to Paris

After an intense set of days, I turn to a slower pace, a quieter string of hours, with fewer imperatives.

This is in fact how I nearly always approach Paris. Even when there last, with Snowdrop, I rarely planned for more than one activity in the morning and one in the afternoon and sometimes these were nothing more than a visit to a park, and a ride on a pony or the carousel.

On my own, I wont be any more ambitious. Paris is for gentle observation, for a study of food and manners, for a glance at French life choices, for reflection.

Though it seems a pain to fly to and from Paris now, only to fly back that way later, when returning home, in fact, there's a certain pleasant leisure in the entire experience. I get up without hurry -- the flight is in the early afternoon. I have breakfast -- the full deal today: oatmeal, fruit and jagodzianka!





I glance outside. It's raining and I think this is the only time I will be exposed to rain for the remainder of my days in Europe. Such luck, don't you think? So I leave the umbrella behind and of course get very wet walking to the metro. But I tell myself it's summer and drying off will be easy.

Informed now about special Sunday bus schedules, I know where to get off the metro and where to wait for the final bus ride to the airport. Here, it's this stop -- which coincidentally is very close to where I lived as a very young child. I can tell by the church towers right there, behind the metro station.




Despite the rain, the flight leaves on time.

[OVERHEARD: behind me, three passengers are engaged in conversation. Jean-Pierre (made up names) is older, French, doing business in Poland. Ania is a Polish engineer, working in Germany, about to visit her French boyfriend in Paris. Luc is French, doing business in Poland and with a girlfriend there.

Jean-Pierre is a little new to Poland. Ania explains foods and foibles -- she's very proud of everything and talks in superlatives about the Polish habits. We're very open! Much more so than French people are! Jean-Pierre takes it in, but he's not sure about any of it. He's very France oriented.

Luc chimes in that Warsaw has almost no unemployment. Jean-Pierre still isn't convinced. I heard it's 8% -- he says.
Ania corrects him -- that's Poland. And in any case, it's easier for young people to get work in Poland than it is for young people to get a job in France. Warsaw is much more future oriented than Paris.
Luc adds -- And Polish people are more willing to retrain, to get needed certificates, to learn a language to boost their chances of better work. Look at all the Warsaw people learning English and traveling to London in search of better paying jobs! Show me one Parisian who will go to London to look for work!

I think about Ania's pride in her home country. If I heard an American speaking in such superlatives about how it is back home, I'd consider them to be a tad boastful. Everyone knows America is powerful and rich, that success may not be easy, but if it's attained, the rewards are plentiful. But if you're from a lesser country -- lesser as regarded by the rest of the world -- you are allowed a certain amount of defensiveness I think. A feeling of pride wears well if you're trying to erase negative stereotypes.]


I leave a city that's drenched in rain and fly into one that's done with showers for a while. Sunny and mild, summery and refreshed. Train to the city of Paris and voila! -- I alight at the Luxembourg Gardens.






And I go to my wee little room in the same hotel I've been coming to for such a long time now...






... and I open my window to that lovely little square with the imposing Odeon Theater.





It's Sunday, near evening, and so, like a broken record that cannot jump to a different track, I go to the Luxembourg Gardens once more.





But I do feel like Snowdrop should be by my side. This park now has her imprint on it and all I see are the children her age and I think --I need to do something more... my age.

The Pantheon is just a few blocks away and I know it is open because my phone tells me so and I dutifully stand in line -- not to buy a ticket to view famous dead men, but to climb up to the stairs to view Paris from way up high.

I tried to do it last winter and was told that the rotunda was closed for the season. And today, I find out that even though the Pantheon is open, the panorama viewing closed some half an hour ago. Two failed efforts! I'm not sure I want to try again!

In the evening I stroll leisurely to dinner.





(The quiet facade of the St Sulpice fountain... It's evening now...)





(Through the park... Oh! She is a Snowdrop clone in many ways!)





(Past couples in love...)





There are three good restaurants just at the southwest corner of the Gardens, all in one block, in a row, and I booked a table at the one that had shunned the French custom of taking the summer off. It's called Invictus. People love it and now so do I.

I could talk about the food, but you know, that's no secret: Paris has good food.





So I'll mention something else: two small episodes -- one from the restaurant and one from the walk home.

If you eat out on Sunday evening in France, and especially if you do so at the early side of things, like around 7:30 (my favorite) -- you'll nearly always be in the company of foreigners. It was no different tonight.

I'm sure Invictus relies on this, as much as it relies on the regulars at later hours on other days. Did I mention how hard it is to run a profitable restaurant in Paris?

 A few feet down, there is an American couple. I spoke French to the waiter. No one in the French community would think that this is a sign of Frenchness. Still, a foreigner could be fooled. The American couple talked to each other as if no one could hear or understand. And it was charming.

They were young, excited, clueless, happy, adventurous, confused, and did I mention happy? I imagined a great future for them. I surely believe that they were open to the possibilities. They wanted to learn. And even at the early stages of it all, they found their pod of happiness.


The second episode took place as I was walking back to the hotel tonight. A woman (my age, frazzled, pulling a rolly suitcase) asked me for directions. And this made me happy. Not because anyone who gave it any thought (camera slung over my shoulder) could possibly confuse me for a local. Perhaps I get asked a lot (and I do) because I somehow wear the expression of a helpful sort? Wouldn't that be wonderful? -- here, ask that lady! She'll either know or she'll figure out to help you along! 

The evening walk is beautiful. It's not yet nine and not yet dark when I pass the Gardens.

Paris, in love.





I'm in my hotel room now. It's very quiet, very familiar, very inviting to unwind, to relax!

I think I will.

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.