Wszystkich świętach (All Saints)
One of my biggest regrets from my last Polish Year was that I was not in town for All Saints weekend, though the Baltic Bonanza more than made up for it. However, there’s something really magical about all of those people going to all of those cemeteries and lighting all of those candles. Plus, I’m attempting to read Adam Mickiewicz’s play Dziady in Polish and need all the inspiration I can get, because 19th century Romantic prose is bloody difficult in any language. Dziady is the name for the old Slavic festival to commemorate the dead, one of the many pagan traditions adopted by the Catholic Church and turned into All Souls Day. If I ever finish the play, I’ll give a full report.
When we left the flat on All Souls Day, our neighborhood was, no pun intended, dead. Not a soul was out on the streets, there were barely any cars, and counting the lady trying to make a last-minute couple of zloty by selling some flower arrangements at the only open stall in the market, the number of people we encountered on our way to the Rynek could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare.
There were more people out and about in the Planty, either killing time (what is with these unintentional puns?!) before going to light candles at the cemetery or just taking in the beauty of a crisp November day in Krakow:
The Planty in the fall
For us, of course, with all the lovely leaves around, how could we not frolic around and kick leaves?
Nuns may laugh at us, but there's nothing better than frolicking in the leaves!
After our obligatory stop at Nowa Prowincja for hot chocolate and szarlotka, we headed to Rakowicki cemetery. Established at the beginning of the 19th century, Rakowicki is the second-oldest cemetery in Krakow after the Old Jewish Cemetery behind the Rema Synagogue (which was established in the 1530s ftr). It is absolutely ginormous and the final resting place of a plethora of Polish notables — from 19th century painter Jan Matejko, to theater director and painter Tadeusz Kantor, to singer Marek Grechuta, to the parents of Pope John Paul II. There is also a military cemetery that has graves of Polish soldiers who fought in WWI and WWII, plus the multiple uprisings in the 19th century. There are also graves of Soviet and German soldiers who fell on Polish soil. Interestingly, Rakowicki is also the final resting place of a lot of British/Commonwealth soldiers who died on Polish soil during WWII, mostly as POWs but also every British pilot who was shot down over Poland is buried there as well.
We wandered around, took lots of pictures in the fading light, and generally froze our tails off.
Candles on graves as far as the eye can see
Singer Marek Grechuta's grave
When our fingers and toes threatened to fall off, we caught the tram home and made grzane piwo (hot beer with spices). Thanks to the lovely Michelle, we now have the recipe:
Michelle’s Grzane Piwo
You will need:
- A lager (jasne)-type beer (ie: Zywiec, Tyskie, or some kind of Pilsner)
- Egg yolks (1 per beer)
- A package of grzaniec spices
- 1 tsp cloves
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- Sugar
- Beat the egg yolks with the sugar (I used about 1 tbsp sugar), then heat slightly.
- Slowly pour in the beer. Resist the temptation to stir the mixture immediately, because you’ll make the foam grow to monstrous proportions if you do.
- Mix in the spices and stir slowly.
- Simmer and serve hot.
And I thought O’Hare was bad…
Yesterday, one of my professors joked that we really ought not travel during the All-Saints Weekend. “There are three times as many people and three times as many trains that take three times as long to get wherever they’re going,” he said to knowing chuckles from those who have been in Poland during this time and experienced the phenomenon that is the normally-reliable Polish railway system, the PKP, getting overloaded and going bonkers.
All-Saints Weekend is a Really Big Deal in Poland. Almost everyone goes home in order to be with their family and go visit the graves of their ancestors. If you fly over Poland during this time and look out the window, it will look like the towns are on fire because of the hundreds of thousands of candles being lit in cemeteries in every town and village across the country.
Imagine seeing this from an airplane. (from infotuba.pl)
All the official organizations try to accommodate the crush. University officials give everyone extra days off so students living in outlying areas can get home and back without missing class. A lot of businesses do the same or have limited hours. And the PKP and its bus services partner, the PKS, increase services.
Like many things, when all systems are firing just right, everything’s perfect, but when things get screwed up… they cause CHAOS. Like, for example, when hundreds of people buy tickets for a train from Krakow to Jaroslaw and the train never shows up. This is exactly what happened in Krakow, leading the Gazeta.pl headline to announce CHAOS IN THE KRAKOW TRAIN STATION! There’s no melodrama in the headline. Imagine: hundreds of people trying to get to a relatively out-of-the-way place and the train doesn’t come. They’re going to overload the entire system because they’ll try to push onto the next train, or crowd onto other trains heading in similar directions and then have to change. And everyone is going to want a refund.
According to a fellow heading to Jaroslaw with his two little daughters, he can either fork over another 50 zloty each to change their ticket to get the InterCity, or they can wait five hours for the next train. Since his kids are 2 and 4, waiting that long on the platform is probably in the pantheon of ’situations I would rather not be in ever‘. Fortunately, he got on the next train, but what a terrible way to start one’s holiday.
Needless to say, I shall be observing Wszystkich Swietach here in Krakow.
All’s well ends somewhat tastily
I have been relatively upfront about the fact that I cannot cook. Maybe it’s because I have issues with math and so recipes that call for 2/3 cup of olive oil when you’re making a dish for 16 but you want to make it for 7 confuse me. Maybe it’s because while my parents are both solid cooks, but they don’t embrace the whole ‘joy of cooking’ philosophy. Or maybe I’m just inept.
Regardless of the reasons for my handicap, I have issues in the kitchen. I managed to survive my junior year in Poland solely because I made friends with people in Zaczek who loved to cook and did so for lots of people. I also could pull off the occasional scrambled egg dish, but nothing much more advanced.
I also have a fear of cooking meat. This is mostly because I am terrified that if I screw up cooking it, I will get sick. My enforced vegitarianism in college was mostly because I didn’t trust the non-Kosher meat options offered in the dining halls (Kosher meat is always Grade A, the meat that Sadexho was feeding us was definitely not). Senior year, when living off campus, it was mostly because I was afraid of under-cooking a chicken breast, eating it, getting salmonella, and thus never getting my thesis written.
In recent times, I’ve gotten a bit braver. I have days where I sort of enjoy fiddling around in the kitchen. Take my “throw everything in the pot and hope for the best” potatoes, or my brussels sprouts with ham and garlic served over pasta. Yum. Also, I have been known to cook the occasional chicken breast and have even made a halfway decent kotlet schabowy, a breaded and fried pork chop. Of course, my Polish sister informed me that I really ought to use breadcrumbs rather than only flour for the crust, but they tasted relatively decent.
My specialty, if I could dare to say that I have one, is a tomato meat sauce. I make it from scratch, with real tomatoes and tons of garlic, an onion, and enough pepper to make the meat start sneezing. I liberal amounts of garlic and pepper to both ward off colds and cover up any bad tastes… very 13th century, I know, but it tastes so nice!
Anyway, I’ve had one bad attempt at making the sauce, which resulted from my using too much tomato concentrate. I thought I had the whole thing down pat, so I was starting to get a little smug about the whole thing.
And then last night happened…
Trams!
Funnily enough, I wrote a long spiel about my love-hate relationship with the Krakow tram system not long ago but didn’t publish it here because… it just wasn’t that funny despite being one of those things that I find amusing about living here. But yesterday was one of those “Fun with Trams” days, so now I have a reason to post it.
Basically what happened yesterday was that there was some kind of remont (construction? repairs? Where oh where is my English?) on one of the lines, which naturally threw the entire system into chaos. Just as naturally, most of the chaos was happening on the lines I normally take and made the usual 20ish minute trip to the museum twice that.
So, Krakow trams:
Russian gymnast Yuri Ryazanov killed in car accident
I was going to put this up a couple days ago, but I was still too gutted about the whole thing to even think about writing something. Even now, I felt it was better to just post the International Gymnast article and let it speak for itself. Such a tragedy, for him to die mere days after he stood on the podium at worlds.
Condolences to Yuri’s family, friends and the Russian gymnastics federation. What a terrible loss.
Articles from International Gymnast below the cut:
And we’re back again
I think (or perhaps hope) that my life will acquire some sort of routine now that my classes are pretty much settled and I’m back from my jaunt to the US for my cousin’s wedding. The last couple of weeks were chaotic because I had to decide on all of my classes, figure out the registration system, do stuff at the Museum, pack, go home and come back. Do not take this as me complaining, since all of it was good fun and not particularly stressful, it’s more like a list of things I had to do.
One thing I really do like about my studies is how incredibly easy it has been to deal with certain aspects of university bureaucracy. Take signing up for classes as a case in point. At NU we had the dreaded CAESAR, which was so awful that it prompted a facebook group called “Caesar must die” with the founder having the officer title ‘Brutus.’ Yes, we are nerdy even in our moments of apoplectic rage. Although they managed to work out most of the bugs during my time at NU, it was a pain to deal with. Mostly because signing up for classes involved attempting to find your pre-registration time, then your registration time, then locating all the permission numbers, and then leaping through a series of hoops where the system asked at least 20 times if you were really sure you wanted to sign up for the classes you picked. Inevitably, you would also have the wrong permission number and would have to sprint back to the department office to get a new one, all while everyone else was taking your precious spot in the class. There are words to describe this situation, but none which I would want my grandparents to read, even if they are in Polish with the occasional Albanian (thanks Marta!) thrown in.
UJ’s system is, in contrast, fantastically easy. Log onto USOS on any one of the three registration days, select the class, click one (and only one) “are you sure: yes/no” box and voila. You’re registered. Of course, I also had to write all of my classes down on a form and turn them into the office, but that is barely worth mentioning. After all, pens and pieces of paper do not have a habit of crashing when you’re frantically trying to register for a popular class. Easy peasy.
So, I’m taking: European Civilizations (basically Dr. Lavine’s class but with an EU focus, more theory and not nearly as interesting); Political and Social History of 20th Century Central/Eastern Europe (fascinating!); Central/Eastern European Literature (a basic overview class, but we’re reading a bit of Konwicki!!); Polish (B2/C1 baby, though I think I lean more on the B2 side but whatevs); and an academic skills seminar. There’s a lot of reading, particularly in the Euro Civ class, and lots of presentations, but that’s all right since I like to talk. I’m planning on doing a Konwicki presentation in my lit class and then talk about European refugee/asylum policy as applied to Chechen refugees in the Euro Civ class. I’m kind of excited about that, if only because it’s an excuse to read more Anna Politkovskaya.
As excited as I am about being a student again, I must admit I’m having a bit of trouble finding my motivation. Maybe it’s because I’m really not all that interested in political science or because it’s cold and dark. Maybe it’s because I’m once again frustrated with my Polish speaking skills, or extreme lack thereof. I really cannot let that get to me again, since this year my grades actually do count to a GPA and I can’t afford another nervous breakdown. I don’t know… I was talking with a friend when I was in Nashville and we were commiserating over learning foreign languages and how difficult speaking can be. I am continually reminded of this, mostly because I can translate the daylights out of just about anything and can understand a good bit of what is said to me but yet I can’t speak back. Ahhh, frustrating! Fortunately, I have good friends who will humor me and let me polish my Polish so to speak. The only problem is that I am completely unable to be funny, on purpose that is, in Polish. On the other hand, my fantastic bumbling has led to me introducing a new word to the Polish lexicon: rzeczunia (a thingy… how Poles functioned without the word ‘thingy’ is beyond me). Know it, use it, love it.
Oh, yes, the wedding. It was spectacular. My cousin and her new husband are very happy and, with the exception of a pesky bridge in Vicksburg, the weekend couldn’t have gone better. The service was lovely, my cousin simply glowed, no one’s shoes broke, the food was excellent, and everyone had a good time. Really my only problem was that I think I spent more time getting to and from the wedding (16 hours worth of flights + 8.5 hours worth of car drives) and I once again got violently ill on my flight from Munich to Charlotte. Did I mention that I hate transatlantic flights? Hate, hate, hate. Mostly because I manage to get sick either during or right after, so I’m generally a very unhappy camper. I suppose it is a small price to pay, since I don’t have a lot of problems with jet lag.
Nowe mieszkanie, part the second
Well, things are finally getting settled in our new flat. Unfortunately, all of the settling has coincided with the start of the school year and we’re awaiting the internet company to get back to us, so this update was a bit delayed. I also wanted to include pictures, but unfortunately my internet connection at work is slooooow (I’m using the wireless, even though I’ve been promised a cable sometime) and the uploading takes hours. What I’ll try to do is take pictures and then add them when I go back to the States next week, so stay tuned.
I’ll start with some basic stuff. Our flat is located in the Salwator district of Krakow, which is to the east of the center. It is most famous for its two churches, one of which is a monastery and the other is a beautiful old wooden church. Incidentally, a good friend of mine lives in a flat that looks out onto this church. Anyway, Salwator was added as a dzielnica (which is sort of like a district thingy similar to Hyde Park or the Gold Coast in Chicago, but has some administrative meaning as well) of Krakow in the early 20th century. Our place is in a block that looks like it was built in the 1920s or ’30s — I’ll have to ask my landlord. Our windows overlook the back garden, which keeps most of the noise from the street from bothering us.
Opening the door, you first walk into our little entrance hall. There’s not much to do here except take off your coat and stay a while. While you’re at it, you could admire our fine collection of silly hats, including my bright blue one with flowers that I do wear in public but unfortunately do not have a picture of at the moment.
If you look up, you might notice a very interesting-looking trapdoor. This is actually a really clever feature — pull on the little hook thing hard enough and you find that the door folds down into a ladder and there’s a nice little space for us to store our suitcases.
Next is our itsy-bitsy kitchen. We have a nice stove, with an oven (!!), a sink and a fridge that apparently comes from Minsk. I kid you not. Yes, the stove is a gas stove and, no, there are no pilot lights. I know this is a standard feature of gas stoves in the US, but no such requirement exists in Europe because all of the old stoves would have to be replaced and it would just be a major pain. I’m sure the EU Parliament has debated this, but it was probably shouted down and forgotten about.
The most amusing thing about the kitchen is all of the cabinets are made for someone who is slightly taller than we are. Same goes for most of the storage actually, but we’re learning how to live with it. I’ve put ’step stool’ on our list of things to buy on our next Ikea run though.
Our bathroom is pretty standard, but still quite nice. We still have one of those annoying shower systems where you basically have to act like you’re sitting in a bird bath. If you don’t do this right, water gets everywhere. I still have yet to figure out what the ‘right’ way is because, no matter what, I always have to mop afterwards. Fortunately, our shiny shower curtain prevents the water from getting absolutely everywhere. We also have a washing machine (or, alternatively washer or laundry machine, depending on the state of my English at a given time) that is rather old, but satisfactory once you figure out the Polish word for spin cycle. We didn’t do this the first time we tried to use the thing and ended up with sopping wet clothes!
When we first looked at the flat, I was a little worried that we’d have issues over the rooms. One is quite small (my roommate called it a ’sleeper car room’ when we first looked at the place) and the other one is huge and serves as both a bedroom and a common room. Because we’re both very easy-going people and already knew that we’d be spending a lot of time hanging out together, there really wasn’t much discussion of who would get which room. As my roommate eloquently put it, “You have more clothes.” Plus, we figured that there was enough space so that she’d have plenty of storage space should she need it (she didn’t). So, it worked out. Generally, I leave my bed unfolded. I’d rather sleep an extra few minutes than have one more thing to do in the morning when I’m tired and cranky. But, when we have guests, I’ll fold it up so everyone can have a place to sit.
I guess that’s about it from our “flat beautiful”. So far, I’m just absolutely loving it. There’s a tiny bit of remont going on, but I can barely hear it because the walls are actually thick enough to block sound going from one flat to another and it’s not an all-day, all-night sort of thing.
Nowe Mieszkanie (new flat), part the first
Since January, I have been living in a very nice flat in a restored kamienica (late 19th/early 20th century apartment block). There’s a lot I like about it: the room is huge and airy, the kitchen window looks out onto Wawel, it’s about 5-10 minutes from the Rynek and about 25 from the Museum, and so on. However, it is not without its problems: I’ve complained quite a bit about the never-ending remont (renovation) that achieved new — and illegal — heights recently as the banging continued well into the night. The illegal part of this is that Krakow has certain rules governing construction: work can only happen between 7/7:30am and 6/7 pm. Thus, continuing the remont until 10pm is not only rude to the other tenants, but, as I said, also illegal. In addition to the incessant banging, there is a lot of noise from drunken people screaming or singing Fiona Apple songs in the wee hours of the morning, the various holes in our entrance hall and bathroom (now fixed, but more on that later), the screaming baby in the flat next door, the brand-new stove that appears to only have one heat setting, and the fridge that doesn’t close properly. Plus, our landlord is creepy as all-get-out (I ran into him once on the stairs and he tried to ask me out to dinner. He’s in his 40s btw), never fixes anything (those holes in our walls stayed there until we announced we were moving out), and treats us to daily rants at the poor workers doing the remont that would make sailors blush. And all of this for 1600 zloty/month plus bills.
The best word to describe this situation would be unacceptable.
To be honest, with the exception of the wailing baby, the noise didn’t really bother me. I sleep like the dead and I’m not in the flat that much because of work. However, my roommate is a light sleeper and also works from home, so it was distracting. The other stuff peeved me, but really I felt like I could deal with it because the location was so good and we had a washing machine. I think it really was the rent that got me mad. When I had the room to myself, I was paying between 825-850 zloty per month. It was cut in half when I had a roommate, but it was still annoying. I’d like to live a little more frugally, so I won’t feel guilty about buying a few books or going to Warsaw for the weekend.
Things came to a head about 30 hours before I left for the States back in July. On top of all the annoyances with the flat, our flatmates (a very nice couple) announced to us that they were going to get engaged and would like to take over the whole flat by 1 November at the latest. We said okay, and I spent the summer flooding my roommate’s inbox with ads from Gumtree, the Polish version of Craig’s List. I may not know how to give someone directions, but by God I can now read classified ads in Polish like no one’s business. This might actually help my direction-giving abilities because I have a pretty good idea not only where all the districts of Krakow are, but what trams are required to get to them from the Center. You want to get to Nowy Kleparz or Ruczaj or Bronowice Maly? Pick me! I can tell you.
Besides familiarizing ourselves with Polish ad-language, my flatmate and I came up with a list of things that we wanted in a flat. It went something like this:
1. A two-bedroom flat
2. A two-bedroom flat near the center, but somewhere relatively quiet.
3. A two-bedroom flat near the center, but somewhere relatively quiet, that is furnished.
4. A two-bedroom flat near the center, but somewhere relatively quiet, that is furnished and has a washer.
5. A two-bedroom flat near the center, but somewhere relatively quiet, that is furnished and has a washer and internets.
6. A two-bedroom flat near the center, but somewhere relatively quiet, that is furnished and has a washer and internets that does not cost more than 1500 zloty/month (including bills).
7. A two-bedroom flat near the center, but somewhere relatively quiet, that is furnished and has a washer and internets that does not cost more than 1500 zloty/month (including bills) and has an honest landlord who won’t try ripping us off or hitting on me.
One would think that because Krakow is a student city and the cost of living isn’t as high as, say, Warsaw, that finding a place with these simple requirements wouldn’t be so difficult. Ha. Ha. HA.
The biggest issue we had was price. Besides being a student city, Krakow also is attracting a lot of foreign investment, particularly in the form of tourism. What this means for the real estate market is that the flats in the center are getting hastily renovated and put on the market at high prices to attract “rich” foreigners. Thus, the students and others who live without dividing everything by 3, 4, or 5 (the approximate US, Euro and UK exchange rates) are pushed out of the center. Frustrating does not even begin to describe how I felt after a couple of hours on Gumtree, especially because I kept finding nice placed but they were all in the 1600-2000 zloty range for rent alone, with bills (czynsz) adding anything from 100-1000 zloty to that base price.
Now, a lot of the stuff listed on Gumtree is “wolny od zaraz”, meaning that it is free immediately. This was completely unexpected for me, because during our flat-hunt in Evanston, almost all of the flats included contracts that reflected the school year. So we started looking in April(ish) with the expectation that we would move in at the beginning of September. Not so much in Poland. I think part of the reason for this difference is that a lot of the landlords who rent places to students have not registered with the government that they are renting out flats, as the property gets quite heavily taxed and thus ups the rent and also is a major headache in terms of paperwork. Also, the dorm system works a little differently here, in that students pay their rent on a monthly basis. So, many people just move into the dorms for a month or two while they look for a flat. If they can’t find a good place, they can just stay in the dorm until something comes up. You should have seen my mother’s incredulous expression when I tried explaining this to her.
Although I am naturally a worrier, I wasn’t terribly anxious about this whole thing. I was coming back to Poland in mid-September, giving us a good month-and-a-half to look for a place. Of course, when I returned, my roommate and I both realized that we were going to be traveling in October (I’m going back to the US for a week while she, the lucky girl, is going on a jaunt to the Baltic States for a couple of weeks) and that maybe we should start looking zaraz. Immediately. The one problem was that our flatmates had gone off on a romantic holiday to Italy, so we couldn’t discuss this with the. However, we had mentioned in July that we might look for a place earlier than the end of October, so we proceeded.
The other major issue we encountered during our search was that most rental agencies and landlords expect potential clients to call to set up an appointment, even if they do put up an email address. Because our phone Polish is… not great, we were not excited at this prospect. Fortunately, I remembered that a friend of mine who did the same program that I’m starting this year found his very nice flat with the help of the center. So, I trotted over to my studies and one of the admin people was nice enough to help me search for a place and also make a couple of calls. We found some leads, but nothing that was exactly what we wanted, especially in terms of location.
Anyway, that evening, my roommate and I were going through ads again when we found two leads. After a momentary hesitation (and my scribbling a few sentences), we screwed up our courage and phoned. My roommate managed to secure us an appointment at Flat #1 for that evening and I found made an appointment for flat #2 the next morning.
Flat #1 was love. Real, true love. It’s located in the Salwator district of Krakow, about a 25 minute walk from the main square, on a side-street that doesn’t get too much traffic. Better yet, the flat faces onto the back garden, so we don’t get a lot of noise from the street. It’s near an open-air market, two ATMs for the bank we use, and (best yet) a yarn store! We were head-over-heels in love. Plus, the landlord seemed nice and his wife took a shine to us (playing the cute, yet slightly lost, American who speaks Polish really appeals to some older women’s mothering instincts 
). After a bit of perfunctory wrangling, we had our flat!
We did end up looking at Flat #2, mostly because I didn’t want to make another phone call and cancel (as I’d temporarily forgotten the word). It was a great location, but an absolute bloody mess. It was unfurnished and looked like it hadn’t seen any sort of renovation work since circa 1955. Yuck-ola. We practically danced down the street when we realized that we’d struck gold on our first try.
Remember how I mentioned that our flatmates weren’t around for us to tell them that we were going to move out early? Yeah. That was sort of the only problem, and even then it wasn’t too big a deal. We told them as soon as they got back from their vacation, and they were relatively cool with it, so long as we paid half the rent for October or found someone to take the room for the month. I felt that was relatively fair.
First weeks
Remember what I said about hitting the ground running? I wasn’t kidding. At the moment, I have the same routine as I did for my last six months in Poland: wake up, go to the Museum, do Museum-y things, go home, cook dinner, watch podcasts with my roommate while knitting, go to sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Starting next week, this will all change, as my classes at the university will begin. I got the course schedule the other day and am pretty excited about the classes. I’m a little disappointed about the over-emphasis on international relations and economics, but I think that’s mostly anxiety on my part as I have never really taken many political science/econ/international relations courses. I’m trying to be positive and look at it as a new experience that will allow me to gain new insights. Of course, that’s all well and good until you realize that the single literature class offered conflicts with one of the classes that is required for all students at the department. Grrrr… I’m hoping that this is just a slight mistake on someone’s part, because we all know how wonky university scheduling can be. I’m thinking that I will be taking Polish, the Political and Social History of 20th-century Central/Eastern Europe, To Be (or Not to Be) Central European [that would be the pesky lit class], European Civilizations, EU Foreign and Security Policy and the Academic Skills seminar. Sounds like a pretty good list. If the lit class doesn’t work out, I might take the Polish Visual Arts in a Central European Context. Could be really interesting too. As for the Polish class, I have to take yet another placement test. Shudder. I am a little worried, just because I have major anxiety about placement tests. At the same time, I am not the wreck I was expecting, because I actually *can* speak a fair bit of Polish now, am not sick as a dog, and am not freaking out about university credits back home. If I get in a lower level, I’ll try to switch, or I’ll just treat it as a review semester. After all, I haven’t had formal Polish instruction since my Junior Year and Lord knows I always could use the review.
Besides that, I’m having a great deal of fun being back at the Museum. There aren’t any tours (yet), but it’s so nice to be back with my wonderful friends. I’m also establishing some sort of credentials as a translator, which will serve me well in the future. I’m doing the English translations for Marta Golab’s exhibition of Jewish Papercuttings that we’re sending to the UK for their Polish Year and also am doing a translation for a new center that focuses on the study of Krakow Jewry that’s just opening at UJ. Doing translations has been one of my big jobs at the Museum and I really have been having fun with it, and learning a lot. I never thought I’d be able to do any sort of translating, just because my command of spoken Polish is not at the point where I would like it to be, but I’ve found that my reading skills are surprisingly decent. Apparently, there is hope for me after all.
Of course, every good translation I do and every scrap of positive feedback is a salute to my three excellent Polish teachers. And a certain rude gesture at those others who told me I was too stupid to do such things. I blow my nose in that lot’s general direction
Rereading that last bit, I guess I didn’t manage to convert all of my bitterness and inability to let the past go into the breadcrumbs I threw in the Wisla for Tashlicht last week. Oh well, let’s just call what remains “using past disappointments as motivation for improvement” and move along.
Speaking of the High Holy Days, I suppose I should be wishing everyone l’shanah tovah. I planned to spend all of Rosh Hashanah up in Warsaw, but my plans for Friday night fell through and I ended up at Beit Krakow. It turned out to be a really good thing, because I love both congregations equally and would like to support both. Friday night at BK was lovely. Not a lot of people came, but the service was lovely. I meant to write down what Rabbi Tanya talked about when I got home, but I was just so content from the music and the spiritual message that I fell asleep as soon as I got home.
The next morning, I caught the 6am train to Warsaw and managed to make it to Beit Warszawa with time to spare before morning services. I had been a little worried, but I found this wonderful website, jakdojade.pl, which basically is like GoogleMaps for public transportation in Warsaw. I’m sure it’s been around forever, but I just found it and Lord did it help me get to BW, which is rather far away from the city center. Anyway, the morning service was pretty small, but it was very nice. They had a visiting cantor, who had a great voice, and the choir was really nice. I also got to do an aliyah, which was a huge honor that I really hadn’t been expecting. It seemed that a lot of people didn’t come because they were recovering from the revelry the night before (I was told that over 100 people had come for Erev Rosh Hashanah and the party lasted long into the night), but there was a decent group. We had gefilte fish for lunch which, much to my shock, I ended up liking. My antipathy toward gefilte fish goes back to my childhood, but this was… good. Good enough for seconds!
Let’s see, what else? We had a nice study session on tsikis (forgiveness) and then went to Wilanow for tashlicht. I’d never done tashlicht before, so it was definitely interesting. We had to walk a really long way from the synagogue to get to the river, and my shoes were not made for that sort of off-road walking. Don’t get me wrong, they’re quite comfortable in normal situations, just not picking my way through dirt paths! We finally did get to the river and performed the service. There were a lot of people there, fishing or just walking and enjoying the fine weather, and I’m sorry to say that I felt a little exposed. No one bothered us, and I firmly reminded myself that people in Nashville would probably act the same way if they saw a bunch of Jews singing on the banks of the Cumberland, but I was a little uncomfortable. I think mostly it was because there were people on the other side of the river taking pictures, seemingly of us. I wouldn’t have been comfortable with that anywhere. I definitely had to add a few more breadcrumbs about stereotypes to the hand-full of other sins that I threw into the river.
On the way to the river, a new friend I made and I laughed about ducks eating our sins, and I definitely got the giggles when one made a beeline for the bread we threw in the water. It rather reminds me of a scene in Terry Prachett’s marvelous book Good Omens, where the angel Aziraphale meets the demon Crowley while he is feeding the ducks at a park in London. Every time a duck grabbed a piece of the bread Crowley threw in, it would sink, prompting Aziraphale to make a little hand gesture that would make it shoot back up to the surface.
After tashlicht, another new friend drove me back to the center of Warsaw and I met up with Ala. Yay! It’s always so much fun to see one of my Polish sisters and we had a really nice time that evening and then the next morning. I had some issues with my train ticket (I’d been silly and accidentally bought one for the 9pm train to Krakow), but we went to the black hole from which there is no escape Warszawa Centralna and not only managed to get me a ticket on an earlier train, but managed to get me a ticket for one of the InterRegio trains. From what I can tell, the InterRegio program is relatively new and basically is a set of cheap express trains that run at specific times. In my case, this meant that I exchanged my 109 zloty Inter-City ticket to Krakow (which left at 9pm and arrived at midnight) for a 40 zolty InterRegio ticket that had me leave Warsaw at about 5:45 and get in around 8pm. Aside from the small fee I had to pay for changing the tickets, I saved money! Go me (and Ala, for helping arrange things)!
To kill time between lunch and my departure, I went to the Warsaw Uprising Museum. I went in 2005, right after it was opened, and have been meaning to go back ever since. It’s really a great museum, very modern and interactive, and they’ve added a lot of new information and exhibitions in the last four years. I think I ended up spending a couple of hours there and very easily could have been there another couple.
Up next, our new flat (with pictures!) and my first impressions on being a student again.
Should have written this a while ago
I sort of hit the ground running as soon as I arrived on Wednesday, so I’m going to have to do a bit of an update dump. Whoops.
Getting to Poland from Nashville is always a test of patience and knowledge of various knee stretches, but it went all right. When I was checking in in Nashville, the United guy not only knew exactly what my flight plans were, but also informed me that the Chicago-Krakow flight runs only on weekends without ever looking at a schedule. Apparently there are a number of other Polish people (and friends) in Nashville, which amused me to no end. I had a quick layover in Chicago and the flight to Warsaw went fairly smoothly. The only problem was that I was in the row in front of the exit row, so my seat wouldn’t recline. It was No Fun, but I amused myself with lots of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow on my shiny new ipod and also watched the in-flight movies, which weren’t nearly as bad as they usually are.
Since the Warsaw airport has been remodeled, it is actually a rather pleasant place. I used to absolutely dread flying into Okecie because it was, in a word, a mess. Now, it’s all shiny and new and you do NOT have to pick up your bags when you go through customs. If anyone tells you otherwise, they are dirty rotten liars. Naturally, the guard didn’t even so much as glance at my visa… At least they could admire it, or something, considering all the angst the dratted thing caused me. Anyway, my flight to Krakow was (naturally) delayed, but not for so long. I ended up on the same flight as a friend of mine from New York, so that was really nice. Once in Krakow, my loverly roommate helped me collect my ginormous bags and off we went.
On the subject of bags, particularly what is inside said bags, I have made a startling discovery. I, Gina, am a clothes horse. Seriously. I am so ashamed. How in the world did this happen?!?!
Actually, I believe it might have just a little something to do with my inability to throw anything away, the fact my feet stopped growing circa 1999, and I do so love the sale rack at Anthropologie. Looking at both sides of the family — from Great-Grandmother Caroline, to my grandmother, to two of my three aunts, my cousin the fashion editor, and my mother — I suppose I come by it honest.
Once again, it was easy to slip back into my life here in Krakow as if I’d never left in July. I love it. I love the familiarity and being able to jump back into things. It means that I’m starting to make a life here, that Krakow is slowly but surely becoming home. Of course, my Polish needs polishing, my tram pass needs buying, and I still haven’t made it to Jubilat to do a complete grocery shopping trip, but all of those things will get done sooner or later.
The one problem with feeling like I haven’t left is, well, feeling like I haven’t left! On my first evening back, I started sending out bunches of SMS-es thinking that I have been inexcusably neglecting my social obligations. My roommate had to remind me that of course I haven’t seen people… I’ve been away for two months! Always nice to have someone give me a dose of reality.
