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Archive for December, 2007

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Sunday, December 2nd, 2007

I made it home to Chicago okay. This is thanks to the Polish tradition of skipping the 13th row in airplanes. Though I was in the 13th row from the front, the number on the seat was #14.

There’s another Polish city that’s much further from Warsaw than Kraków or Gdańsk, and I happen to live in it. Often over the past years, I have often walked by a shop with a threatening display of processed meat hanging from above a counter. This time I went inside, and I was back exactly where I was yesterday- in Poland. All the same brands were there- Tymbark’s natural juices (brzoskwinia), kupiec rice cakes (wafle ryżowe), wonderfully fresh bread and dill pickles, Knorr powdered soups (ogórkowa and barszcz czerwony). I could have walked past this place a hundred times more and never known the world within.

There was only one difference. They wouldn’t take my Polish money.

Posted in Chicago, Food, Poland, Travel | No Comments »

Warsaw

Sunday, December 2nd, 2007

Jazz Pub in Warsaw

Warsaw is too big a city to make any generalizations about, but I will anyway. As in many other capital cities, live music was sparse. Clubs are exclusive, dress code is all-important. Food was excellent and very diverse. The city seemed to have more in common with other cosmopolitan cities across the world than with the rest of Poland.

Like I said, Warsaw is too big to generalize. I did find a few unique “spots” in my short time there:

The “ice bar” in Warsaw, where temperatures are kept below freezing and the bar and furniture are made of ice. I tracked the place down, but the lights in the front room were a little too bright and the scene looked too exclusive. I went in anyway. The music stopped, and everyone looked up at me. “Jest priwatny?” I asked (is this private?). They answered affirmative. “I’m sorry, I’m just a tourist” I tried to tell them in Polish, and they thought this was very funny. It was only when I was out the door that I realized why they might have thought this was funny- I might have screwed up the case ending, and said “I’m sorry, I’m just a tourist woman.”

The Russian market, a sprawling outdoor marketplace (supposedly the biggest in Europe), selling mostly food and clothes, as well as one stall selling Soviet winter hats and Nazi aviator helmets.

Cafe Przejscie, a 24-hour bar hidden in a subway beneath a street. Some of the worst karaoke I’ve ever heard in my life. Which is to say, of high entertainment value.

My absolute favorite spot was something I had seen from atop a bridge crossing the Vis&#322a river, a small club called the Jazz Pub. In front was a rotted piano, with leaves stuffed under the keyboard holder, and painted ragtime musicians on the front. There was no jazz that night, but the bartender, fluent in English, was worth talking to. She had been around the world, lived in Liberia for a couple years, and was most proud of her collection of classic rock music. “Would you like to hear the Allman Brothers? Would you like to hear Jimi Hendrix?”

Posted in Bars, Language barriers, Music, Poland, Travel | No Comments »

Polish Food

Sunday, December 2nd, 2007
Tessa To be honest, I had dreaded having to face three weeks of Polish food. Like most other travelers, I found pierogies to be the most accessible cuisine, and borscht (barszcz) to be tolerable, but was ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Food, Poland, Travel | No Comments »

Evidence

Sunday, December 2nd, 2007
My last day in Płock, I returned to the state archives one last time, looking for absolute evidence that I was in fact related to the strangers from Piączyn. The archivist seemed happy to see me back and tried ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Ancestry, Food, Genealogy, Poland, Travel | 1 Comment »