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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 »

Jazz in Northeastern Mazovia

Monday, November 26th, 2007

Still high from my discovery of the thriving and innovative jazz scene in Krakow, I was hoping to find at least a little of the same in downtown P&#322ock (pronounced “Pwotsk”). I walked by the one reputed music club in the main square, but it sounded like ska, which I might never be in the mood for. So I walked across the street to a promising looking club with a Russian flag, and asked the first person I saw where I could find jazz. On this street, he answered sluggishly, as if the weight of the entire world was on his shoulders.

Further down the street I heard some vaguely organized sound coming from this coffee shop with a sad-looking half-deflated plastic cat hanging from the balcony. It was just some very amateurish blues band, so I continued on.

I got past the “liveliest” part of town, turned down a few brightly lit but abandoned streets, past a cemetery, and found a place with a “Zywiec” sign. Zywiec is Poland’s second biggest beer export, and seems to be king in much of Poland. Shyly I found a spot at the small bar next to rascally looking types and a bartender who seemed to be counting the days to retirement even though they numbered in six figures.

Street in Płock Anyway, I resorted to my standard icebreaker- an explanation that I didn’t know Polish very well. They didn’t know a word of English, so we had something big in common- the lack of a common language. I found I was able to communicate about my reason for being in Poland, my search for my family, my time at the language school, etc, and one of the guys eagerly continued to ask questions, some of which I understood. Like others before, they were suspicious I was in Poland to find a Polish girl to marry, apparently a popular motive of budget-minded British in one of the most affordable regions of Eastern Europe. The other guy, a fellow with tinted glasses and a cane, was speaking to me at turbo speed, and I didn’t understand too much. He just didn’t believe that I could speak some Polish but not understand him. This made him pace across the floor, angrily.

Being a beginner in a language really makes it easy to be self-centered. With just a thousand or so words, it’s much easier to speak than to understand. You can express yourself clearly in general terms about a couple of topics that you care deeply about, or express complex ideas using simple words. Conveniently, you don’t know everyone else’s vocabulary, and so really have little chance of understanding them…

After some time, even I got sick of hearing me talk about myself, so I left the bar and moved on to another activity that doesn’t depend on language skills. Sleep.

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