Warsaw, Day 2 for Everyone!

Here we are: the two young families, a friend who is almost family, and me, in Warsaw. Who would have thought, when I left Poland at the age of 19, that I would be back in this way, with the people I love so much!

And what a day it was! A few choice words to describe it (in case you do not want to scroll through 50 photos -- a record for an Ocean post!): breakfast enthusiasm, cousins beyond just five, pivot to Saxony Park, walk walk walk with the royals, paczki, communism, great grandparents married here, park with babbling brook, Chopin, Orangerie meal of all meals, it was once bath house, rain!, bus, rain! home at last, electricity and food, how did the Wisla turn into the Vistula?, such a narrow street, home at last once more.

Through it all the kids were magnificent, BFFs, energetic, happy. The grownups? Somewhat calmer but still magnificent, BFFs, slightly less energetic, happy.

I'll show you! In pictures.

1. START THE DAY WITH BREAKFAST!

There is a bread and pastry bar at the hotel.

The chosen bread product:

Healthy eating!

2. COUSINS plus ONE MORE: TO THE PARK!

 Rosie, her dad, Artist, and my sister come to the hotel once again. So it's the five cousins plus one more! 

 

We were going to head straight to Park Ujazdowski along the Royal Way, but Rosie and her dad must catch a noon train and so we pivot and turn to the Saxony Gardens first. It's a great place to set the kids free to do their thing.

(all of them, by the lake and the water tower)

(A small Juniper by the very large fountain)

(there, it's better with all six!)

(the grownups lag behind)

(the park has a playground!)

(And it has flowers: English daisies and pansies for that meadow look)

(out of the park now, waiting for the grownups)

3. ON THE ROYAL WAY

(by the University of Warsaw and the Polish Academy of Science)

(they do and do not want to see Chopin's embalmed heart in the Church of the Holy Cross: thsi was not to be; there was a service taking place, and besides, you can't really see the heart. Just know that it's there!)

(the Nowy Swiat: nicely quiet without cars)

We go to Blikle for paczki (and babeczki and jagodzianki). You can argue all you want about which bakery makes the best paczki, but Blikle has been around the longest and theirs have consistently been made to the highest standard. We choose the ones with rose jam.

And now it's time to say good-bye to Rosie and Organics. Group hug!

4. STILL ON THE ROYAL WAY BUT WITH (ONCE) COMMUNIST OVERTONES

 

(why photograph just the men in front of the former headquarters of the Polish Communist Party? Well, it was once the dominion of men -- I suppose this is to me a view of the generations of men that came after, ones who never flexed their muscle with a need to control and oppress and exclude and expel. My father, a realist in the extreme, worked in that building for a handful of years. He couldn't wait to leave, and when he did leave, he never went back anywhere near it) 

6. THE LOVELIEST PARKS

In the Ujazdowski Park, I once picked fallen chestnuts. And now, here I walk my kids, my grandkids -- along the Avenue of the Chestnuts.

 

 

 

 (Yes, I used to cross the brook on these stones too...)

 

 

(Smell those blooming linden trees!) 

 

 

 

 

 

In Lazienki Park: Chopin's Monument was rebuilt (after WWII) and recast and finally reopened in 1958. I was in the audience for the great unveiling of it. I was five, the age of Sandpiper.

 

 

 

 (oh-oh! here comes the rain!)

 

 

7. BRUNCH 

 

We eat brunch at the Belvedere Restaurant in the New Orangerie, where the Russian Tsar kept his precious orange trees.

 It's a delicious buffet that has every imaginable item -- Polish foods of course, but with little detours into other favorites.  The kids were thrilled and behaved splendidly, despite the rather serious atmosphere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. TO KEEP AS A MEMORY   

And now for the iconic photo -- across the lake, with a view toward the Lazienki Palace. My beloved five.

 

 

 

(And here we are, all of us. I can hardly take it in...) 

 

 (here comes the rain again!)

 

 (we take the bus back to the hotel)

 

9. TIME FOR SUPPER 

 (waiting for two UBERs)

 

 We eat supper at the Food Courts, located in the ELEKTROWNIA POWISLE.

 

 

(creative!)

 

 

 (always room for ice cream)

 

 10. THE WISLA RIVER

 It's late. We should get the kids to bed. We have an early day tomorrow. And still, we are so close to the river... Let's go for a stroll along its banks.

 

 

 

It's the Wisla River; the Anglicized Latin version turned it into the Vistula. 

 

 

 

 (the new pedestrian bridge to the front)

 

 (trampolines)

 

 (he so wanted to cross the pedestrian bridge!)

 

 

(the all made it halfway, then we insisted that it's time to turn back...) 

 

 

 (walking up the narrowest street in Warsaw)

 

 And now we're back, on the Krakowskie Przedmiscie Street, the Royal Way, where we ended the day yesterday and started the day this morning.

 

 

 So many beautiful memories, made in one day...

with so much love... 

 

Warsaw, Day 1 for Everyone!

This is big. Really big. For some, it's huge. I belong to that subset, for whom this is huge. The great meetup of my American family with my Polish family, in Warsaw, Poland. Perhaps you'll think I have imbued this with too much meaning. I mean, family reunions can be a mixed bag of emotions, where some don't care, some don't want to be there, some just want a quick handshake and be done with it. But I can assure you -- in my family meetup, in bringing my kids and spouses and grandkids to Poland, I am confident, indeed positive that everyone really wants to be here. And it's not really a reunion, because this is a first face-to-face for many. Only my two daughters have met my sister and her sons. None of us have met her granddaughter (my grand-niece), and my sons-in-law and grandkids have met no one at all from the Polish bunch. So, now that you know how significant this all is for me, let me give a few details, but realize, please, that I have very little time for writing and photo editing. You'll get the basics though. If it kills me, you'll get the basics.

First, a quiet breakfast, same as yesterday (it's so good!), although I upped the protein a bit! 

Then the messages come flying. From my sister. From my daughter in Krakow. From my daughter who just landed in Copenhagen. We are coordinating in real-time. How did all this happen before phones and messaging platforms? For those innocents born too late to know or remember -- years ago, we functioned in an aura of mystery, supplemented by a rare phone communication (remember when it was SO EXPENSIVE to call long distance?).  

I have an hour before my sister comes up to the hotel to leave some stuff for transport to the country later in the week. She and my nephew will be part of the meetup crew today. [This would be the nephew who lives in Warsaw -- you can call him Artist, because he is that; there is another, older nephew who splits his time between England and Poland -- you can call him Organics, because he's into that, and then there's his daughter, let's give her a flower -- how about Rosie, because I am meeting her in June and everyone knows June is the month of roses.] Organics and Rosie are coming to Warsaw by train today, just for a very short time, as he has to return to England for work purposes Sunday eve, and she needs to return home to her mom who lives in the south of Poland. Are you lost yet? Don't be. I do not come from a large family. These are all the kinfolk that matter to me. There is no one else.

In my one free hour, I have errands to run. I need an ATM, a chocolate bar to keep me going into the night for Ocean writing, a bag for Rosie's gifts. It's raining this morning but who cares.

 

 

 

(on the way: it's strawberry season!)

(on the way: a good bakery with strawberry pastries, and of course, jagodzianki -- blueberry rolls)

 

(on the way: Warsaw has adopted the meadow look in city spaces; no lawns, no flowers needing water and care, just variety -- the stuff you'd find in a Polish meadow perhaps)

 

 

And then my sister arrives and we take the metro to meet and greet two separately arriving branches of our small family: my nephew Organics and his daughter first.

(on the way to the train station: the meadow look)

(Artist meeting Organics and Rosie)

And then my daughter and her friend arrive, coming in by train from Krakow.

 (the friend is pushing a heavy suitcase and is not in the picture)

 

 

Here he is! Later, in the hotel. With Artist.

 

 

 

Here's what you should know about today, in Poland: it's Gay Pride day. And Warsaw goes all in on the celebration.

 

 

 

There is a massive parade, starting in the center of town at 2 p.m. and winding its way up toward our hotel, going around in a circle, so that we are inside a very long snake of people, all draped in flags and colorful markers of their various identities. Given this, we decide to take the metro from the train station. Moving around by taxi would be... difficult.

But riding the metro poses its own challenges. Not every up and down has elevators/escalators. And there are suitcases. And there is a little girl who is not yet 6. Lucky break: the subway is not crowded. We get off at a stop just a few minutes' walk to our hotel.

Since we pass the strawberries, I cannot resist -- I purchase a small basket of them. And Rosie gets what she's craving: Polish gooseberries.

 

And since we pass the bakery, I am thrilled to buy some yeasty rolls, a jagodzianka, and paczki for the soon to arrive little ones.

And of course, my younger daughter and her family, coming in by car from the airport, are trapped outside of the circle of paraders. No way can the driver negotiate permission to get through. He drops them off a few blocks away. They walk over, tired but joyful!

 

 

 

And now at least two of the grandkids can meet their Polish second cousin...

And my sister and nephews can meet at least some of my American family.

 

 

Checked in, we eat our snacks, enjoy the antics of the youngest, then let the one family who has just been through many hours of airports and flights, retreat to refresh for a bit and we say good bye for today to the nephews, to Rosie, to my sister.. 

Just before dinner (which today is to be at the pierogi place -- Zapiecek) the girls come knocking on my door.

(predinner artwork, using a gift from Rosie)

 

 

We all walk together to Krakowskie Przedmiescie -- the Royal Way, linking the Old Town with the grand parks of Warsaw.

At the restaurant, we are so lucky to get a large table! We order a lot of Polish food. Rosol (chicken noodle soup -- probably Poland's most widely eaten dish) for the girls, beet broth for some of us older types. 

 

 

Pierogi of course: with cheese and potato, with cabbage and mushroom, meats, with strawberries -- because it's the season. Kopytka (Polish gnocchi), potato pancakes -- all of it. 

Toward the end of the meal we got a text that my daughter's husband and their three kids have arrived at the hotel. I was done with my pierogi, so I went up to the hotel (a ten minute walk) to get them. 

 

The restaurant was by now very crowded. A long line had formed to get in. But, our luck held: we all fit in at the table...

(thanks, Carey, for taking this! there is a Juniper in there, but with a group this size, taken after a trip that long, you take the photo and just let them be, even if not everyone is looking at the camera...)

Once the earlier arrivals leave to get some much needed sleep, the Madison arrivals order their pierogi. 

It was a joyous evening, a joyous day, every bit of it. And of course, I kept thinking -- really? I'm here, in Warsaw, with my whole American family? Incredible... 

The walk back is past a candy shop. The kids are set loose to pick their favorites. I do think some of them seized the moment and filled their sacs nearly to capacity. And once you put in something and mix it with the rest, you can hardly put it back... 

Oh, but it's their first night, and they traveled far, and they never once complained about anything. Only at the very end, when a sudden rainbow showed up...

... then disappeared, did Sandpiper cry -- I dont want the rainbow to go away! 

I feel that it hasn't. It's with us on this trip.

with so much love... 

 

Warsaw, Day 2 for me

Sometimes, I am so tired that I cannot sleep. Yesterday may go down in my personal history as holding the prize for the most tired I have ever been. After days of hard labor, digging away at rocks and baked clay, after mornings of wake-ups before dawn, after hurrying to pack and leave on time, followed by the usual sleepless night on the long flight -- I was in a fog of sleep deprivation. And still, I needed to do a final edit of my post last night  (missing of course half the mistakes I should have caught). It was after midnight before I hit that comfortable bed, expecting to be jittery and unsettled from sheer exhaustion. Instead, I was out to the world and for the first time in weeks, logged in a solid seven hours of la la land sleep.

In the morning, the fog in my head lifts and I look outside.

No rain in Warsaw yet. I have two goals for this day: to see Bee again and to spend time with my sister.

But first, breakfast. It's not a buffet here -- you have to order off of a menu. I just go with my standard granola yogurt and fruit. Well, with an added pastry.

Of all my June days this year, funnily enough, this day, my first full day in Poland, is perhaps the most leisurely. Unrushed. My important people today (Bee, my sister) are flexible. No need to hurry. 

(heading out...)

 

First comes a walk with Bee. I had asked about the new green spaces by the Palace of Culture,so we walk in that direction, passing through the gorgeous Saxon Park. 

... filled with preschoolers, visitors, Varsovians.

 

 

The scent of linden trees in bloom right now in Warsaw is intense! These are the weeks anyone should visit Poland. For the fragrance!

 

 

Then to the Palace of Culture, the most hated gift,  grudgingly accepted, from the Soviet state. Meaning Stalin.

 

 

 

... passing, too, the monument to Janusz Korczak. There are many many monuments in Warsaw to heros who make your heart swell with grief. This one is in that group. Korczak was a Jewish doctor who took care of orphaned children. His legacy? When the Nazis forced his Warsaw Ghetto orphanage into deportation, Korczak refused multiple offers to save himself. Instead, he chose to walk alongside his 200 children and orphanage staff, comforting them to the end. They were all tragically murdered at Treblinka.

The grief and anger seem to have abated. But they're not gone, I still feel both when I am reminded, through books, art, statues like this one. 

 

The green spaces are nicest to the front of the Palace, and Bee and I lingered there on a bench. The weather is cool, but really beautiful. No rain today!

 

 

 

(Socialist realism looks like this: )

 

 

From there, we walked to the small street -- Chmielna. It was under renovation, turning into a pedestrian street the last time I was here. It's very pretty now, but what I especially wanted to see is the new unveiled mural depicting a "futuristic" Warsaw, imagined by artists in the early years of the twentieth century.  

 

  

 

And it's about now that I realized we were getting awfully close to my meetup time with my sister.  I hop on the metro (free for people over 70!). Even five or six years ago, people read books during a metro ride. Today? This:

 

 

 

I am so happy to see both my sister and my nephew waiting for me at the appointed time and place. My sister has long been taking care of my Polish self. My ID was expiring. She reminded me of that and helped me do the paperwork to extend it. Today we also extended my passport. Theoretically I could do it myself, in Chicago. It would take several trips though and long waits at odd hours. Here, it was quick and easy. 

We walked then to a bakery. I wanted a Jagodzianka -- a blueberry yeast roll -- they are in season now and quite good. With milky coffee! (I also love Polish yeasty rolls and pastries...)

 

 

 

There we sat for a good 2 or 3 hours. 

 

 

 

I finally leave, because I'd arranged for Bee to come up to my hotel in the early evening. I love to cut through the parks here and the Saxony one is just a block from my hotel...

 

 

 

 

Bee and I linger in my room, catching up in the way that one does when time with your close friend is so rare and precious. I asked to eat supper with me in her favorite coffee shop in the Old Town neighborhood. We walk through the familiar blocks and squares and settle at an outdoor table. Delicious veggie tortillas with tea...

It's getting late now and clouds are appearing over a brilliant evening sky...

She walks me to the bus stop, I hop on the 116 -- a bus I had taken more times in my life than any other, and I get off one stop too far, but deliberately. So that I can take the longer route, past the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier...

through the Saxony Park again...

And to my hotel, so perfectly located for evening, morning, afternoon strolls...

Tomorrow everyone arrives. Oh how I hope they all travel well and get here at the times that they're supposed to get here!

with so much love... 

Warsaw, Day 1 for me

I can only wish the same good luck to all in my pack of fellow travelers. Because it surely has been an easy trip so far.

(I write "so far," because I'm not there yet. I'm at the moment passing through Paris airport.)

 

Oh, I was tense alright, but not for my own travels. One of my daughters was also leaving Wednesday, ahead of the rest of the family (she's meeting her friend in Krakow for two days). Her flight left from Chicago. It's a fairly easy three hour bus ride from Madison to Chicago's airport. On the average. Wednesday, on the other hand, was not average. Attending to a million details prior to her departure (packing up the kids' suitcases -- they are to leave with their dad in a couple of days, attending to the animal sitter, attending to one child's birthday, you know how it is. Busy mother, lots to do), she missed her bus. Not great, but still okay, with enough time to make her flight. 

Then the storms hit Madison.

The next bus was one hour late leaving. This meant that if there would be traffic, she was doomed to miss her flight. If the storms kept at it and the bus would be even more late, she would miss her flight. If there were lines at security in Chicago, she would miss her flight. I spent my five hours in Detroit tracking her movement, not really having a Plan B in case she did miss her flight.

She did not miss her flight! 

So, out of the 11 travelers, 3 are already in Europe. May the rest succeed without storms or stress!

*     *     * 

Very many early summer days in Poland are really beautiful. When it's good, it's very very good. When the weather brings the cold and the rain, then it can get pretty dismal. The grays stand out. I've always thought that some cities can handle rain well. Paris, for example, can be quite lovely when made wet from a passing shower (though less lovely when overtaken by a deluge -- I've had days there when the metros flooded from a torrential never-ending rain).

I always thought that Warsaw doesn't handle rain that well. People get cranky. All those jostling umbrellas, crowded buses. Buildings look like they wished the rain had been more successful in stripping them of urban patina. 

But on the other hand, I grew up in this city, and it wasn't always sunny and warm. Rain is part of the picture. So maybe I should be glad that it'll be a very wet week? 

*     *     * 

This trip has given me a boost in my thinking about senior travels. I can be forgetful in my daily life, but I kept everything straight this month, both with the complicated garden launch and the super complicated trip planning, and I forgot nothing (except to take down the three cacti in the bedroom, but heck, Ed is capable of watering them in the upstairs. And if he misses them, it can't matter. They're cacti, for Pete's sake, they can survive a dry spell).

But in the Paris transfer, I forgot something.  

I'd like to say this has never happened to me before, but the fact is, just a year ago I had a similar incident and that time it was my fault. 

Both incidents happened at the security check point. A year ago, I was with Snowdrop and I forgot to pick up my laptop after it had gone through the screening. This time, I followed the protocols, but the agent didn't like my purse, camera, and watch sharing a bin. She separated them and put the trays in various places along the line. Then, as always, my platinum knee triggered an alert and the exam I got was ridiculously long. With shoes. Without shoes. Send shoes through separately. Scan feet. Pat down anyway. In other words, the works. I'm used to the variety of reactions to the fake knee problem, but this one took forever and my trays had long gone through. And someone, not me, but someone else, possibly a security person, saw an "empty" tray and placed it in the stack, not noticing my watch at the far corner.

When I picked up my stuff -- and this part is my fault -- I did not notice that the watch was missing.

Perhaps you've heard of the chaos at European airports due to the new system of American passport checks: no more stamps, it's all electronic. Long lines. Long waits. Missed flights. Well, at the Paris airport, all was calm. The transfer to terminal 2F was seamless and without a wait. I sailed through! And then I looked down to check the time, wanting to see how much was left for a coffee and a croissant. And all I saw was a white outline on my skin of a watch.

I had to go back through passport control. And the security staff couldn't find my watch. So many trays had passed through that the only hope was to take stacks of them from other lines and pass them through the x-ray machine, stacked and empty. My watch turned up at the very last batch. Picked up too quickly by that someone, with me not noticing the mistake.

*     *     * 

Air France requires a period of ten consecutive years of extreme loyalty before they grant you a lifetime of "status." Much has been written recently about travelers and status and lounge access and such -- I find the generalizations made in such writings to be ridiculously narrow. People want loyalty benefits for any number of reasons. For me, they click in when things go wrong. When lines are long. When your suitcase needs to be sent through. When you need a quiet corner and you're at an airport like Atlanta where there are no quiet corners. I think my faithful clinging to my airline of choice (Air France, with partners KLM and Delta) for ten years straight should come with some benefits. But I really am not happy that such benefits as airport lounges (in the US especially) are magnets for people who want to drink themselves silly and who are willing to throw money at an airline for the privilege of doing just that. Airlines reward you with privileges merely for using their credit card. It's no longer a room full of weary travelers who have been on one plane too many, but a room full of people for whom money is like a toy.

I finally concluded my ten year slog to lifetime status this year. And today, I definitely benefited from being part of their "family." I will have spent more hours at airports than in flight, and that's saying a lot, considering I had three flights and one of them was over the Atlantic. 

The sticking point happened in Paris. We boarded the airplane for Warsaw, sat in it, sat in it, sat in it, until the captain admitted that it was beyond hope. Something was broken and could not be fixed. And by the way, the crew is tired so they're going home.

None of this is the fault of the airline. There was no one you could be mad at. Not even when they located a spare aircraft and lead us to another gate, which opened up to a bus, which we eventually were allowed to board. And we waited and waited and waited and then were told to get off the bus, because the spare aircraft was ready but the spare crew hadn't arrived.

This is where I scooted to a quiet space at the airport, where I ate a decent snack, much appreciated, given the size of the earlier one shown above.

 

In the end, I had spent two hours in Madison's airport, five in Detroit's, and seven in the Paris one. I wondered if, had I known how long it would be, would have I taken the train into Paris? For a park walk maybe. And the answer was obvious to me and very much tied to my age. Twenty years ago I had a layover in Paris of equal length and I did go in. But at 73, after a string of sleep deprived days and nights, I'd pass. Give me that quiet corner any time. To read, have a coffee, to think.

*     *     * 

 If I had to pick my most traveled flight route in the US, I surely would go with the one between Madison and Detroit. In Europe? It would be, hands down, the one between Paris and Warsaw.

And despite the dozens of times I have done it, I still get that uneasy feeling each time we approach Warsaw. As if a long closed door is opening within me and I'm about to see a ghost of Christmas Past. I'm not tied to the place anymore. I am very much a part of another world and have been for a long long time. And yet...

It could be that I have my sister still in Poland. And my friend Bee, with whom I chat one way or another as often as I would were she living in Madison. And my group of friends that were part of my formative world as a young person in search of something, not really having a clear idea what.

But really, it is the ghosts here that mess with my emotions. Warsaw doesn't look the same as it did back then, under so called communism. Except that to me, it looks and feels exactly the same. Oh, there are the flashy stores now and the tall office buildings. People dress well and surf their smart phones on the bus or tram. But look closer and you'll see it -- the remains of the old Warsaw. The old women without much of the new wealth, with tired faces and tired looking shoes. The girls with long braids, the young men using a vulgar slang every other word so that it's a string of whore, whore, whore, coming out in every sentence. The stores that sell nothing that an American would consider serviceable. The Mazurek cake on every Easter table, the herring on every Christmas Eve table. The church, always the church. The entrances to apartment buildings: front and center in New York, through thick doors and with a concierge in Paris, and off to the side, maybe through a courtyard and in the back of the building in Warsaw.

It's all still there. And it hits me hard as I sink right into its clutches, wondering if I am still basically Polish after all.

*     *     *

Once I'm finally out of the airport, I take a cab to the hotel. My driver, an older gentlemanly guy, had never heard of it and he asks me if it's the one near the something or other. I dont know! I'm just a traveler arriving at the international Airport in Warsaw. This is your city! I take out my phone, look at the map app, hand it to him. Here, it's this one. He half turns while still driving. He puts on his glasses. Not good enough. He takes out a magnifying glass -- all with one hand on the wheel and half an eye on the road. It is the first driver that I have had in the last decade who dos not use technology to show the way.

 *     *     *

I was to come into town in the afternoon, check in to my hotel of choice (Warsaw Puro Stare Miasto, in a room with a view...) 

 

... and see Bee for a leisurely chat. Instead, the flight gets in at 7:15 and it isn't until 8:30 that I approach the Puro front desk. And still, I want to see my friend tonight. 

(cornflowers in my room, from Bee and her husband)

 

Tired that I am, it is nonetheless total joy to be able to sit down with her once again. I order a cheesecake. Not much of a dinner, but then, Air France fed us during the flight. (And they gave us an 11 Euro voucher for more food because of the delay, though where and when that was supposed to happen is beyond me,)

A beautiful evening in the end. And of course, this is just the beginning.

With so much love...