Time to Leave Poland When: The Final Dispatch

THE BEGINNING OF THE END
A few days ago I stopped by the local Kefirek to pick up a few odds and ends for the last of my days in Poland and saw a special offer in the local shop that included two boxes of cake mix and the DVD “Mickey Blue Eyes.” I didn’t stare at in bewilderment as I used to. I didn’t ponder or try to work out the combination at all, I just looked onward to see what else was on offer. It took a few moments for me to really understand what this meant. A few philosophical moments later, when trying to convince the cashier to give me another bag, I looked back on a conversation I had with another American expat a few days before on this same topic. The more I got to thinking about how absurd this should have been, but was taking this as completely normal, the more I realized that when the curiosity has gone and the strange is no longer the unusual, it’s time to pack up and leave town. Not of course, however, without sharing a few of the many other things that have indicated to me that it is time to leave.

USUALLY UNUSUAL
It no longer strikes me as odd that apartment buildings don’t have elevators. Walking up to the fourth floor of my building yesterday, I thought about how many times I had walked up and down those stairs since I’ve been here. Today, I just noticed that the only two flats on the third floor are numbers 10 and 18 with no sign of the middle numbers anywhere else in the building. Instead of pondering deeply about this and asking “who does that?!?!” I simply continued up the staircase. I think, however, this pales in comparison to the day I saw the poster for the Second Annual Potato Festival and actually thought that it was a perfectly good way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Things have definitely taken a turn for the worse, the much worse.

AGGRESSION
As you all may know, I have recently developed a rather novel approach to Backgammon. This has not been the only sign of pent up aggression and rage. I was so distraught by the idiocy of a sign pointing in the wrong direction on a Warsaw street that I stood for five minutes and beat it with my umbrella, Jaime looking on at me helplessly while I gave it a stern talking to.

I also realized that one of the sure ways one knows that it’s time to leave Poland is when you or someone you know has been hit by a car. I was sitting at dinner with my old flatmate and she said casually, did I mention that I got hit by a car today? Um, no, no you didn’t. This is deemed perfectly normal. People always seem to be in a fight or ramming their cars into each other or under trams. Again, no one launches into hysterics and now I’m more curious to see which taxi company has been in an accident than to see if there were any injuries.

It has also become hazardous for me to be in close proximity to the landlady. Every time she comes by, I get the distinct urge to kill. As she comes by to drain every last grosze from me and cackles as she sinks her clenches into my helpless hands, I have to restrain the urge to launch across the table and throttle her. I was in the Cloth Hall today buying gifts for people back home when I saw a carved wooden axe and seriously considered what kind of damage one might do with it. I had to back away before it was too late.
FEARS AND OBSESSIONS
There are also a handful of things that I have now become either terrified or obsessed with. Krakow is known for the obwarzanki (the pretzel) which has astounded me. I’ve had a few of them and have been sorely disappointed. They have no flavor, but you see Poles eating them making orgasmic noises like it’s the best thing they’ve ever had in their lives. I noticed that in an airport, you can always tell which passengers are Polish, they’re always pulling pretzels out of their bag and eating them like there’s nothing better. I’ve taken to analyzing pretzel stands: organization of the selection, pricing, variety, who buys what and how many, and of course, the gratifying sounds coming from Poles going to town. I love to see tourists lured into false sense of ecstasy then bite into a pretzel and looked beaten. Only the non-Pole could walk around with a half-eaten pretzel and look disappointed. When Gazeta (the newspaper) ran a story on the new flavors of pretzels to be sold across town, I was intrigued by the pizza flavored ones only to discover on first bite that they didn’t actually taste any different than the regular ones. For some reason, however, I have been compelled to actually purchase them and relish those moments of pretzel goodness. I have actually debated which pretzel stands have the better pretzels and think this is a perfectly good treat.

I have also become obsessed with names. I have long given up on learning to spell Polish words although my Polish has taken off in the last two months. I can construct quite a few sentences now, mostly about colors, flowers, outside objects, and animals. My gem has been: “Slon lubi slonce; Lubie slonce, chile jestem slon” which translates to “Elephants like the sun; I like the sun, therefore I am an elephant.” It has philosophical flaws but I’m still quite proud. Angela will be pleased to know that I have learned to say, “excuse me, do you have any peanut butter?” along with a myriad of other useless phrases. “The doors are open” will not help you much when you’re in trouble. Anyway, I have become hopelessly obsessed with the unoriginality of Polish names. I know more than 4 Wojciech’s and at least 3 Przemyslaw’s. I’ve actually had to clarify who I was talking about with things like “Ania with the orange hair or Ania with the funny legs?” I am amused by the fact that there are 38 million Poles, and two dozen first names for the lot of them.

One of the curiosities, which another expat and I were discussing were Polish napkins, which is a stretch to call them that. They are little squares of wax paper that will not wipe or absorb anything, they merely smear things around. What is more perplexing is that they are arranged in napkin holders where it is impossible to pull one out without pulling all of them out. Many a time I’ve spent considering how to actually pull out one but never manage to pull out less than about thirty. It is most disturbing that I continue to try every time, every time a new method, every time failing miserably.

Poland has also turned me into one of those people who is obsessed with the weather. On any given day I can tell you the high, the low, the forecast for rain, and the outlook for the next ten days. I wouldn’t even consider venturing outside until this great oracle of weather.com has been consulted. It is simply unthinkable.

I used to claim that I had only two fears in life – snakes and ferris wheels. We can now safely add pigeons to this list. I have developed an irrational, unnatural fear of pigeons. I have nightmares about pigeons. They look at me from the windowsill in the mornings and I am convinced they’re plotting against me. I hear pigeon-y sounds on the roof and think of ways to kill them before they kill me. My most useful Polish phrase is: “Nie lubie golebie” (I don’t like pigeons). I think many months of therapy are going to be in order to undo the trauma that the pigeon-ness of Krakow has thrust upon me.

COMPLACENCY
In no particular order:

1. You are no longer shocked or amazed that you can buy popcorn at movie theaters, but can’t take them into the cinema itself.
2. You think you’ve figured out the Polish postal system.
3. You’ve actually bought dishwashing liquid and tram tickets at a kiosk and thought nothing of it.
4. The phrase “your chicken has been in an accident, would you like it repackaged?” in a phone call from KFC has not surprised you in any way.
5. You are no longer surprised by menus with items that the shop doesn’t actually have.
6. You can tell what’s missing from a pierogi by the smell.
7. You don’t see why a beer at 9am is a bad thing.
8. You can tell how much your neighbor’s sausage cost by the way it smells when it’s grilling
9. You’ve actually uttered the phrase, “it’s going to be warm tomorrow, upper 40s.”
10. You’ve forgotten what it’s like to own a dryer.

ON A SCARY, SERIOUS NOTE
Things are wrapping up here. I look around at the remnants of what has been my life for the last nine months. This week has pulled things slowly to a close. The culmination of nine months of research, countless hours of data compilation, and a few irate moments with statistics ended in a 45 minute presentation. Forty-five minutes was all I had to explain what I had done for the year after my graduation.

Looking back on it, I have to say that I’m proud of the year I’ve had since leaving Eckerd. I spent a wonderful summer learning to really do research in Cambodia, I spend some time backpacking in Europe, and then for my year here in Poland, complete with all its idiosyncrasies. I have enjoyed my time here, and I will be sad to say goodbye to it all, but there is some consolation in knowing that I’m simply moving on to my next adventure.

This adventure has been pretty amazing. I’ve made some fantastic friends, learned a lot, and have come to appreciate the education I received from the professors at Eckerd College, and what that has meant for my year here. Nothing, however, prepared me for a language without a word for cloves or erratic trains or $10 highlighters.

For those of you who have been with me for the last nine months, I thank you for reading and sending encouraging emails. It’s hard to believe that this is the end, that my time as a Fulbright scholar has passed. I came here to do what I said I was going to do, and I’ve done that, and more. I’m sure that when I look back on Poland I’ll remember the crazy taxi rides, the white cheese, and the impossibly long trousers. I will think about underpants sold at the post office and tram stops that change locations without notice.

I will never understand why things work the way they do, and for the last time, no, I really don’t speak Polish.

Dispatching from Poland and signing off,
April

LATIN PHRASE OF THE WEEK:
(A combined effort: phrase by Cyndi Butler, translation by Richard Ashworth)

Veni, vidi, currum desideravi.
I came, I saw, I missed the bus.

Arbitrary- Function: adjective- a: based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something b: existing or coming about seemingly at random or by chance or as a capricious and unreasonable act of will

As my last month here in Poland slowly expires, I have come to think back on where I’ve been, but less philosophically, on how I’ve gotten there. When I traveled to London back in November, I was quite impressed that I had used nearly every mode of transportation conceivable. Taxi to the bus station, minivan to Katowice airport, plane to London Luton, bus from Luton to Marble Arch, tube to White City, and finally car to my final destination. It was however pointed out that I did not utilize a boat or submarine. I add at this point, that for the most part, all of these functioned as they should. At any rate, I have had quite a few exercises in futility these last months with the transportation systems in Poland. Let us begin with an exercise in arbitrariness, which seems to dominate transportation generally.

One of my great coups in Polish has been being able to procure myself a taxi and get to my ultimate destination, most of the time anyway. While I was quite proud to have mastered the phone conversation required and learned to pronounce my destinations, you all remember my unfortunate experience trying to make my way to Hans Frank’s former residence for a meeting (which consequently did not take place). I have a knack for finding the miniscule percentage of Polish taxi drivers that do not speak English and often find myself dumbfounded by the inability for me to tell anyone that I don’t speak Polish. People often walk up to me and begin with, “Przepraszam pani, oogledy bood zzzzzz szxzwszshzkax?” As you might guess, I have no idea what the last part usually is. Anyway, I often say very clearly in Polish, “Przepraszam, nie mowie po polsku” (I’m sorry, I don’t speak Polish.) In response I get, “Dobrze, frgieu skeirungab zszsxcfaxcasazzz?” I will repeat “Przepraszam, nie mowie po polsku?” They just look at me. So then, I say it in English. To my surprise, involves them asking the question louder and slower. It doesn’t matter how slow you say it, how well you enunciate, and how loud you say it, at the end of the day, I DON’T SPEAK POLISH! Usually after several moments of this, I usually just respond with “Nie wiem” (I don’t know) which surprisingly works really well. I learned this trick early on, but sometimes it won’t work. I have learned to listen for the verb for ‘to have’ because I shocked a woman one day who I believe was asking if I had a lighter, and I responded ‘I don’t know.’ She walked off confused, it actually made me feel pretty good. There is justice in the world.

Anyway, my point was that taxis are a lesson in arbitrariness. I took a taxi in Warsaw about 5 or 6 blocks which cost 30zl; it should have cost about 9zl. The presence of so-called ‘Mafia taxis’ is a hard one to navigate. It may look real, might even have some convincing numbers on it, but in the end, you’re going to get in the end, if you know what I mean. It’s not just Warsaw though. We had the same experience in Krakow after coming back from Greece. The taxi drivers camped outside the bus station at 1am were trying to tell us that it would cost somewhere between 15 and 30zl to get the 8 blocks back home. And then, to top it off, one guy gets angry about why we wouldn’t take his taxi. Because that’s three times what it would cost if we called one? He skulked off displeased. Things sometimes don’t work as they should.

I’m sure you remember my latest rant about the moving of tram stops and changing tram routes. When Karol Wojtyla (aka John Paul II) passed on, none of the trams were working in the center of town. You had to go around the center to get anywhere you were going. It would have been different if there were some helpful signs posted about it, but no, all the signs said were, “some trams will not be running as scheduled, you’re on your own buddy” or something to that effect. No one tells you when these things are going to happen. No one tells you that they’re going to change the tram routes overnight; no one tells you they’re going to move tram stops entirely for no good reason whatsoever, and no one certainly ever tells you what to do when there’s a change.

I realized about a month ago as I was standing in the freezing cold that I had spent a great deal of my time in Krakow waiting on the #8 tram. The number 8 is the single most unreliable tram in Krakow. It never comes on time. It’s supposed to be a frequent tram coming about every 8 minutes or so. As I stood outside in subarctic temperatures, I watched the number 6, which comes only every 20 minutes, come by twice and still no number 8. Sometimes, trams just don’t come at all. I waited for an hour at Urzednicza for the 8 until finally giving up.

That’s not the half of it. I’ll never cease to be amazed by the difficulties involved in purchasing a ticket. Half of the kiosks can’t change anything larger than a 20zl note which often makes ticket purchasing difficult. Sometimes they don’t have tickets at all and buying them on the tram is not as easy as it looks. I remember one occasion where I tried to buy a ticket on tram to get back across town and my money was thrust back at me because the conductor didn’t have change. (I hasten to add that I had given him a 5zl coin for a 3zl ticket, I didn’t hand him a 100zl note or anything.) Since the tram was already rolling, I had no choice but to sit down and hope no one checked my ticket. It was then that the Polish lady in her 40s (a curious specimen) decided to tell me off for not validating a ticket that I didn’t have. People on trams are just strange anyway. I’ve never been hit so many times with bread for not moving fast enough or being scowled at for some unknown reason. While I respect that when older people or nuns get on the tram younger persons should offer their seats, I cannot understand why older people must yell at younger persons and hit them with bags or umbrellas for said seat. Frankly, that’s just rude.

If you thought that figuring out what trams were coming when and where, the service on the PKP train service will shock entirely. As a person under 26, I am entitled to certain discounts on train fares. It seems however, I only seem to get this about every other time when the lady at the Orbis office is feeling generous. You can actually only get them on certain trains at certain times a day and certain days of the week. Supposedly, buying a ticket for the Intercity train from Krakow to Warsaw entitles you to free coffee or tea and a cookie. Sometimes this is true, sometimes you never see the trolley. There’s no telling when this may or may not occur.

All of this is compounded by the problems of actually booking and buying tickets. While trying to catch an earlier train home from Bialystok a couple of weeks ago, I had the unique privilege to watch bureaucracy at work. We asked the lady at window 4 about changing the tickets who said we could but we’d need to talk to the lady at the information desk about it to actually change the tickets. So, after waiting for the lady at the information desk, she proceeded to tell us precisely the same thing and that we should go back to window 4 to make the necessary arrangements. Once waiting again for the lady at window 4, she informed us that since it was an intercity train from Warsaw to Krakow we had to change our tickets at window 9, the intercity window. Waiting on her, we found out it was going to cost oodles more to travel the Intercity. We found that for some unknown reason, the best train for our arrival in Warsaw had a reservation charge of 50zl per seat while the one an hour later was only 5zl per seat, go figure.

One of the advantages of Europe is the proliferation of cheap airlines which lets you country hop, at times, for little of nothing. Although they have cut out free snacks and drinks (hmm… sounds like the US airlines doesn’t it?) they have also cut out any semblance of customer service. I have flown RyanAir, EasyJet, WizzAir, and SkyEurope to various destinations. You’re not given a seat assignment so it’s just a free for all when getting on the plane. The odd thing is, to apparently simplify matters, they have given everyone a priority number in the order in which you checked in, which I can honestly say means absolutely nothing. I don’t see the point of the trickery of giving people priority numbers and not using them. If the point is that the earlier you get there the better choice of seat you have thus promoting people to check in earlier, they have failed miserably. I no longer see the point in checking in early, everyone is just going to pack in and mow you down to get a seat. The Poles are notoriously bad at this. Before the attendants are ready for you, hordes of Poles are pushing and shoving to get to the door. As I’ve mentioned before, Poles can’t queue. I took a RyanAir flight from London to Dusseldorf (shudder) and everyone lined up nice and neat and boarded the plane like human beings instead of wild boars.

It doesn’t help that I’ve become one of those grumpy frequent flyers. The slightest thing sets me off and I now need backup whenever flying to ensure the FAA doesn’t arrest me for threatening anyone. I was completely flabbergasted one day to see that the WizzAir plane which we would be taking to London was a mere 50 yards from us in the terminal. Did we walk to the plane? Noooooo, we had to board a bus, crammed full of Poles smelling like sausages, to go 20 seconds over to the airplane, to have everyone shove their way out and make a run for the stairs. Could we have some order please? It does not make sense. When the plane lands, they let you walk to the terminal, but you can’t walk to the plane from the terminal. No sense whatsoever. If that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve never met such tough as nails stewardesses who, I’m convinced, think this is the Air Force and not WizzAir, although it’s pretty easy to see their mistake, even though the Air Force does not wear magenta tops. People have been yelled at and insulted over the loudspeakers, people have had their phones confiscated, and the stewardesses are just generally unpleasant. I suppose you’re not paying for service.

I’m bracing myself for another journey coming tomorrow. I have to go to Orbis to book train tickets for Warsaw which should take somewhere close to eternity. The prices will never match and I’ll never be sure to get the discount. The trains will be late and I will not get my free cookie. And, inevitably, someone wearing eau de sausage will sit next to me and speak to me in Polish for the entirety of the trip. I really wish I had learned more insults, because no, I really don’t speak Polish.

Quote for the Week:
“I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me they are wonderful things for other people to go on.” -Jean Kerr

Latin Phrase of the Week:
Utinam barbari spatium proprium tuum invadant!
May barbarians invade your personal space!

(This one’s for Amanda)

It was brought to my attention this week that Poland is having a strange effect on my psychological well-being. I have only recently found intense enjoyment with Internet Backgammon. Unfortunately, I’m not very good at Internet Backgammon and I take it rather personally when anything malign transpires during a game. While playing one match, apparently, I had been beating my mouse against the table and uttering unkind things to the person on the other end of the game. Jaime looked over his glasses at me sympathetically and said in his mild-mannered way, “You know, you’re the only person I know who could turn backgammon into a contact sport.” I proceeded to mutter, “Carpet bagging scallywag, Yankee bastard” into the screen. I am teetering close to the edge.

All of this, I firmly believe, was brought on by Neurosis Polska, a little known and under-researched mental dissolution occurring after prolonged exposures to things that make no sense, particularly those in Poland, given there are so many. My first exposure to said ridiculous phenomenon occurred shortly after my arrival. I had finally figured out how to get from my modest abode in Kazimierz across town to Akademia Pedagogiczna. I had the tram times memorized, I knew precisely when I needed to leave the house in order to have time to buy tickets, etc but minimize time in the elements. You can imagine my surprise one day to wander out to the tram stop to find that the #13 no longer stopped outside. They just up and changed the tram routes on me. Once figuring out my next closest option, I also discovered that they had changed the times as well. Why? There is no clear answer really. All I can tell you is the #13 was moved over a block, its route staying the same. There was no real reason for this at all. I was perplexed but I had moved on.

Now, while I had come to terms with tram routes being changed arbitrarily, I could not, for the life of me figure out why in the world they would move the tram stops. Only recently, on my jaunt across town, did I discover another curiosity. While sitting on the #8 (the single most unreliable tram), I watched out the window as I saw the university coming into view on the left, and then, receding into the distance behind me as I sat dumbfounded at why the tram didn’t stop. It seems they moved the tram stop three blocks in the other direction, you now must get off the tram before you get to where you’re going. I trekked my five blocks from the next tram stop to try to figure out what in the world had just happened. Sure enough, all that was left of the stop was a signpost, which I stared at, mumbled, and then kicked for good measure. While moving a tram stop three blocks may seem understandable, moving a tram stop 100 meters away from both the kiosk where you buy tickets AND the shelter is beyond me. Who does that? And why? You can’t just move a tram stop and not tell people! You can’t do that! It defies all logic, why move a stop 100 meters away from a shelter? People now have to stand in the wind or cold or rain for no good reason. I just don’t understand this at all.

Of course, this is nothing next to my complete inability to understand why the Poles can’t queue. Let’s examine the evidence for a moment, Poland used to be a communist country, queuing is compulsory in communism, yet Poles seem completely unable to queue in circumstances that demand a queue. What I don’t understand is that I see loads of Poles queuing for something that they don’t even know what they’re queuing for. They can stand for 12 hours in a queue in Rome to see the recently deceased John Paul II (bless his soul) while they can’t manage a supermarket queue with four people in it. I was most upset one day while waiting at the local Kefirek to see the woman behind me leave the queue to look at something and then get back in line IN FRONT OF ME. She explained that she had just gone to look at something but came back, but failed to actually get back into her place and pushed in front of me. When I got upset and nudged her out of line, she got mad at me! Tell me where that makes sense! It’s not the only time it’s happened though. I will never ever understand why it is impossible for Poles to queue. This is totally beyond me.

Rossman’s (a drugstore-like establishment) is a classic example of bad Polish design. The little store is set up where you have two aisles, you enter on one side through a little swinging gate and go up and around the horseshoe to end at the checkout counter, and there’s no time for dallying. The only thing to do is to stand ready at the gate, put on a pith helmet and armor, put your head down, and wait for the bell. You can’t look at anything in aisle one, unfortunately the aisle with shampoo etc, you have to buckle down and run the gauntlet between angry Polish ladies in the bath soap and the treacherous cosmetic sales clerks. If you stop to look at anything, people get angry and push you, while the other side is just one long line. There’s a small outlet to the right of the second aisle with various sundries, but god forbid if you turn off, you’ll never be able to merge back into oncoming traffic. You can’t turn around; you can’t go in the other direction. My biggest suggestion is a ‘One Way’ sign which would clarify matters. A few helmets with the hand baskets wouldn’t go amiss either.

There’s a whole set of things I don’t understand about Poland based around arbitrariness. I’m sure most of you recall my ordeal in Tesco with the cucumbers, but I feel it deserves to be mentioned again. Cucumbers had been sold by the piece since I started buying them in September, but all of a sudden, one cold and dismal day in January, things changed. I placed my cucumbers in the buggy as always and made my way to the counter where I was informed that cucumbers must be weighed back in produce. Why? Well, it appears that boredom overtook the Tesco employees and for no good reason decided to change cucumbers to be bought by weight. One question, who does that???

But more examples persist, like butcher cases in a local shop, all pork. I’ve never seen so much pork in my life. No chicken fillets, no fish, no hunks of beef. The Poles, I believe, have somewhere close to 60,000 words for pig products yet no word for cloves, go figure. Mustard and ketchup are loaded with sugar yet you can’t buy sweet pickles. The Post Office sells laundry detergent for goodness sake! This is one that always gets me. First of all, it takes half a day to accomplish anything in the post office (the other half you might as well go to Rossman’s). Yet, you can actually post a letter and buy underpants. I have never seen such an odd array. Back in parcels, where I’ve lost many an hour of my life, you can pick up a package and buy fabric softener. Who goes into the post office thinking, ‘just need to pick up some toothpaste’? For that matter, who stops by a kiosk to buy a tram ticket and thinks, ‘I could use some mayonnaise/socks/porn magazines/carrots’? Who in the world does that?

What about malls? Yes, a new addition to Krakow, the Galeria Kazimierz has opened in Krakow sporting such shops as H&M. At the same time, what kind of shopping mall doesn’t take credit cards!? I was shocked and dismayed to discover that half of the places in the mall didn’t take a credit card. I was also mildly perturbed that all of the coffee shops offered beverages that they didn’t have. If you don’t have smoothies, don’t advertise them. Simple as. Which brings me to another point, imposters. There are imposters lurking about Krakow, their trade in fooling unsuspecting passersby in food. I can just imagine the little calzone man sitting in his third floor apartment looking down at people entering the establishment. He rubs his hands together gleefully, all the while cackling at their disappointment. I have never run across so much food in my life that was a lie. Burritos don’t have cabbage in them, by default; Calzones demand tomato sauce; spicy means just that ‘spicy’, and margaritas must have Triple Sec in them. You can imagine my intense dismay at ordering a $6 margarita that came out as a half a glass of tequila and lemon juice. That is not a margarita, that’s a shot of tequila. Wasn’t even any salt on the rim….

I’m not sure if you remember my bamboozlement at the sign in Oswiecim, the single Most Unhelpful Sign in Poland, with numbers that didn’t correspond to anything. But signs generally give me a problem. Just because a sign points straight doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I followed one such sign in the Warsaw train station to discover that said sign meant neither straight or go up the stairs. Somewhere on the complete other side of the train station I found a restroom. I was also disappointed to see that Tesco took down the most helpful sign of all. There was a clever cow sign above the meat section with the little sections indicated by dotted lines and marked. You could tell if you were buying a shoulder or toe or whatever by reading the sign. Unfortunately, they took the sign down which now makes buying a roast hit or miss. There is however an update to the Most Unhelpful Sign in Poland, it appears someone has decided to add a key to the numbers.

I think, however, the real essence of Neurosis Polska can be summed up in one anecdote, and is precisely why I think I have developed some sort of Turret’s Syndrome. While trying to code data for my Cambodia research, I discovered that I was in desperate need of highlighters. So, I trucked my little self over to Empik to peruse the stationary goods section for said implements. After being awestruck that White Out cost $7, I picked up a yellow, pink, and orange highlighter. I was a bit upset that these highlighters cost $4 but I was willing to acquiesce on this one point. However, it was soon discovered that the orange highlighter was $10. Now, first of all, I’ve never paid $10 for any writing implement. Second, why was the orange highlighter more expensive? It was the same brand, same size, same shape tip, same amount of liquid, no difference at all, except in color. Curiosity got the better of me and I had Jaime ask why the orange one was more expensive. He looked it up and replied ‘it just is.’ You can’t do that! You can’t just decide that orange is going to be more expensive. Why? Why? Why? Was there an embargo on orange highlighters? Is there a critical shortage somewhere? Or is it color discrimination? Who just decides that orange highlighters are going to be more expensive? Who, in the entire world, does that??!

Now that I’ve hit the highlights (so to speak) of the elements contributing to my Neurosis Polska perhaps you are all more sympathetic to my plight. I’ve endured trams that are subject to change without notice, arbitrary signs, and burritos with cabbage. The next stage is quiet acceptance which I sincerely hope is a stage I can thwart with regular doses of Kool-Aid and cornbread. There are just so many things that I really don’t understand and probably never will. The only things that seem to work in this country are KFC and papal funerals. Perhaps if they put a picture of the John Paul II at the end of checkout counters at the supermarket, then maybe, just maybe, people might queue.

Quote for the week:

“Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance.” –Author Unknown

“What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?” –Ursula K LeGuin

Latin Phrase of the Week:

Borges sumus. Resistere inutile est.
We are the Borg. Resistance is futile

The frenzy of a week without Pope John Paul II is drawing to a peaceful close. A silence has draped over Krakow, enveloping her into the somberness, giving her a place to cry. Walking through the streets this week, the subtle chaos of a drowning world pervades, bringing people into the mood of desolation and absolute despair. There is a certain strangeness, a certain wind blowing about disrupted the air, the people in the streets, and I too seemed to have been caught up in it.

Last Saturday, at 9:37pm local time, Poland fell to her knees and wept at the passing of John Paul II, their Pope, the Pole. The Zygmunt Bell of Wawel Castle alerted people carrying on a vigil outside the churches that Pope John Paul II’s life had finally elapsed. When the news had reached me, at home, tucked away, I too didn’t know what this would mean for Poland or how she would take the news. I will have to say, in this moment, she really showed her true colors.

One expected tears, a deep and engulfing despair to take over the people. A 98% Catholic country, where doctrine and faith have become so important since the fall of communism, can be criticized for its homogeneity, for its seeming unwillingness to diversify. Poland is a country where you can visit but you can never truly belong. The challenge for the outsider becomes ‘go native or go home.’ You can mistrust this, criticize it, and even look at the xenophobic tendencies, but in the end, Polish nationalism inextricably bound to Catholicism may have saved her spirit this week.

Last Sunday, after the news of the Pope’s death had been announced, we took a stroll through the streets of Krakow. Before Karol Wojtyla became Pope, he was Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow; Krakow was his second home next to Wadowice. As we walked through the streets, the ordinariness of any Sunday had been destroyed. Those things that you come to count on, expect to be constants such as trams had been upset. The entirety of the Rynek had been closed off to traffic, leaving it only to pedestrians. People streamed in both directions, on their way to church, on their way back to church. Poland was in mourning, and the only thing she knew to do was pray.

We continue on to Mariacki Church where a large picture of the Pope had been placed. Beneath it, candles of varying sizes and descriptions, and flowers had been laid in his honor. As we walked on to the Archbishop’s residence, we could hear the sounds of a choir before we could see what was happening. As we drew closer, and the voices drew louder, we were met by hundreds of people standing outside listening to an open air Mass. Candles, flowers, and scarves of the Pope’s favorite soccer team stretched all about, placed on anything that would stand still long enough. People were transfixed on the apartment above the door, where Cardinal Archbishop Karol Wojtyla would wave to the crowds. Instead of the smiling face that Poles remember, a cross draped with a stole, a light shining upon it. As the last bit of the mass finished, a familiar prayer could be heard whispered about. People seemed to look out beyond it, to express only a profound grief, but still, the reflex was still there. As we walked away to let them complete their prayers, the whispers and subtle movements of mouth couldn’t begin to express the feeling that encompassed the people.

As the week progressed, Poland was not herself. The chaos of people adjusting to this new life without Pope John Paul II was echoed in the chaos of people trying to reach their destinations with a disrupted transportation network. Polish national flags and Vatican flags flew across town: draped out of windows, off buildings, outside churches, all of them with black tassels tied to their tops in mourning of Poland’s native son. In shops across town, photos of John Paul II appeared in windows with black ribbons accompanying. Taxis and even ordinary cars had tied black ribbons to their antennas. People walked about town with buttons of Krakow’s flag with a black line through it in mourning, and as Thursday approached, those black ribbons changed to white.

Vigils had been held since the Pope fell ill this last time. The final vigil was planned for last night, to await the funeral. Yesterday afternoon, tens of thousands of people gathered in the Rynek for the Marsz Bialy, the White March, to march from Mariacki Church to the Blonie (a park), where the Pope’s funeral was to be displayed on a big screen. I too had come out for this event, hoping to capture a glimpse at this unusual but amazing display. This Pope, attributed with bringing down communism, would be honored by the march, as a similar one was done in the early 80s as part of the Solidarity movement in protest to Martial Law and communism.

People had moved into the Rynek well before the 5pm start time. All around me, people were dressed in white, carrying flowers and candles, anxiously waiting. There was no moving to be had, it seemed everyone in Krakow was there for the event. When 5pm had arrived, the ringing of the bell at Mariacki church drew everyone into silence. For an hour, the bell would toll and people would look around at a sea of white, of Polish and Vatican flags, of banners announcing love for the Pope. The devoted would march their way to the Blonie and spend the night in a vigil waiting for the funeral.

There were 800,000 people in the Blonie to watch the funeral, and 2 million Poles traveled to Rome (approximately 5% of the population). The televised funeral showed a sea of Polish flags in Rome, with banners announcing a desire to have the former Pope beatified. Something that would be all too dangerous for Poland. The Pope’s beatification could mean a cult-like Catholicism in Poland. One of Jaime’s students had said, “I know when I’m saying ‘Our Father’ I know who I’m talking to now.” Where Polish nationalism and Catholicism seem to be one in the same, it would be a monumental mistake to beatify Pope John Paul II at the present time.

Some say that Poland is mourning her loss of status. The Pope, the Polish Pope, was the one thing that Poland had to boast about. Poland appeared to the world from behind the Iron Curtain because of Pope John Paul II and her prominence in world affairs has had quite a bit to do with that. As such, many are saying that Poles are now trying to deal with a world where Poland is simply another country. It is feared that she’ll lose her place in politics, that her problems will not be heard. Some say, that Poland is mourning her place in the world.

Regardless, the outpouring of support and emotion for the Pope was incredible. Krakow lay silent, no cars rushing past, shops were closed, people prayed and cried. The city wept today, she fell down to her knees to cry tears that have been cried countless times over the past week.

QUOTE FOR THE WEEK:
“Nie lekajcie sie.” (Don’t be afraid) –Pope John Paul II

LINKS:

Poles bid Pope emotional farewell
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4423905.stm

Polish triplets named after Pope
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4423335.stm

Rzeczpospolita Online (Nice Photo Tribute)
http://www.rzeczpospolita.pl/

Gazeta (Great Photo)
http://www.gazeta.pl/0,0.html

“Is that Theseus’ boat?” I asked. “No, I don’t think so,” Jaime replied. “How about that one?” “No.” “That one?” “Probably not.” “What about that one way over there, no wait, that’s just a tiny island…”

Containing my enthusiasm on our way to Athens was an unmanageable task. We had booked tickets to Greece on a whim a few weeks before, partly because of the ridiculously cheap tickets, and part because if we booked one before the deadline, we got a free one-way ticket anywhere. So, six weeks after booking them one cold February day, we stepped into the hot Greek sun and soaked up paradise. Our big fat Greek vacation had just begun.

Our first steps into Athens left a bit something to be desired, on a hot and smelly bus, we traveled for an hour into the city, passing all the beautiful sites to see, mostly automobile dealerships. However, once arriving in Syntagma Square in the beautiful downtown area, we were enchanted and would remain so until stepping foot back into Poland five days later.

We quickly settled into Zorba’s hostel (chosen because of the name) and set out for our first adventure, supper. On advice from the guy at reception, we headed out to Monastiraki, the metro station that would lead us to the Plaka, where we were supposed to be able to find great food. We exited the pristine metro station and followed our noses to the smell of great food.

Everything on the menu looked fantastic, as the waiter came for our order, we asked about the stuffed vine leaves. He quickly adverted our attention to something else and kept repeating ‘you-vill-like-it.’ Yes, we replied, but what’s in it. ‘You-vill-like-it.’ Jaime continued to inquire but we kept receiving the same answer. “I’m sure I will, but what’s in it?” he asked again. ‘You-vill-like-it.’ We finally just gave up and ordered it anyway. Before it arrived, we had another chance to glance at the menu and I realized that the waiter wasn’t saying ‘you-vill-like-it,’ he was saying ‘yuvarlakia,’ the name of the dish. When it arrived, regardless, we definitely liked it.

We walked about the market with full stomachs and finally settled in to Café Metro for a tea. Unwilling to resist the temptation of dessert, we ordered baklava (a must) but alas, they were out, we were instead presented with two of the most delectable sweet buns oozing with honey and nuts, it was like eating gold. I knew that I was definitely going to like Greece.

After a restful night’s sleep at our hostel, we set out to take on the Acropolis. As it happened, it was Greek National Day so we got into the Acropolis free. After a grueling hike up the hill, we stopped by the Areopagus, a rocky overlook allowing you to soak up the sun while gazing over the best of Athens. It was fantastic. The sprawl of the cityscape was unimaginable; we looked at the compact sandy houses and the sporadic columns of old ruins with a sense of amazement. Sun beating down overhead, we were warm and happy.

We made our way up to the Acropolis, bemused by being in the heart of civilization as we know it. Thoughts of Homer’s ‘Odyssey,’ of Greek mythology, and of Plato’s ‘Republic’ flashed through my mind as we climbed the steps through the Temple of Athena Nike. I had a glance at the Theatre of Herodes Atticus before moving through to the Parthenon. There is nothing to feel but dwarfed by the Parthenon, both physically and spiritually. Centuries old marble and intricate sculpture left you feeling much younger than you did when hiking up the mountain. We stopped by the Erectheion, a temple where six statues of nymphs once held up a canopy, only five now remain, it seems Lord Elgin in the early 1800s did a little souvenir shopping at the Acropolis taking a statue, chopping off some friezes, and stealing Athena’s marbles. The staff at the British Museum took the marbles and scrubbed them until they were a pure chalk white, accidentally scraping off the paint that once adorned these marbles. The Acropolis Museum made sure that you left knowing that Lord Elgin was a thief.

Our day ended with a brief walk around the Ancient Agora, marketplace of ancient Athens, where Socrates used to debate and demonstrate. The agora was closing though, and our day had to end here prematurely. We went for a souvlaki and headed on to the National Gardens.

We returned to the agora several times while we were in Athens, mostly because of its subtle beauty. However, I found it difficult to relax there. One of the most curious things we discovered at the Acropolis was the presence of men and women walking around with whistles. When you got too close to something, they would whistle at you. The agora however was much worse than this. There are somewhere close to 600 rules that make no sense. Singing is forbidden in the agora, as well as eating, drinking, smoking, and taking indecent photographs. I also discovered a few more. As we sat down on a rock to rest and take in the surroundings, a whistle woman came by to inform us that we could not sit on the rocks; we had to sit on the designated benches. We kindly moved on and spent a good two hours watching whistlers scold people for minor offenses. It was really quite amusing.

However, the fun ended one day when we were sitting on a designated bench and I kicked off my flip-flops and reclined on the bench to take in the sunshine. I thought it would prove to be an excellent way to relax. Unfortunately, reclining on benches is also against the rules and I was again scolded for improper postures. At the same time as this is transpiring, the Japanese couple on the bench next to us proceeded to have a three-course lunch, drinks, and smoke cigarettes. They could have stripped down and done the jitterbug and wouldn’t have been whistled. Why then, had I become the victim of whistle discrimination? I told Jaime that is was awful hard to relax when everything you do is wrong.

On our way out, I half expected to be scolded for walking counterclockwise around the agora on a clockwise day or for standing too long to look a monument or for a plethora of other ridiculous reasons. Someone once said that the farther north you go, the more rules there are. The further east you go, the less they make sense. As made careful movements toward the exit, a man walked passed with his dog… and I was yelled at for reclining on a bench. Go figure.

The great thing for us about Athens was the heat. We had just come from Poland and we were absolutely enthralled by being able to go outside, just to go outside and enjoy it. As such, we spent two fantastic afternoons just laying in the National Gardens reading or napping; it was bliss.

On our first afternoon in the National Gardens, I had kicked off my shoes and rolled up my pant legs to be able to wiggle my toes in the grass. I tried to talk Jaime into doing the same, and he frankly looked a bit frightened. I told him: “Roll up your pant legs! Take off your socks and shoes! This is toe freedom!” He could only retort, “but I’m British…. We don’t do toes….” Finally, after some coercive maneuvers, he was taking those first steps into toe freedom-dom. It was beautiful. With the weather perfect and the grass green and beautiful, with glorious trees overhead, relaxation just came so naturally.

Our whole trip was an exercise in relaxation. We had great food, saw incredible sites, and were able to just relax with no agenda and no schedules. We could watch sunsets from Lykavittos Hill or spend hours over a cup of tea. We could kateifi and baklava until the late hours and begin each morning with cheese pies in the sunshine. All we had to do was arrive and everything else seemed to take care of itself. From the beach to the park, museums, temples, and monuments, we really had a magical time.

We were sorry to say goodbye on that last day, sitting in the airport, covered in the last of our cheese pies. It really wasn’t goodbye though, it was see you soon. We boarded our plane and headed back to Poland with our big fat Greek memories to keep us until next year.

Quote for the Week:
“Why isn’t there a special name for the tops of your feet?” –Lily Tomlin

Latin Phrase of the Week:

Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre?
Is that a scroll in your toga, or are you just happy to see me?

And one for whistlers everywhere…
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
If Caesar were alive, you'd be chained to an oar

While having a drink in a bar one evening, Hari, an Indian journalist, was telling of us about first moving to Poland. He said that one of the hardest things for him to get used to was the cold and ice, commenting on how he remembered coming down the frozen staircases in the morning to retrieve milk left on the stoop. Every morning, he would carefully navigate the stairs, grab the milk, and before he could ever make it to the top of the stairs, he would slip, fall, and break the milk bottles. Every day, it was the same, come down the stairs, get the milk, fall, break the bottles. His neighbors apparently derived considerable pleasure from this, as one might imagine.

All of this had me thinking about things one finds on their doorstep. You can’t get milk delivered to your door anymore (mostly because I think if it isn’t nailed down, it’ll be swiped.) Interestingly, however, there are a great many things that you can get delivered right to your door.

One expects, in the regular course of events, to have pizza delivered. I also find it quite normal to order Chinese take-out, and in some parts of the country, you can get Take Out Taxi, bringing a variety of foods from restaurants in the area. You also expect a certain amount of door to door activity, cable guys, Girl Scouts selling cookies, even Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’m always struck however by some of this. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but whenever I tell someone ‘no, I wouldn’t like a carpet cleaning’ or ‘no thanks, I’m good on toilet seats,’ or ‘no, really, I couldn’t use another fiberoptic drawing of the Last Supper’ (all of which, I might add, I have been offered) they want to come in. The point is, whenever I decline a water testing for excess lime or whatever such nonsense, everyone asks me to either use my bathroom or asks for a drink. I wonder what they’re thinking, ‘gee, maybe I’ll go check out those toilet seats for myself’? I just don’t get it. I remember on one such momentous occasion that someone actually stayed so long that I thought I was going to have to make them supper. Deliveries and door to door services are something that one comes to expect. Anyway, when I moved to Poland, I didn’t expect things to be much different. Was I in for a shock.

One of the first strange doorknob adverts that I ever found was for a TeleKebab. This telekebab industry would be an offshoot of TelePizza, again which makes perfect sense. The most notable TelePizza location, by the way, is in the former resistance headquarters in the old ghetto in Podgorze. I thought that being able to order a kebab by takeout was a bit strange to say the least. Nothing, however, prepared me for TeleZiemniak. Ziemniak is Polish for ‘potato.’ You can actually have potatoes delivered, hot, fresh, and filled with fixings right to your door. I thought perhaps it was a joke at first, but it really, truly wasn’t. There really were potatoes that you could have delivered. This could only happen in Poland.

I also found it quite interesting that one can have KFC delivered to your door. As a matter of fact, I believe it’s the only way you can actually have it. That aside, I was quite impressed by the ability to have fried chicken (poor fried chicken, but whatever) to your door at a whim. You can also have McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, shoes, and any plethora of other things delivered to you by taxi. Barbakan taxi company can be phoned in an instant and you can place any variety of orders: cokes, socks, laundry detergent, and potatoes. Doesn’t matter at all what you want or need. There is still something distressing about this service, and I really don’t know why.

I haven’t, as yet, had any Jehovah’s Witnesses come knocking, but I returned one day to find a note from a priest saying (roughly): ‘Sorry I missed you, I’ll be back later to save your soul’ and ‘for a good confession call ###.’ There is door to door priestly services. I couldn’t imagine hearing a knock at the door, toddle over in my bathrobe and slippers to open the door to a nun and priest. What do you say? Do you invite them in for tea and cake? How do you decline a soul saying? More importantly, how do you restrain from asking what nuns wear under their habits?

There are some advantages to having door to door service of the bizarre kind. I had the pleasure of having the doctor come round for a house call the other day. Up to this point, when illness had struck, I was forced to drag myself across town (getting lost the first go) to Medicina for a doctor’s appointment. Poland, in this regard, has been unkind to me. Even as I write this, I am battling respiratory illness #7, after a round of the flu, two infections, and a stomach virus. Poland, in effect, hates me.

I have had the incredible bad luck of always getting appointments with .03% of the doctor population that does not speak English. In these occasions, I’ve had to call in my trusty translator Jaime to do my bidding. It’s very strange to actually go to the doctor and do nothing but show up. The poor guy knows more about my phlegm than most people really should about their significant others. In the end, the very shady doctors prescribe medicines for me not in my name so the government pays for it. I give them my zlotys and go about my merry way. However, even this has come with surprises. I’ve actually been prescribed antibiotics as suppositories, which I politely declined. I see no reason to use any crevice but my mouth to take medicine. If I’ve survived this long without it, I’ll make it a while longer. Just, no.

Anyway, on said occasion calling for the doctor most recently, I was stricken with some type of serious rib and back pain. The nice doctor came round, poked, prodded, and sweated profusely. He seemed quite nervous but gave me a diagnosis and drugs and was on his merry way. I actually had a house call from a doctor. That just doesn’t happen anymore really. It was really quite incredible.

All in all, I’d say that it’s been interesting. I’ve derived endless pleasure from TeleZiemniak and have made it a quest to get to the root of the potato madness that is Poland. (More on this forthcoming.) I’m also quite amused by the mobile priestly services, but really impressed that doctors still make house calls. Well, I’d love to share more of the door to door adventures of a lone American in Poland, but I think there’s someone at the door.

LINKS:

Quote for the week:
“Never knock on Death's door: ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!” -Matt Frewer

Latin Phrase of the week:
Hocine bibo aut in eum digitos insero?
Do I drink this or stick my fingers in it?

England Swings

In 1996, 180 Tennessee high school students, band nerds of all people, descended upon the great nation of England, to which I’m sure it has never truly recovered. I, of course, was a member of that invasion. We had come with our marching band to march on New Year’s Day in the Lord Mayor’s Day Parade. We had no idea who the Lord Mayor was or why he was having a parade. To be honest, I’m still not sure I really know who he is, although I have met his wax figure at a coffee shop in Madame Tussaud’s, but that comes later really. Anyway, during our 9-day trip, we endured wind and cold to do the tourist thing- Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Stratford upon Avon, Hampton Court, and Windsor Castle. We were absolutely thrilled to be in a castle and were quite taken with the sandwich shop that tilted slightly to one side. We were also completely confused by the fact that it costs more to eat inside a place than to take it away. Bizarre.

As it happened, we spent a great few days in the country, only mildly disturbing the locals with our enthusiasm, and then we were prepped for the big parade. Now, anyone who plays a woodwind instrument knows that once you tune the instrument (in my case, an alto saxophone) you must continue to keep the reed wet and horn warm. So, the best way to accomplish this is to blow hot air through the mouthpiece and down the horn. Now, as it happened, the temperature never rose above about 20° F the whole time we were there. I remember clearly waiting in line to see the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London and trying to ‘Think Warm’ with my friends. I might also add that I was very disappointed by the Crown Jewels, much like I was with the Hope Diamond in the Smithsonian. We were built up and let down as we were whisked past the treasures on a moving sidewalk. Perhaps I just don’t know anything, which is entirely possible, but it all looked like costume jewelry.

More to the point, we were standing somewhere in cold, slightly spritzy, and overcast London waiting to begin. Once the procession had begun, we were to march through the streets playing some tune which I no longer even remember. However, one thing we forgot was that when hot breath is blown into cold air, a very interesting thing happens, it’s called ‘condensation.’ As it turns out, the condensation had frozen the holes to most of the keys on my sax, leaving me to play A, B, alternate B flat 1, C, and C sharp. I spent the majority of the parade trying to chisel off the ice. I even went to the extreme of taking the Hot Hands out of my gloves and trying to melt the ice. Nothing seemed to work.

When I returned to England last summer, I was pleased to see that most things were unchanged. I had a great visit with Najette and her flatmates where I learned important things like how selfish it is to commit suicide by throwing oneself in front of a train. My life has never been the same since, as you might imagine. Well, I had initially intended to spend only a few days in London on either side of my European vacation, but after Munich, I returned for a solid 11 days to take in the sights, like the hospital where I had my foot examined.

When I arrived at the airport after the Bavarian disaster, the passport guy (none of whom like me) asked me my purpose in the UK. I could only think to say, “Oh, I don’t know, see Big Ben, maybe take in a show?” I thought it was funny, he huffed and stamped and sent me on my hobbling way. However, this wasn’t a lie. I spent a great few days touring the various green spaces in London including Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, and Kew Gardens. Kew was probably the most beautiful but least serene as the whir of airplanes roaring over Heathrow airport disrupted my ponderings on natural beauty. It also costs £6 ($12) to get in. So, I would say that Kensington Gardens was my favorite with the Peter Pan statue and the pond.

After a visit to the Museum of London (personal favorite) and the Sherlock Holmes Museum) where I had a nice chat with the detective himself), and after somewhere close to 15 bottles of white wine, it was time to go home.

Since then, I’ve been back three times, and I’ve compiled a list of reasons to move to England (in order of appearance to me):

1. Alan Rickman
2. Richard Roxburgh
3. Pubs
4. Sunday Roasts (esp. Yorkshire Pudding)
5. Walker’s Crisps
6. Guy Fawkes Day
7. Jaime
8. Godalming et al
9. Lucozade
10. Sandwiches
11. English Mustard
12. Train system/ Underground
13. School of Oriental and African Studies
14. Foyles Bookshop
15. British Museum

Now, I’m sure that a good number of you are thinking: ? Am I right? Ok, well, let’s explore a few of these, shall we?

Alan Rickman is a god, mere mortals tremble in his presence, and I especially tremble in his presence, but let’s keep this blog G rated. Anyway, I made a pilgrimage to his old school in Hammersmith and considered leaving some small token of my appreciation for his greatness.

Moving on, the Sunday Roast is the quite possible the most amazing meal I’ve ever had in my life. During my initial stay with the lot at Batman Close, I had a great meal at some pub, which we will call ‘Random Pub on the Thames’ for the sake of conversation. A nice piece of roast beef, potatoes, sweet potatoes, other various vegetables, Yorkshire pudding- all covered in gravy. I will have to admit that the first time I had Yorkshire pudding, the waiter sat this bread looking object on the table and after a few minutes, I asked him where the pudding was, he pointed at the loaf. Yes, I too was shocked that Yorkshire pudding isn’t really a pudding pudding in that sense.

Living in Poland, I have learned to accept that chips only come in the following flavors: onion, paprika, onion, paprika. I nearly burst at the seams upon seeing Herb Roasted Chicken and Thyme, Sweet Thai Chili, and a variety of others including my old favorites like Salt and Vinegar or Worcester sauce… mmmm

I also personally think that the UK has some of the best holidays of any country. Take Guy Fawkes Day for instance. Now, some guy tries to blow up Parliament, and now there’s a huge day devoted to consuming massive amounts of alcohol and burning things, that’s a perfect holiday! I find this fascinating, after all, there is no Benedict Arnold day. I can’t even envision what a Benedict Arnold Day would even be like. But the fun doesn’t end there, what about Pancake Day? Yet another wonderful holiday, eat things. That seems to be all! Or, how about Boxing Day, which I scrutinized every year in my planner wondering in what obscure country there was a day devoted to Boxing. Turns out, it’s not about Boxing at all. Back in the day, servants received their presents the day after Christmas so now the day is just an extra get presents and drink alcohol day. Fascinating country with their priorities straight: alcohol, presents, desserts.

As this seems to be droning on and on, I’ll leave you with one interesting purely hypothetical situation to see what you think.

Imagine, for a moment, that you have decided to visit Madame Tussaud’s, the famous wax museum. You think, ‘wow, think of all those people cast in wax.’ Upon further thought, you’re not really sure why you want to go or what you would do upon meeting Jennifer Aniston or Tom Cruise in wax, but that’s beside the point. It’s an institution right? Anyway, your curiosity gets the best of you and you decide to go, with two other adult peoples and one child. You yourself are perhaps… let’s say, for the sake of argument, 24. Said child is, oh, about 10. Right, you brave wind, cold, and rain and find yourself outside Madame Tussaud’s.

As it turns out, you are appalled by the extortionist prices of getting in- £22 ($44) for an adult and £18 ($36) for a child. However, you are with clever people. They are carrying in their possession a coupon which will allow 2 people to go into the museum for the price of 1. ‘Wow!’ you think, ‘all those people in wax for the low cost of…’ sorry, I slipped into a used car commercial there. Anyway, you wait in a long line to purchase tickets to see the infamous Madame Tussaud’s and her wax museum. Confusion ensues.

Now, let’s say that someone else in your party presents a completely filled out coupon for the 2 for 1 special to the nice lady at the register. After several exchanges of ‘I don’t think that’s right’ because, well, it wasn’t, there was an acquiescence, which looked more like defeat. The point is that only two people should have had to pay- probably two adults which would allow the other adult and the child to get in for free. However, this does not happen. The 24 year old is charged as a child, the actual child is admitted as a child, and one adult goes in free. With so much confusion, one can understand why defeat was admitted and life seemed to move on.

Well, as it happened, Madame Tussaud’s was missing a few of its more famous wax figures. Marilyn Monroe was over at Harrod’s doing a photo shoot or something and there were also several other key figures out, perhaps doing charity work somewhere. Some of the figures were quite good, The Rock, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Aniston, and many others were done quite well. Others, like Elvis (aka The King) and James Dean left you tilting your head to one side and going ‘hm, maybe, if you can look at it from this angle…’

Anyway, quite possibly, the best part was the historic figures and dictators section (unofficial name of course) where one could pose next to Henry VIII with all his wives (heads attached) or Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, W, Queen E II, or, to my shock, Adolf Hitler. Now, imagine walking through there, looking at the kind crinkly face of Gandhi, a withered little man, peace loving man with kind spectacles, and then Nelson Mandela, freedom fighter and hero, you see Tony Blair and boom, there’s Hitler looking rather fierce. Of course, you have to get a closer look.

Now, you are further appalled by the fact that all of these figures have actual hair, real human hair that is used to make them look more real. I find that Hitler with human hair a bit disturbing. Makes you shudder. Anyway, apparently, after a bombing during WWII, Hitler was one of the few waxes to survive.

After a proposal from George Clooney, you learn that many things have been left behind at Madame Tussaud’s over the years. Over 100 pairs of false teeth and a prosthetic limb among them. I can almost see how one might leave a pair of false teeth, you take them out to… I don’t know, I was going to say see better, but… However, I personally wonder how anyone can run off with out their limb. That, I believe, has to be impossible. But it’s not only happened once, it’s apparently happened several times. Who walks off without their arm, or more importantly, how can you walk off without a leg? I find this intriguing and I have spent too much time over the weeks giving it serious thought. What is most interesting is that an amorous young woman once left a pair of underpants in Mel Gibson’s pocket!!! Which led to me to a shocking realization. That’s right, there was no Alan Rickman. Can you believe it?

Stunned, you move on. You take a little jaunt on a ride called ‘The London Ride,’ such a creative name, which will tell you the entire history of London in 5 minutes: London, it was there, there was a fire, there was London, there was plague, some Dark Ages, Queen Victoria, the Blitz, and surreal London with a crossdresser in a canoe reading a book. See, everything you ever needed to know.

Now, the next part is where our heroes get thrown out of the museum. Being a bit disappointed by the price and content, mostly due to the mischarging, our two elder heroes attempt to rectify all for the greater good. The others stay behind and play Dance Revolution. Let’s say at this point, that there is threatening by the MT staff, taken abackness (which I am now christening a new word) by the elders, a frenzy of more confusion and heated dialogue, a threat of dismemberment (not really, but I thought I’d spice it up a bit), culminating in the elders being asked to leave…. Of course, they’d left their two ‘children’ in the gift shop dancing their little shoes off. A quick sneak through the back entrance, the revelation of the discourse, and the realization that there was no refund, there was no customer service, and the whole group got thrown out of a wax museum.

I had to laugh at the situation. I did learn so much from the London Ride however, and I feel I am now competent to answer any questions on the history of London on Jeopardy, but I’m not really heartbroken though. After all, there wasn’t even a wax Alan Rickman.

Quote for the week:
“If your head is wax, don’t walk in the sun” –Benjamin Franklin

Latin Phrase of the week:
Obesa cantavit.
The fat lady has sung.

As I’m sure most of you have noticed, I spend at least a few sentences in every blog on the cold; I am not going to do that this time. Typically, I regale you with quips on the intensity of my hatred of the weather which remains cold and grey. I work endlessly to try to convey the complete sense of hopelessness when staring into the cold and snowy night (actually it’s the afternoon but the sun goes down at 3:30 so it seems like night). Anyway, as I’ve said, I’m not going to do that this time. Instead, I’ve decided that I should devote an entire entry to the cold, it only seemed fitting.

For all my griping about the snow, I will say that I have discovered several fun things to do. First of all, stay inside and sleep. That’s my personal favorite; I like hibernating and appreciating the beauty of the snow from the window. I like seeing the orange hue the dense sky takes on after dark, with the reflection of street lamps onto snow bouncing up and being caught by the clouds hanging low overhead. I like to watch snow falling, sometimes in large chunks and sometimes in gentle flurries. I also like waking up to see six-inch icicles hanging from the gutters and shining in those rare instances of sunlight.

Well, isn’t that just sweet? Now, let me tell you what I really like about the snow. I discovered only last week sometime the satisfying crunch you can make by trekking through snow. When having no real reason to go out, I spent time watching the little snow flurry turn into a foot of snow, but the time had come for me to actually go out in that big, cold world and much to my surprise, I was incredibly amused by the sound of snow crunching under my boots. It was actually euphoric which should tell you a little something about the pathetic state of my life at present. Really, it is quite boring. Anyway, this had pretty much been the height of my snow fun until I went to Oświęcim in a blizzard last week. Well, maybe not a blizzard, but it sure felt like it.

The trip began at the train station in Krakow, where (to no one’s surprise) I had an incredibly difficult time actually getting a train, mostly because the ticket agent kept trying to tell me to pay on the bus. I kept pointing out that I couldn’t do that because I wanted to take a train, but she didn’t seem to care. Her expression was something along the lines of ‘so buy a ticket on the bus anyway!’ This was upsetting. Once finally having figured out where to purchase a ticket, I had an interesting and prolonged conversation with a vendor and a nice lady in a strange hat about the correct pronunciation of drożdzówka (which actually harder to pronounce than it looks). After I had finally procured said pastry, I headed to find my train.

Once boarding and being scolded initially by the conductor, I found that the first compartment was full so I moved on into the next, which reeked of sausages. My sensitive and empty stomach could not take that so I found an empty seat in the next compartment and began to do some work whilst eating my drożdzówka. This is where the trouble began. First of all, there were four of the most obnoxious girls I have ever heard in my life. They cawed and cackled, very loudly. People were leaving the compartment and as we made stops along the line, I figured they would stop, but of course, they continued. I would give people looks as they came into the compartment, that pained expression ‘if you know what’s good for you, step away from the compartment’ or ‘if you value your sanity, please turn around and exit quickly.’ At some point, it really became too much for me as well and unable to actually articulate this in Polish, I had to use some convincing body language to voice my displeasure (nothing vulgar of course) just some strategic huffing, door slamming, and menacing glares. Anyway, I found solace in the next compartment but also a classic example of Polish trains.

The seats are heated from beneath but they only seem to heat about half of the seat, which is too hot to sit on. I spent an uncomfortable 40 minutes on the hot seat, so to speak, being yelled at by the conductor yet again for some minor offense. Once my buns were well done, we were thankfully in Oświęcim. Now, for those of you unaware, Oświęcim is the town where the Auschwitz camp is located. Anyway, I braved the falling snow and sub arctic temperatures to track down every information agent in the station to find out how to get to the Auschwitz Jewish Center, to which everyone (without exception) gave me directions to the camp. Sighing that sigh of quiet resignation, I just stepped into the snow and looked helplessly about. I noticed a sign a few yards away so I trekked over to it. The snow had come on again so suddenly that there was no time for anyone to clear it away, thus leaving me to battle my way through knee deep snow to get to quite possibly the most unhelpful sign in Poland.

The sign itself looked promising; it was a map of Oświęcim. There were also helpfully little places marked on the map with numbers. Unfortunately, these numbers did not coincide with anything (there was no key). I stood dumbfounded in front of the snow as I slowly started to lose the feeling of my kneecaps in the snow. Realizing that frostbite would be unfortunate, doubly so as I couldn’t actually communicate to anyone in any real meaningful way what my problem was. I could actually lose my kneecaps making life even more difficult than it already is. So, what did I you ask? I called Jaime.

He spoke to a taxi driver who was (as we say down South) pert’neart 90 years old. He asks me if I spoke a little Polish and I told him very little, he said the same about his English. We had an interesting and lively conversation in Polish to which I understand about 70% of it. Thankfully, he did not use too many verbs and used as few complicated sentences as possible. At this point, the snow was coming down so hard that I couldn’t actually see anything out the taxi window. I could have been half way to Ljubjlana before I knew it. Luckily, this never came to pass and I was dropped at my location with nary a problem.

The visit to the Auschwitz Jewish Center was quite nice. I had coffee and donuts (as it was Fat Thursday) with the director (my interviewee) who was brilliant and fantastic, a simply wonderful human being to speak with. I browsed about the exhibit and thought carefully about his musings. Interestingly, the center is built at the site of a former synagogue of Oświęcim. The center was opened to educate visitors about the Jewish history of the city before the Holocaust and is a fantastic exhibit- a real key to another part of the complicated past. As luck would have it, the museum is to open a new exhibit soon with artifacts uncovered at an archaeological dig of the old synagogue of Oświęcim. There is an article (see links) which talks about this ‘Auschwitz Treasure.’ As WWII had broken out, Jews from Oświęcim had buried the ritual objects near the synagogue. Time wore on and the great synagogue was destroyed by the Nazis leaving no trace of the Jewish community of Oświęcim. Fate, that fickle friend, is also rather funny.

Apparently, an Israeli gentleman was in a shop one day before going to Poland and met, by chance, the shop owner who came from Oświęcim and said that he remembered the articles being buried there some years ago and for this man to go and find them. That he did. These articles are soon to be placed in the exhibit.

As my visit drew to a close, it was imperative that I return to the train station to catch my luxury ride back to Krakow. I managed to avoid danger until I paid for my train tickets where I, unbeknownst of course, had managed to rip open my thumb. I could do nothing but sit quietly on a bench waiting, hoping to avoid further misfortune.

When the time drew near for my train, I walked to the platforms which were completely covered by snow. With a few moments to spare, I engaged in some snow crunching, which relaxed me before heading over to my platform. With the freshly fallen ankle deep snow, a thought dawned on me. I could make snow circles! (Crop circles in the snow) This combined both snow crunching and design so I thought it was a great idea. I, of course, did it backwards so crop circled myself into the center and stood there helplessly while others looked on. I eventually made a dive out of the circle and stood next to a giant heap of snow, which gave me my next great idea.

The mound of snow was up to my armpits with a good bit of it fresh. I picked up a handful of it and automatically made it into a ball. I stared momentarily at it and upon gazing up, I saw it standing before me like a beacon… a metal pole! It called to me ‘throw the snowball at me!’ So, I obliged. I spent a good deal of time just throwing snowballs at the pole. Of course, at this point, the cold started to get to me, so things got weirder.

I balled the snow up and in my mind (a very scary place indeed) you could hear the following:

World Series, 1987, Texas Rangers, and New York Yankees vying for the title. Bottom of the ninth, Rangers lead by 1. Yankees have the bases loaded, batter with 2 strikes and 3 fouls, this pitch makes or breaks the game. Nolan Ryan, blinking from the broken nose he received two pitches earlier when the 100 mph fast ball ricocheted off the bat and caught him square in the face. Blood still staining his white shirt, he focuses on the plate and the batter. He steps up, looks over his left shoulder to keep an eye on the first baseman, then his right to check the man on third, leading by two strides over the plate, looking ready to break for home. Blinking against the lights from the stadium, he focuses in on the catcher’s mitt, and waits for the signal. His catcher points one finger down to the ground, Ryan gives him a nod… the fastball again. Ryan winds up, hurls the ball across the plate, the batter swings, and then a moment before the sound catches up… Umpire yells ‘Sttt-rike!’ as the snowball crashing and explodes into the pole.

This was an amusing game, I missed a lot but there was something satisfying with the breaking of the snowball against that pole, until of course, I hit a Pole.

I argue that all of this isn’t my fault. First of all, nobody would have gotten hurt if this man hadn’t stood right in my trajectory forcing me to change sides of the snow mound, and upsetting my aim. All of this was well and good until two girls walked up (right through my snow circle I hasten to add) and stood close to the pole. Thinking that up to this point, all my misses had been to the other side of the pole, I continued on. Well, as it turns out, the snowball went a little far right and exploded on the side of the pole just throwing snow chunks all over the Pole. I tried to look innocent and thought to myself how I had single-handedly set back American-Polish relations by a good ten years. To my relief, she thought the snow had fallen from the top of the pole and landed on her, improbable but, hey, it saved my neck.

With snowball over, I tried to amuse myself with snow juggling, which is impossible and completely pointless. Realizing the train was now 10 minutes late, I knew I needed something to do to keep my mind off the cold, so I built a miniature snowman. I even gave him a yarmulke in a moment of inspiration and made him a little snow dog to walk… I didn’t give either of them legs though, which might cause problems in their going for a walk. Before I could consider this further, the train had arrived and I was on my way back to Krakow on Poland’s top of the line ass burning conveyance.

On the way back, I had a sudden urge to go sledding. Of course, I don’t have a sled, so that makes that difficult. Sledding was always one of my favorite things back in the days when we actually got snow in Tennessee. Ah, yes all those times I almost died sledding into trees Ethan Frome style were behind me and just tender memories remained. One of my other favorite snow activities was making snow cream, which is basically ice cream but with snow, obviously. Not viable in Poland, you can die from eating the snow.

There are also many not so fun things about snow. First of all, it’s cold and wet. I hate losing feeling in my face and hands or having the nosepieces of my glasses freeze to the bridge of my nose. No matter what you do, something is always exposed leaving you with red immovable cheeks or frozen eyebrows; there really is nothing you can do at a certain point. You have to wear a lot of clothes which get wet and cold because that is the nature of snow. When it’s ankle deep in the wrong shoes, you can end up with a shoe full of snow and consequently, toes that take three hours to thaw. You’re forced to hobble around on the balls of your feet because the slightest pressure on the toes is excruciating and unbearable. It’s even worse when it’s knee deep, as I mentioned earlier, and the danger increase. The worst thing is snow sludge, that thick ooze that accumulates and clumps about the roads. It’s a deep brown from combining salt, sand, and dirty shoes tramping through it. All you have is a brown mess that squishes through your shoes.

It also makes inside floors slippery and I’m forever walking into a coffee shop and seeing my feet, uncontrolled, sliding away from each other, and away from me. I can’t even begin to explain my dislike of ice. I had several classic near death acrobatic experiences near Poczta Głowny where it was certain that after my triple lux double toe loop had been executed, I was sure to fall ungracefully and most painfully in a heap. I spend most of my days now praying that I not die from cracking my head on a frozen pigeon after sliding forty feet down an ice sheet on Dietla street.

When I told this story to Jaime, he quoted to me from Bill Bryson’s “I’m A Stranger Here Myself.” He said, “I can’t believe you do this for a living.” You know, I think he has a point.

Links:
Blog:
http://blogs.bootsnall.com/april/

Auschwitz Treasure:
http://jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=14305&intcategoryid=5

Auschwitz Jewish Center:
http://208.184.21.217/

Your online guide to snowflakes, snow crystals, and other ice phenomena
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/

Quotes of the week:

“Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.” -Jeff Valdez

“The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball.” -Doug Larson

“A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.” -Carl Reiner

“Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.”
-Matt Groening

Latin Phrase of the week:
Neutiquam erro.
I am not lost.

One of the questions that I keep getting is whether or not I attended the ceremony at Auschwitz. In effect, no I didn’t, for several reasons. First of all, the question of the week was ‘how are you getting there?’ because no one knew how to do it given that major roads were closed to the ceremony because of the high profile delegation. Once I actually figured out how to get there, there was no guarantee that I would be able to make it back. This, in combination with the foot of snow and freezing temperatures proved a deterrent, not to mention the fact that because I was not part of an official delegation, I would be by myself in the middle of nowhere and probably wouldn’t be able to see anything. With this aside, I gave this commemoration a great deal of thought.

Each year, we become further and further away from Holocaust history and this anniversary has been called ‘the last major anniversary with survivors.’ The sad truth is, they’re probably right. Yet, every year, we carefully repackage this atrocity in history with claims of ‘never again’ and ‘the world must know’ or ‘remember.’ The focus on this past should be crucial to our actions in the present and as important to our future. One of the biggest questions asked has been ‘what have we learned?’ My feelings on this change from day to day depending on the state of the world, but I began focusing on the international presence at the Auschwitz commemoration and what that body has been doing. But, at the same time, what have we as individuals and nations been doing for each other?

While the trauma of the tsunami in Asia seems to waning, the abject destruction of cultures and nations has been immeasurable. Internally displaced persons are struggling against disease and water contamination, with some knowing they are never to return to their homes as they knew them. Some areas have been hit so hard by the tsunami that the lands are uninhabitable. At the same time, indigenous tribes in the Andaman Islands are struggling with losing their way of life, for many of these reasons. There is fear amongst many that this will force indigenous peoples as well as civilians in hard hit areas to abandon their homes to emigrate and forge a new way of life inland. With the focus on relief, the international community has stepped in to provide equipment as well as aid, but still, what can we do about the destruction of the sense of place that binds us to our homes?

At the same time, Africa has been dealing with disasters on all sides. Besides the continuing problems of HIV/AIDS, the continent has been dealt some serious blows in the last few months. New mass graves have been discovered in Uganda from Idi Amin genocide in the 1970s, creating more tension in an already unstable area. Violence in Rwanda and Uganda by militants continues, unchecked (for the most part) by the international community. Just like at the conference in Berlin, no one seems to be taking notice, letting it simply happen without an afterthought. Why do we seem to only care when it comes to commemorations? Why aren’t we concerned now?

In the same region, Burundi is facing a disastrous famine. Droughts coupled with disease cassava plants (drought resistant plants) have put the nation in a potentially impossible situation. Many people are forced to leave Burundi, leaving their homes and families, to find work in other countries to bring their meager wages home. The situation in the Congo has done anything put improve, mass graves are unearthed, and fresh violence covers the pages of the news every day. The situation in Darfur explains itself. Ceasefires have been ignored and while there was hope that the end of the civil war between North and South Sudan would end this conflict, Darfur residents are still being attacked, murdered, raped, or displaced. Aid worker journals have given us a stark picture of all of this, from nurses to journalists, there are people working against what’s happening, but they can only treat the symptoms, it’s beyond their power to do much more. The World Bank says it needs a 60% increase in its budget for it to be able combat poverty; the BBC reports that Africa is so far behind on its poverty goals that it will be 100 years before they can alleviate the situation in Africa. While aid organizations are doing what they can to provide relief for various peoples, some are not being helped. The Bushmen in Botswana are under extreme persecution from their government. This nomadic tribe has been pushed off their old hunting grounds and when they return to hunt for food for their families, they are arrested and tortured, released only under extortionist bail. There’s no one to speak for them.

Back in Poland, the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz. Vladimir Putin is given a medal of honor for his work organizing the ceremony, while his government is persecuting the Muslim Chechens. While we look back to the importance of this event, the war crimes trials of Bosnians involve in the 1990s genocide goes on, and renewed violence erupts in Kosovo. I ask the same question, ‘what are we doing with what we’ve learned?’

There seems to be quite a bit of negativity from most people if asked if they think the lessons of the Holocaust have been learned (BBC poll), and I must often agree with them. Yet, at the same time, there really is so much good happening as well. Tsunami efforts in the form of national donations and individual contributions have been amazing. Various performance artists have organized benefit concerts with contributions to be sent to the disaster relief. On our way back from Berlin, EasyJet airlines collected pocket change for the same cause. People know and people seem to care.

I was amazed to open the BBC news website and see that there has been a call by several powerful nations for the cancellation of Third World debt, which would be incredibly important to poverty goals as well as health, food, and other issues. This also, I might add, coincides (in some sense) with Immanuel Wallerstein’s prediction of the fall of capitalism in the next 50-150 years.

I’m currently on a mailing list for the Feng Shui Diary (link to Imperial Feng Shui website below). In the Feng Shui Predictions for 2005 entry, it is quoted as saying, “This is the decade if not the year that hunger ends.” I was curious about the cancellation of Third World debt as a step toward this so I emailed the author and asked, “I saw this and after reading I was thinking about your prediction for the end of world hunger. How do you think this fits in (if at all)?” He replied:

‘It does but there's a leapfrog still needed. I thought Sharon Stone raising all that money for Tanzania was a glimpse of what will shift the dead weight. Unreasonable female energy that can harness anger without heroism or threat.

Otherwise all I see so far is a shuffling of existing positions.

I believe world hunger can be over if the break in the clouds that comes in April is exploited. Sometimes even when the ball is on the penalty spot someone has to kick it. I think it will be a woman or women. Whatever happens will probably not per se at least demand attention but will be visible enough that we can all see that it has happened.’

Sharon Stone stood up at a conference and in 5 minutes had raised a considerable sum of money for mosquito netting for malaria prevention. There seems to be hope after all, if we use our opportunities correctly and ourselves responsibly.

So, as I thought about the disaster and negligence, I had to balance it with the fact that there are people out there who care. But what if we all just cared a little bit more and listened to each other? The commemoration at Auschwitz meant more than to tick another anniversary off a wall calendar. I think that it has demonstrated the danger of empty remembrance of being lost so deeply in the past and those who suffered in the past that we have lost sight, in some ways, of those suffering now, when we can help, in whatever small way. The gestures of peace and goodwill, from China connecting flights to Taiwan after 55 years of no-fly status to the little dialogues going on between groups, to food being distributed, vaccinations being given, or educational initiatives. Maybe the commemoration was about making us better global citizens, more responsible for each other.
I think it’s important to remember. Not just in the sense of the commemoration, but to remember that we can always do something however small, we can give money of course, but we can also give of ourselves, a far more important and rewarding experience.

Links:

Imperial Feng Shui
http://www.imperialfengshui.info/

Burundi food shortage
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4185401.stm

World Bank calls for Africa aid
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4195187.stm

Africa to miss key poverty goals
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4180595.stm

Actress Stone raises fast million
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4218565.stm

Aiding Darfur: A Nurse’s Story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4007353.stm

Ugandan mass graves
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4215629.stm

Quotes:

“Despite everything I really think that people are good at heart.” –Anne Frank

“This is my universe and I am responsible for it. None of us is stuck with anything.” –Richard Ashworth

To say that I was apprehensive in returning to Germany for a third visit was an understatement. Up until this weekend, I had not had pleasant experiences in the German-speaking world. I assure you that the account to follow is true, however absurd it may seem.

My first footsteps in Germany came in May 2003 on my way back from the March of Remembrance and Hope. Because of a series of strange circumstances, we ended up leaving in small groups via other airports instead of the Warsaw-Newark direct. At any rate, after spending a week in Poland and wanting nothing more than to go home, my small group was sent on Lufthansa from Warsaw to Frankfurt to JFK. When in Frankfurt airport, we made our way through security and to my surprise, given the incredible and innovative airport, there were no walk-through metal detectors, every one of us was to be wanded. The short story is that the woman wanding me decided to see if I was carrying hand grenades in my bra, so she stuck her hands up my under wire and down my cleavage. I was shocked and out of sorts, which a short trip to the ladies' room allowed me to rearrange everything back in its proper place.

This ended up just being a rather humorous anecdote that I told from time to time. However, on my little journey through part of Europe last summer, it didn’t get much better. My second trip to journey began in the Dusseldorf airport. I arrived in the cold, rain, collected my baggage, and was ready to go into town. I had money to change and then I would be on my way. Well, not really, there’s no place to change money in Dusseldorf airport, only ATMs which I did not have a card for. I thought I’d walk into town; no dice, it’s an hour and 20 minutes away by bus. The realization dawned on me that I could be spending the rest of my vacation in Dusseldorf airport, which was frightening. Feeling resourceful, I tried trading US dollars or GB pounds for Euros with people by the ATM, which is how I almost ended up in a German prison. Some lady turned me in, the police were pointing at me and speaking German (apparently it’s considered black market trading), so I did what any respectable person would do, I hid in the bathroom for a few minutes until the commotion seemed to die down.

I eventually found out that you could spend pounds in the café upstairs and get Euros in change. I bought an orange juice and had just enough money to get into town. Once in Dusseldorf proper, I found that my plan had a flaw in it. I had planned to go from Dusseldorf to Paris. Nope, not by way of Dusseldorf, so I had to take a train to Cologne.

Once in Cologne, I hadn’t eaten or slept in 30 hours. I was tired, cold, wet, and had only one pair of trousers. I bought a ticket to Paris, which ended up being over twice what Lonely Planet said it would be and decided I’d see what Cologne had to offer. I went into the huge Dom Cathedral and proceeded to have a nervous breakdown. I holed up in a bar, drinking beer until I felt better. At this point, I found myself in deep conversation with a septuagenarian gentleman who bought me more beer to perk up my spirits. I felt better and the sun was out. I left in a bit of a better mood, was walking through the city, it started to rain, no storm rather. My umbrella broke; I was drenched, and unhappy once again.

This story continues after I return from France. I get into Munich from an overnight train and decide that I’m going to try this one more time. I see a bit of the town, the Glockenspiel, etc. I then buy a 3-day transportation ticket to go meet my host for the night. My first problem is that I can’t figure out how to validate the ticket. The machine for validation is about an inch too small for the ticket itself, so I basically just rode the transportation system of Munich illegally for three days.

It didn’t get much better really, I ended up playing soccer barefoot with some students out by a lake and in the middle of the game, I somehow stepped in a hole and my right ankle made this really awful, terrible sound. I didn’t want to appear weak so I kept on playing. Later that night, I had a beer spilt on my head and I got a Charlie horse in my right calf.

I woke up the next morning with an ache in my left thigh as I had apparently pulled a muscle from my knee to my hip, I had a throbbing right calf, and an ankle the size of a grapefruit. I was miserable. This was only exacerbated as I changed hosts and went to Christopher Street Day Parade (a gay parade) to see the sights as it were. I had a decent time, struggling not to move because to move was to be in pain. Anyway, upon leaving said parade, I felt a hand on my right side. No big deal, right? It’s crowded, no problem. At least, there wasn’t a problem until that hand went up beyond my side and groped me. I turned around to see the largest woman I had ever seen in my life. She was somewhere near seven feet tall, had spiky hair, and was speaking to me in German raising her eyebrows. I don’t think I had ever been so scared in my life. I left the crowd at the point almost being run down by three flamboyantly gay men in lederhosen on bicycles. I just hobbled away.

Some moments later as the largest part of the crowd was behind me, I noticed some kind of evangelical something going on. I walked too close and a woman jumped me from the crowd, wielding a bible, and proceeded to beat me with it while speaking in German. Others were also being beat around me. I tried running away, but given my citrus joint it was near impossible. I sort of waddled quickly away, looking behind me, seeing her follow. This continued until I realized I was rid of her. Of course, at that point, I also realized that I had walked into the middle of a Palestinian protest. There were angry women in birkas shouting with signs in Arabic. Again, I fished my way through the crowd, still worried that the giant lesbian or the bible woman were to find me. At that point, I walked smack dab into a fountain. Now, I was injured, terrified, and soaking wet. Munich had wounded me and I left for London immediately.

So, as you can imagine, when I discovered the ‘Genocide: Forms, Causes, and Consequences’ conference as held in Berlin, I cringed. At the same time, I really wanted to see Frank Chalk, Israel Charny, and Sam Totten, so I bit the bullet and decided to go for it. Jaime, fearing for my life (given my luck thus far) and the lives of unsuspecting Germans, decided to accompany me.

When we first arrived after our hour-long flight, it was hard to believe that we had just jumped countries. We patiently waited for our host Marcin, a Pole now living in Berlin with his German girlfriend Nina. They were to play host to us on our trip. Marcin gave us a brief overview of Berlin while we made our way back to his flat in East Berlin. The funny thing is, that up to that point, I had completely forgotten about the whole East/West Berlin situation in the 1980s- funny how things slip your mind every now and then, only to startle you in their rediscovery later. Once dropping our things off, we headed out for a little nighttime sightseeing.

Our tour through Berlin began near Brandenburg Gate. Marcin paused to show us the Holocaust Memorial currently in the process of being built. I have to say I’m not terribly impressed. While I appreciate the abstract, I felt as if the abstract had gone beyond that to something that is so barren to make it unappreciable. There has been much controversy over the memorial itself from idea to implementation. I can only hope that the memorial can serve its purpose. From there, we headed on to see the infamous Brandenburg Gate or Brandenburger Tor. It wasn’t quite as large as the Arc de Triumph in Paris, but it was amazing nonetheless. Placing this symbol outside the history to where I associate it gives it a completely new meaning. I am also amused that there is a Starbucks on the other side of the gate.

We took a little walk near where the new governmental buildings are. Marcin pointed out to us the multitude of glass facades. He commented that there is a feeling in Germany that the government must be something that the people can see, that the government is for the people. You can look into the buildings from the river, seeing the empty conference rooms and parliamentary halls. You can also see into empty offices. Marcin says this is all symbolic of the way in which the German government wants its people to see it. I thought that was incredibly interesting.

Before moving on, we couldn’t resist going up into the Reichstag building. There is glass dome on the top of the Reichstag building, reconstructed after WWII. You can walk the spiral ramps up to the top and see a busy panorama of Berlin. What’s even more impressive is that you can look down through center of the dome to see another parliamentary hall. The openness and the design I still find incredibly fascinating. I looked out on Berlin with its lights still blazing. Cars busily passed by and the lights from monuments around the city shone like beacons of their own significance. For just a moment, it was like being on top of the world.

When brought down from these dizzying heights, we walked on to see a remaining fragment of the Berlin Wall. As you walk along the invisible line that used to separate East from West, there is a discernible strip of different pavement or cobblestone that show you where this line once was. You could just stand there and ponder about this, walling straight down the foot wide stone or swaying from one side to the other. I began thinking of the people who would risk their lives to cross that wall and the televised newscast of the coming down of the wall in 1989. There were crosses along the way, in memory of people who had died coming from East Germany to West Germany by scaling the wall. We walked past the surviving piece of the Berlin Wall, and there was a definite sense of struggle emanating from what this once was and what it stands for now. Now, it is only a reminder, albeit a stark one.

Our last stop past the Berlin Wall was Checkpoint Charlie, the former US Army point where East and West Germans were checked going through each side to visit friends or family. Now, a museum stands there, not just dedicated to the history of Checkpoint Charlie but also to the importance of coexistence. There was just something humbling about all of it. In a place where there was so much sadness, there is now so much hope.
The major point of our trip to Berlin was to attend the conference. With a theme of the Namibian War in Historical Perspective, I was enthralled at the prospect of learning about something completely new. Since I know that this will be dull to many of you, I will only hit on a couple of highlights. First, there were some world-renowned speakers that simply delivered as expected. Second, one of the most important lectures pointed an idea that I am still thinking over, the idea that ‘Genocide is learned,’ from a lecture by Jan-Bart Gewald. He pointed at the development of German soldier mentality and how that evolved from their presence in Congo and China in the earliest of the 1900s to the genocide by the Germans in Namibia. His point still resounds. Third, there was the creation of the European Network of Genocide Scholars (ENoGS) and all that entails. However, I don’t want to talk about the network now, but I do wish to make a small point.

Before the last session on Friday, I noted to Jaime how few women there were in the audience. We hadn’t seen a single woman speaker and there were too few women at the conference, in my opinion. We had a short discussion on possible reasons this was so, but before we could go any further, the foundational meeting for ENoGS had begun. With the election of the executive committee members, one brave gentleman pointed out that the committee was too ‘phallocentric.’ I nearly exploded, that had been my point before. There was no diversity to this committee; it was four white German males. While others pleaded to diversify, the cries fell on deaf ears with only a promise that the seven-person committee under those four could be anyone. Someone else bravely pointed out that all the important positions went to men. There were no female presenters at this conference, only one female chair of a panel and one discussant. I’ve taken all of this to heart and made it part of my personal mission. When I present in Boca Raton in June at the International Association of Genocide Scholars Conference, I hope that the situation will not be the same.

Finally, my last point about this conference was a bit of embarrassment and shame. During the last session ‘The Future of Genocide Studies,’ there was time for open comments by the audience. One man stood up from Never Again International in Rwanda, pleading to the conference participant on the situation in Rwanda. He stated what his organization stood for and then went on to talk about the situation in Rwanda today, with episodes of racial violence still breaking out from militants. These militants had escaped in 1994 and were hiding beyond the border, sneaking in to Rwanda from time to time to murder Tutsi. There were 11 attacks like this last year, but there was no press and no recognition of it. While I was moved by this and was curious to find out more, the rest of the conference participants dismissed it and talk resumed on nonsense (comparatively anyway). I spoke with the man from Never Again personally later. I must say though that at that point, I was ashamed and disappointed in the academics that were there. Where was the heart and soul at this conference?

With our only free day in Berlin, Jaime and I decided that we wanted to go to the Jewish Museum. We had both read about the museum’s design and lots of commentary on it, so there was a burning curiosity to it. The design itself is amazing. An aerial view shows the lightning shaped building housing the core exhibits. On the bottom floor, the slight grade of the floor and the crisscrossing axes make it confusion and disorientation, precisely the building’s purpose. The axis of continuity takes you across the others toward the main exhibit while the axis of exile intersects it and takes you to a history of immigration, ending in the Garden of Exile, a small garden with 49 pillars on slanting ground. It was beyond words. The other axis tells the story of the Holocaust through personal stories of life and the abrupt stop of that life. With photos and documents, it was definitely one of the more different exhibits like this I had seen. This axis ends in the Holocaust Tower, a cold, empty tower with no windows. You just stand out there looking up and around in a void.

Once proceeding toward the main exhibit, we were sidetracked again in an exhibit on the American Jewish Joint Distribution Commission. The history with photographs talked about what the commission did do and what it does now. Beyond that, there was a section called ‘the memory void’ or something like that. There are several open spaces in the museum by design and the memory void is one of those. While I have forgotten the artist’s name, the exhibit was called ‘Fallen Leaves’ and occupied the entirety of this space. There were thousands of faces cut out from inch thick metal scattered about the floor and you were encouraged to walk on them. Given that they were loosely strewn about the floor, every step clanked one against another and the sound reverberated throughout the concrete space. When stopping, there were a few moments of sound leftover before the vacuum reestablished itself. Reaching down and touching the faces, the cold metal seemed so pained. While I know too little about the exhibit, I still found it marvelous and stimulating.

The main exhibit itself is monstrous. Tracing Jewish history back from traders and settlers in the 4th century, there was simply more than one could take in. The multimedia and diverse presentation made it a more hands-on experience. I had two favorite parts however. First, the pomegranate tree. There is an artificial pomegranate tree where you can write your wishes for the world on paper pomegranates, climb a spiral staircase through the tree and hang your wish on the tree somewhere. There was an explanation of pomegranates and their significance but I simply though this was a clever way to begin the exhibition. Second, I was absolutely tickled to death with the section on Hebrew and the Talmud. One of the multimedia devices had a flat screen where you could see original text and then an explanation to the right. When you had read that, you blew (literally blew) on the screen and it changed. There was also a place where there were torso sized foam Hebrew letters that you put into a display to spell certain words. I think if I had giant letters like that I could learn Hebrew better. Having realized we spent 5 hours at the museum, we realized that there was no time to go to the Ethnological Museum, which broke my heart. Next time I suppose.

Our evenings were always busy- chats with Nina and Marcin on a variety of topics, a poetry reading at the ‘Polish Losers Club’ and then dinner at an Iranian restaurant where I had life-changing hummus. So much excitement, so much fun, I was sad when I realized that our trip had come to an end.

I had low expectations of Berlin really. I didn’t want to be groped, beat, or injured so anything that would happen would be fine. In reality, I really had an amazing trip. There was the conference, which has given me more fodder for my research, but there was also culture, good food, and new friends. Will I go back to Munich again? Not on your life. Will I go back to Berlin? You can count on it.

Links:

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

Berlin
http://www.berlin.de/english/index.html

History of the Berlin Wall
http://www.dailysoft.com/berlinwall/

Jewish Museum
http://www.jmberlin.de/

Never Again International
http://www.neveragaininternational.org/

Quotes for the week:
George Bush taking credit for the Berlin Wall coming down is like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise.
Al Gore - during 1992 Vice Presidential debate

The reason there is so little crime in Germany is that it's against the law.
Alex Levin

Latin Phrase of the Week:
Numquam obliviscaris tua tela facta ab eis qui minima liciti sunt.
Never forget your weapon is made by the lowest bidder.