, never again wanted to apply.


I walk the curvy streets of Krakow...


















Peering into shop windows and, too, into milk bars, I see that there is an attempt to preserve something of what we once claimed as our own.  Look, for example, at the souvenir stalls in the Cloth Halls of the Market Square. They haven't changed much in the decades of change on the outside.



(amber)





(painted boxes)





(sheepskin)



And here are the milk bars -- these were just about the only places where anyone would eat out when I was young. Cheap meals. Pierogi, and too, the ubiquitous grated carrot, cabbage, potatoes and a slice of pork. Cheap food. I didn't really like it (except for pierogi and then only my grandma's) and so when my mother handed me the few coins needed to pick up a meal there, I'd put the money toward a cafe date with a friend and skip the dinner. Here are two women still eating that same meal of grated carrot, cabbage, mashed potatoes, pork. Cheap, satisfying, and in my mind -- tasteless.






You can see the food better from this angle:







I see that I am by the Franciscan Church. I go inside. I like the stained glass here -- they're by a famous Polish poet/artist/dramatist from the late nineteenth century -- Stanislaw Wyspianski. Real Art Noveau stuff. Particularly lovely to me are the panels of wild flowers. I wouldn't mind seeing them again.






But there is a mass taking place. I stay quietly to the back.






And I think -- wow, this may be the first time in my life that I'm listening to a mass in a Polish church! The priest is a literary type -- I hear references to Dostoevsky. I look at ten other priestly men sitting with him at the altar. I count the devout. Also about a dozen. Twelve priests, twelve devout. The organ sounds. A soloist sings, in German. Krakow is filed with churches, nuns, priests. Can I say that I've experienced the city from all sides now?

I go to a store to buy some water. And chocolate, too. I like Polish chocolate. Not too bitter, not too sweet. And I love how in Poland now, the new generation, that one that didn't inherit our old "I can make something of nothing" smarts, also did not inherit something else: the "I don't care" attitude that was so common among those employed in the service industries. These days, hotels, cafes, stores -- are staffed (for the most part!) by friendly, energetic young people. The sour prune that chatted to her friend and ignored the customer is finally history. Except where she is my age: there, vestiges of prunishness remain.


All afternoon and evening, the rain comes and goes, catching me each time by surprise.






But, I'm staying at the lovely little Unicus Hotel, just off the Market Square and so I step out late, despite the weather, in search of food.

I eat dinner at a place that I've been to before (Cherubino). It's sort of Polish Italian -- which is a good combination. If you take Polish staples and Italianize them a little, it's a win-win. But in the end, I order a completely Polish set of dishes. Borscht with dumplings, trout, spinach. (At about a third of the price of a French meal.) I ask how come there are two prices given for the borscht.
Oh, it depends on how many dumplings you want.
That's easy: the small amount!
What do you want inside the dumplings? Cabbage and mushrooms?
I'm puzzled now. Aren't the borscht dumplings always with meat? Well now, let's go with what she suggests.






Ah. Not dumplings for the borscht. Dumplings -- full size pierogi, at the side. All this for about $3. I should have stopped there. But the trout was good too. Fresh and honest.


I walk the streets of old Krakow. And now the clouds have parted for a bit again. The moon shines very brightly between the church towers of St Mary's Basilica.





Tomorrow I will be back in Warsaw.

a day in Paris

That Sunshine

On the front page of the New York Times, there is a photo of haze muting the contours of the Eiffel Tour. The heat wave has heightened pollution levels in Paris. The city, alarmed that it is now anything less than perfect, tells its residents to leave work early and use public transportation. It has announced three days of free metros and buses!

Too bad I so much prefer to walk.

And, too, let's put things in perspective. I did not notice the pollution problem until I read the NYTimes. And I swear they added a photo that was shot into the sun for dramatic effect. Compare it to mine, taken when the sun had veered to the west. Suddenly, the blue in the sky is visible again. Oh, you journalists! You do like to add drama to the story!






But, it is true that the air is warm and (unlike in Brittany) calm and in this low lying city, this means that whatever we put out there is going to remain trapped and so Paris reacts. And maybe the traffic is lessened and maybe everything is moving more slowly (a mandatory slow down is imposed), but to me, there are mad streets and then quiet streets in Paris and the mad streets still seem in that same perpetual form of distemper, while the quiet ones are so quiet that you can hear a heel click on the sidewalk if you're listening for it. (Ed always marveled how in Paris you can hear that click, having himself been raised in New York, where you could never hear the click of anything, no matter how exceptional your hearing.)






Sweet Things

I feel about pastries in Paris much as Polish people must feel about the spoils of the newly nascent capitalism: they can't really afford most of it, but they're glad it's there to tempt them.

When I first took my girls to Paris, I loaded myself with books on the culinary treasures of the city and on our first walk, I hustled them not to the Louvre, but to the then reputed temple of baked sweet things and we bought pastries and ate them on a street bench outside.

I've stopped buying pastries some years back. Oh, I'll have a tart or some small thing at a cafe occasionally and if the dinner comes with dessert, I'm happy for it, but I don't seek out the pastry stores and I would not enjoy a pastry now as much as I did then, so what's the point.

And yet I'm sure glad it's all there. Each time I'm in Paris I pick out my favorite cake and on this trip I have one as well - a divine pistachio macoron base loaded with red fruits that will ooze juices as you bite into a piece. Yes, were I having guests for dinner tonight, I would buy this:






Sunday Dinner

Guests for dinner... Soon I will return to my Sunday meals with family, but I'm not going home yet, even though I have no more Sundays left in France. On Saturday morning, two hours before the Parisian dawn, I will leave for the airport to catch a flight back to Poland.

But in a small way, I do have a Sunday in Paris because for my last dinner in this city, I go to a bakery that has a restaurant appended to it (or is it the other way around?) and it is called, of all things, Dimanche a Paris. Sunday in Paris.

It is, for my pocket book, expensive. Still two figures (total cost), but really getting up there.

If you're a student of food (and I have been that, nearly all my life), it's no good to go to restaurants you can't really afford. You're too keen at deconstructing the meal in ways you would never do at a less expensive place. Yesterday's dinner was cheap by Paris standards and I was, therefore, generously inclined in my reflections on it. At Dimanche a Paris I was a harsh critic. I minded that the entire three course thing was put before me so quickly that I was out of there in 55 minutes. I minded that there were only six shrimp for the main course and that they were dry at the edges. And I minded that the dessert wasn't spectacular. The listed flavors were phenomenal, but they were mostly lost in the execution. Here it is -- you'll note that it hasn't great visual appeal either.





Still, I would have to admit that it was a good dinner, a very good dinner and if I let loose ten extra Euros from my pocket -- so be it. Sometimes it's good to reach into your purse for that spoil of capitalism, only to satisfy yourself that you don't really care that you don't have such stuff on a daily basis.



Breakfast at Les Editeurs

I try to find alternatives to this old stalwart, but honestly -- it remains my favorite place for a relaxed breakfast of pain au chocolat and cafe creme. (I skip the pricy juice and buy an orange at the market instead.)

The people watching here is great...




(a guy and two women)


...but more importantly, the chairs inside are comfortable and there's room to bring your laptop if you want to finish a post (even though they don't have WiFi: a smart move; you'd never get people to leave otherwise).


 


And as I said, the baked goods are yummy.






Jardin du Luxembourg

How can I not have a paragraph or two on this beauty, this exquisite piece of real estate -- my most favorite spot in the most beautiful of cities?

Since I read for the first time the sunny forecast for my days in Paris, I've wanted to do this and today was the chosen day, my last day, ending a stream of great days and now giving me a chance to have it all: terrific lunch food, spread before me on a garden chair facing the sun, maybe before a yellow primrose garden, maybe among the budding chestnuts.



(young women, in love with life, and with lunch in the park)


I go to Gerard Mulot -- it's my neighborhood's bakery of choice. They warm up a small quiche (say chicken and veggie) and throw in an endive and cheese salad and then you can select your favorite macarons and you're set. I take the whole bundle and walk over o the gardens.




(passed over: not tempting anyone today)





(so many flower shops! I like this one)



And now I am one of the many, many who have come to eat at the Jardin du Luxembourg: hungry for lunch, hungry for spring! Yes, there's a chair facing the primroses!  I eat the most glorious meal of all and after, I close my eyes and listen to the crunch of footsteps behind me. No, not on snow, on pebbles.







It is probably the most blissful moment of this Parisian visit.













Sights and Sounds


So, is there a strike in France at the moment? Maybe. I come across a huge demonstration today:






I can tell they're dentists. But what's the issue? Why the sign that tells me that health cannot be bought with money? (The French are such idealists!)

A demonstrator explains it to me: it used to be that you worked hard, got accepted into dental school (there are six public ones in France) and you got your degree. Now, it seems that a private school has opened up and all you need to get in is 10,000 Euro. Talent not required. And the accredited dentists and students of the traditional schools are mad.

A vendor follows along with plastic whistles for sale. He must have a list of demonstrations each day and he takes his business where they're looking to make noise. The streets of Paris are filled with dentists whistling today.


I walk on. I'm on the Left Bank today and I am doing the big promenade, from one end to the other. Meaning I'm heading toward the Eiffel Tower. It's always a lovely walk because you can keep to streets that are entirely quiet. And it takes you past the market on Rue Cler...











...and there are glimpses of the Tower throughout...







...and if you're not in a hurry, you can pause for a coffee and finish up the last of your macarons...






...and then, of course, you are rewarded with the Tower itself. Which I showed you at the beginning of this post.

On a day like this, there'll be plenty of children in the green spaces and play areas, including these three, who almost remind me of the three little monkeys who speak no evil, hear no evil...






And if you're ho hum about the Tower, you can ooh and ah at the blossoms that frame it...






In fact, spring blossoms make every structure, building, church, even the most austere church, look radiant and beaming.







And so ends my big walk, my best walk on this last of the string of sunny days.



Le Couche de Soleil


It's a nice expression, isn't it? Couche de Soleil. The setting of the sun. Coucher means, too, to put to bed, to lay to sleep, so you can imagine it as a sort of lullaby to the sun.

I know where I want to witness the setting of the sun on this last day in Paris -- in the Gardens, of course. It's tricky, because the sun sets at 6:40 and the Jardin du Luxembourg closes at 6:30 and, too, when the French close something at an hour, they get everything set to shut down exactly then.

So I come fifteen minutes earlier. And already M. Gendarme at the gate shakes his head and tells me no. The park is closing.
Oh, but I just need one picture!
He softens.

And now the golden colors of the day culminate in a golden sky and the sun's disc reflects in the pool where on Sunday children will sail their little boats and even though there is an attempt to get everyone out -- after all, it's 6:25 already! out! -- and still they find it hard to budge because when the day is this beautiful, you don't want to let go.






Alright. M. Gendarme did me a favor so let me be gracious and leave. I can take my last garden shot from the outside, looking in among the chestnuts.






And now it's nearly dark and the activity picks up at the bars that hug the Place de la Sorbonne.





I do not pause. I have a dinner to eat, a suitcase to pack and an early flight to catch.