an evening of celebration, a day of Warsaw strolls

A post in three parts.

Part I

If the first half of Friday was spent in the bucolic embrace of the Polish countryside, the second half belonged to a different kind of embrace: that among friends.

I barely have time to do a quick shop (for my contribution to the evening's event), throw things down in the apartment, wipe my brow from the heat of the day, put on something sweeping and celebratory and come down to the waiting taxi, which is to take me and more importantly, my neighbor and friend -- this woman:






... to the celebration of her wedding next week. I suppose you could call it a bachelorette party, but in a way, it is a different kind of party. It groups her best friends, her daughters and daughter in law in spe, and the best friends of her future husband. A dozen women of various ages.

And if you think this next photo carries the mark of my Aperol Spritz obsession this summer, well -- you'd be right!






The evening unfolds with an activity. An enterprising soul has set up a business where she introduces small groups to the art of soap making -- using nature's best products, scents, flowers, herbs and spices.

We're on it!






After, there's plenty of good food, brought over by the various participants. And it is all wonderful and all very heart warming and of course fun, but I especially enjoy seeing the bride in the larger context of the people -- women -- in her life. Here's one daughter...






... and there is the other. And because this is Poland, your childhood friends are your friends for life. You see those, too, in the photo.





An evening like this is inevitably light hearted and jovial. It is a good time for me to mention an article I recently read in the NYTimes comparing the sexual lives of women under socialism with those living under capitalism.
The reaction here is instant and telling: what, are you saying, that American women had better sex?
On the contrary. The article claims that sex was better for women under socialism.
Silence.
That doesn't sound right either. Is the study flawed?
My feeling is that there is a deeper point to be made on the subject of social relations under the two systems, but we put off further discussion until I forward them the article.

Meanwhile, we're making face scrubs. Remember, Polish women take good care of their complexions -- how's that for a generalization!

(These two, along with me, have been friends of the groom for more than forty-five years...)





One other interesting topic of conversation: provocatively, I say that this dessert -- the one to the left, Beza, a favorite of mine and of many other Poles -- is unknown in America. (It's a cake of meringue, mascarpone cream and fruits.) The statement is met with shock and consternation!
Couldn't be!
Ah, but it is true...






Speaking of custom, here's one that's decidedly not Polish, or even executed in Poland (you can tell, because the letters, printed across the ocean, lack the needed Polish accent) -- a commemorative t-shirt for the bride!





And so ends a beautiful evening where love and friendship triumph, excitement builds and the women go home possibly thinking about sex under socialism, but most likely planning their weekend escapes from the demands of the workplace. We are, here, functioning under a market economy after all.

Part II


Oh, did I sleep well this night! My sister claims long walks in the country are restorative. After two consecutive low-sleep nights, I am indeed restored.

I have a late morning meeting with my goodest of good friends. But before I set out to meet her, I need to (finally) set my home in order. What do I need for breakfast? There's oatmeal in the cupboard, honey on the shelf... milk! I need milk for coffee! And kefir for the fruits!

And as long as I am out and about, I most definitely need to visit my favorite flower lady.

She's there! Yes, she is reliably there, with her multitude of flowers...





The tough part about being in the city during the summer is that I am away from gardens. And so I pick not one, but two (or three) bunches for the apartment. I buy the freesia, the Polish heather, and a large bouquet of prairie gentians -- aka lisianthus, which properly belongs in North America, but hey, why not mix up the two worlds for once?!

My flower person is a lovely woman who has been selling flowers from a stand for more than twenty years.
You could say that I gave up my youth to flowers. Or, I faded with the fading blooms! She is a cheerful person with a wonderful sense of humor -- this despite the fact that she has to get up each morning to go to the flower guild (wholesale market) at 3 or 4 each morning to pick out her flowers.
You go later, everything's gone -- mostly for shipment to other countries, including across the ocean -- she tells me.

She wants to arrange my purchased flowers just so. I want to say -- no, skip it, I'll do it myself, I'm in a hurry. But I stay quiet. She takes pride in her work. She wants to show off her talents here and I don't blame her, because she really is good  with flowers.

I am rewarded. By lingering, I get to witness not one, but two people coming by to ask her for street and public transportation directions.
No, no buses run this way all weekend. You have to walk a few more blocks. They're diverted traffic for the summer months...

Who knew! I would have wasted time tomorrow waiting for my airport bus that would never come!

Thank you, flower lady!





She will be here I'm sure when I'm next in Warsaw (in December). What different weather we'll have then! Whereas I grouse about walking in the winter sleet and biting cold, she tells me -- I do love summer. It's hot. People complain. How do you stand it here all day long? I just pull out my chair and enjoy it, I tell them. And in the winter -- well, that's the season! Of course it's cold! Of course! So what?

Some people find the inconveniences in life terribly irritating. They are never satisfied.

 She is not one of them.

It's getting late, but I stop one more time, by the side of a building, to buy raspberries from this woman who has only a handful of food items (perhaps from the guild?) to offer you.





And of course now I know I will be late, even if I skip the oatmeal and just have my fruits, my kefir and my honey. And coffee! I do need that coffee!






I rush to meet my friend. My it's warm once more! This morning is Warsaw's last hurrah, last look at a true summer day.






My sweet good friend is indeed waiting for me. I entrust myself to her: she's a Warsaw girl and she knows exactly where you can find what.

We pass through this lovely park where, as always, little tykes are splashing in the fountain (Snowdrop would love this!)...





And eventually, we make our way to what is called a "breakfast bazaar." The deal is that vendors come with foods that you might consider for breakfast (and beyond, but principally for breakfast). There are picnic tables and too, grassy knolls where you can spread out your blanket. It's a fantastic idea! (I'm sure it would be a tremendous hit in Madison... Hey, Mayor, are you listening?)

I like how the world "truck" has been incorporated into the Polish vernacular. His business is called "Ryba Truck." Fish truck. Because he sells fish. Smoked fish, for your breakfast appetite.






Sure, you can buy fruits (from the vendor below). But as long as you're here, you'll of course want his pickles and sour cabbage. (I tell my sister that it's ironic that sour pickles and cabbage remain so intensely popular in Poland... Dare I say it -- even more popular than where you could get little else! She responds correctly, I think: it's fashionable to eat "sour" things now. So before, the country was driven by necessity and now -- by fashion!) Note, too, the ever wonderful chanterelle mushrooms -- an American luxury, a Polish staple.






Now comes what for us is the piece de resistance -- the yeasty, beautiful, fragrant blueberry buns. Jagodzianki. Remember them from Łochów? (You can, in the alternative, pick up a plum yeast roll. But so long as the blueberries last, we'll stick with the jagodzianki!)






My friend and I walk then along a band of dense greenery, bordering military ramparts that were built in the years of Tsarist rule.





And eventually we're at the river.





This is the northern most end of the great riverwalk -- Warsaw's fantastic project to make something of the city's natural landscape.

My friend and I sit down. It's quiet at this end of the walk. Contemplative. Serene.






We talk, review, catch up -- call it what you want. There is no good name for great moments like this.

We also watch the river present itself to us: ducks, kayakers,  goldenrod.






We walk on. Here's the more lively part: despite the threat of storms, people are enjoying the food options. There are so many!






The  mayor of Warsaw called this most beautiful urban riverwalk in the world. Yes, it is. To the front -- the river. Along the walkway -- a bike path, kids' play areas, restaurants. In the background -- the Old Town skyline.





We turn in toward the city streets. It's starting to rain.






My friend catches the bus home, I work my umbrella to its death as I struggle to get back to my apartment. (Yes, I pop into a store to purchase a new umbrella for my stays here.)







Part III

My sister comes in from the village and we have a beautiful early evening walk, this despite the weather which has turned cool and wet.

We pass the National Philharmonic -- a place I will be returning to next week... (Do you see the tail end of an American flag? It's there because an American pianist will be performing here soon.)





And we make our way to the Koszyki food halls, where you really can find the best crepes (a Polish favorite). I cannot resist -- I order the buckwheat crepes with tons of chanterelles in a cream sauce and a salad sprinkled liberally throughout.





It really is too wet to continue our walk and so we postpone it 'til next week. She catches the metro to her apartment, I catch the metro to my apartment.

Well, with a detour. I am on this trip in love with the delicious yeasty pastries. At Blikle -- one of Warsaw's oldest bakeries -- I choose among there:





... picking out a little babeczka, a crescent with white poppyseed, and of course -- a jagodzinaka. Surely I do not have to translate it for you by now!

The skies momentarily turn a lovely pink and only partly cloudy.





It is a beautiful evening to be in Warsaw, Poland.

a Friday in the country

I finish writing and glance at the clock. 11 p.m. I must sleep.

But the sound of men talking in the two rooms next to mine is feeding my restlessness. The voices are intermittent and loud. I open the door and see that the desk clerk is already knocking on theirs with a reprimand. Things go quiet, but only for a minute. Then they're at it again.

It's no use. I'm a light sleeper in the best of times. These are not the best of times. I go out and ask for a room change.

The clerk is apologetic. We've had them here before and it's not been a problem. This time they're impossible. We wont be hosting them here again!
Are they here for the weekend? It's still hard for me to comprehend who would come to Łochów.
These guys are workers. They're in town on a project.

Ah, so the Łochów Palace continues to be home to laborers, just like in postwar times! It is, in fact, the only hotel for miles. It's a "weekend getaway" (so the staff tells me), but too, it's a place to stay if you have to pass through this way for whatever reason.

Breakfast. So Polish! Let me count the ways: dark bread and white farmers cheese. Cucumbers and tomatoes. Scrambled eggs, swimming in butter. Mushrooms, swimming in butter. Yellow cheese, yogurt. I passed on the kielbaski, the hams, the deviled eggs.





My sister arrives and we head out to Łochów's commercial heart. Here it is:





Perhaps you think this is a very small heart, but in fact, in these few blocks, there are two bakeries! Indeed, my sister loves one of them to pieces. She is not a big cake eater, but when in Łochów, she always stops by and picks up a half a dozen of the cheese babeczki (to the right).






Today, we add to them a jagodowka -- a very traditional Polish yeast bun stuffed with blueberries.






We stop, too, at the produce tent.





She picks through plums, I admire the Polish essentials of August: cucumbers for pickling, sunflower heads for nibbling.





(Local berries...)





And now we finally make our way along the familiar roads to Gniazdowo and our old village home.





My sister has repurchased it from a woman who had acquired it when my grandparents could no longer live here. The house is in a moderate state of disrepair. My sister is slowly making improvements, though it's still not habitable in the cold seasons. But what she has done inside follows my grandfather's vision: natural materials, simplicity, good design. And my grandmother's vision: simple, fresh, clean.

This is the verandah, where we ate all our meals in the warm months.






On the wall, there is a photo of my grandparents, taken some fifty years ago. Above it is a sketch of the house that my sister made when she was a teen.






How familiar it all is!

We go for a walk to the forest down the road. It's a beautiful pine forest, with plenty of moss at the base and great mushroom picking opportunities after a rain...





Of course, in half a century, the landscape will change on you. Nowhere are the changes more evident than by the river. The banks are quite overgrown and the vegetation isn't what we remember from our childhood years. And the river follows a slightly different course. We suspect that attempts to regulate the flow of it by heavy planting along the meadows and river edges really confused the topography. There are far fewer access points to the water and, too, far fewer sandy strips.

But here's an easy river access. I look at the clear water and the sandy bottom. Regulation has helped clean up a river that cycled through clean (in my childhood), to very polluted (in my young adulthood), to pretty clean again.

She wades a little. I watch...





We walk on. Past a few farmsteads (though the number of farmers here is dwindling and the number of dairy farmers is plummeting).






... and onto a dirt road (this is how all roads looked as I was growing up).






It leads to a farmer who was my grandma's favorite for cheese and butter. The kids and grandkids have taken over now and they still grow potatoes, but the cows are long gone.






(Hay, stacked the old way and a beautiful meadow of wildflowers...)






(In many gardens, you'll find sunflowers. Not for show, but for consumption.)






And in many villages you'll find crosses at the entry point. This cross was placed here at the beginning of the 20th century.






One family of farmers has completely transformed their farmstead. From dairy, they have moved on to goats.





Beautiful goats.




Here, too, you can walk down to the river's edge.

I tell my sister that if I come back next week, I'll walk with her upstream or downstream. In one end, and out the other.






We're back at the village house and once more I take a look around me. This was my grandparents' room. I'd run to my grandma's bed when the storm outside was too loud and violent.





The kitchen was redone by the previous owner and it is not an improvement. Sure, the coal stove is gone and the stairs look freshly pretty (as painted by my nephew), but there are huge structural problems that would need attention if someone really wanted to live here for more than short bursts of time.






We eat our cakes, drink our tea...





And then we walk to the station, where I catch my train back to Warsaw. And if yesterday's train was spiffy, today's is even spiffier inside: air conditioning and WiFi. Unbelievable!

(Here's a grandma and an aunt, returning the kid back to mom in Warsaw.)





I hop on the metro, get off by the river (changes: classy glassy metro stations and bicycle lanes; the same: nuns in habit everywhere, though not as many as you'll find in Krakow)...





... and on this last of the sizzling days (can't you just feel it?), I walk up my street, pick up some foods and wines for tonight's festivities and return to my wonderfully cool apartment.






There is more to this day, but it moves in a wildly different direction. I'll post this now and continue with the rest tomorrow.

travel to Łochów

By way of explanation...

The weather charts predicted rain and storms on the day I was to leave Madison. I said to Ed that I may miss my connections. He pointed out that I fly so frequently, that at some point I will have to miss my connections.

But once again luck is with me. I leave Madison minutes before the weather turns foul and in Detroit, I'm in time for an even earlier flight to Amsterdam and the attendants eagerly put me on it (I smell some overbooking issues motivating their generosity) and so here I am in Amsterdam with four hours in my pocket.

...which gives me a chance to explain why I'm heading to Łochów (pronounced "woh-hoof").

At eleven days, this trip is slightly longer than my recent one week Warsaw- Paris combos. There is reason for it: I wanted to have time to go back to my grandparents' village -- Gniazdowo -- where I lived the first years of my life and spent nearly every summer of my childhood. In the last dozen years, I'd traveled there only twice -- both times in December, which is a really a dumb time to do the trip. I mean, it's icy cold, it gets dark early, and there's no escaping the prickly gloom of a December day in the village. [Literally no escape, as there are no warm spaces to retreat to once you get there: no stores, no coffee shops, no heated spaces at all. You leave the train and walk to the village, moving briskly but feeling cold anyway and you do not warm up until you're on the return train heading back to Warsaw.]

But things got complicated. Always gunning for the cheaper airfares, I had to insert Paris in the middle of the trip (rather than at the tail end, which would be far more convenient). And then, lo, my very close friends announced that they are getting married (a second for both, but hey, no less important!) and yes, it will be within the days of my visit. So I have a Polish wedding before me! And a bachelorette party! And suddenly the possibilities of a visit to Gniazdowo dwindled.

Unless, unless, I go there straight from the airport! Three flights, one bus, a couple of metros, and finally a train ride would get me pretty darn close to the village by evening (if all connections come in more or less on time).

My sister suggested that I overnight in the town of Łochów. There is a 19th century noble family's estate -- one that, after the war, had been converted to workers' housing and administrative offices. In those capacities, the small palace suffered significant deterioration. But in recent years, it has been taken over by a hotel group which restored the place (find it here) to its original beautiful form.

Łochów itself is to the average Pole (let alone to foreign tourists) a nothing place. But I know it well. With a population of about 6000, it is an agricultural and administrative center in the region where my grandparents lived. Moreover, it's on the rail line (of historical significance, as this line was constructed in the 19th century, with the goal of linking Warsaw to St. Petersburg). When we had a lot of luggage or provisions to take with us to Gniazdowo, we would disembark in Łochów. My grandfather would be waiting at the station in a horse drawn wagon (hired from a local farmer) and we would travel back with him to the village home. (At other times, we would get off the train at an earlier station and hike to the village on foot -- a 50 minute jaunt.)

When I was older, I could bike to Łochów, though it's no short trek and half of it had to be done on sandy country lanes. And still I would do it, oftentimes because my grandma would send me there on an errand, especially as my grandfather's health began to decline.

So I know the town -- one of modest commercial activity, of simple homes and small shops serving the needs of the rural province. Has it changed? I'm very curious.

the Journey

From Amsterdam, it's less than two hours by plane to Warsaw. I have such timely connections! I alight at the Warsaw airport at 4:30 and I have no doubt that I will be able to catch the 5:55 train to Łochów.

Yes, it's rush hour in the city and the bus surely takes longer than usual, but it offers pretty vistas onto streets drenched in sunlight. [Warsaw has had a tremendous heat wave. I'm hitting the tail end of it this weekend. Of course, nothing here is air conditioned and I know a number of you would pretty much die on the bus ride, but the air is dry and it all feels pleasantly summery to me.]

 (Here's a cool way to take your little one for a stroll...  though I do not know why both mommy and daughter are wearing warm clothes. It's in the low 80sF -- about 28C -- right now. Snowdrop would feel right at home with her sweater!)




(At the metro stop, a woman sells flowers, shielded from the sun by an umbrella. For as long as I remember there have always been women selling flowers on street corners, at key intersections...)




As metro number 2 zips through the neighborhood of my apartment, on an impulse I decide to get off. Yes, you'll surely recognize this Warsaw street!




I can run in and open the windows to my apartment, dump my suitcase, grab a bottle of water and still make the train. This train. Well tended, as compared to when I last caught it five years ago.




Oh, but the passengers have changed since my youthful travels on this line! Did I really expect to see the peasant women holding baskets with chickens, cheeses and eggs now? I smile at that. So many people viewed postwar Poland as a gray place of no real beauty or excitement. I profoundly disagree with that characterization. Nonetheless, I would admit to this much: the deep countryside was removed from modernity. Even with electrification, television, and auto travel, you still felt a real separation between urban culture and village culture. It was not incorrect to think in terms of the Polish peasant. It wasn't an insult -- it was a way of life.

The train ride now tells a different story.




But the scenery -- the birches, the tall, red barked pines, the golden flowers of August -- the same.





Arrival

My sister greets me at the station in Łochów (she is spending increasingly more time in the countryside here).

(Small town hanging out, by a store near the station...)




But we don't poke around the town today. The sun is nearly ready to dip behind the clouds hovering at the horizon. I want to check into the hotel and walk down to the river.

A few pics of the property.. The main "palace:" (I'm staying in the more modest -- they call it "folksy" -- carriage house.)

\


The simple, but clean and comfortable room:





We head out across the meadow.

(An old church, a pond, the setting sun...)





Łochów  is on the same River Liwiec (pronounced "leev-yetz") that runs by Gniazdowo. I think the river defined my summers. We didn't boat in it. We didn't even swim in it really. But we waded, we looked for fish and frogs, we crossed it pulling our skirts up to get to the train station. So I want to see it again, just because my memories of it are so good!






And now it is getting dark...





... and I feel the tiredness of the long journey. I'm hungry, too, so we make our way to the restaurant, where I eat a "greens and beets" salad and a Polish pan friend trout. My sister keeps me company.





Sleep. I need sleep. So very strange to be falling asleep tonight so very close to where I slept for so many years...

up and away

It's my departure day and so I am both busy and a tad sad. (It is always the one day of any travels where I am reluctant to let go of all that I love here.)

Breakfast...





One more glance out (from the porch) at the garden, which will likely have almost no lilies by the time I come back...

To the left (of the center screen post)...





To the right (of the center screen post)...






A smile at the froggie -- don't worry, I wont snip you off!






An appreciative look at the colors of summer, now approaching an autumnal palate...





And now a quick pack (though I have been thinking about the little bag's contents for a long time as this trip is going to make demands on me clothes-wise), a trip to the dentist (I know! what a swell kickoff to travel!) and then a Snowdrop pick up.

I cannot spend much time with the little girl -- my flight leaves later this afternoon, but I also cannot let go of this precious time where I enter her little world by the cubbies, where she always sits and waits for my arrival.

When I come back, the school year will have ended. Come September,  she'll be joining the bigger kids in the main school building. I feel as sentimental about having this last pick up here as if she were my kid! The teachers report on her day (she's been so cheerful and happy this week -- they tell me now and I just smile and smile), they praised and encouraged and comforted her. It's been such a great year for the little one!

A final photo on the steps...




And now we have time for one adventure, just one and it cannot be long...

Playground! Swings! I'm a bird, gaga!





At the climbing structure, a little boy tells me, or her, or both of us --  this playground is for kids between 5 and 12.
Says who? I ask in my best "don't mess with gaga" voice.
The sign over there.
I read it. The structure is in fact recommended for that age group (bizarrely, as it's actually quite simple and small), but I don't correct him. Snowdrop however chimes in -- I'm actually a little girl, she says in all earnestness. (She uses the word "actually" as frequently as I do.)
I smile at her. You're getting to be a big girl!

Oh fine, big girl, we can pause for a coffee shop treat!





You are growing up, Snowdrop!



And then it's a blur and a rush to get back to the farmhouse, throw the bag in the car and drive with Ed to the airport.


Where am I going? Well, to Poland for now. Though not initially to Warsaw. Tomorrow night, I should be in Łochów.