The Painted Village of Zalipie

"It is well worth to remember when judging the behavior of modern Poland that on the evening of VE Day, 8 May 1945, as hostilities ceased 'London, liberated from more than a year of blackout, glowed with light...In other European capitals - Paris, Rome, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Oslo, Prague - lights also blazed brightly, as people sang, kissed, and danced in the streets. In the graveyard that was Warsaw, there was only darkness and silence.'" - Country in the Moon

"A travel diary should be full of sensations, a guidebook devoid of them." - Stendhal

One thing I didn't do in Gdansk was look at amber. The city is famous for it and there are many shops and museums dedicated to the art of its collection and manipulation. You're supposed to buy some there, since it's the best in the world. So, I have amber regrets.

On the train to Krakow, I thought Amber Regrets would make a great stage name.

I also, somehow, missed the Monument to the Evacuated Children, which I also have amber regrets over. The story goes that when the winds of WWII were starting to blow darkly in Poland, over 10,000 Jewish children were sent to England to live with foster families there.

They were like 10,000 Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucies sent away to avoid the war and almost certain extermination. Most of their parents were murdered, and one imagines it gave some comfort to them in the gas chamber that the kids were going to live.

And what fertile plot material that all is. Little outcast orphans with different religions and languages living in London? Please sir, I should like some kielbasa. You'll get a scone with jam and like it! There are probably 20 books and plays about this and there need to be 70.

I mean, it's got everything, right? Children. War. Culture clash. Tragedy. Fish-out-of-water.

And those were my trainthoughts as that beautiful, fast engine shot smoothly to Krakow. So quickly and efficiently is this line, it actually stops by Warsaw first, so I got to see that familiar skyline once more (and will again when I leave for home in a few weeks).

I finished that Country in the Moon memoir and felt close to the author, as one does. He loves Poland too! I started a novel about a Romanian student who gets pushed around. I only pack books I'm sure I'll struggle to read at home.

Enjoyed piecing together little country scenes out the window. A girl in red, at the end of a long rock pier, fishing, her bicycle on its side behind her.

Arrived in Krakow after a long blink, and walked out into the giant three-story shopping mall that is also the main train station.

A radically different energy than Warsaw and Gdansk immediately. Gorgeous Europeans running around with energy and laughter. Sunny and bright. Every woman looked like she'd fallen off of a cosmetics billboard, and every man looked like the mad violin professor who'd pushed her.

I grabbed a pretzel ring like a knight at a tournament and made my way through the twisty streets to the apartment. Which was suitable. Nothing's going to beat that stripey fantasy in Gdansk.

Could have jumped out to photograph the famous square, but the point of Krakow (this time) is recovery. I also had to put in what would look like a day's work. Still two more days of being on the clock.

Wrote some material, sent some emails, responded to some emails, video conferenced with the boss (she said I looked tired), and passed out.

Woke up and went back to bed. No dinner. Didn't need it. I had my sights set on seeing the Painted Village of Zalipie in the morning.

Zalipie was something I saw online on one of those clickbait sites. A breezy gallery painted a dazzling picture of a tiny folk village where the peasants keep to traditional ways and decorate their cottages with bright images from a simpler time.

It's remote, but not crazy remote, and you can get there if you can get to Tarnow. Tarnow is just an hour away from Krakow, so... it made the list. It still wasn't exactly clear how you get there, but it seemed reasonable to assume someone in Tarnow would know which bus to take.

A woman online wanted $200 to drive you there from Krakow, and I was like... the train to T-town is $2.50, a bus from T to Z is probably .75 cents. I don't think I'll spend $200 this day. Lady.

Got up, got some of that crayon water they call coffee, caught the early train.

The train was a junker, and I was in heaven. Beat-up old vinyl seats. Cracked plastic floors. Old newspapers everywhere. Thick, cloudy windows.

Two dudes were chattering like otters on holiday. They talked over one another, a Venn diagram of overlapping speech bubbles. Politics? Household hints? Arguing about the ending of Lost? Whatever it was, they were having the best time, and it was nice to hear.

Outside, ragged uncultivated fields were as overgrown as my unshaven vacation face. I should return with a beard full of sour green berries.

An old man wanted me to close the window, and though neither of us spoke a word the other could understand, he was a master of pantomime and even taught me how to use the Brezhnev-era window lock.

People boarded at the various stops. Places like Szarow (which made me sing David Bowie's cover of Sorrow). In the city, everyone looks like a third-chair oboist. On the train, the same men look like your out-of-work uncle.

Tarnow was pleasant enough. You can tell by the enormous cemetery that it was once a center of Polish Jewry. Nice little medieval square and there was some sort of film festival going on. The people were the usual combination of stout copper-haired woman with shopping bags and young people with salon-catalog haircuts slinking around in sexy packs.

At the tourist center I asked how to get to Zalipie.

"Ah, yes, Zalipie. The painted village."

Yes, how do I get there.

"You take, ah, you take bus."

Great. Which bus?

"Bus is by cathedral."

Thank you. What time does it go to Zalipie?

"Oh, all time, but is not big place and driver may skip."

How do I keep that from happening? Do I just tell him?

"Yes, but he might forget."

Is there... how will I know when I'm close?

She took a piece of paper and wrote the letter G on it.

"G is town of gibberishgobble. This is close to Zalipie."

When I'm in Zalipie, is it easy to walk around. Are the houses close to one another?

She drew a large circle on the paper.

"This is village, You walk in circle to see houses."

I left for the bus stop with a circle and a G. And I wasn't sure what the G stood for.

It looked like a hydrogen atom.

Not useless exactly, but not... I went down to the bus stop. The buses were minivans. I wrote ZALIPIE on a piece of paper and showed it to each driver. They all shook their heads no and waved me away.

About an hour passed. I watched the golden hands of the cathedral clock turn. I listened to the bells. Old men fed pigeons. Buses came and left. None going to Zalipie. I decided the G Spot must be key and studied the hieroglyphics of the schedule.

One side of the Rosetta Stone in the shelter had something called Gręboszów on it. Could this be the mysterious city of gold that would lead to the folksy painted village?

If so, it wasn't leaving for another two hours.

There was some tension, because I had to get back to work. Being nine hours ahead of the office is cool, but it's not an eternity. In any case, I was determined to see this dumb-ass place, so I limped back to the main square of Tarnow to kill two hours.

On the way, I did the math - Two hours til bus leaves, maybe one hour to Z... one hour to walk the circle... one hour back... one hour back to Krakow.... should still only be 8:30 am in Seattle.

Puked around in a little market, went to a sad Gypsy Museum. Turns out those people had it pretty rough too. The museum itself had seen better days. The curator ran around turning the lights on. It was clear I was the only person who had been there that day.

Great poster that said: 1) A Gypsy is a Slave. 2) Anyone born to a slave is a slave 3) Slave owners may trade or sell their slaves 4) Unowned slaves are the property of the prince.

Those happy fortune tellers and accordion players were all burnt in Hitler's ovens.

There were some very beautiful old cards on display and four old painted wagons in the back.

Got a dumb coffee and went back to the bus stop. A bus with Gręboszów printed on a sign in the front window sat there. I jumped on and showed him my paper. He rolled his eyes, took my thirty cents and waved me into the back. I had done it.

Unremarkable ride there other than the great feeling that I was on my way, that it was really happening, and that the bus got totally packed. Eventually, folks just melted away, I was worried the dude would speed by the Z, but he stopped.

I walked out into a suburb. Road and sky stretched out for miles around. There was a modern-looking house in the distance. Was this the right place?

A sign with a flower on it pointed in a direction, so I followed it. Long, hot walk down a paved road with no one around. I wondered which part of the circle I was on. Held out hope that once I got there, it would be a sweet little fairy ring of happy homes.

After a while (and the whole time, I was like, I gave myself an hour for this place, and it's taking half an hour to find the first homely house, which means a half hour back... oh, bother).

Farmland stretched out on either side. I heard the whine of a power saw.

The arrow led to a house with another arrow in it. It was encouraging, though, because the house was painted all crazy. An old dog wasn't happy with me.

Kept walking. Long stretch of nothing. I sang Chris Bell songs to myself and headed for the shape of houses in the distance. Another painted arrow was nailed to a post. When I got there, the houses were just houses.

There were more houses far away. I took off some layers, stuffed them in my camera bag and headed toward them.

One was the museum. It was the house of the loony old lady who painted her spoons and her light bulbs and who started this whole crazy myth of a painted village. The curator was very nice about showing me around. It was very pretty and legitimately charming.

Across the street, a woman was harassing her gardener. Zalipie isn't really a painted folksy village. It's a suburb for rich people, a few of whom have the leisure to paint their mailboxes in the manner of an old woman from a hundred years ago.

You need a car if you're going to visit.

I wasn't entirely disillusioned, but it wasn't the experience I had imagined, or been led to expect, really. Then I felt guilty for wanting that experience. Like, it seemed very privileged and touristy to be out there looking for "authentic" "crafts" from "peasants."

Pushed myself to one more cluster of houses (some were very well decorated) and turned around for the looong walk back to the stop. More dogs decided they hated me, and I was yapped out of town.

On the way back to the stop, a car heading to where I had just been stopped to ask if I knew where Zalipie was. German family, car full of kids. They had probably read all the same things I'd read and were excited. Full of hope.

"Keep going," I said, "It's straight ahead. And it's incredible!"

The Vaulted Halls of Malbork Castle

The white and red of the flag is supposed to represent a dying eagle. The white is the feathers and the red it its blood. The whole country is like a "depressing fact of the day" tear-sheet calendar.

Really living like a Edna St. Vincent Millay poem the past few days, and I'm starting to fade out. Gave myself permission to move a meeting to later and slept in an extra hour. Also made a mad dash to Malbork Castle. It was just a speed-train station away.

The trains here are so so choice. I wish we had them in the States. Free mineral water with ticket! Boarding was a little chaotic, though. At that hour, there were a lot of women with bags of artichokes. They had to place them just so before they could clear the aisle.

A little boy was yelling about yogurt and his mother asked him, I assume, to remember where he was and to use his "train voice." He spoke in a kind of hilarious stage whisper the rest of the way. I was thoroughly charmed and wished him a life of chocolate.

There was barely time to read about how Napoleon's Polish mistress had a ring made out of shrapnel, when we were in Tczew. I made any number of Ah, Tczew sneeze jokes until I heard the conductor pronounce it as "Chev."

We took the Tczewy to the levy and moved on to Malbork, It's enormous, this place. A magnificent, sprawling complex straight out of a YA novel about the sheep boy and the bread girl. It was great fun to wander through it's endless halls and imagine servants hurrying along and priests sweeping the floor with their robes. Boiling oil, arrow slits, the bread girl and the sheep boy lingering near a spiral staircase.

I wondered for a while if, like, Disney has ruined the real thing for me. Like, they sure do a good job of making restaurants look like old castles. But I was enjoying myself in any case. Maybe I just felt... prepared by the fakes.

I got marvelously lost. Disney doesn't let that happen. Chamber after chamber opened up. Doors that seemed sealed would suddenly open to reveal another lost person looking for the way out.

Eventually found the ausgang and hurried back to the taxi area to make it back to the train to make it to my meeting. The driver high-fived the air three times to let me know I would have to pay him 15 zloty.

The train was delayed, and the air was thin and cold. I read more about the ring. The shrapnel was from the exploding shell that killed Napoleon's horse.

On the train, a man kept raising and lowering his tray. It made a terrible creaking sound. He was like a demented bandleader.

There was time in Gdansk for a kebab before work. I used that time for just that purpose. Gypsy children, the first I've seen this trip wore colorful hats and begged. I gave them a zloty each and I think the counter people saw and delayed preparing my food in revenge.

At the office, The main conference room has an enormous window that looks out on a field and a track. During meetings, I position myself to watch the runners as they circle. It's very peaceful. I like the office culture here. Lots of fruit, frequent walks, some people change into sweats and run after meetings. It's nice.

Did my part for the home office. Long phone conference. Turned down some invitations to get wasted with the locals (way out in Gdynia for heaven's sake!) and limped home.

Tomorrow I go with the "better to ask forgiveness than permission" principle and sneak off to Krakow. I wish myself a life of chocolate.

Forever in Blue Dziens - Gdansk at Gdawn

Poland's national anthem is named - "Poland Has Not Yet Perished." I'll have to hope that's a shaky translation, otherwise the "yet" is strange and sad.

Woke at first light after a weird night of sound-effect-laden dreams. I heard horns and crowds. This happens sometimes, but usually only when I'm on medication. I'm probably driving myself too hard. But! When am I ever going to be in Gdansk again?

I guess the answer is tomorrow. But, still... maybe it won't be as bright and clear at 5am tomorrow.

Put some clothes on, loaded my ratty camera bag and went out into the cold to see what they call the Old City. I'd read about a statue of Neptune and a medieval crane. Too too tempting, darling.

It was legit cold. My fingers didn't like it. A little bakery had not yet perished, so I went in for coffee and a bread thing.

The first barista was not feeling my "aw, shucks" routine. I really only know how to say "Good morning," "thank you" and "yes." This, plus writing things down for cab drivers, is all you need anywhere in the world.

But not this bakery.

I gave her the old dzien followed by a hearty dobry, but... no smile. It was cold and early. I bounced my finger over the roll I wanted. She looked at me like, "You have to say it to get it. We take customer service here very seriously, and what if I gave you the wrong roll. We have a verification process that involves an oral request. In Polish."

I tried to pronounce the Polish word. No dice. Another girl had to help, and she was happy to help. She spoke English and was fluent in Pointing. I wonder what was up with the other one. Sick of tourists, I guess. 

Like, I get it. Mostly. She was like a lot of grumpy old white dudes back home. 

Dipped out into the ancient streets where a mist was starting to rise. Foggy cobblestones are very beautiful to walk along with a coffee in your hand. As you must know. 

 I really disappear on these walks, lose sense of time and self. I feel like a spectre haunting Europe. 

All my senses stretch out and look for details and I try to put myself in the position of a merchant from five hundred years ago asking a craftsman to carve him a ram on his door and also a dude with a chick on vacation trying to get the best wicker chair at the sidewalk cafe. 

It's a photowalk fugue state. 

Fugued myself to the center square where the fountain awaited. It was... ok. I loved the idea of a powerful port city with Mighty Neptune as their symbol, but he was more like Meh-tune. Ariel's father in his withered dotage. 

He also had a dumb lily pad bolted to his sea cucumber. Let the people see virile Neptune's pride! 

I did like that his trident squirted water from each tine. That seemed like something goofy that would happen at the end of a garbagey fantasy movie. When things seemed lost, Neptune pushed a concealed button in the haft of his trident and soaked the merwolves. 

But! The waterfront was spectacular. Magnificent old ships and proud buildings reflected in the water. Still and brave. I forgot the cold and everything else. In the distance loomed the weird old wooden medieval crane they have here. So fun to think about it dipping down and plucking a crate of "Oriental Cloth" from the deck of a dragoon. 

It kind of looked like a folded up snake puzzle from back when Rubik's Cubes were hot. Like, it was one of the knock-off puzzles. 

Warmed by the shock of beauty, I cobbled back through the old gate and headed for the shipyard. It was a ways away, so I stopped in a hotel for breakfast. Boiled eggs and pickled herring. A good thing I travel solo. 

Wiped the crumbs out of my growth and tip-toed through a market just coming to life. It was warmer now. The red city bricks reflect the sun in a really charming way. The city glows. It helps, I suppose to have the largest brick church in the world. St. Mary's.

(not St. Mary's)

A building had a remarkable mural of "the heavens" painted on the side. Ursa Major and Cassiopeia and that gang. But the shadows of trees made it impossible to photograph. I can't curse the trees, but I wasn't happy with them. If the Lorax had just turned his back for one second, I might have done something. 

Followed the spires to what turned out to be the main train station (Gdansk Glowny). It was a genuine stunner. A marvelous public building. Romantic and stately and functional. I loved it. I'll use it tomorrow to sneak away to Malbork Castle. I winked at its facade and swore to return. 

The Shipyard had an interesting and enormous monument of what looked to be three propellers ringed with anchors. From the scale and presentation, I expected to see Jesus on one of them. But, non est hic. 

Is that a thing? I couldn't recall ever having seen an anchor crucifix. Someone needs to get on that. 

This area is where all the shipyard strikes around the Solidarity era were. I remember that on the news when I was a tween, but I had little to no understanding of it. There was a big museum, and I saw a group of school children being led there and disappear within.

I laughed thinking about the little crippled boy in the Pied Piper story, the one who can't keep up and gets left outside the mountain. What if a student couldn't make it in!?

It was time to go to work. 

Long meetings about top-secret technology, visions of what the product will look like in the future. Will I be a part of it? What can I do to help. I ate an apple while I read the confidential documents. The peel got stuck in my teeth, and I couldn't help but try to fingernail it out. It didn't go unnoticed. 

Later, I had lunch at a depressing little diner. Dry meats in thin sauce that did nothing to hydrate it. The cole slaw was called "Slick Cabbage," which cracked me up. Damn, cabbage, you slick. That cabbage is a fast talker.

Operating at about 70% as a worker here. I'm good in the meetings, and it will payoff in connections later, but the whole + and - nine hours thing is making me goofy. It doesn't help that my main focus is adventure. 

Went home to nap but the sun was piercing. Drifted, but I was awakened by a fight between two women somewhere inside the building. Slamming doors, loud shouting. It was real. I don't speak the language, but I could sense the emotion. One voice was deeper and older, so it was tempting to think of a mother angry with a daughter, but it really could have been anything.

I laughed thinking it was the bread ladies from the bakery this morning fighting over whether or not I should have been given a roll. 

Woke back up and half-worked. Tomorrow is Malbork Castle

Just Gdansk (It Will Be Ok)

"A great, grrreat piece of news is that Little Chip-Chip is going to give a grrreat concert. He doesn't want any posters, he doesn't want any programmes, he doesn't want anyone to talk about it. He is afraid of so many things that I have suggested he play without candles, without an audience on a mute piano" - George Sand (1844)

Caught the early train to the Gulf of Gdansk. There were a few moments on the way to the station where I felt pale and lost and vulnerable, huffing with my bags on little sleep in a foreign field. But the weird palm tree in Warsaw's center oriented and calmed me. 

The guide books say that it's a six-hour trip, but that one day in the near future, a high-speed train will reduce the journey to three hours. Imagine my delight in discovering the future is now. Usually early-edition guide books just tell you what you missed out on, but for once I got over on old Rick Steves. 

A drunk was at the ticket window trying to cut in line, but the stout ticketress wasn't having any of it. She mushkied him back to brushky. That is how they talk. I got my ticket and boarded the speed train. And what a thing of beauty!

I wasn't a boy who played with trucks, and I can't identify different models of car or plane, but I was all a'gush over this marvelous locomotive. Choo choo, Thomas, may I board you?

I later learned it's part of a fleet of Italian trains they bought to revolutionize transport to the hot spots. Poland is becoming a popular alternative for labor and talent, since it's cheaper than Germany or Sweden. I had mixed emotions about that. Like, the people are probably being exploited, but I'm sure places like Romania are like, "Um, If Poland doesn't like it, you can exploit us if it means a fine tube of Italian steel like this."

Very comfortable, fast ride. No Wi-Fi, which was a blessing. As the rich countryside rolled by, I read more of that memoir. Fought my way through a long, boring chapter on Chopin. I'll be glad to see the back of him. 

I'm in love with his girlfriend George Sand, though. She's hilarious. 

There was a free coffee cart, so I got some free coffee. There was a sweet pantomime with a local mom who thought my turn had been skipped. The cart man was just adjusting his position, but she thought he'd moved on, and she made these "I'm so sorry, swarthy non-Pole," expressions, and I made a "Such is the life of the outlander," shrug. 

But I got my coffee, and she could relax and enjoy her own. Reader, the lady took two pipes of sugar. 

Reading reading. The author described a sad old diner in Warsaw where you could buy half a cup of coffee if you were poor. I thought that was very beautiful, I remember being poor in New York and going out to buy coffee anyway, since the transaction made me feel like I still belonged. How grateful the half-cup buyers must have been for this nod to their dignity. 

We passed Malbork castle on the way. It's enormous, and less than an hour away. It looked very red and strong in the morning light. I hope to return there on Wednesday and kick the stones around. 

I read an article a friend sent me about how Warsaw was rebuilt with the aid of old paintings. That made me think back fondly on yesterday's visit. I also read that the Chopin statue (God, him again!) was also a reproduction. The original was smashed by the Commies, but a guy had a souvenir version of it in his basement in Rome or something, and they used it to remake the statue. 

So wild to think about a time where you didn't just have 3D modeling of everything. Like, people had to be like, "Oh, it was just an amazing statue. Like, it had Chopin in it, and he was... under a, like a tree." And then to find that model, and be like, "This! We can make it just like it was."

Then I pulled into Gdansk and forgot about that fey piano player and Warsaw. 

(Though I did read that workers trying to rebuild after WWII breathed in the equivalent of three brick's worth of dust a day. The city was rebuilding them while there were rebuilding it. (and, of course that made me think of all the vaporized fax machines and neckties I breathed in on the days after 9/11)).

I had to go right to work from the station, and there wasn't really a sense of how Gdansk is made up. I figured I'd shake a few hands and sneak away to my room. But my co-workers had other plans. It was a big deal for them to have a representative from the Home Office here, and they showed me around like a stuffed panther they'd won at the ring toss. 

A million meetings. They get a crate of fresh fruit every day as a perk. We get bagels back home. So, they are happy and thin, and we are slow and dull. But we like it that way. 

Apparently, this is all top secret, so I'll get thrown in the brig if I talk about it, but I can say it was many hours of legitimately fascinating conversations about "phonemes" and "homographs" and the building blocks of language. 

My only worthwhile asset was that I knew people they only spoke to over email. I got some milage out of describing their amusing real life habits. "Sure, she's stern in email, but, reader, she takes two pipes of sugar in her coffee."

I was taken to lunch. It was like a cutlet or something. They didn't know if it was pork or chicken. There were also buttery potatoes and syrupy carrots. Some funny conversations, like:

"Gdansk and Gdynia are becoming the, I don't know the English. I am forgetting the English. They are like the.. where the technicians gather to build computers."

Silicon Valley?

"YES! We are the Polish Silicon Valley." 

Also a marvelous exchange about idioms:

I asked my co-worker if there was a Polish idiom for when a surprise is spoiled.

"Yes!" It is something with a cat. Let me see to remember."

The cat is out of the bag?

"No, no. It's 'He threw out the cat when he threw out the water.'"

That sounds a little like 'throw the baby out with the bathwater,' which means to get rid of something good along with something bad.

"No, this is something else. It's… he is opening the door to throw out the water, yes? And the cat escapes."

Too too wonderful. Apparently an American voice actress he directs sometimes tells him all sorts of idioms. He said there was one he had trouble remembering:

"Now what is this expression? He is flying out of his pants. Out of the top of his pants. By his pants?"

Then another slideshow, and then I was done. Cabbed home, and home turned out to be a marvelous Caligarian apartment with wild green furniture and crazy-making stripes everywhere. I was in love with it. I am in love with it.

Took a long nap and was still up in plenty of time to hook up with my co-workers back in the US. We exchanged a few emails. Yes, it's nice here. Yes, they get free fruit!  And then I vanished. The scheme to sort of do day trips and not work during this week isn't really going to play out. With both masters to serve, I may end up working overtime.

I don't know, I'm making this up as I go: flying out of top of my pants. 

The Journey to Warsaw and What I Found There

"The populace rolled backward, and through the lane which they made, a beautiful girl with dark blue eyes that flamed and streaming hair that had become loosened about her radiant face was confronting the emperor Napoleon. Carried away by her enthusiasm, she cried: 

“Thrice welcome to Poland! We can do or say nothing to express our joy in the country which you will surely deliver from its tyrant.” The emperor bowed and, with a smile, handed a great bouquet of roses to the girl, for her beauty and her enthusiasm had made a deep impression on him. 

“Take it,” said he, “as a proof of my admiration. I trust that I may have the pleasure of meeting you at Warsaw and of hearing your thanks from those beautiful lips."

I've been planning to see The Baltics for a while, and I had the opportunity to work in Gdansk for a week. Since Poland is the gateway to The Baltics, I'm taking my vacation after that (sure to be agonizingly slow) workweek.

Then I'll see Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Castles and bridges. Strange coins and shriveled apples. This part of the world had two terrible things happen to it in the last century. World War Two and Communism. That one-two punch really tore it all up, but they've come back in the last twenty years. Like little green shoots poking through cracks in the sidewalk.

And that really is what Communist architecture looks like. Sidewalks in the sky.

There is no Stalin, only Zuul!

In any case, it was with great excitement that I threw my leather bags into the back of the cab and headed for the airport. I've had a lot of opportunity to travel over the last few years, and this is the first time I've returned to a country. As circumstance has it, I'll be able to see the parts of Poland I missed last time.

Old country, new cities! It's a pretty big place.

The driver told me he was worried about the next few weeks in Seattle, since all the bridges are being closed to accommodate Big Bertha, a dredde enjin that will be drilling through the very earth and might destabilize every thing.

I told him he should just park in the loading zone and come to Poland with me, He fingered the wooden beads on his bracelet and told me his wife wouldn't approve.

The flight was unremarkable. I watched a pretty bad movie where Tom Hardy played two violent brothers and read a marvelous travel memoir called A Country in the Moon. It's by a dude who came to Warsaw to teach English and weaves his experiences in with his research on Poland's history.

Which, you know, is sad. The country and its people have really suffered. Like, the Balkans have had it pretty bad. They were always getting caught in a tug of war between Turkey and Europe, and there was plenty of exploitation and death, but... it was kind of like, "Who's in charge now, the Mohammedans? Ok, we'll worship at a mosque now. Oh, they traded us to Austria? Whelp, see you in church.

Here, it was like, "What's that cloud of dust, is someone...." Dead. Country dissolved and sold for scrap. Rebuilds. Given to Hitler as a party favor. Wiped out. Rescued by Russia. Destroyed.

Rebuilds.

Ugh, it's wrong to compare people's suffering. I'm sorry, Balkans.

"History proves that man is a beast of prey. The beast of prey conquers countries, founds great realms by subjugation of the other subjugators...Attack and defence, suffering and struggle, victory and defeat, domination and servitude, all sealed with blood; this is the entire history of the human race..." — Richard Wagner

One of the sad stories was from the 1860s.  The locals rose up against their Russian oppressors (it was Russia's turn to rule Poland then, and it would be again), and were beaten down. To punish them, thousands were marched from Warsaw to Siberia. Marched. They walked from Poland to Siberia.

Most died on the way. When they got there, they were handcuffed to a wheelbarrow and worked until they died. I pictured them sleeping in the wheelbarrow. I pictured their wrists red and sore. One detail, though.... the families of wealthy prisoners were allowed to follow along on the journey.

They could ride alongside the prisoner's column in sleds. What must that have been like? Did they think the prisoners would just do some time inside and come back? Or was it a farewell sledding. If they every find a diary from this period, I would climb over fifty other books to read it.

The plane laid over in Germany. Pretzels and coffee. I left a vital charging cord back in Seattle and bought a new one. An expensive mistake. The price of business. The counter man had a visible boner as he rang me up.

"People are forgetting their corts all in the time. I sell them corts."

I am one of those people. I can verify your story.

Back on for a short hop to Warsaw. I was seated next to a marvelously punky local. Cool black outfit, shaved head. I'll never know if her snarl was a warning or an invitation, since I was asleep before the lesson on how to use a seat belt.

Got some zloty in the terminal. I had put some cash aside for this and couldn't find it right away. I was bleary and dizzy. Customs took my shoes away, since the machine "didn't like your buttons." I was wearing a Western-style shirt, and the pearl snaps looked like... I don't know what on their scanner, Grenade pins?

So, they took my shoes for revenge. By the time I got them back, I was pretty zombified from the flights and the check-ins. And I couldn't remember where my cash wad was. I let myself imagine it fallen out or stolen. I mean, I had forgotten that vital cord, I was capable of any mess-up.

Found it in an inner pocket. Traded a portion of it for their colorful paper.

Warsaw is the first place I've been in a long time where it's faster to take public transport than a taxi. Usually, of course, you pay more with a taxi but shave off twenty minutes. Here, you just buy a "bilety" and board the train.

Soon enough, you're in a park and in your place. The apartment I rented was gorgeous. You never know, but this one dazzled.

I made some tea, washed my face, threw some laundry in a machine, and knew darkness. The machine made villainous noises, but I had the immunity of exhaustion.

Across the street, at Chopin University, students played music and sang all night. Immune!

I did wake once when distant fireworks lit up the room. Saturday night in the big city.

In the morning, I wore my (still warm!) clothes and jumped out into the cold, cold streets, If you ever find yourself in Warsaw, bring a hat.

Wet stone and brick, dark little statues. Sad-eyed women with well-loved little dogs.

Some sort of duck king was everywhere. I wonder who he is and what he means.

Giant statue of Copernicus. On my last trip, I ate gingerbread in his home town. It was nice to see him again.

Plenty of advertising. Familiar logos of European brands. Coffees, breads, chocolates, yogurts.

It wanted to rain but didn't. After about an hour, the adrenaline had worn off and I needed something hot. Nothing was going to open for another thirty minutes. I was uncomfortable, but I also thought about people who would still be hungry when the places were open.

Saw a few crazy churches and monuments, and grabbed the first croissant off the assembly line when the cafes flipped their shingles.

Happy little ramble into the Old City, which is exceedingly beautiful. An enormous palace and a tall column bookend colorful buildings and shops, and a formidable fortress, the Barbican, surrounds and protects it.

It's a reproduction. The place has been leveled every hundred years since they started keeping time in years, but they really did a bang-up job bringing it back to form. In fact, it's the only reconstructed entry on the UNESCO list of cultural treasures.

That really stood out to me. The only thing that was allowed to be remade and still get UNESCOed.

I was doing that thing I do, where I wake up and six on a Sunday, so nobody is around, and I can just walk right up to the mermaid fountain or popular storefront and have some alone time with it. Empty plazas and courtyards that would soon be teeming with people.

The trade-off, of course, is everything's closed, so you can't go into the Marie Curie museum if you want to.

But, nobody bothers you when you sing Regina Spektor songs to yourself on the fortress walls.

The Monument to the Warsaw Uprising was very moving. Enormous metal people jumping out of the sewers to slit Nazi throats. Near the end of WWII, the ghettoized Jews, encouraged by the approaching Russian army, attacked their German jailers in a massive, coordinated surprise. 

They were slaughtered while the Commies smoked cigarettes across the Vistula and watched. 

Then Hitler was like, "They did this because they think we are weak and about to lose the war. Neither are true! Burn the whole place."  So, it was flamethrowers and tankdozers and hey, ho, the wind and the rain. Civilians, survivors, everyone, smashed. To teach the lesson, "This is what you get when you fight back."

Which is also what they got when they rebelled against the Russians back in 1860-something. 

When you see how it turned out, it sort of looks like a sad, doomed mistake. But... I read it as, "Fuck it. They've been systematically murdering us. Let's go down swinging. Better duck, Fritz." 

And ultimately, the Russians put out their smokes, walked on in and smacked the Germans back to Sausagetown. But then they were kind of terrible too.

What are you going to do? The world's a bag of shit. I saw some pretty, metal pegasi outside a government building and watched crippled marathon runners cycle down the street on those hand-cranked sleds they use.

Warsaw marathon! The streets were suddenly choked with runners, It was amazing. Thousands of people. Sweating and straining. The men all red-faced and bald, the woman all blond and pony-tailed.

I was going to get some scrambled eggs, but the eggery was across the street, and the fearsome tide of healthy humanity was blocking it off forever.

I watched wave after wave of Pole race by. So many people. It gave me time to picture them all variously with rifles or being loaded onto trains. Today, they run and wave flags. Tomorrow, they could be force-marched to Siberia.

Such a sad and hopeful history.

(this picture is from the very beginning, before it got crazy)

Made my way over to the newer part of the city in a search for food. My route was sealed off by the sneaker brigade, so I moved toward what is now the cultural palace but was once a Commie edifice the locals called "Stalin's dick." 

Like all that concrete nonsense Boris poured out of his dredde concrete mixers, it's designed to awe and humble you. And it's definitely impressive in its vastness. I was impressed and sickened. But there was a cool record store near it. 

Then I found a kebab place. The cashier couldn't make hide nor snout out of my English, so I pointed to menu items.

His buddy wanted to know where I was from. I said The US, and they didn't comprehend. So I was like, United States? Nothing. America?  "Ah! Yes, America. I like the..California. I have seen."

I used to tell people I was from Seattle, but no one has heard of it. Seattle may think it's famous, but it is not famous. If you say Washington, they think you mean you work for the government and have the remote control for a drone in your pocket. 

So, I've been saying New York lately.  But, for these guys in their cute paper hats and with their cute lamb-shaving knives, I was from California. 

Fortified, I went back home to nap. I'd been messing around for six hours. Closed my eyes for two and forced myself back out to the park. Which was well worth it. Floating palaces, peacocks, satyrs, gorgeous white walkways, canopies of trees. Happy families, yellow flowers, drunks with helium balloons tied around their necks. 

A little girl was having trouble staying on her bike, and her parents waited until she got it right. She howled, but it didn't impress the crows in their grey cardigans. It was good parenting, but those cries! I assume she's home now enjoying potatoes and coloring in a book. 

I loved the little courtyards and endless possibilities in Łazienki Park.

Spent a lot of time trying to find a famous statue of Chopin and at last did.

It's supposed to look like he's resting under a willow tree. It looks like a giant stalk of broccoli to me, though, so I sang that Chopin Broccoli song I used to love as a boy. 

I don't know anything about him other than he used to bang George Sand (though she was probably on top). And I only know that from the movie where he's played by Hugh Grant (of all people). Lord, the things I've seen. 

Then a long walk back up The Royal Way, where there was some real action. That's where you find Young Poland shopping and Old Poland staggering. They'll trade places soon enough. 

Bought some of that gross spreadable cheese I can't get enough of when I'm here. I'm mad for it. Greedy for it. 

And that's the whole town. I think I saw everything that was open. 

In the morning, I take the Dawn Train to Gdansk where I have to work. If you can believe it. 

I can't