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