Parthemores in Poland - Latest Blog Entries

It’s Saturday night…and we’re watching ski jumping

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:05:00 -0600

Yeah, we know, we’re pretty crazy.

Anyways. Believe it or not, ski jumping is among the more popular Polish sports. This can all be attributed to one man, Adam Małysz (pronounced ma-wish), who dominated the sport for several years. He has four World Cup titles and two medals from the Salt Lake City Olympics. He is so ridiculously popular in Poland, his Polish Wikipedia page is longer than those of LeBron James, Angelina Jolie, or President Obama. Go check, we’ll wait.

Earlier this week, Adam took the silver in the individual normal hill. This evening, he added another silver in the individual large hill.

The sportscasters are great to listen to because they get so into the action. They say things like:

Piękny skok! (Beautiful jump!)

Daleko, daleko, daleko! (Farther, farther, farther!)

Ohhhhhh....BRAVO! (Self-explanatory)

(Imagine the level of passion of the "do you believe in miracles?" from the 1980 Olympics, when the US beat the Soviets. Like that, every time he jumps.)

Americans just don’t get that into ski jumping…

Wrong Turn

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 07:45:00 -0600

So the history department at UAM required Eric’s diploma from Missouri in order to certify it. Evidently an official transcript and notarized letter were insufficient.

Since we didn't bring it with us, he contacted the university in Missouri several months ago and arranged to have one sent to the university here.

Date of postmark: 7 DEC 2009

Date received: 18 FEB 2010

There was a stamp on it to help explain the delay:

Here’s a close up:

“Missent to Iran”

What?!?

Why did it make a wrong turn to Iran, of all countries, and why does someone even have a stamp that says that? Is this a common problem?

Popular, but for different reasons

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 14:50:00 -0600

For the final day of our trip, we stopped to visit two popular Polish destinations. The first was Częstochowa to see the Black Madonna,a religious icon in the Jasna Góra monastery. It is safe to say that this is the spiritual center of Poland, with millions of pilgrims coming here every year. In August, over 100,000 people show up on the Feast of the Assumption to take part in a huge outdoor mass. Some of the attendees from Poland walk there. This is pretty serious stuff.

The painting is only shown at certain times during the day. You are allowed to take pictures, but I was too scared to. I took one photo that I think will explain why:

(The Black Madonna is the brightly lit spot behind the gated section.)

With all these people deep in prayer, I certainly did not want to be That Guy who marches up to the front and snaps a photo. I felt bad enough just looking all around the inside of the church, since it was beautiful. Honestly, there were all these bowed heads, and there’s me, looking up, sideways, and probably backwards. There was a whole wall covered with canes and crutches, which I’m assuming were left by people who were healed.

So instead of taking a photo, I just bought this postcard. The altar is pretty awesome.

The rest of the complex is pretty amazing as well. There were a few beautiful mosaics on the walls.

Even the entrance is impressive.

The tower is the tallest church tower in Poland.

Overall, it was a pretty amazing place. I can only imagine what it would be like with 100,000 people there.

Our next stop was in the manufacturing city of Łódź, which is right smack dab in the middle of Poland.

I will admit the name looks crazy for anyone who doesn’t speak Polish. Thankfully, the Łódź chamber of commerce has come up with a helpful video to teach English speakers how to pronounce it:

Or if this helps you remember:

Classical literature fans may prefer:

“Łódź you eat them in a house? Łódź you eat them with a mouse?” from Green Eggs and Ham.

OK, enough of that.

The highlight of Łódź is definitely the Manufaktura shopping center/recreation compound. This was the site of a huge textile mill that was finally closed down in the 90’s. In 2003, it was purchased by investors and is now a one-stop-shop for ways to spend your free time and money. The mall is the largest in Europe, plus there is a movie theater, bowling, rock climbing, laser tag, and who knows what else.

All of these are housed in the original brick factory buildings. They set up a small museum to show the history of the textile plant, which was kind of interesting. They had some of the old looms set up and before we left the museum guide fired up two of them for a demo.

It was hard to talk over the noise that two of those things made. The original factory had hundreds of these looms stuffed into a series of huge rooms. The racket must have been incredible.

We also headed down to the main square, which featured a cool looking church and a Kościusko monument.

That’s him shaking hands with George Washington. After his service in the American Revolution, he returned to Poland and, in 1794, led the ultimately unsuccessful Polish uprising against the partitioning powers. He is remembered as a hero in both the US and in Poland.

As the video mentions, there is a film school here. The city has also constructed a Walk of Fame. Did you notice whose star they showed? Roman Polański.

The video pretty much sums up all the highlights. I’m kind of glad we stopped on the way home so we didn’t waste a day trip on it.

Our diametrically opposing visits wrapped up a great two weeks of traveling. Lots of fun, but really tiring.

Side trips

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:05:00 -0600

One of the best reasons to travel around Europe in the winter is the lack of other tourists.* We took advantage of this a few times on our way back from Slovakia.

*The worst reason is the roads.

During our drive, the road passed right by this castle.

I think Eric’s exact quote was, “Pull over! We need to go check that out!” It turned out to be Orava Castle.

Thankfully, they were open and it was the two of us and our own tour guide, who spoke excellent English. It was our own private tour! She said that in the summer, they have 1000-2000 visitors a day, with tours starting every 10 minutes.

Note the lack of a line.

This castle was among the coolest we’ve visited, due to its interesting combination of displays, architecture, and general awesomeness. All this, perched on a super high rock outcropping!

They had the requisite display of fearsome medieval weapons:

No castle would be complete without a torture room, complete with nifty tools, a noose, and a severed head:

The areas of the castle restored to show how the inhabitants lived showcased their impressive belongings:

The museum sections date from the 1950’s and hold exhibits about the local wildlife, traditional dress, and what life was like for the villagers. The weirdest part was the two-headed calf.

Random.

The weather that day was spectacular, so we got lots of great photos of the views from the castle.

(The building to the right is the chapel, which we didn’t get to see. But apparently they still hold weddings there. Awesome!)

As you can see, this was built right into the rock.

Back to work, peasants!

Our next stop of the day was back in Poland, the town of Żywiec. A couple years ago, both of us read the book Know It All, in which the author, A.J. Jacobs, chronicles his endeavor to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica. He repeatedly mentions Żywiec, as it is the final entry and the culmination of 33,000 pages of reading. That “zyw” combo is tough to beat.

Everyone who has been to Poland, however, will recognize the name – ”Żywiec” is the most popular brand of Polish beer. So of course we went on the brewery tour.

The whole museum is in the basement of the old brewery, where they used to store the beer for lagering. The tour was in Polish, but thanks to Eric’s interest in homebrewing, we know many of the brewing-related words.

Unlike most Polish museums, the Żywiec museum encourages interactivity. Here is an actual quote from the museum brochure: “The museum in no way resembles typical high-end exhibitions with security guards and ladies keeping an eye on the rooms…You do not have to wear museum slippers.” Seriously, most museums here have these things.

The goal of the museum was to show the history of the brewery and the beer. Unlike American breweries, which only had to struggle through Prohibition, the Żywiec brewery was founded under Austrian rule, and then survived WWI, the establishment of an independent Poland, Nazi occupation, and Communist nationalization. They had a bunch of historical re-creations of pubs during several of these periods. There was even a re-creation of the aerial bombing raids in 1939. Because that’s fun.

The oddest part was one of the groups on our tour. There were about 10 kids, around 12-15 years old, along with their chaperone, this older guy who struggled to keep them in line. He totally earned that free beer at the end of the tour.

Up next: The religious center of Poland and the biggest mall in Europe (not in the same place.)

Told you they were tough!

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:43:00 -0600

Remember how we had the little history lesson about the Hussars in our Vienna post?

If that failed to inspire you, Polish Hussars are this week’s Badass of the Week!

“Badass of the Week” is a uniquely original, thoroughly profane, and highly entertaining look at people who are completely, well, badass.

Other Poles to earn this singular honor include Mariusz Pudzianowski and Wojtek the Bear.

The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London has a small statue of Wojtek. Here’s a photo Eric snapped when he visited in December:

Skiing!

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:51:00 -0600

A day after returning from Germany, we set off for our Slovakian ski vacation. In Poland, the place to go skiing is Zakopane, the resort area south of Kraków, on the Slovakian border. However, many Polish people have told us to not go there since it was always so crowded.

We chose to only stay the night and explore the town, saving our skiing for later.

Loyal readers may have been confused about our blog about buying cheese from a kiosk. The cheese in question is oscypek, a smoked sheep’s milk cheese that is made in the highlands of Poland.

Yes, that is all cheese.

It is impossible to go more than 10 feet in Zakopane without the chance to buy oscypek. This includes the road into town, because people are out there selling it on the shoulder.

While most stands just sell it fresh, the best way to eat it is off the grill. It is really delicious.

A person who lives in the highlands is called a góralnik. This has the same connotation that “hillbilly” would have in English. They also have their own regional dialect, but we aren’t advanced enough to be able to pick out the differences.

Zakopane plays up the góralnik theme every chance it can:

All the beautiful wood buildings

The sled rides with the driver in the traditional dress (hard to see under the non-traditional parka!)

And the wool vest and slipper market:

The part about it being crowded was true. There were almost no foreigners, leading us to believe that this is the Polish family vacation place. With games and lots of vendors selling toys, the pedestrian zone had a carnival-like atmosphere.

I like the random assortment of things: a pony, a Saint Bernard, and a fake polar bear that looks like it’s melting.

While the drive from Zakopane to our resort in Slovakia wasn’t long, it certainly was interesting.

On our way out of town, we saw this lawsuit-waiting-to-happen:

(I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but ski jumping is the second most popular sport in Poland, behind soccer. Seriously. It’s on TV in primetime here.)

There are a few interesting points about this next photo:

First, this is actual border between two countries. It’s a little anti-climactic. Second, you may notice the quality of the road. We never truly determined if the brownish-gray substance visible in the middle was pavement or ice. I won’t say the road was plowed – “tamped down snow” may be a better description.

One this trip, we determined that our Skoda is a little mountain goat. Thanks to traction control, ABS, and winter tires, we were unstoppable!

The drive was very scenic and mostly backroads. This was a friendly reminder of the peril involved:

Whoa!

Fortunately, we arrived at Jasná safely. The lobby of our hotel featured a huge iguana in a terrarium.

We rented our skis and went night skiing the first evening. The next day, we arrived fairly early and enjoyed some great snow and clear weather.

The resort hasn’t had a lot of snow this year, so the top part of the mountain was closed. Most of the open runs had the man-made snow, and were really nice until the early afternoon. By then it had gotten a little crowded, so we stopped skiing with the agreement that we were going to be at the resort when the lifts opened the next day.

The next day, we arrived and found the snow falling sideways due to the wind. I told myself that I was just being a wimp, and we got on the chairlift that would take us to the next set of lifts. It was then that we saw this:

The chairlift we rode was the only one open on the entire mountain. Luckily, there were a few poma lifts open, so we headed over to ski on the two runs accessible.

To get there, we had to take this crazy traverse run through the woods.

Of course, they don’t make any snow on this run, so it soon turned into rock skiing. (Good thing we had rentals!)

Even the poma lift was looking pretty sad. It was a challenge to negotiate the bumps and avoid the trees.

But only the way up was bad – going down was great!

Even with the bad weather, we still had a lot of fun, and we’re considering going back next year. Hopefully there’ll be more snow!

Dresden and Karlovy Vary

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:21:00 -0600

Only three weeks after Christmas break ended, the university hit the three-week exam period. However, neither of us had exams to take/give, so we had some vacation time. Which means more traveling, and therefore more blogging. Since I have a whole free week before work resumes, I’m going to try to knock out all our adventures. Consider yourself warned!

We needed to take care of some admin stuff at the Army base, so the first trip was based around Grafenwöhr. But since we didn’t need to be there until the end of the week, we had a few days to visit other cities in that part of the world.

First stop – Dresden. I didn’t really know what to expect, since all I know about it was that it was destroyed in WWII. But I was pleasantly surprised to find not only impressive looking churches, but the Disneyworld-ish, recently reconstructed, freshly-painted buildings around the main square.

We ate dinner in a cool, 17^th century (best guess) theme restaurant that featured spears on the walls as well as suckling pig on the menu. In addition to the crazy décor, they also had entertainers roaming the room. We spotted one lady in period dress as she was sitting at another table and talking the patrons. As she approached our table, we agreed that we would start speaking in Polish instead of English so she wouldn’t be tempted to sit with us.

She stopped to talk to the table next to ours (in German) and suddenly turns to us, mid-sentence, and says “Polski?!?” Turns out she is originally from Gdańsk and moved to Dresden many years ago. During our lovely conversation, she also revealed that she doesn’t speak English. Great.

The next stop on our trip was a couple of nights in Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. This is where the “Montenegro” scenes from Casino Royale were filmed, as well as the Queen Latifah version of Last Holiday.

Karlovy Vary is a spa town which boasts “healing” thermal springs. You can walk around and get water from the various fountains, which is especially “healing” after you have consulted with a “doctor” and developed a “regimen” that can last over a week or more. There was a vibe that this was the place where rich people go to escape for a while. I would not have been surprised to see Tiger Woods walking down the street.

One of the most surprising things for us was the prolific use of Russian. Throughout our travels in former Soviet Bloc countries, we have not seen a lot of Russian – it is always a third or forth choice behind English and German. But apparently, there is plenty of “legitimate” business financing coming from Russia, as well as a lot of tourists. There were some signs only in Russian.

A neat Orthodox church

The tour of the Moser Glassworks was definitely one of our favorite parts. The museum has many beautiful pieces, as well as videos that illustrate the history of the company.

We then toured the actual factory, where the 10 teams of glass blowers create all kinds of beautiful crystal glasses, vases, bowls, and candlesticks. On a cold day, the factory was pleasantly warm. However, the guide told us that in the summer it can reach 140°F!

Here you can kind of see how they have 3 man teams plus their helper.

When you buy your tickets for the tour, they give you a coupon for their factory store. I forget how much it was, but it was analogous to getting a $1-off coupon for Tiffany’s. The pictures of royalty and movie stars on the walls should have been a hint that this was out of our price range.

We wanted to visit the Becherovka Museum, but the schedule didn’t work out. So I had to settle for a photo with one of the giant replica bottles. For the uninitiated, Becherovka is a liquor traditional to the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Like everything else in Karlovy Vary, it’s supposed to be healthy. That’s why I drink it, anyway.

So what does it taste like? We heard one aficionado describe it “like cinnamon-flavored kerosene, only worse.” Really, it’s pretty good. And healthy.

After Karlovy Vary, we headed to Graf for a few days. Of course, we stocked up on peanut butter and Levi’s, as well as getting things for other people back in Poland – I bought 12 lbs of brown sugar.

The worst part of the trip was the very end. The Autobahn sure makes driving easy, unless you’re stuck behind the snowplows. Because they’re driving only 30 mph. Not fun at all.

Migrant Labor

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:20:00 -0600

The other big news for this month was that I finally got my karta pobytu! No deportation for me!!!

What appeared to be a basic bureaucratic process turned into a six month odyssey involving complex tasks, like finding gainful employment and registering with the Polish Social Security.

I’m hoping that this whole process will be easier the second time around. Too bad that’s only six months from now…

Cieszę się Cieszyn

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:06:00 -0600

To avoid the pesky problem of accidentally driving in the pedestrian areas, we parked our car under our hotel in Bratislava and didn’t move it until it was time to leave. While this sounds like a good plan, parking in Bratislava will henceforth be known as “The Biggest Rip-off Ever.” Evidently, Bratislava is mostly run by the mafia, and the parking is no exception. When your payment options are cash, credit, or your first-born child, one starts to worry…

After leaving Bratislava, we headed for Cieszyn, which is in southern Poland, just over the border with the Czech Republic. Historically, Polish Cieszyn and Czech Cieszyn were one city. However, following World War I, when Poland regained its independence, the border became the Olza River separating the two sides of the town. This was a point of contention for both countries and strained their diplomatic relations throughout the 20’s and 30’s. A little known side note to Hitler’s Czech annexation was that Poland annexed Czech Cieszyn at the same time. Following WWII, the river boundary was re-established. The pedestrian bridge currently over the river is called “The Friendship Bridge.” Awww…

Another cute fact is that the name comes from cieszę się, which means “I’m enjoying.” Awww…

As per SOP, our first stop was the castle. Not much left, except for one of the towers. After paying the admission fee and climbing up the not-OSHA-approved staircase, we had a spectacular view of both Cieszyns.

The main square was quite large and featured the obligatory town hall.

Besides the town square, the other highlight of the town is the area called Wenecja. Like Venice. This consisted of a small aqueduct that branched off the river, ran through a water wheel, and flowed past several houses and bars.

After returning to the hotel, we were a bit surprised when CNN announced that all of Poland was blanketed in snow. Except where we were, evidently. Returning to Poznań, however, we discovered several inches of snow, which has remained on the ground for the past three weeks.

Well, now that I’ve finished blogging about our last adventure, I feel justified in leaving on another.

Vienna

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:01:00 -0600

We continued our high-octane, super-condensed travel itinerary with a day trip to Vienna. Located only an hour away from Bratislava, Vienna is a completely different world.

To avoid having to park, we took the train instead. After our trip to Toruń, I wasn’t expecting much…but this train was great! It was warm, comfortable, and built within recent memory.

Vienna boasts two important qualities: 1) not destroyed in WWII and, 2) it didn’t languish under Communism for 50 years. There is a beautiful gothic cathedral, dozens of elaborately decorated buildings, and enough museums to rival the Smithsonian. There are also a lot of tourists, and therefore plenty of souvenir shacks.

Vienna does have an interesting place in Polish history. With Vienna facing certain destruction by the Ottoman Turks after a two month siege, a Polish Army, led by King Jan III Sobieski, arrived and crushed the Turkish Army at the Battle of Vienna in September 1683. This not only saved Vienna, but also a good portion of western Europe from Muslim conquest. The Polish Hussars (probably the single most badass cavalry ever!) led what was reportedly the largest cavalry charge in history. Unfortunately, Guinness wasn’t around to verify it.

This is not a guy to mess around with...

Now back to the present day!

The day started out beautifully sunny and slightly warm. On our way to the city center, we walked by the Belvedere, which was a really cool palace that had lots of neat sculptures and a beautiful garden. This was just the beginning of all the architectural awesomeness we would see throughout the day.

After finding an English bookstore and buying a map, we went to the main square to see one of the most famous sights in Vienna, St. Stephen’s Church. I thought it was cute that all the public transportation maps had a little cathedral icon on them, so there was no doubt how to get there. The cathedral was undergoing significant remodeling, but they cleverly covered up the work with pictures of the building. Brilliant!

Love that roof, too!

Throughout the city there all kinds of super-detailed classical statues, like Cerberus getting choke-slammed.

One of my favorite buildings was the town hall, and not just because there was a grzane wino stand in front of it. By this time, the clouds had moved in and the temperature had dropped significantly.

(Throughout both Bratislava and Vienna, city workers were busily working to disassemble the Christmas markets and prepare for the New Year’s festivities. Hence, all the scaffolding in the background, along with that huge Christmas tree.)

As I mentioned, there were tons of museums. There’s even a whole section of the city called the Museumsquartier. Since the military history museum was closed, we instead toured/warmed up in the Leopold Museum, an art gallery that was featuring some of Edvard Munch’s prints.

The permanent displays were a little strange as well:

This was definitely one of the more bizarre art collections I’ve seen.

We had a wonderful time just walking around the city and looking at all the beautiful sights. Here is Eric’s Hannibal impression, in front of the natural history museum:

Of course many areas still had all the Christmas lights up. The size of the downtown shopping area was quite impressive – it went on for several blocks!

(I will post more photos in the album. Pretty much every building was gorgeous!)

In the late afternoon, we hopped on the train back to Bratislava. We were a little tired after two full days of walking around two capital cities. Fortunately, the next day’s destination was much more manageable! On to Cieszyn...

Checking out Slovakia

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:57:00 -0600

Checking out Slovakia

(Ha, ha! Get it? Because it used to be part of Czechoslovakia!)

You can’t really pass up going to Bratislava, especially with such a great quote from the movie “Eurotrip”:

I’ll take a quick moment to debunk some of these myths:

1) The exchange rate is not nearly this good. Slovakia is on the Euro now, so your dollar goes nowhere!

2) It was not depressing in the winter, and the sunshine definitely helped.

3) Most places in Eastern Europe don’t actually look like that. OK, the graffiti is accurate, but that’s about it.

4) They do have a train; in fact, the nicest train I’ve ever ridden on.

Bratislava is a neat town since there has been a lot of restoration done in the past few years. The castle got a new coat of paint, and is now this magical white fortress standing over the city. Unfortunately, they’re still renovating the interior, so we couldn’t go inside.

One of the coolest places in Bratislava is the UFO. It is an observation deck and restaurant at the top of the bridge spanning the Danube. I think you can see from this picture why it’s called the UFO.

Just because the weather was sunny, it was by no means warm. And up on that observation deck it was pretty freakin’ windy. Nice views, though.

We warmed up with some soup in the super-chic (and indoor) restaurant. Every so often you could feel it shaking very slightly from the high winds.

For some reason, Bratislava seems to have an obsession with strange statues. Watch out for the Manhole Guy!

This guard reminded me of when Han Solo was frozen in carbonite in Empire Strikes back. (No, I’m not a Star Wars geek. Yes, I had to verify all the details on Wikipedia.)

This festive fellow graced the sidewalks of the pedestrian zone.

The most random of all was the Hans Christian Anderson statue. It was apparently to commemorate his visit in 1841. I hope none of the places I visit decide to erect a statue of me with a freakishly large snail at my feet. Just sayin’.

In addition to the odd statues, there are some pretty neat buildings as well.

One of the more impressive buildings is the Presidential Palace:

I felt bad for the guards in their Nutcracker uniforms because they were looking directly into the sun (south) all day long. At least someone was smart enough to allow them to wear sunglasses.

We also celebrated our 7^th anniversary, and what better place than going to dinner at a place called “Tempus Fugit” (Time Flies in Latin).

The 2nd Annual Post-Christmas Roadtrip: Day 1

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 14:13:00 -0600

With some vacation time available, we took a short trip down to Bratislava. “Where is that?”, you may ask. Well, it’s the capital of Slovakia. Last year, we only passed by it on our way to Budapest.

We spent the first night of our journey in Rydzyna, a small town only a few hours south of Poznań. The main attraction is the palace, which also happens to be a hotel, and where we stayed.

You may be wondering about the limo out front. No, we didn’t trade in the Skoda. There was a wedding party at the hotel that night. Check out the sweet ballroom where the reception was held:

We were probably the only guests that weren’t there for the wedding!

This palace was the home of Stanisław Leszczyński, who was king of Poland twice in the first part of the 1700s. Since there are no streets, neighborhoods, or vodkas named after him, and he’s not on any of the currency, I think it’s safe to say he was one of the lesser monarchs.

The next day was an uneventful travel day through the Czech Republic and Slovakia. One of the necessary evils of travelling south is Driving Through Wrocław. I think we have mentioned a few times that Poland doesn’t really have many highways, and drivers have to negotiate many small towns while travelling between major cities on poorly maintained two-lane roads. Small towns usually only require a drop in speed, and maybe a roundabout. Wrocław, however, is Poland’s fourth largest city, and driving through it is a completely different monster.

What a map won’t show you are the giant potholes, radical lane changes, excessive use of cobblestones, and the fact that cars share all of these streets with the trams. In addition, my GPS seems to have an evil sense of humor regarding Wrocław.

The only other interesting highlight is that our route passed by the Austerlitz Battlefield, just north of Brno. (For those of you who don’t remember Mil Art, a quick refresher.) The local concrete plant commemorated the occasion on a grand scale:

A clever way to utilize otherwise boring industrial equipment!

Wesołych Świąt!

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:18:00 -0600

Feeling quite Dickensian, I wanted to cook a goose for Christmas this year. Our local butcher shop, which is awesome, proudly displays on their window all the “interesting” meats they have, beyond the usual pork and sausage. I walked in there and successfully communicated my desire to order a goose and when I wanted to pick it up. I even inquired about how big it would be. The butcher told me (and this is an exact quote, translated), “about 2 kilos, a small goose.” I was quite proud of myself.

So you can imagine my shock when I go to pick up my goose and they bring out a 7 kilo beast. That’s 15 ½ lbs, folks!

If we haven’t mentioned it before, all the appliances here are smaller than their US counterparts. We have one friend who refers to things as the “Barbie” version, which isn’t too far off.

This goose required the purchase of a new roasting pan and fit in the oven with less than one inch to spare. The bird itself was crammed into the roasting pan like a fat guy in a bathtub.

All of this was for three people…

Despite the tight fit, the goose turned out great, with plenty of leftovers!

During our last-minute Tesco run to buy this roasting pan, we stood in line with plenty of people picking up their karp żywy for Wigilia. Continuing our fascination with this tradition, we gawked as people retrieved carp from the tanks, put them in a plastic bag, and then let them die in their shopping cart. We saw one couple buy two carp that flopped themselves to death in their cart while their young daughter watched indifferently from the shopping cart’s child seat. Evidently, there is an animal rights movement to ensure people bring buckets for carp transport.

Our last post talked about the bone-chillingly cold weather. We expected a white Christmas, but two days ago it started raining. Today brought blue skies and mild temperatures. Good news if Santa brought you a bike, bad news if you got a sled.

So to all our family, friends, and the other random people who stumble onto this blog, Merry Christmas and Wesołych Świąt!

You want some wine with that whine?

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:56:00 -0600

“Hey, since we’ve never been to Toruń, we should go while the Christmas market is still there.”

“Sounds good. And we can take the train, since it stops at the station right by our house.”

“Cool, that should be fun!”

This was our plan. And we weren’t gonna let record-breakingly cold temperatures stop us. The high temperature for the day was -12°C, which is a balmy 10°F. The low temp was 20°F lower. So our grand tour consisted of exploring the medieval city center taking pictures of all the neat buildings as we traipsed from one bar to another, warming up with grzane wino.

Even the train ride up was cold. Not like Dr. Zhivago going to Siberia cold, but almost. After shivering at the train station, we boarded our half-hour delayed train hoping for a nice warm ride. No dice – evidently the heater in our car didn’t work. Since they don’t announce what stop is coming next, we had to scrape the ice off the windows with a credit card to read the station signs. Awesome!

Toruń is a pretty cool city, famous for its medieval architecture, gingerbread, and as the birthplace of Nicholas Copernicus. The WWII destruction was minimal, so there are plenty of original, historic buildings.

The boyhood home of Copernicus is now a museum.

I like how this building looked like it is made out of Legos!

This building sits just inside the old city wall. A good portion of the wall still stands in the southern section of the city, protecting Toruń from invaders on the Vistula River.

One of Toruń’s more famous landmarks, the Leaning Tower, used to be a guard tower. But now it’s been repurposed into a pub/tapas bar!

They at least leveled out the floor, but your eyes still get confused when you look across the room. In some ways, it was a bit like The Mystery Spot. Or for you Ohioans, like the Tilton Hilton.

Just hangin’ out at the castle ruins. This should indicate just how cold it was.

A great example of how modern life has blended in with the olden days…

Toruń is definitely one of the more picturesque cities in Poland, mashing together elements we’ve seen in Poznań, Brugge, and Lubeck. Highly recommended when the weather is nicer!

Christmas in Poznań

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:49:00 -0600

Just so everybody doesn't think that Christmas here is only about karp żywy and annoying Christmas songs being played incessantly, we figured we’d share some of the great decorations and other events that always pop up around this time of year.

Poland takes the Christmas season very seriously both as a religious and gift-giving holiday. Being a predominantly Catholic country, the religious aspect is emphasized considerably more than in the US. The major event is Christmas Eve, known as Wigilia, when families enjoy 12 meat-free dishes to represent the 12 apostles. They traditionally fast until the first star is spotted in the night sky. (It’s not that terrible, since it gets dark here at 3:30pm.) Another neat tradition is the sharing of the opłatek, a wafer that family members break apart while wishing each other health and good fortune throughout the coming year. On a side note, tradition holds that animals can talk on Wigilia. Daisy didn’t say anything last year, so we’re not holding our breath.

There is a Christmas market in the Old Town Square, which features little kiosks of traditional food, jewelry, kitschy stuff, and my personal favorite, grzane wino, the hot spiced wine. There’s also a manger as well as a stage where different groups perform holiday music. Quite the festive atmosphere!

On the left, you will notice the ice sculptures from the competition Poznań hosted a few weeks ago. This was billed as “international” and that was definitely true: there were teams from the US, Canada, Finland, Bulgaria, and Poland, of course.

It was neat to see them sculpting with chainsaws, grinders, and Dremels as well as some homemade tools, which I’m sure resulted in many questions from airport security.

The dino-Santa was our favorite.

But the Santa on a chopper was pretty cool too.

Since it has been very cold here for the past week, the sculptures are lasting a lot longer than they did last year.

Another impressive display in the Market Square is the Christmas tree.

Our personal tree is not as spectacular. Since it is about as wide as it is tall, we call it the Christmas bush.

(I tried stretching out the picture to attempt to make it the right dimensions, but it didn’t really work.)

So that’s really what Christmas is like in Poland: beautiful traditions, festive decorations, as well as long lines at the mall.

Good news for '80s fans!

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 04:57:00 -0600

To get a real feeling for the Christmas spirit here in Poznań, a good way to start is to listen to these two songs. And then again. Repeat 100 times, or until you find yourself whistling the chorus unwittingly. I have no idea why these two songs seem to be insanely popular here.

(Any of the numerous cover versions of this song can be substituted…)

Perhaps you noticed that George Michael stars in both of these. For all you closet Wham! fans out there, Merry Christmas!

You know it's almost Christmas when...

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:45:00 -0600

The ads for live carp start appearing!

(For you bargain hunters, this works out to $1.16/lb)

I like how the sale price is only from Dec 3-9. So you’ll need to keep it alive in your bathtub for at least two weeks to maximize your savings.

Have you ever bought unpackaged cheese from a toothless, slightly hairy, old woman running a street kiosk specializing in pelts and moccasins?

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:51:00 -0600

We have!

November Holiday Wrap-Up

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:45:00 -0600

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Since this month has been chock full o’ holidays, I’m just going to jam them all together into one post.

As we discussed in the last post, November 11 is both Polish Independence Day and St. Martin’s Day. All the flags come out for Independence Day…here is the Ratusz looking festive:

The lancer unit was out riding all over the city. They wear post-WWI uniforms and give demonstrations of their drill maneuvers. And leave some surprises in the street…

Photos from the parade down St. Martin’s Street:

After seeing this for two years now, I have determined that the main theme of this parade is: weird. Or maybe just “homemade Cirque du Soleil.” But tons of people show up in bad weather to check it out.

On Thanksgiving Day, we were invited to a dinner at a local restaurant, hosted by an American who runs a publishing business in Poznań. It was a nice blending of cultures: the traditional Polish beet soup to start followed by some delicious turkey and cranberry sauce. There were about 35 people there, and the host did a good job of making sure we mingled with everybody.

The following day, we hosted our own Thanksgiving/Promotion party. While we only had two guests last year, this year we had nine friends accepting our offer of barbeque turkey sandwiches and free booze. We had a great time watching futbol amerykański and taking part in a crazy mix of Polish and English conversations. No kidding…including us, there were 5 Americans, 5 Poles, and a Dane. The most delicious part was Eric’s 100% made from scratch pumpkin pie. From an actual pumpkin and homemade dough, just like grandma used to make…as long as grandma had to buy the pie pans at the American Army base in Germany.

And to close out the month, we’re proud to announce another milestone anniversary. Eric’s parents will celebrate their 35^th anniversary on the 30^th. Congratulations!

P.S. Astute readers are probably wondering about the Michigan-Ohio State game. Well, we couldn’t watch it. Not even listen to it on the radio. Technology totally failed us on this one. All I will say is that the Wolverines were not as victorious as the other team. Boo!

11/11

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:07:00 -0600

As previously mentioned, November 11^th is a multi-purpose holiday in Poznań. The whole country celebrates Independence Day, but St. Martin’s Day is celebrated only in Poznań.

This is a good time to explain the tradition of imięniny, or name-days. Almost everyone in Poland has a very traditional name, and it is often the name of a saint. If you have a “weird” name, like both of us do, people can instantly tell that you are not Polish. There are also no “unique spellings” allowed, either. As a result, we know several people that all share the same first name; I think we’re up to 4 friends named Łukasz.

So, people usually get gifts on their name-day, instead of on their birthday. This is especially handy when you don’t want to be reminded of how old you are. However, my University students claimed that birthday celebrations have been gaining in popularity.

Where am I going with this? Since it is St. Martin’s Day, there is a huge parade and party to celebrate the name-day of one of the major streets in the city. Sorry, Daisy, but there will be fireworks.

But the best part of St. Martin’s Day is the delicious pastries that are made only in Poznań: rogale świętomarcińskie. They are croissants filled with white poppyseed filling and covered in icing and peanuts. Since I can’t ever seem to take my own picture before devouring these, I stole this from the Poznań tourism board website.

Poznaniaks are very proud of these, and everyone who discovers you aren’t from Poznań will invariably ask if you’ve tried one. And if you think this was just a stunt thought up by the local bakeries and tourism board, you’re wrong! This tradition started in the 1890s as a fundraiser for the poor. The rogal even has a protected geographical status from the EU, just like champagne or cognac.

Unfortunately, these are only sold around St. Martin’s Day by “certified” bakers. It’s probably a good thing they aren’t always available…because I would probably weigh 400 pounds by now.