Greetings from Krakow! Well, things are finally taking off here and I’m quite excited about this upcoming year. Lots of projects are in the works so it will generally be an interesting and productive year. For those of you who were with me for the Hong Kong adventures, I’m going to employ a different format this time. Instead of a week by week account of all my activities, I’ve opted for a new approach. Each newsletter will be thematic, incorporating whatever happens to be foremost on my mind at the moment. Hopefully, this will give more structure… but I wouldn’t count on it. With all that being said, I hope you enjoy! You can access this entry, previous and future ones on my blog site:

http://blogs.bootsnall.com/april

My first two weeks here have been eventful, calling for lots of adjustments. For now, I’m going to only focus on settling in and living here. To begin, let me brief you on Poland: it is a rather sizable Eastern European country, it is full of Polish people who speak the Polish language and eat Polish food. Poland has recently joined the EU so change is imminent, for better or worse til EU doth dissolve. But, I think I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, so let me go back.

Most people have asked me, ‘why are you going to Poland?’ and to be fair, the colder it gets the less certain I am. (I have made a conscious decision that my next Fulbright will be in Fiji or an otherwise tropical environment). Well, Poland is in fact a fascinating place that is a) not inhabited by really stupid people, b) not Communist (although I think that would be quite interesting), c) charming place with charming people, d) great minds of the times have been Poles- where would we be without Copernicus, Marie Curie, the Pope, Czeslaw Milosz, Boleslaw Prus, Frederic Chopin, Joseph Conrad, and Monica Boduszynski (my flatmate) to name a few. Poland is a geographically stunning country (although my Fulbright handbook calls Krakow and parts of the region ‘ecological disasters.’) Still, one can easily fall in love with Poland’s landscape and people despite its history. Krakow itself has a charm unequaled by many places I have visited. Cobblestone roads, churches and synagogues centuries old, the Rynek where so much is always happening, and of course Wawel Castle. And on top of all this, Krakow happens to be where research has taken me, to study the present to study the past in hopes of catching a glimpse at what the future might be. This is why I chose Poland. Now, here I am, thousands of miles from home in a new place filled with new things to see, do, taste, and feel and I’m quite excited about the experience. Two weeks ago, that experience began in a crummy hotel in Warsaw.

I can honestly say that I could not figure out what 25 Fulbrighters (students and professors) could orient on for 11 days. I didn’t have much time to contemplate it as I was met by the Fulbright program director at the Warsaw International Airport at 4pm after a 14 hour flight, and then told I had to be at a reception at the Ambassador’s residence at 6pm. Not much time for a shower and a nap. It occurred to me after the flight fog had dissipated from my brain, that I actually knew the ambassador: Ambassador Victor Ashe, formerly Mayor Victor Ashe of Knoxville, Tennessee. So, with bells on, a few tired Fulbrighters headed over for the evening. I spent the entire evening chatting animatedly about my project, other projects, great books on the subject, and other pertinent information, all the while trying to avoid sinking into the lawn. (I had chosen to wear heels unaware that we would be outside, on a soggy lawn). Oh well. The next day was more orientation which frightened me. I basically learned that there are lots of thieves and that if you are injured, call a taxi, it comes faster than the ambulance. This is compounded by the fact that I don’t speak Polish. I wondered what would happen if I was mugged and injured. If the thief takes my cell phone, I’m just in a lot of trouble. I’m not going to think about that though… On to Krakow.

I have to say that we had an amazing group. Students and lecturers from all over the country, simply charming individuals who were absolutely the most interesting people I’ve ever met in my life, as well as some of the friendliest. We all got on well, although I firmly believe that part of this is due to the unfortunate circumstance that brought us all together, namely a nasty cold. It began with me I fear, falling ill on the day we arrived in Krakow and being bedridden for two days, then it slowly starting striking Fulbrighters right and left. As we sat in lectures, there was always coughing, sneezing, blowing, and sniffling with all of us at different stages of ‘the funk.’ Speaking of lectures, it was quite a mix, some politics, economics, social lectures, and some terribly dry lectures on the Polish university. In a week’s time, we had a brief introduction to most major topics leaving us to ask of ourselves what we wanted to learn more about in our time here.

To compound the academic overload in the mornings (3 hours of lectures), we spent another three hours in the afternoon learning Polish, or trying to at least. When we began, I only knew the number two, so everything I bought had to come in twos, including but not limited to tram tickets, lemons, and pierogies. At the end of 10 lessons, I can honestly say that I can ask for a lamp or keys without any problem. However, I also only know three verbs, which seriously limits any conversation I can have. I still can’t call for a taxi, and I can’t count past 20. Hey, I’m learning.

The search for lodging began as soon as the worst of ‘the funk’ had passed. I ended up sharing a flat with another Fulbrighter, Monica, who is quite brilliant, funny, and overall has great patience with my eccentricity. This of course brings me to the theme for the day, apartment life. First, we had a dreadful time finding a place, with flats being snatched up quite quickly, so with little time to play with, we (mostly Monica since I don’t speak Polish) began making phone calls from the paper. Most of them had already been taken, but one afternoon we managed to find one that was still available and pretty close. As we made our way to Augustianska, we were a bit… worried. The building itself is not exactly a palace, and we were fairly certain that this was going to be a disaster before we ever saw the place. But, as they say, never judge a book by its cover. The flat itself was stunning, completely remodeled and a rather cheerful place. In the end, we took it.

One of the interesting things about living in Krakow, Kazimierz specifically, is the vast history that is associated with it. (And no Najette, I can’t just ‘feel the history pouring out of them’) For example, at the Galicia Jewish Museum (http://www.galiciajewishmuseum.org/en/muzeum.html) there is a great exhibit on the traces of Jewish history here in Southern Poland. Some of the photos show where there used to be mezuzot (http://www.jewfaq.org/signs.htm) on the doorposts. Monica and I found this curious so, by chance, we happened to look across the hall at our neighbors door and found that there is a prominent and definite trace where a mezuzah once was. Upon closer examination, we realized that there is one on our door as well and on several other doorposts in our building. The situation is one part creepy and one part flat interesting. Monica proceeded to ask our insane landlord about the building and she discovered that his wife’s family actually bought most of the flats off Jews who knew they were going to be relocated to the ghetto. We have posed the question to ourselves, who were the people who lived here, and what happened. I think we both know but just don’t want to say it aloud. (http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-krak-beg.htm)

The flat itself is just plain interesting as well. There are certain curiosities which I may never understand. Let us begin with the bedrooms. Scratch that, let us begin with heating. The heat only works from 11pm to 7am and again from 2pm to 4pm. Which is fine, unless you get up at 9am and don’t want to get out of bed out of fear of coldness. It also isn’t quite practical when you want to spend an evening at home reading at say 6-10pm. Its bloody cold. Our 1940s-esque stoves in our rooms are another oddity that I haven’t quite figured out, but at least I can say, that are both now fully operational which was a welcomed happening. Now, back to the bedrooms.

First, they really aren’t bedrooms, they’re more like two living rooms. My room came with a wardrobe, a couch, a table with five chairs, and a China hutch, complete with a full teaset. Monica’s room was larger with a lounge sofa type thing, another couch, a large black dining room table with six chairs, and two hutches, with two more teasets. After trying to work the Feng Shui, we decided to move the round table from my room into her room, the large dining room table into the enormous kitchen, and the small dining room table into my room. We moved the large table first, having to completely dismantle it to get it through the kitchen door and into the kitchen. A good thirty minutes was to devoted to this table- plan, disassembly, assembly, admiration of work. Next, we moved the round table from my room into her room, a relatively easy task. From here, we moved the 11 chairs into their appropriate places. The only thing left was to move the small kitchen table into my room, which as one can imagine, didn’t work out so well. Seems the small table was put into the kitchen before the door was put on, there was no way that table was coming out. Our kitchen now has two tables and 11 chairs. I cannot understand why any flat would need a total of 16 chairs.

The bathroom is another one of those things that I just don’t get. One day, I’m going to write a book about how to shower around the world. The Asian shower is truly a mystery, one cannot shower and not soak everything in the place. Our flat is one of those few with a bathtub, which seemed great at the time. Now, if the bathtub also had a shower, that would be fabulous, but it doesn’t. There is a shower head on one of those cord things but its about a foot above the tub. So, the nearest I can figure, one sits in the bathtub and showers, or at least, that’s what I’ve been doing. It’s a bit awkward, but I kinda like it. We also are blessed with a washing machine that is unfortunately all in Polish so my first big wash, I put the detergent in the place for the fabric softener… at least my clothes smell clean. We alas have no dryer, so after washing, I was forced to hang underpants about my room to facilitate drying which still took two days. Have not worked out how to change this.

The truly, truly perplexing thing is the kitchen. Aside from the fact that there are 10 chairs, it is an odd place. Basically, we have a pre-1989 kitchen with a makeover. Our stove is a bit temperamental, a gas stove one must light very, very carefully with a match. It is blazingly hot to the extent that it is uncontrollable. We made rice this week and it was just a disaster. Low and high don’t seem to make all that much difference. Our two major appliances in the kitchen are the crazy stove and our strange refrigerator. The fridge sat over in the corner, demurely, making no sound. You open it, quite nice. No major complaints. Sometimes, oh but sometimes, it starts, kinda shakes and then makes a painful sound. It is a definite pre-1989 Russian refrigerator complete with Cyrillic writing on the front. I have thus named him Stalin, hence why our refrigerator is a communist. Oh, we also have a chicken egg cooker, something that I really, really find amusing. Pictures of Stalin and chicken egg cooker forthcoming.

Well, its nearly 10pm Krakow time, which means several things: the heat isn’t on, my tea is cold, my fingers are cold, and my toes are cold. It all really means that I’m stopping for now. I hope I’ll be hearing from you people! You can either email me back or, should you feel inspired to do so, actually go to my blog and post a comment on the message board. All relevant links have been repeated at the bottom and I encourage you to visit these sites.

Taking stock:

Chairs- 16
Teapots- 4
Teacups- somewhere around 2000, but who’s counting?
Hours of heat per day- 8-10, depending
Average temperature this week- about 55 F
Number of domestic disturbances- 2
Number of car alarms that have gone off for over three hours at a time- 1

Important links:
My Blog
http://blogs.bootsnall.com/april

Galicia Jewish Museum
http://www.galiciajewishmuseum.org/en/muzeum.html

Mezuzah Info from Judaism 101
http://www.jewfaq.org/signs.htm

Krakow Ghetto from History Place
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-krak-beg.htm

Quote for the week:

“To believe with certainty we must begin by doubting.”
-King Stanislas I of Poland