Krakow and the Marathon

I was originally going to write this as two separate entries but that's just proving to be too difficult so I will blog about my entire experience in Krakow.

I left Bielsko on Friday afternoon after a slightly emotional goodbye from my host family. The bus ride was fairly pleasant, and happened to go through the town of Wadowice, which takes its role as birthplace of Pope John Paul II rather seriously. Next time I go to Krakow I'll have to hop off the bus and explore the city a bit. My ride ended at the Krakow Station which is rather geniously not only the main bus and rail terminal for Krakow but is a big shopping mall with a food court. The best part though was the mexican restaurant. I've been craving Mexican food so badly lately that is was just wonderful having an opportunity to finally eat some. I literally started tearing up a bit at my good fortune.

After lunch, I started exploring a bit with the intention of getting to the "marathon village" to get my registration materials and race packet. I was pretty impressed with the whole operation and found it slightly humorous that the packet came with a free can of non-alcoholic beer and a coupon for a pint of the real stuff after the race. I also got my t-shirt, some muesli, some pretzel sticks, a ticket to the official pasta party, some useless adverts, and my ID chip and bib for the race. After this I walked around a bit more and waited to rendezvous with my host for the weekend.

I stayed with Kate Rak, the sister of one of my host sister's friends. I'd met her before while she was home for the weekend in Bielsko and she had extended the invitation to me to stay at her dorm. She's a Polish Language & Literature major at one of the universities in Krakow. I wasn't sure quite what kind of accommodations I was to be expecting (I even brought some extra money just in case I needed to stay at a hostel), but I was luckily enough to get a whole room to myself. She and her boyfriend have rooms right next to each other at one of the student housing blocks in Krakow, so she stayed in her boyfriend's room while I had a nice, cozy place to prepare for my run. And by cozy....I mean that. The Haggett single rooms are luxurious compared to this room. Seriously...most bathrooms are bigger...not that I was complaining; I was more than happy to have a good place to sleep. The three of us went out for a drink and some shopping, but I was pretty knackered after walking and traveling so I called it an early day and went to sleep.
I slept in fairly late on Saturday but I still had a few things that I wanted to see in Krakow, so I walked around a bit to see the sights. The place where I started was in the district of Podgórze which was the Jewish Ghetto in WWII. I took a quick glimpse at the Oskar Schindler's factory, which was fairly close but there wasn't too much there. I was actually quite hungry, so my first real stop was something that I had been dreaming about for a while: Chinese Food. As lovely as Bielsko is, it's fairly limiting for one with cosmopolitan tastes. I had searched online and found a place just a few blocks away. I have to say I was quite pleased. "A Gong" was a fairly typical looking asian restaurant and the serving staff was decidedly not anything Polish...but the food was oh so satisfying.

The dish was a Spicy Kalimari with Golden Rice. The dish was indeed spicy...by Polish standards. I could have used a bit more heat but I'm actually glad that it wasn't so...want to keep all the systems happy when you're trying to run a long distance. In any case it was a lot better than the China Star in Omak.

Next stop was the Transport Museum in Kazimierz, the former and current Jewish district. The district itself was fairly neutral. Apart from tourist shops and the occasional Synagogue there was nothing fundamentally different about it. The museum was really cool though....evidently it has only been around a few years, and they're just finishing a major revamping of it.

The museum is housed in the former roundhouses for the streetcars. There were workers running around everywhere, there were construction materials just lying around, and they didn't have any materials in English.This was the entrance to it. I had a hard time believing at first that they would even be open. But aside from that...it was cool. Poland has an interesting relationship with the automobiles they produced. They really don't like any of them, but they hold a special place in Polish identity. The coolest of them was the Star 266. This was a 6X6 military rig that is virtually indestructible. Despite being based on a 40 year old design, these trucks are still used by military all over the world, and even in some civilian applications, such as in rallies. The coolest conversion though was the Popemobile that was based on it.  

. It kind of looks like one of the amphibious "Ride the Ducks" vehicles.

After my little museum tour, I took a little walk to Wawel. This castle fortress is the historic heart of Krakow and of Poland. Built on a hill overlooking the River Vistula, Wawel was the home and final resting place of the Polish kings. Undergoing many incarnations over the years, this area is what ties Polish history together. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see all of what was there due to time constraints, but I did get to see the most important area right now: the resting place of Lech and Maria Kaczyński As you might have read, the decision to bury the Kaczyńskis here was a very controversial one. Lech was a politician (something most Poles are rarely fond of). Despite the universal grief at his death, many Poles don't consider him on the same level as their historic kings. He was sometimes controversial and many felt that the move to bury him here was a political one that unnecessarily brought politics into a time of mourning.  Throughout the city, there were little bits of graffiti like this one saying "Wawel is for Kings":

It was kind of sad to see the national unity broken in such a painful way.

The only other part of the castle that I had time to see was Smok's Cave. The hill that Wawel was built on had a cave beneath it that was rumored to have had a dragon (the Polish word for dragon is Smok) inhabiting it. If you click on the link, you can see a little story on some of the legends of Smok. When the castle was restored the decision was made to include a stairway leading into the dragon's lair. I've never really had the chance to see that many caves, but I really want to see more in the future. It was really quite impressive inside the cave and I can easily see why people thought it might have been made by a mythical creature. It's really quite fantastic inside. Immediately outside the cave is a stylized statue of Smok.

The statue even breathes fire!!! Every couple of minutes it spits out flames...You can even send a text message to a special number and it will torch at your command!!!

After watching Smok and exploring his cave, I went to the Old Square for a coffee and bought a Polish copy of Tintin to read. On my way there, I accidently walked past the place where Pope John Paul lived while he was in Krakow.

In the Old Square, I grabbed a chair and waited for the hour to chime. See every hour, a bugler plays a special tune

called the Hynał Mariacki (St. Mary's Dawn) from the tallest tower of St. Mary's Church in the Old Square. Though I was seated a bit far away from the church, it was really quite cool listening to this tune that has been played so often as a part of history. While waiting, I read my new book in Polish, drank a Latte, and enjoyed a Polish specialty called Szarlotka.

Szarlotka is a Polish variation of apple cake. Mine was served was dried apples, shaved pear preserves, a fruit cocktail and a scoop of vanilla ice-cream covered in a hot chocolate-caramel sauce. It was absolutely amazing. After enjoying all of this, I trotted off to the Marathon village for the Pasta Party.

The day before a marathon, many runners choose to "carbo-load" with rice or noodles. The thought is that the body stores these complex carbohydrates slightly differently than other forms of nutrition. Once the marathon actually starts, the body is supposed to have easier access to this and is able to convert the carbs more efficiently into energy. I'll let nutritionists verify whether this is true or not, but the pasta-party was certainly fun. In fact, the energy  of the place was really infectious. It's really motivating to see so many people who are committed to and enthusiastic about the same thing that you are. I was also really surprised to see beer served there, as most sites I had read recommended not consuming alcohol the day before the race. Unfortunately for me, I didn't really see anyone there who obviously spoke English so I wasn't able to enjoy the party as much as I might have in another location. After my pasta, I went back to the dorm to call it an early night in preparation for the big race.

In fact, it was a little hard to sleep that night. I was kind of giddy with enthusiasm. It felt a lot like the night before Christmas as a child, when it's still really magical; you can hardly sleep because you're so busy imagining what the next day will bring.

I woke up bright and early, synchronized my playlist, and headed off to the village. The synchronization of the playlist should actually appear more important than it sounds. See...I don't like little headphones...I have my big DJ headphones and I'm really proud of them. Unfortunately, my headphones are worth a few times more than what my MP3 player is. . It wasn't big enough to last me a whole race without repeating but I was still determined to use it...until less than a week before my race it just died on me. I got this player when I was in Germany...five years ago. The screen stopped working two years ago, but the music worked ok enough so I didn't really have a good reason to buy a new one. About 1 year ago, the contacts started dying on it but as long as I put it in my pocket in a very specific way I was still able to get stereo sound. Then...just one week before the race it stopped working all together. I was lucky enough to have my co-worker Mike lend me his iPod nano, which meant no struggling with the contacts mid-run...but it also meant finding an extra hour or two of playlist...so that's what I spent Saturday night and a little of Sunday morning doing...so yeah...synchronizing was pretty important. If it hadn't been for the music, I would have had an even worse time than I did.

(As you can see...I like big headphones...)

I got to the village right on time, got changed, attached my chip to my shoelaces and got in line for the starting gun. But first I went to the bathroom. And I mention this because I couldn't stop laughing. There were probably 25 different porta-potties but there were probably 100 people waiting in line. People were running in and then running out again. In and out. Doors opening, doors closing. The whole time I was waiting I kept thinking of the Monty Python sketch. Watch the clip and you'll see what I mean.

Anyway. The race started and there was a great air of anxiety, I could hardly believe that I was going to do this. The gun went off. It took me about 3 minutes to actually get to the starting line. Luckily, this wouldn't have an impact on my time. Modern races are all equipped with computer systems that individually track each runner via low power RFID chips. Each runner ties his chip into his shoelaces and then at the start/finish and at periodic intervals throughout the race there are big sensors laid onto the road. When someone steps onto the sensor, it turns on a radio that reads the chips in the vicinity, lets out a beep in recognition, and relays the signal back to a central computer. Not only does this allow better tracking of individual times throughout the race but it also prevents cheating via shortcuts and allows runners to have a precise time of when they actually left the starting line versus when the gun went off.

Please click on the map of the marathon to get a better look at the course.
The race started with a lap and a half around the Błonia, which was an old meadow but is now a pleasant open field and park. This equaled about 4 kilometers. From there we went into old Crakow, up through the Old Square, a bit on the Green Belt and then back through the opposite side of the old square. This was all quite pleasant and there was a lot of enthusiasm from the onlookers. It was really quite encouraging to get so much support from the crowd.  I was feeling right on-track here, if not a little bit sluggish in pace compared to everyone else. From there we ran along a street to Wawel. This path was the former coronation route of the Polish kings, so it was simultaneously gorgeous and quite symbolic. We then ran several kilometers along the river Vistula. I was still feeling fairly on-top of things at this point. I was really encouraged when I found out that the volunteers along the river were all members of Scouts Poland. It was fun reflecting on some of my own volunteer experiences in the Scouting movement and made me proud of the time I had spent in the program.

From the river, we spent a lot of time running along one of the arterial streets. One entire side of the boulevard was shut down for the race. I was really quite impressed with the amount of effort that the city put into supporting the marathon committee. On top of easily fifty to seventy volunteers at each of the hydration stations, there were a few hundred police, city watch, and firemen to guide traffic, monitor the parade route, and ensure the overall health and safety of the participants. Additionally, there were easily a hundred different people cleaning up along different parts of the route. There were even two military marching bands belting out tunes while we ran past!  And this was on a Sunday morning, when most Poles prefer to be at Church with their family. Plus all the roads closed... Like I said...I was really impressed with the City of Krakow for all that they put into the event.

Towards the end of the loop, we ran into Nova Huta. This is a city-in-a-city that was very much based on Soviet ideology rather than social-interaction patterns. It has long been infamous in Poland for being the height of Soviet insensitivity to Polish life and the wastefulness of Soviet production. Several factories were built near this area. This meant that what was supposed to have been a workers paradise was noisy and quite dirty from all the pollution. It was also miles away from any resources or other infrastructure, which meant that after communism, not only was it dirty but it rapidly lost jobs as factories moved to more efficient areas of production closer to their sources. It's kind of like some of our "projects" in New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore. Luckily though, Nova Huta is making a strong comeback and was quite a pleasant and shady place to run through. It was here that I hit the Half-Marathon Mark. It was also here that I hit my wall...a whole lot sooner than I had hoped or anticipated.
From here, it was a long, hard slog back to the river and along the river back to the Błonia. Upon reflection, I'm thinking that I had started getting dehydrated by this point and that led to a big drop in energy and speed. I was also getting de-motivated as there were fewer and fewer runners around and fewer and fewer people cheering as well...I was surprised but they really do make a big difference. Most of the remaining 20 Kilometers were a disheartened half-run/half speed-walk to the end. I felt quiet tired and guessed a bit that I was running short on water. I decided to keep going, making sure to drink extra water and decided that at the first sign of increased danger I would stop and get medical help. Luckily this wasn't a problem and I was able to drag my way to the end. At three miles from the end of the race, I got a huge cramp in my left leg. It was charlie-horse painful. This had me limping a bit for a good while until the last 3/4 mile in which I simply jogged through the pain to get to the end.

My friend and co-worker, Rachel, met me at the end and helped me get myself in order and out of there. I was really stiff but I finished. After all of this, I had a bit to eat (finally!!! It was 3 and I didn't have any breakfast!!), went back to the dorm, took a nap, called my parents, packed up, said my goodbyes, met up with Rachel, Mike, and his awesome girlfriend Sara, had some dinner and went back to Bielsko.That wraps up my general story of the marathon but I have quite a few reflections on it. I'll put out what I can in the next day or two...I'm already getting quite long-winded in this post. I will leave with a parting picture of me (and my race tan), my finishers shirt, and my finishers medal.

Poland and September 11th.

I remember September 11th very clearly. I remember waking up and turning on the television and seeing the footage of the Trade Centers. At first I only felt confusion but as the day wore on it sunk in more and more. I remember sitting in class listening to the radio, and slowly comprehending the enormity of what had just happened. I remember the shock, the slow horror, the simultaneous isolation of the self coupled with a growing national solidarity. I was quite a bit younger and a lot has changed over the past few years, but the emotional memories are still very strong. I had hoped never to feel the same again.Today I woke up and experienced the same day all over again, except this time I was an outsider looking in.

See, I've been living in Poland since October 2009 for a stint as an English Teacher in a town called Bielsko-Biała which is about an hour outside of Krakow. Shortly after moving here, I found a Polish family with which to live. It's a very similar situation to an exchange-student situation and I refer to family members as my host-parents or host-sisters. I spend a lot of time with them and I've seen them at their best and worst. Today was something so different.

When I walked into the kitchen this morning, my host-mother was just staring at the television. Normally with the ears of an owl, she hadn't even noticed my entrance. When I announced my presence, she ran over to me and started energetically relating everything to me in a disorganized and almost incoherent manner. Her widespread eyes were energetic but sad. After making sure I understood the severity of what had just happened she went back to watching the television. The news agencies started announcing the names of some of the dead while I was drinking my coffee and reading the news on my computer. Every time a new name and position was read, she whimpered a little "oh Jesus!" and shook her head.

When I was walking around the city, every television in every restaurant, store, and pub was tuned to coverage of the event. People were talking about it everywhere. People walked around the city in a slight haze. There were children playing in the square, but this was a bitter contrast to the grim faces of the adults watching them. Couples in the cafes were still holding hands while drinking their coffee, but instead of romance the only thing on their face was earnestness.

When I got back home in the evening, instead of crash coverage, the Polish news networks were all showing religious coverage. Some were interviewing Cardinals and Bishops, others were interviewing mourners congregated around a brightly lit cross. The main channel, TVN, had the graphic of the coverage saying: "Tragedy in Smolensk" written next to a giant stylized cross. This greatly alarmed me when I first saw it, but then I remembered how different of a relationship church and state have in Poland than in the US. Poland is 85% Roman Catholic and connects Polish independence with its religion. The Solidarity movement and the Roman Catholic church are the two things most commonly associated with Poland liberation from the Soviets. But even before that, Poland has always had a very strong religious association to its politics. The Polish nation has survived centuries of occupation by using the religious sphere as their place for association. "Mother Poland" and Mother Mary overlap in the Polish psyche. The idea of being Polish is always been more about being a part of a big Catholic family than about being a citizen of an independent state. This plane crash wasn't just about losing their leadership, it was a strike to being Catholic and to being Polish. Even worse was where and in what circumstance this tragedy has happened, for President Lech Kaczyński and his entourage were heading to Katyn.

After invading Poland in 1939, Stalin had many Polish civic and military leaders rounded-up and sent to prisons in Russia, just near the present Belorussian border. Once there, the order was given to kill them. In a slaughterhouse outside of Katyn, the Russians systematically killed 22,000 Polish leaders. In one act, half of the Polish officers, thousands of civic leaders, and hundreds upon hundreds of Professors and academics were massacred. Once WWII was over, Katyn was simply not discussed; the Soviets censored any talk of it. It was simply too dangerous to talk about. After Poland was able to break away, the collective memory of this tragedy burst into the forefront of the public discussion. The Russian position was for a long time that it had been a Nazi action and refused any attempts by the international community to investigate what had happened there. Finally, just two months ago, Putin invited Polish leadership to a memorial ceremony for reflecting on Katyn. This indicated a possible shift in Russo-Polish relations.

Ever since 1989, Poland has had a very tenuous relationship with their former Russian oppressors. Joining the EU stretched the relationship even further. Russian spies have been found in Poland. Polish spies have been found in Russia. The Russians and Belorussians performed a mock invasions of Poland. None of this has helped relations at all. In Polish, the Russians are a bullying neighbor who has never said sorry or admitted any guilt for any of their crimes against the Polish people, much less Katyn which stands out as a particularly egregious example.
Katyn symbolizes so much. This occasion had the possibility of being a watershed event for Polish people and their feelings towards this bully neighbor. The next few days will decide what losing a second round of Polish leadership to Katyn will mean to the Polish people.

The emotional response of the adults, the disaffection of the youth, and the national sense horror and loss all remind me so much of my own experiences with 9/11. For now, Poland is concentrating on being a victim, but it will soon have to decide of what or whom it is a victim. Who will be made out to be at fault? Was this truly just bad weather, or is there a conspiracy behind it all? What sort of results might this have on the upcoming elections? Only time will answer these questions, but it is certain in my mind that this is a paradigm changing event in Poland. It might not be as catastrophic in terms of human life or as consequential on a global scale as the US tragedy, but it will certainly be consequential here. The patterns here have already so closely mirrored the US responses to our tragedy. I stand in solidarity with Poland more now than ever and I encourage you to do as well.

I will hopefully be covering more of this event and its impact socially and culturally in the days and weeks to come.

Oswięcim

It has been quite a while since last I posted, and for that I am sorry and will attempt to remedy with a host of posts in the weeks to come. Today though, I took a trip that I knew I was unable to put off any longer and now that it is over, I know that I cannot delay writing this, lest I lose a bit of the sensation of it all. Today I went to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

I have been expecting/dreading this trip for a while. I don't like dwelling on these stains of the past and I remember quite strongly the raw emotion I felt when visiting Bergen-Belsen with Father Pitstick back in 2005. I knew it was something I had an obligation to visit, especially considering how close I live to the camp. Bielsko-Biała is only about 15 miles away from the town of Oswięcim (which is the Polish name for Auschwitz) but because of its location, it's actually a bit difficult to get to. Bielsko is part of an industrial triangle in Southern Poland and all the rail lines go along that triangle...Osięcim is about equidistant from the other points (Katowice and Krakow) but is still a bit tricky to get to. Anyway, between transportation issues and months of cold weather, I haven't really felt like making the trek, but today it seemed right and so I went.

I arrived at the museum at about 2PM and got myself a tour. In afterthought, I think I would have preferred just to explore it on my own. Though I liked the additional information, I think I might have enjoyed a bit more freedom on how much time I chose to spend in the different exhibits. We started by watching a movie produced by the Soviets shortly after the war but it didn't really seem that impactful. The Auschwitz 1 camp was in great condition, and I was glad to see that the "Arbeit macht Frei" sign was back in its spot. There was yet to be any special marking showing what had happened to the sign but I'm sure there will be one there soon.

There were many interesting displays that showed the history of the museum, but what got me the most was the collections of things stolen from prisoners. All of the things that they showed were just the remains left in the camp, 90% of the goods had already been processed and re-used or destroyed. There was an entire room just of human hair...2 tons of it. What was the most interesting to me though, was the room filled with baggage. On the baggage, many of the deceased had written their addresses and contact information...but one bag in particular stood out to me. It had been from Vienna, the address was on a street near where I had stayed when I lived there. I knew that my area had been a ghetto but it kind of completed a circuit in my mind of how complex and personal the "Final Solution" really was. I could have met that person or their children at a market or sat across from them on the subway...
Even worse was when I walked into the crematorium there. There was rail equipment inside...I knew in my head that a lot of people where burned at this camp...but for some reason I had always thought that it was a manual job of tossing people into the ovens. Don't get me wrong...that by itself is horrible...but just knowing that they had used what looked like mining equipment to do all of it...it was just another circuit bridged. It just magnified how disturbed I already was by the whole thing

The Auschwitz 1 camp itself was not that startling. The camp was originally a Polish Army Barracks before being acquired by the SS.The bunkers were relatively neat and orderly. Inside some bunkers were different exhibits about the different ethnic groups affected, exhibits about conditions in the camp, different prisoners, and the aforementioned collections. It was all very neat and informational but it didn't really prepare me for visiting Birkenau.

Auschwitz was the original camp, built outside the suburbs of Oswięcim. It was mainly used for political prisoners and was truly just a concentration camp...not wonderful but people survived the entire war there...Birkenau on the other hand was truly a death camp. It's located about 2 miles away from the main Auschwitz camp. The first thing you see though, is this big tower with a railway leading right underneath it. No matter where you go in the camp, you have this haunting tower in your peripheral vision. Truly spooky. In Birkenau, there aren't exhibits but rather you are just encouraged to walk around and look at an occasional guidepost. It's the size of it all that first gets you.

The Birkenau Camp was 500 square acres. To put that in perspective: that's almost the size of the entire UW Seattle Campus...or the entire city of East Omak...that's one square mile...almost the size of Central Park. It's just huge. On your right when you walk in, there are some of the preserved housing for the inmates. I walked in and I felt sick. It was exactly like the cow barns at the County Fairgrounds in Okanogan...exactly the same construction. There were even rings in the walls for animals to be tethered. Evidently the Germans just used prefab horse stables to house all of the people in Birkenau. The first building was just the latrines but it was just 100 holes right in a line...I can't even imagine what it would have been like having a BM with 100 other people, much less the rest of the horrors they went through.

After checking out some of the stables, I looked out and saw a field of just chimneys. Each of the barracks had two chimneys for heating. After the war, most of the barns were torn down, but the chimneys all remained...and you just look and for ages and ages...all it is is barbed wire and chimneys...chimneys. I think the skeletal remains of these buildings are almost more powerful now than if they had been left standing.

I walked up the main stretch in the camp, following the railroad tracks. It was really creepy just thinking back about how inhuman it all was, but then you get to the crematoria. These building were destroyed by the SS when they were dismantling the camp to hide the evidence. It's so chilling, looking up at ruins of these buildings. Bricks lying askew. Twisted bits of iron and rebar. The steel beams in the ceiling all warped and corroding. It was awful just knowing how many people died there...it was even worse seeing the place where it happened.

Just a few yards away from the crematoria were these big round tanks. I was confused by what they were until I saw the holes in the ground next to them...these were sewage treatment vats. I had never really thought about what the Germans did with all the sewage that 100,000 prisoners produced...but it was just kind of unsettling knowing that it was all part of the plan. On the plans right next to the place to get rid of humans was a place to process human waste. Just the engineering precision of it all was quite unsettling.

After another long walk, I found myself in a grove of trees. On one side was a pond where they had disposed of some of the ashes from the incinerators....but on the other side was a just nice and peaceful. I even saw a deer walking around in the grove. And then I read the sign that said this was where many people were forced to wait while the crematoria were full...just waiting to die. And there was a picture with a little girl standing next to a tree...and you could look at the tree in the picture and realize that it was the tree right in front of you...and it was like staring at a ghost. In this spot...next to this tree...this little girl once sat. She just looked so innocent in the picture...but then you turn around and see the pond of ashes and the remains of that furnace...and you just feel simultaneously victimized and horrified at the same time. It's really a violating experience.

To sum all of this up: I really wasn't sure quite what to expect. I was thinking maybe I felt a little bit immune after having visited other camps...but it really hit me in a different way than I had imagined. It was like a giant game of connect-the-dots that ended up being something completely different than what I had expected. I felt kind of empty...almost high...just kind of floating in a haze while I was walking around. I had seen it all before in school or in movies...but just the raw size and in-your-face-ness of it all hit me.

I'm sure I'll solidify my opinion of this all in a few days, but right now my mind is all kind of a mess. I hope that you understood more or less what I was trying to convey. I'm also sorry for the inconsistency of the voice and how long it's been since my last post. I'll try to put some more up and hopefully add some photos.

New Years in Vienna

After Christmas in Lublin, my holiday travels took me to Vienna where I met up with some old friends.

I left Lublin at around 8 in the morning and took the regional train to the outskirts of Warsaw. It was quite beautiful seeing Eastern Poland with a fresh coat of snow. After a short wait in Warsaw, I hopped on a EuroCity train which took me directly to Vienna. There was actually very little worth mentioning on this train. I played some classic Legend of Zelda and watched some episodes of Seinfeld. I snacked on some sandwiches and Christmas goodies that Uncle Dominik prepared for me before I left. A Eurocity train costs a little bit more than the regional trains but the label ensures a certain level of quality, comfort, and efficiency despite each country offering different carriages. For example, the Austrian EC coaches offer climate control and power outlets in each cabin while the Polish and Czech trains don't but offer ashtrays instead.

I arrived in Vienna around 8 at night but still had to take the Viennese subway system to get to my friend Susi's apartment.

Susi and I met in Vienna when I did a study abroad program there during my freshman year of college. She lived on the same floor of the student-home where I was placed and we spent many hours chatting in the communal kitchen (when she wasn't studying for her tests). This year she moved out of the student-home to share an apartment with her brother and her best friend. Her brother was still spending the holidays with her family in western Austria so I was able to use his room. Along with the relief from the full day rail journey, I was treated to a decently quick internet connection. Susi and her roommate had also spent the day traveling, so we caught up with life over a bottle of wine before hitting the hay.

The next day we all went shopping on Mariahilferstrasse. The girls had to make some Christmas exchanges and replace a hair-straightener that they had mysteriously blown-up. They caught the subway back home but I decided to take a walk through the city center. It was a very strange sensation. This is the first time in my conscious life that I have ever really gone back to a foreign city after having visited it earlier. The city felt just as vibrant and full of life as it had the last time I was there. I must admit I really do love that city. The main avenues in the center were full of little huts that were taking a break after Christmas. These had been used for the Christmas markets but the city made the great idea to keep them around for New Years as well. I stopped by one of the permanent street vendors in Schwedenplatz to pick up a Käsekrainer, my favorite Viennese treat. These are hot dogs that are stuffed with a cheese and then kept on a hot-grill. The buns is also kept warm but isn't slit like american hot-dogs. Instead the bun has one tip cut off and is then impaled on a steaming-rod. Mustard and ketchup are squirted in before the sausage is jimmied in. I really do love those things.

Later that night I met up with Mark and Eva. Eva is an Austrian girl who lived on the same floor as Susi and I. Mark is a UW student who was in the same program as I was.

Though he lived on a different floor, he spent much of his time with Eva and I in our kitchen. During our first stay in Austria, he and Eva became a bit of a thing. She actually visited Mark and I over the summer in Seattle, so Mark decided to come over and visit here as well. They had just come over that morning from the town near Salzburg where Eva and her family live. We spent a lot of time chatting and catching up on life. It was fantastically refreshing to have old friends to chat with. I really haven't found anyone my age in Poland who I've really with so it was great just to have someone to talk to about life, the universe and everything. We also watched Avatar that night. Second time with that film...so good.

I actually wasn't as "productive" as I could have been during these days in Vienna but I didn't feel too bad about that. It was quite exhausting at school before the vacation as Mike, the Australian I had previously been staying with, was just beginning to get back into the class rotation after his run-in with the inept Polish immigration bureaucracy. I was quite busy in Lublin and since I felt so at home in Vienna it was a wonderful chance to just sit back and relax and catch up on a lot of sleep.

Things really go going on New Years Eve though:
Mark, Eva, and I met up in the late afternoon and explored the city center. We made an important stop however at the subway station near the University. There I made a little pilgrimage to the pizza shop there, which still holds the title of making my favorite pizza crust in the world. From there we explored the inner city, which was jam-packed full of Viennese, other Austrians, and tourists from around the world. The entire district was one giant street fair. Every little street and alley had a different sound system blaring different kinds of music. There was pop, rock, traditional Austrian, polka, waltz and even a disco area.

Everywhere we went there were different shops offering traditional Austrian holiday goodies, lots of little souvenirs, and hot foods and drinks. I enjoyed a hot cup of Christmas punch. Also traditional is to pick up little tokens of good luck. At some of the stall you would see various knick-knacks of chimney-sweeps, clovers, mushrooms and pigs. I picked up a plush pig hat that I wore periodically for the rest of the night. I intend on making it a part of many New Year's celebrations to come.

After enjoying the crowd for a while longer, I bid a momentary farewell to Mark and Eva. I trammed it back to Susi's apartment where we had a lovely dinner with one of her friends who was joining us for the evening. We left around 9 and boogied over to the Student-home where we all used to live. We sat around, had some beer, and talked about life. Several friends and acquaintances stopped by as well. At around 1130, we packed things up and hopped on the subway for a few stops till we got to Prater where we waited for the New Year.

Prater is a giant park on the outskirts of Vienna. Generations ago, it was a private park and hunting ground for the Hapsburg royalty. about 150 some years ago they turned the park public. It is now one of the most favorite parks for Viennese and visiting tourists alike. It is home to the Riesenrad (Giant's Wheel) which is essentially a twin to the London Eye. It also has a small amusement park, a planetarium, a football stadium, and hundreds of acres of parks and paths. We only got a few yards into the crowd and really had no idea how large the crowd was either...but we knew it was big. There was a growing electric in the group that became more and more pronounced as the seconds ticked down. At midnight cheering broke out, fireworks went off and champagne was had all around. Speakers all around the city started playing some waltz music and everyone danced a little bit. It was generally a fantastic sensation being there as a part of that crowd.

The group of us headed back down to central Vienna. Unfortunately, our little group got split up a bit. The plan was originally for Mark, Eva, and I to drop some stuff off at the student home, before going to the center to dance for a few hours. Susi and her friend decided to go straight there. As bad luck would have it though, Susi's cell phone had died somewhere along the way. Not sure where in the crowd of thousands, they would be, the three of us decided to stay at the hostel. It was actually quite another fantastic opportunity to sit and talk and reflect on life. I headed home around 2 or 3 or so and then spent another few hours talking with my friends and family over the internet. I didn't wake up that day until quite late and essentially spent most of the day recovering. Though I did have a lovely dinner with Mark and Eva back at the student-home. The next day was my last in Vienna. It was Mark's last too. We said our goodbyes and went our ways.

The next day was actually quite uneventful. Susi and I parted ways and I went to the train station to buy my ticket. Normally I would have gone to the Suedbahnhof to catch my train but this was actually being completely overhauled. Instead, the routed the trains to several of the smaller surrounding stations. I found mine in Vienna-Meidling. I initially got there too early to catch a train so I spent two or three hours sitting in the McCafe reading. Have I mentioned how fantastic the McDonalds restaurants are over here? The coffee is actually pretty damn tasty too. My train left Vienna at about 1 o'clock. It was smooth sailing all the way to Katowice which I reached around 530.

Katowice is the local ugly, smelly, industrial town that everybody hates...it's the Tacoma of southern Poland. The train station is a worn-down attempt at Soviet brutalism. Would fit right in next the J. Edgar Hoover building in DC or next to Kane Hall at UW. Forty years of neglect hasn't helped it either. It is cold, smelly, and has a lot of questionable restaurants and vendors along with a healthy handful of bums. Lucky them...and lucky me as it turns out. The trip from Vienna had incidently snowed the entire way. When I got to Katowice (which is only an hour away from Bielsko), the ground was snowy but looked manageable. I bought my ticket to Bielsko and then went to the platform to wait. People slowly trickled onto the platform as the supposed destination time neared. And then people slowly trickled off again as the departure time came and went without any sign of the train. Worried about what was going on, I went to the Information booth but the staff didn't speak English or German so I still had no idea what was going on with my train. I saw in the corner a guy who I thought I had seen also waiting for my train. I talked to him in very broken Polish and he replied in very broken English that the train was cancelled and that we would have to catch the next train at 9 o'clock. What should have been only an hour wait ended up being about 4...in the allegedly nastiest place in Southern Poland. Joy joy joy. Apart from giving a few coins to a bum who had a remarkable command of english and spanish for a bum, I was left in peace waiting for the train. When the time came, my new travelling companion signaled to me and we quickly hopped on to finally make our ways back home. I made it home about 10 and was never so glad to be back.

Well that is all there is to really say about my vacation. The last three weeks have been mainly filled with lazing around and reading a bit, with some computer thrown in there. I feel like I sometimes sound a bit like the Arrested Development announcer when I mention what I might blog about next, but I'm fairly confident that you can expect something about skiing in Poland within the next period of time.

Christmas in Poland

I’m finishing this blog post up from my kitchen table in Bielsko, but it’s largely compiled from pieces written slightly earlier. It has been quite an eventful past two weeks, but I’m finally back home and am more or less ready to start up the new years.

I left Bielsko-Biała about two weeks ago to teach in a neighboring town for a few days. The town is called Opole and is considered the folk music capital of Poland. Unfortunately there weren’t any performances while I was there but I now know where to go to see people dance the Polonaisse. My school has several sister schools in the area and several of the teachers at these different schools made plane reservations a bit before the schedules were decided so those of us that remained were sent around to make sure that all the classes were covered. This worked out to be quite nice as it gave me the chance to see, although briefly, a beautiful city. Additionally, it meant I was able to get to my holiday destinations with one less train connection. Opole is home to one of the highest remaining concentrations of ethnic Germans in Poland. After the fall of the wall, this was a boon for Opole as they were able to reclaim their German passports and work abroad much easier than their Polish neighbors. The money sent back has greatly refurbished the town center and helped bring a decent living standard to this town, which brought a slightly more egalitarian element to the classes that I taught there. The only really notable thing about my stay there was the crazy experience I had at the Chinese restaurant.
In afterthought I probably should not have gone there but I was pining quite badly for something resembling Chinese. Unfortunately, I didn’t get anything close to it. The food I ordered ended up being turkey in a sweet apple sauce. The rice was cooked strangely and they wouldn’t give me soy-sauce or chopsticks. Didn’t really taste or feel like anything remotely Asian at all. BUT NO CHOPSTICKS!!! It’s definitely going to make me think twice before I stick my neck out and order foreign food in Poland…just not sure they can handle it very well.

I finished with work at 9 on the 23rd of December. I waited around town until 1 in the morning when I caught the red-eye train to Warsaw. As it was late night, I was expecting the train to be relatively empty. I was quite wrong. The train was jam packed, with people crammed in the aisles and even in the passage between train cars. I was lucky enough to find myself standing next to a group of young adults returning to Poland from England and they all spoke English quite fluently. We talked about England, Poland, and Seattle and they shared with me their Jim Beam that they bought at the duty-free…made a long journey a little bit better. I finally arrived in Warsaw around 6 in the morning. I had an hour break between trains, which I spent in the McDonalds drinking coffee and being kind of out of it…not having slept for almost a day. The train to my final destination took about three hours…which I mostly slept through. I couldn’t sleep that hard though for if I missed my stop I would have ended up in Ukraine or Moldova. That would have been quite bad.

Back in my first year at the University of Washington, I met many good friends in the dorms. One of these friends is Dominica Rohozinski. Her parents were both originally from Poland, although she was raised all over the world, though most recently in Houston, Texas. When the plans for Poland came through, she initially suggested that she would try to spend Christmas with me in Poland and we could both stay with her family in Lublin, a large town in Eastern Poland (about 2 hours south of Warsaw and 1.5 hours west of the Belorussian border). Her plans fell through, but her family was wonderful enough to extend to holiday invitations to me without the presence of their niece. I spent a matter of days there and each was fun and interesting. Many thanks to Dominica and her family for helping make my holiday experience what it was.
I spent most of my time with Dominica’s Uncle Dominik.
He is a retired math professor at one of the largest universities in Poland where he researched and taught about mathematical probability. The rest of the family is quite accomplished academically as well. His use of English was frequently spot-on perfect and his vocabulary was comically accurate at times. His house was in a soviet era blockflat turned condominium. His flat itself was wonderful. Though small, the originally concrete walls were paneled in fir so the entire flat felt cozy like a cabin. Whenever you walked in there was such a wonderful forest-y smell that you immediately felt at home. Walking into the living room was a continuation of the cabin theme as every sitting surface had a fur or two on it. Upon closer examination, rather than deer or elk hides, the skins were of kangaroos. Dominica’s nuclear family lived in Australia for a period of years and her aunt still lives there. Using his tenured position as an excuse to visit academic conferences on the other side of the Iron Curtain, he was able to make numerous visits to his family in Australia and picked up many of the furs along the way. Over the next few days I was privileged with his hospitality and depth of knowledge about the area of Lublin.
After arriving, I took a long nap and woke up just in time for Christmas Eve Dinner with the family (it was the 24th after all). Dinner was at the house of Uncle Jacek and his wife and two kids, both of which were around my age. Other guests included Jacek’s mother and father, his brother, and his brother-in-law. We all arrived at generally the same time. We started the “Christmas Vigil” with something called “Łamanie Się Opłatkiem” (Breaking the Wafer). Each Christmas card had a piece of edible paper (similar composition to the Eucharist…or rice paper) that was stamped with a Christmas scene or saying. Each person took one of these post-card sized papers and went around the room giving Christmas wishes to the other participants. You go up to someone, break off a piece of each others’ wafers, exchange wishes, and then eat. You repeat this until you’ve talked to everyone. Luckily the wafers aren’t very filling, for there was a lot of food to come.
After saying Grace, we began dinner. Polish Christmas Eve Dinner is traditionally comprised of 12 separate dishes (one for each of the disciples). I can’t actually remember each of the courses but I’ll do my best to describe those that I do. We started with White Barszcz (Barscht) and then followed with Red Barszcz with “uchka”( Uchka means “little ears” which they kind of look like but they’re actually just mushroom dumplings). Evidently the order of the Barszcz was deliberate as it echoes the color order of the Polish Flag. There was herring in a white sauce and herring in a red sauce. The main dish was carp. Carp is the extremely traditional Christmas Eve Dinner main course in Poland. The tradition is not to eat red meat in the days leading up to Christmas Eve and especially not on Christmas Eve itself. It was my first time eating carp and I have to admit it wasn’t bad (though far too boney). I think I still prefer other fishes over it though. There were also plum-filled Pierogi and a few dessert dishes.
After the meal, we had some coffee and exchanged gifts. I gave them a piece of ńan’duti (traditional Paraguayan lace). I got a wonderful book of sights to see in Poland. Afterwards we sang traditional Polish Christmas carols (kolęda). Jacek played most expertly on his classical guitar while his daughter accompanied on flute or violin. I also received a little Polish songbook with lyrics, chords, and notes. I’ll have to make a habit of picking up Christmas songs from around the world to play for myself whenever I settle down. After dinner, Dominik and I went to Midnight Mass in a Jesuit church in the Old-town. The church was quite full and it was interesting seeing the mild disrepair inside. Unfortunately, given my very limited knowledge of Polish the mass was rather lost on me.
That mass was however, not the only one I went to. I actually went to mass four times during the few days that I was there. I’m not sure whether it was merely the holidays that inspired the piety or whether it was a normal occurrence (my own great-grandfather went to mass every day for most of his adult life). Regardless it was quite interesting, as it gave me the opportunity to observe the differences between the styles of the different orders. I saw Dominican, Jesuit, and Franciscan churches. On Sunday morning, I went to mass at the Cathedral in Lublin at the same time as the local Bishop. It was interesting to see how the mass differed with his presence. It was admittedly hard to breathe, as the cathedral was already full to the brim with people and then the frankincense made it even trickier. I didn’t participate in the Eucharist at any of these occasions though, as I’m not a baptized member of the Roman Catholic Church.
The next night we had dinner at dinner at Uncle Dominik’s brother and sister-in-laws flat. The food was once again quite good, but there wasn’t too much of a difference between Christmas Dinner and Christmas Eve Dinner. The third night, I skipped dinner and went to see the film Avatar with some of Dominica’s friends from when she was in Poland. I unfortunately didn’t get to spend very much time with them, but I’m hoping to connect again whenever I visit Warsaw. The fourth and final night, we had dinner at Uncle Dominik’s house. There was more barszcz and pierogi but there was also a dish called “flaczke” which is essentially a spicy soup made with tripe. I really enjoy this dish but it’s not very popular with anyone else my age. The main course was rather comical, as Uncle Dominik ordered in Pizza. I do love myself some Hawaiian Pizza. I finished the night with an airing of Love, Actually in Polish.
Of all the cities in which I’ve been, Lublin must be commended as having the most visitor-friendly tourist system. The tourist-council established several walking trails of the city based on several themes. Each monument had a coded and numbered sign on it, written in Polish and English, based on whichever trails it was on. For example, the castle was a part of the Jewish history, town history, and local heroes’ trails and had small signs detailing how the site corresponded to the trail. The numbers allowed tour-books with more detail to be purchased. They were even thinking about releasing an iPhone app for a tour of the city! Even without a set trail, it was still highly entertaining walking around the city and running into these signs. The town center was still in the midst of being renovated, which led to some beautiful buildings being restored right next to a historical building that hasn’t see a new coat of plaster in a couple of decades.
Also while in Lublin I stopped by their local cemetery. There were very clear divisions between the different sections of the cemetery. There was Roman Catholic, Jewish, Evangelic, and Eastern Orthodox divisions. Even without the walls, there were still strong ornamental differences between the different sections. Another curious point was that the area for the cremated bodes was in its separate section from the regular catholic graves. There was also a really touching memorial to the Katyn Massacre. In 1939-40 22,000 Polish POWs, officers and intellectuals were murdered by Stalins Red Army. It wasn't until after the fall of the wall that any of these memorials across Poland were even allowed to exist.
The rest of the cemetery was quite unique in the variety of grave forms that I found. I might be starting up a correlating blog devoted to cemeteries and gravestones. We’ll see how that goes. This was apparently the old cemetery, as it had very recently been filled to capacity. The new cemetery is on the city limits next to another site I saw: the Majdanek Concentration Camp.
Majdanek was originally constructed as a work-camp but quickly became a death camp for those interred. It was quite disconcerting how close to the city this camp was. Standing from the gates I could easily discern the individual buildings and steeples of the old town. How horrible it must have been to look out the window of one of the sleeping buildings and see not only your former dwellings, but the chimney of the crematorium that you knew would kill you. Next the road stands a 50 foot tall memorial to the Jews who died there. Farther away sitting next to the mass graves, stands an enormous covered bowl. When you approach, you look inside at the ashes of the victims. This site was not just for Jews however. Many Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, political dissidents, and Poles were kept and killed here as well. While Jacek was giving me the tour of the camp he shared with me that his father had been kept at Majdanek for two or three weeks. It was in his luck that Jacek’s grandparents convinced the regime that their son was necessary for the war effort. He was released but in the six decades since the war he hasn’t returned to Majdanek. This was quite a revelation to me, as I’d never had such a close connection to a victim. It made the tour of the camp incredibly real to me. It also made me further resolved not to concentrate on the Nazi atrocities but to make myself more aware of similar terrors that still manage to pass under the radar despite our cries of “never again”.
My post is running out of space and if you’ve made it through all this congratulations. I’ll tell you all about New Years in my next post.