Lemons and Beans

Sunday, September 21, 2008

3rd Floor, ul. Bytomska 1, Krakow, Poland

When we got off of the train from Gdansk to Krakow it was raining. It has been raining ever since we got to Poland. For all I know, it may always rain in Poland. It is a light rain and not any great trouble; it is sort of atmospheric but I imagine that this country would be even more beautiful if I could see it in a good light. Which is all the more reason to step into a warm cellar pub for a bowl of mushroom soup under the rough-hewn rafters and stuffed boar heads. If you have to spend a trip in the rain then let it be the rain in Poland when the mushroom crop is coming in. Piles of yellow chanterelles sautéed in butter and onion, minced morels in a thyme and potato soup, fresh and thick porcini tossed with linguine, cream and spinach. I have probably eaten five pounds of mushrooms in the last week, and I have no intention of letting up. I may not be able to finish this note for need of a snack.

As the sun came up yesterday morning, I was standing in the passageway of our sleeper car, looking out at the farmhouse dotted countryside. They are angular and stout little structures, dribbling smoke from orange tile chimneys into the sunrise, dark barked fruit trees bent over with apples close in on their eaves and well-ordered gardens run out behind. Between the farming villages the forest is dense with moss covered rocks and white-paper birch trees, occasionally there is a chilly looking stream or a rusting and idle piece of machinery. I like it very much.

If you think of Poland and drab, post-Soviet block housing and borsht come to mind then please begin adjusting your preconceptions. I am not sure what I expected before landing in Warsaw but Poland is not suffering under any collectivized, dingy view of itself. The architecture is a jumble of Baltic-Renaissance row houses on the quay in Gdansk and Gothic, heavy timbered buildings bleeding into soaring city walls and clock towers in Krakow. There are interior staircases with plush but worn carpets leading to balconied bars and cellars packed with wine casks and carved royal crest above the door lentils. The streets are laid out in fans of cobblestones and the rain pours off of the roofs through gutters carved into the shape of dragon’s heads.

We will be heading to Ukraine on Monday or Tuesday and I hope to get some more writing done before we get on the train. But, finding the time has not been easy thus far. We have kept ourselves well occupied. Read into that what you will. Our first stop from here is Lviv, from what I am reading it looks even more spectacular than Krakow. I never want to come home.

Original post here: http://www.lemonsandbeans.com/?p=248

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

A Train from Krakow to Lviv, Ukraine, Car 27, Passenger Compartment 6

Polish Nuns Quietly Talking in the next Berth

Lewis and Clark had their muskets and sextants and we have a high-powered, handheld computer and an advantageous exchange rate. I will take ready money and GPS over Manifest Destiny and bison jerky any day of the week. The food continues to be wonderful. We had a meal last night that even redeemed Polish wild boar, an act I would have considered impossible after spitting those dough wrapped bits of porcine agony allover Gdansk.

I was able to slip into the Czartoryski Museum as it opened this morning. I love museums in the morning, before the crowds show up, when the radiators are still ticking and the guards sleepily look for their second cup of coffee. You have the place to yourself and there is not much more likely to make you feel sharp and worldly than investigating relics and canvas in all that solitude.

My main interest in visiting the Czartoryski was Leonardo da Vinci’s Woman with an Ermine. I believe there are only four extant portraits of women by da Vinci and while Woman with an Ermine may not have the fame of Mona Lisa it cant be called shabby. As much as I love museums in the morning I dearly love old museums in the morning. Call me a traditionalist but I don’t want touch screen displays showing me a cross section of the painting or coloring book versions of the great works. Leave me in the room with nothing but a da Vinci on the wall and I am happier than an Old Master with a buxom subject to paint. And that is how it was: myself and Woman with an Ermine, nothing else in the room, no guard, no pamphlets in all the languages of the world, just that crackling and sly painting and an unwashed American with the time to enjoy it. I have been to a lot of art museums and stood in front of a lot of famous works, but this one was something special. It was internally luminescent, knowing, playful and almost swimming on its black background. Searching for this painting in your old college Art History book might not call up the same impression but, for me, it was the right way to say goodbye to Krakow.

Now we are on a train for Ukraine. The music in my earphones, the soft voices of young Polish nuns and the rhythm of the train cars whisper us ever Eastward. There are farms outside of the window again, interrupted only by the occasional but jarring violence of a train passing us in the other direction. With the windows open passing trains sound to each other like the world coming apart. This train feels like we are moving back toward a grittier past, the curtains and upholstery are red enough to make Lenin swell with pride and where earlier trains were walled in some off-white plastic, these are wood paneled, the window corners yellow with smoke and exhaust.

There is a cheerful steward who occasionally passes our open door with a tray full of teacups, Collin is asleep in the upper bunk, we rattle on toward Lviv, and everything is peaceful and well, except for my own occasionally boneheaded behavior.

After we left the station in Krakow the lights went out. Being an American who is put on edge when trains start to malfunction or maybe being a bit gun-shy from the recent periods without power following the hurricane, I walked down to the steward’s cabin to tell him that our lights were out. He smiled and patted me on the shoulder with the sort of expression reserved for explanations given to very stupid children and said, “Yes, no lights. It is day.” He then pointed to the sun, just in case I had missed what was responsible for the bright, light filled cabins. In my defense, it is overcast. I didn’t need the lights to be on, but I might, all of a sudden. And then where would we have been? In the dark, that is where. I mention this because long trips seem to be a process of letting go of yourself, your expectation and your demands, allowing the sometimes bumpy course of living alongside strangers to have its way. I suppose I have not given up totally yet, but that point is coming and when it does the real joy of travel comes.

A short while later the steward came down to our berth and told me the lights were “made on.” I guess the strategy of placating pointless desires works equally well for very stupid children and Americans (this one anyway). I was happy, I switched them on and off a few times, just to make sure. But until whatever last hold the world further away has on me are gone and I float lose in the waters of travel, I’ll repeat more Russian and Ukrainian phrases to my self, copy Cyrillic into my notebooks and read a book by the light of the eastern European sky.

Enclosed are pictures of me paying a nun at Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, Nuns in the Rain, St Mary’s Church, Krakow, Flower Vendors in Krakow City Square, A Street Performer in front of St Mary’s Church, my Cyrillic Notes (god help us) and some Ukrainian Hryvnia.

Original post here: http://www.lemonsandbeans.com/?p=253

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