Life in Poland So Far

As 2014 draws to a close, I again think about how different thing are this year than last, mostly because I am again in another part of the world. And it gets me thinking about the little things that add up to the big changes.

I am often asked how I am adjusting to living in Poland, and the answer is always that I have found it pretty easy. I have gotten settled comfortably, I am getting more used to what my job entails,  I still explore around the city and have found a few restaurants and cafes that I like to return to while discovering quite a few that I want to try. Some of the local merchants and people in the gym I go to seem to recognize me. I am learning where to find information about cultural events and have a loyalty card at one of the movie theaters. I am enjoying receiving 80% reimbursement for my medical costs without having to jump through hoops of doctor networks, prescription formularies or second guessing of medical care. I have developed daily routines and life is pretty normal.

I am still having some trouble finding a few things that I would like or need, but then once I find one, I see them everywhere - dry cleaners being a good example, gyms being another. I am still trying to find a shoe repairman more convenient than the mall, but no luck yet. I need to get used to different sizing systems for clothes, but I can manage. I can't find shoes my size too easily (surprising, given how many tall people there are here) but I have found a few shops lately and Berlin has plenty.

The fact that many people speak English continues to make it too easy not to learn the language but I am trying. My first course of Polish lessons didn't get me very far, but it created a foundation and I can now pick words out of conversations (sometimes), I can ask some basic questions and understand the responses (sometimes), and I am continuing on to the next course in a few weeks. I am also going to try watching TV here as listening to speech patterns can help also (although I don't know if Polish soap operas are as good as Armenian ones I watched for that reason...)

I am also asked often how I like the food here, and the answer is that I do - a lot. Polish food is hearty, flavorful and varied. I really like the core P foods - pork, pierogis, potatoes and pickles. Other favorites are zurek (a soup make with a rye base, often including sausage and a hard boiled egg), salads, and kielbasa (with which I have finally developed a taste for mustard). I have heard of a place that offers Polish cooking classes in English, so maybe by this time next year I will make my own pierogis! For variety, there are also lots of other types of cuisine available. Recently, while watching an American TV show in which the characters were eating Thai food, I suddenly had a craving to have some myself and knew right off where I could go. I have also been to Croatian, Indian, Italian, Moroccan and Mexican restaurants that have been good (margaritas excepted). I am cooking at home less than I thought I would, but there are too many restaurants to try.

Traveling is also very easy from here. Beside the places in Poland I have been to, I have had easy trips to Austria, Montenegro, Holland, Armenia, Germany, England, and tomorrow I am off to Italy. All of the above can be reached within a three hour flight and it is nice to arrive in a European city without jet lag. With six weeks of vacation per year, in 2015 I may make a dent into the list of countries to visit that I have been compiling since being here. The US is likely in 2015 also, since I get that question a lot also, but the jet lag....

This time of year, it is nice to see how Warsaw gets decked out for Christmas. A few of the streets are lit up for their entire lengths, there is a skating rink in the old market square, the castle has snowflakes projected onto it with a big tree outside, and there are market stalls near the barbican walls.

Nowy Swiat

Swietokrzyska

Swietokrzyska

Castle Square

Castle Square

Castle Square 

So, I find myself feeling again that time is flying - I have been here nine months already - but that so much has happened that I feel I have been here longer. There are things I don't miss about the US (I am glad that my exposure to the recent elections was limited to what I read in the paper and casting my absentee ballot) but plenty that I do, although I have seen some of my family and friends since I have been here.

But I feel like I am making a home here and am glad to have the opportunity to do so. While I am making a home, I don't know if Warsaw will ever feel like "home", but so far the people here have made it very comfortable. There is a lot to be said for that. 

The Warsaw Ghetto

Not long after I moved into my apartment here, I learned that it was within the area where the Warsaw Ghetto had been. I had picked the apartment based on proximity to work without realizing its historical significance.

As with the Warsaw Uprising (which I wrote about earlier), this is not intended to be a thorough discussion of the Warsaw Ghetto, which had a relatively short but tragic history. Rather, this is a very brief summary of what I have learned about it and the evidence and memorials that can be seen around the city.

Seven months after invading Poland, the Nazis forced Jewish citizens of Warsaw and its suburbs to live in designated areas centered on (but not encompassing all of) Jewish neighborhoods. The forced relocation followed incremental steps depriving people of liberties, finances, jobs, property and personal safety. People who had to move homes were not allowed to take all of their belongings with them, and the vacated properties were either assumed by non-Jews and/or looted.  After the re-locations in Warsaw, an estimated 400,000 people lived in an area of a few square miles.

After seven months, a wall was constructed and ghetto inhabitants required permission to leave. The wall, which was almost 10 feet high and topped by barbed wire, intentionally excluded the main synagogue in Warsaw from the ghetto area. The borders changed several times, and one of the revisions created two separate ghettos, in order to allow a busy commercial street used by the general population of Warsaw to not be cut off. At first, the inhabitants of the ghetto would have to wait to cross that street, which would then be blocked off during the crossings, but later a bridge was built so that the street traffic would not be inconvenienced.

The ghetto area as in 1943

The bridge between the large and small ghettos

When looking at a map or walking around the areas that the ghetto covered, it seems  that there was a lot of space until you realize that the number of people was almost the population of Atlanta, who were living in an area the size of a neighborhood and there were very few opportunities to leave.  Conditions quickly became unsanitary and health care was limited. Food was scarce (as noted in Wikipedia, the average food rations in 1941 for Jews in Warsaw were limited to 184 calories, compared to 699 calories for gentile Poles and 2,613 calories for Germans) and children would be sent to the "Aryan" side of the wall is search of food. Combined with random killings by Nazi soldiers, these factors caused the death rate to climb rapidly. While Jews from other occupied countries were transported in and added to the ghetto, with the high death rate within the ghetto (estimated at about 100,000 people), it is believed that the population did not increase.

Deportations from the ghetto began in July, 1942, and by September about 250,000 - 300,000 people had been taken out. At the northern edge of the ghetto was a plaza with a train platform (Umschlagplatz), and some were enticed to "relocate" with promises of additional food for coming to the plaza to volunteer. When people started to hear news of the extermination camps, an uprising was planned; while it was likely never seen as succeeding in saving the inhabitants of the ghetto, it allowed people to retain their honor in death. 

The uprising began in January 1943, when the German army tried to begin a new round of deportation. They expected no resistance and were caught by surprise, having to curtail the deportation action after a few days and they lost control of the ghetto until April. Just before Passover, a more prepared force entered the ghetto again and met significant resistance. This time, in a sort-of prelude to what would be done after the Warsaw Uprising, the army began systematically destroying buildings, and capturing or killing the inhabitants. By the end of April, most of the ghetto had been destroyed and remaining inhabitants who had not been killed or deported were in hiding. Searches for survivors continued for another month, and the leaders of the uprising who had survived committed a mass suicide rather than be captured. The official end to the uprising was recognized by the Nazis by blowing up the main synagogue.   

As the population declined, the ghetto itself was made smaller but the plot of land where my building is was in the last part left before the final liquidation. After the uprising was suppressed, much of the ghetto area was razed but part was made into a concentration camp. After the war, as the city began rebuilding, much of the area was re-planned, including the creation of the six-lane avenue on which I live which is named after Pope John Paul II.

Today, as you walk around the city you can see indications of where the walls once stood, with markers at irregular intervals explaining what existed or occurred at the given location.  

The bridge between the large and small ghettos was demolished long ago, but a sculpture of sorts, made of iron and wire, represents where it once stood. 

While Umschlagplatz itself is no longer in existence, but a monument in the shape of a train car stands at the site, etched with different names from A to Z in remembrance of those who were deported. 

There are also two places where sections of the wall still stand, and some buildings, the exterior walls of which were incorporated in the barrier, still stand. A third section, which is not confirmed as genuine, is near the Umschlagplatz monument.

Near the Umschlagplatz monument

My neighborhood, therefore, has some of the important sites for those wanting to explore the history of Jews in Warsaw. The cross-street at my apartment building is named after Mordechaj Anielewicz, one of the leaders of the uprising, and a memorial stone marking the location of Miła18, the command post for the uprising, is nearby. A few blocks in the other direction is the Jewish cemetery, which is slowly being restored after years of damage and neglect resulting from the near total decimation of the Jewish population here.

Also nearby is Pawiak Prison. It dates back to the time of the Russian Empire, and it was used as a Gestapo prison during the German occupation. It was blown up and burnt near the end of the war, and only part of the entrance gate and the basement remain, which now serves as a museum

Recently, a museum dedicated to the history of Jews in Poland opened nearby. It sits in a small park that also includes a memorial to the heroes of the ghetto uprising and a plaque commemorating Willy Brandt, the former German chancellor who famously dropped to his knees in front of the memorial in apology for crimes perpetrated upon the Jews by the Nazi regime. The new museum (the opening of which was attended by the presidents of Poland and Israel, among many others) covers a 1,000 year period of which the holocaust is an important part, but not the main focus.

Living here has been a continual reminder of how complicated the recent history of Europe is, with Poland having more than its fair share of the trauma. It is heartening to see that, while some things have been paved over, much else is being retained so that the history is not. 

That's Easy for You to Say....

As I wrote a while back, I started self-studying the Polish language a few months after I arrived. I did okay for a while, but if there is something I have learned about myself it is that I do better with language when I have someone to ask questions of as I go along. As a result, I took the plunge to start formal language classes. After four weeks, I can say….holy crap, this language is not easy.

The place I signed up for teaches entirely in Polish from day 1. The self-study I had done was a life-saver at that point as I otherwise might have gotten completely frustrated and given up. Instead, the format, while slow going, is forcing me to pay more attention and practice more than I otherwise would have.

The class has been invaluable in another way – making me face that I had been completely botching a lot of things for the previous few months and pointing out to me how forgiving Polish people can be when you mangle their language. Compared to Armenia, where people seemed not to understand a lot of my early attempts, people here seem to be able to piece together the scraps I toss out and realize what I am trying to say. Still, I am looking forward to going back to the local pharmacy and see if the pharmacist reacts differently when I finally ask for a refill of something in the proper way.

One of my co-workers told me that Polish people tend to be naturally downbeat (for example, when asked “how are you?” they tend not to answer “I am well”, but instead to voice a complaint of some sort). Still, when he tried to tell me that Polish is complicated, with a lot of exceptions and exceptions to exceptions, I figured he was exaggerating a bit and asked myself “how hard can it be?”

The answer is, pretty hard. As a friend of mine once said to me about a rather demanding person we both know: “Miss [name redacted] has a lot of rules…”

One of the first things to really throw me in class was learning that many nouns have multiple plural forms, depending on how many of something you are talking about. One form applies to 2-4 of them, another for 5-21, the first again for 22-24, etc. Oh, and it’s not as simple as that – one of those forms is in the nominative case and the other in the genitive (luckily I learned about cases when I learned Armenian or my head might have exploded). Even the words “one” and “two” have different forms depending on the gender of the noun you are referring to (masculine, feminine or neuter) and whether that noun refers to a person or not.

The numbers themselves are tricky and quite a few are overly long. The word for “ninety” has sixteen letters (dziewięćdziesiąt) [pronounced like jevienchjishant] but “one hundred” is nice and easy (sto).

This week, we learned the vocabulary for referring to family members. A surprise in there was that I can’t simply say that I have four nieces: I use one word to refer to my brother’s daughter (bratanica) and another to refer to my sisters’ daughters (siostrzenica) and the words change slightly if I want to refer to my niece instead of a niece.

The good thing is that, even at this early stage of the classes, some things are making more sense to me. Some of the rules (and some of the exceptions) have a sort of logic that I can follow and some of the longer words are easier once you understand the pieces that are combined to make them up.

We haven’t gotten too much into grammar yet, and have really only started on verbs in singular forms (I already know that is a huge undertaking without even touching upon the plural forms).Still, I can now introduce myself and explain my basic background with what I am told is pretty good pronunciation. More often I can distinguish individual words and a few phrases when I hear people having a conversation and I can skim headlines in the newspaper and get the gist of some of them. Pretty good progress for four weeks, I dare say.

One thing that made me feel a bit better is that several people have told me that many Poles don't speak the language well, so nobody will expect perfection from me. I heard recently that when Lech Walęsa was president, not only did he not speak English, but he traveled with an interpreter to translate his Polish....to Polish, so that his audience could understand him. 

So maybe I can stop being so self-conscious....

I Get a Shiver in My Bones Thinking About the Weather - Part I

I have been very lucky so far with respect to the weather in Warsaw so far. My first visit two years ago was almost all blue skies and sunshine. This year, the summer has been very nice, with a few hot days but mostly warm in the afternoons and cool at night. It is not unusual to experience a temperature variation of 20-30 degrees Fahrenheit within the course of 24 hours, but I have not felt a need for air conditioning here except for a few afternoons in the office, and I have only used a fan a few nights to sleep comfortably.

There have been a lot of days like this

Humidity is nowhere near New York levels. While it rains pretty often, there have been few days that were all wet – sometimes a beautiful day will suddenly turn dark, a heavy rain will fall for half an hour and then it will clear up again. I have taken to carrying an umbrella with me at all times just in case but I don’t need one terribly often.

All over the city, I see outdoor seating areas at cafes and restaurants: along the sidewalks, on the pedestrian streets, in the main square, in the parks and along the river. On the river itself, there are decommissioned boats that have been converted to restaurants. The weather has been nice enough to take advantage of this and it is a very pleasant way to pass the time.

Not a bad place for a glass of wine on a Sunday afternoon

And then there is the light. I had not fully realized how far north Warsaw is compared to New York, so the sun is rather intense and the summer days are very long. In June, the sun was coming up between 4:00 and 4:30 AM and it didn't get dark until after 10:00 PM. I am one who can’t really sleep when there is light in my bedroom and I was tired much of the time because I couldn't get a full night’s sleep. 

But, as I have been reminded numerous times already, I will likely change my tune when winter arrives. Already I have noticed that it is dark a full hour earlier each month and I am now waking up before the sun is up.

While my skin requires me to avoid a lot of sun, I notice that people here flock outside at every opportunity when the weather is nice and some will seek out a spot in the direct sun for even a few minutes. This does not seem to be for power-tanning purposes as I have often seen in New York, but instead to take advantage of the sunlight while it is here – because for long stretches there is not much of it. 

Similar to when I was in Ireland (which is similarly changeable) a big topic of conversation is the weather, particularly as the weekends approach. And, as the foreigner in a conversation, people feel a need to warn me about what is to come. I have been told that November is the worst month to be in Poland – not the coldest but gloomy, wet, getting colder and with the days getting rapidly shorter. I've been advised to save up vacation time so I can go away then.

Whether these predictions will come true remains to be seen. From what I understand, Poland had a milder winter last year than New York did, and regardless of your belief in climate change, most people I speak to around the world agree that the patterns they have long known haven’t been holding true the past few years. So, maybe I will be lucky this winter. 

Regardless, I am in Eastern Europe and I expect a cold winter, but I am comforted by a few things – mostly that this is not Armenia. The buildings here are insulated, and I learned that I can withstand cold more easily if I know my destination will be warm. I have heat in every room in my apartment (including the bathrooms), so I know I won’t need to stay in one room for months at a time, sleep fully dressed inside a sleeping bag or set a space heater in the bathroom to plan for a shower. There is a bus that runs past both my apartment and my office (and it runs on a pretty tight schedule) so I can avoid walking and waiting in the rain or cold if need be. If the sidewalks are not cleared of ice, I have my Yak Trax that I kept from my Peace Corps days and there is nighttime street lighting so I will be able to see where the icy patches are.

Still, my time in Armenia (or maybe just getting older) has made me a little less tolerant of the cold. I'm not quite ready to move to Florida yet, but I am prepped in case it turns out to be harsh. My Kindle is loaded up, I have plenty of movies on my computer to watch, and Tunisia is a relatively short flight from here. 

Winter is coming? Bring it on.

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Part II of this will be posted sometime during or after winter. I will probably be eating those last words above by that point. 

War and Remembrance

Recently I witnessed something very interesting. At 5:00 PM on August 1, a siren sounded and when I looked out the window of my office, I saw people on the street stop where they were, many closing their eyes or looking down. Cars also stopped in the middle of the road, and some drivers got out but stood still. Other than the siren and some car horns, there wasn't a sound. After 70 seconds of this, everyone moved on.

My co-workers had told me this would happen, so it wasn't a shock to me although it was interesting to see. The reason was the annual commemoration of the start of the Warsaw Uprising, and this year marked the 70th anniversary. As I understand it, it normally lasts one minute, but it was longer this year because of that.

Before visiting Warsaw two years ago, I did not know much about the uprising (not to be confused with the Warsaw Ghetto uprising - I'll tackle that one in another post someday), but it is such a part of the fabric of the city that it is now hard to miss. My knowledge of all of the events of and issues surrounding the uprising is still limited at best, so this is not intended as a critical analysis of what transpired or its significance. Rather, it is intended as a summary of what I have learned (from Wikipedia and other sources) and a discussion of what I have observed here.

The short story is that, after nearly five years of Nazi occupation, the Polish resistance Home Army rebelled against the occupying forces on August 1, 1944. Despite being outnumbered and at a significant disadvantage in terms of military equipment, the uprising lasted for 63 days. The uprising was timed to coincide with the approach of the Soviet army so that the Home Army could work with it to expel the German army. That collaboration, however, never occurred, and the Poles were left on their own to fight. While Britain and the US airdropped supplies and some weapons, those efforts were stymied by a lack of national commitments to assist and interference created by the Soviet Union. Eventually, the uprising became a lost cause and the Poles capitulated in early October. All residents of the city were expelled and sent to concentration or labor camps, and the German army systematically destroyed most of the buildings that remained.

I have read about various reasons for the lack of cooperation by the allied forces, most pointing to an unwillingness to alienate the Soviet Union, which had encouraged the uprising (as it helped to distract Germany) but did not want it to succeed (since that might give people ideas inconsistent with the plan for Poland to be a nice Communist country). As I understand it, the latter point was illustrated by the presence of the Soviet Army being encamped in the eastern part of the city (across the Vistula river from where the fighting was going on) and essentially waiting for the uprising to fail, after which they came in and "liberated" the empty city.

I can't say I am very surprised that the uprising continued despite the lack of support. The country has been partitioned by others several times in it's history, and disappeared from the map for over a century while it was part of the pre-World War I empires. An appeal at the Paris peace conference after that war led to Poland's borders being reestablished, but that lasted barely 20 years until Germany invaded and then agreed on a split with the Soviet Union. The people here are proud of their history and their culture, and the uprising seems to me an exercise of that - an inability to let another occupation go on without a fight.

And that spirit seems to last to this day. While the uprising was ultimately unsuccessful, with casualties heavily lopsided (including up to 200,000 civilians, many of whom were massacred to stem the support for the fighters), it is obviously a point of pride that goes beyond the annual moment of silence. This may be due, in part, by the efforts to suppress it, as forbidding something seems to increase its appeal. During the communist era, teaching about the uprising was forbidden (again, not wanting to give anyone ideas), but since the fall of communism the pride has come out in force.

Not far from my office is the Warsaw Uprising Memorial, shown below.

The Warsaw Uprising Memorial covered with memorial candles on the anniversary

In another part of the city is the Warsaw Uprising Museum, It provides context about the war and occupation, the means with which the operation was carried out, information about daily life during the 63 days of the uprising and the aftermath. There are artifacts such as samples of what the British and Americans airdropped in to support the fighters, a replica of a bomber plane and video testimonials from people who took part. The only real criticism I had was that there is so much information that it is pretty much impossible to take it all in during one visit.

Throughout the city, there are commemorative plaques marking places that were notable as locations of fighting, occupied buildings, or anything else connected to the operation. Some buildings seem proudly unrenovated or carrying the evidence of battle.

The partially reconstructed Polish Bank Building 

The Institute of National Remembrance, with a seemingly bullet-ridden facade

The symbol of the uprising is visible everywhere (although it was also banned during the communist era).

On the Polish Bank building

Some of the history of the symbol and its meaning (courtesy of Wikipedia):

The Kotwica (Polish for "Anchor") was a World War II emblem of the Polish Secret State and Armia Krajowa (Home Army, or AK). It was created in 1942 by members of the AK Wawer "Small Sabotage" unit, as an easily usable emblem for the Polish struggle to regain independence. The initial meaning of the initials PW was Pomścimy Wawer ("We shall avenge Wawer"). The Wawer massacre (26–27 December 1939) was considered to be one of the first large scale massacres of Polish civilians by German troops in occupied Poland. At first, Polish scouts from sabotage groups painted the whole phrase upon walls. However, this was soon shortened to the letters PW (signifying also the phrase Polska walcząca, "Fighting Poland"), after a quick internal contest organized by the AK with the winning design by Anna Smoleńska from Gray Ranks. She died at Auschwitz in 1943, at the age of twenty-three.

The P and W initials evolved into the Kotwica - a combination of the letters which was easy and fast to paint. The Kotwica began to signify more than just its intended abbreviation, taking on more meanings such as Polska Walcząca ("Fighting Poland"), Wojsko Polskie ("Polish Army") and Powstanie Warszawskie ("Warsaw Uprising"). Eventually, the Kotwica became a patriotic symbol of defiance against occupiers and was painted in graffiti style on building walls.

The symbol is visible at important historical sites (buildings that were centers of the uprising, places where some of the main participants lived, places where significant events of the uprising took place) but it is also now one of the symbols of the city - sometimes used as a logo on souvenirs and I have also seen more than a few tattoos that incorporate it.

These monuments and commemorations, though, are not the only way you sense what transpired. Indirectly, due to the destruction, it is also reflected in the odd mix of architecture throughout the city and in some of the city planning itself. As I noted above, following the uprising, the Germans destroyed what remained of the city. As with what led to the uprising, the reason for the destruction can be debated as to whether it was direct payback for the uprising since I have read that Hitler had a plan in 1939 to level Warsaw and build a city to reflect a vision he had of what it should be. But a lot of the actual destruction occurred when Germany was already on the losing end of the war (according to Wikipedia, 15% of the city was destroyed as a result of the initial invasion or the Ghetto uprising, another 25% during the Warsaw uprising and 35% after it was quashed). I have read that the post-uprising destruction was ordered to prevent another attack (by removing potential cover foe enemies) but is also seems like an extreme example of a child flipping a game board when he is losing.

Regardless of the reason, much of the city had to be rebuilt from scratch. As a testament to the pride in history and tradition that I mentioned earlier, many of the historical buildings were reconstructed (including the one in which I work). Much as some people might gripe that the historic buildings aren't really historic because they are recreations, my response is that I have not heard similar criticism of Vienna, which I think has also done an amazing job of restoring its pre-war grandeur. And, for my part, I applaud the sentiment to reconstruct the past - for a country that had literally been wiped off the map for a while, the urge to have monuments to history is understandable.

Of course not everything was put back the way it had been, and "The Paris of the North" was replaced by various styles of Communist era creations, from the oversized Socialist Realist buildings to cookie cutter housing blocks.

Here are a couple of archival pictures I found showing the WWII destruction and either reconstruction or replacement:

The street map changed also. The street on which I live was one that had been contemplated prior to the war but wasn't carried out until the city had to decide to what extent the destruction should be taken as an opportunity to carry out planning projects (I understand Milan faced the same decision and the result is their current city layout). Here, some streets were widened, while others such as mine were paved through neighborhoods that were at that time vacant.

But the lingering effect that seems the hardest to identify or quantify is the wariness that people have when viewing recent world events, specifically in Ukraine. The promises of Russian assistance seem to be viewed with a lot of skepticism, which is understandable given what took place during World War II (partitioning the country, promised help that didn't come in time, a "rescue" that turned the country into a Soviet satellite) and that the current events are happening in the neighboring country.

Over the course of my life I have heard people say that people need to move on and "stop living in the past" when tragedies are commemorated and taught about. I have heard this opinion about the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Gyumri earthquake and, yes, the Warsaw Uprising. In my view, though, people with such an opinion have never had to live with the aftereffects of such things and haven't earned the right to criticize. While I am here, I am again seeing how limited my understanding is of dealing with unfathomable events, and again feeling lucky that I have been able to live that way.

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In connection with the anniversary commemoration of the uprising, a multimedia website was launched that give a much better overview of the context and the events than I can hope to address here. If you have some time, I encourage you to spend some time on the site (the link is here) - I know I learned a lot. 

I'd Like to Buy a Vowel, Please

Letters in this chart are trickier than they appear

I have been in Poland for nearly three months now and I am embarrassed to say that I can not yet put together a coherent sentence in Polish. While I have tried studying on my own, I have not yet taken any lessons. And, as I have mentioned before, it is pretty easy for me to get by without speaking Polish for several reasons:

• I work in an office where English is the official language.
• Many people here speak English. 
• The vast majority of restaurants I have been to have English menus and English speaking staff.
• I have an app with a pretty decent Polish translation function.
• Most movies are shown in their original language with Polish subtitles.
• Internet access gives me more sources of entertainment in English than I can possibly consume and I have not yet had my TV connected to watch Polish programming. 

I managed  pretty well with Armenian, but in that case I had mandatory language lessons starting on the day I arrived, continuing for two months, six days per week, four hours per day. I also speak passable Spanish, but I studied it in school for six years. Having to schedule around work and other things makes it harder to get myself motivated to dig in. But one thing that has held me back from diving in: the language intimidates me because there are so many rules.

I often hear that English is very difficult to learn but being a native speaker you don't really appreciate how hard it can be. I never learned about cases until I was learning Armenian; I vaguely remember being taught about things like past progressive, present perfect and other verb tenses; and other than a curiosity about etymology I would likely never know about the origin of words in English. There are definite rules in English, but at this point, I know if something sounds right or not without being able to tell someone what the grammatical rules are. 

My Armenian lessons were the first time I remember hearing about genetive, nominative, dative and indicative cases, butt luckily there were no language genders to worry about. Polish, on the other hand, has cases, genders and lots of pronunciation rules (and exceptions thereto) so there appear to be dozens of forms a word can take and different pronunciations may apply to different forms. And to my as yet untrained ears, a lot of them sound alike. I have learned from experience that listening comprehension is my weak point in language acquisition and being self conscious about making mistakes often prevents me from trying out things that I learn. 

It shouldn't be so hard. The Polish alphabet is the same as the English one, but some letters (Q V and X) are only used in foreign words that have been adopted into use here. It's pretty easy to remember that W is pronounced the way V is in English and that C is pronounced like TS. But there are four different letters or letter combinations that are pronounced like "SH" and three that sound sorta like J. Vowels with marks above or below them are pronounced differently than an English speaker would expect (some with a sort of swallowed sound). And that L with a line through it? That's like an English W. During my Peace Corps days, I knew a guy from Poland named Łukasz. Not knowing any better, we pronounced it like "Lucas". When I saw him in Warsaw after we had both left Armenia, he finally corrected my pronunciation: it sounds like "Wookash". The cities of Lódż and Wrocław are not pronounced "Loads" and "Roklaw") - they are pronounced "Woodge" (kind of a triple word score of pronunciation) and "Vrotswav". I still have a mental block about pronouncing one of the two U sounds before the W sound (as in stół, which is the word for table) but I am trying to get past that. 

Then there are the seeming lack of vowels in places. To an English speaker words one letter words like "a" (and, but) or "i" (and) are easy to understand, but not words like "w" (on, in, to) or "z" (from, with, of, about). A common name here is Piotr, and the R is almost silent, but not quite. The word "przepraszam" (to say 'excuse me') is pronounced like "sheprasham" with a hint of a "P" at the beginning. 

I've managed to get the pronunciation pretty well figured out as I have gotten some compliments on it. The problem is that I really only speak menu so far. The first words I committed to memory besides basic pleasantries are those for milk, butter, chicken, onion, honey, pepper, water, juice, beer.....you get the idea. Others I remember from hearing them so often before I even had any idea how to spell them ("następny przystanek", which means "next stop"). And words like "informacja", "normal", "dokument" and "dyrektor" are pretty easy to figure out.

Like other languages I have gotten at least familiar with, there are words in Polish that have other meanings in English. These include words such as "ten" (the masculine form of "that"), "pan" (which means "sir"), "pod" (under) but there aren't too many that I have encountered so far. 

I have not been a complete slacker, though, having availed myself to a free self-study course I was directed to online and I understand some of the basics now. And I truly do plan to take classes. While there are plenty of ways to get by here speaking English, I already run into some situations that are more difficult than they need to be, such as

• The English translations on menus aren't always accurate so I sometimes wind up with something other than I was expecting. 
• I can point at what I want in a store, but can't ask if they have something I don't see and I can't ask questions on a menu sometimes.
• Some movies from the US have scenes that are not in English and are subtitled. Not surprisingly, the subtitles are in Polish. [Thank you, director of the new Planet of the Apes movie - can we please go back to Roddy Mc Dowell in a rubber mask speaking in fine British English?]
• It is difficult to establish friendships if you have to insist on other people accommodating you.  
• Two words: Health Care. 

On the last point, there are English speaking doctors here, but not all are fluent and trying to communicate about the intricate details of dental implant procedures through an interpreter is not an ideal situation. Likewise, discovering that a prescription I was filling was not for the supply I was expecting (surprise - they don't seem to do the refills method that my local Duane Reade in New York does) was difficult to discuss with a pharmacist who spoke limited English. 

But overall, I think that at least attempting to learn the language is the right thing to do. Even if I speak poorly, I believe the effort will be appreciated and show that I am not just marking time here - that I see myself living here, even if it is for a limited duration. I will continue my self studying, sign up for a class and keep plugging away. 

So, even though I have been here nearly three months already, I guess I can also say in my defense that I have only been here for three months. Jestem tu tylko na trzy miesiące. Or something like that. 

Let's Move!

There was a lot of US press coverage recently about President Obama’s visit to Warsaw. Not about his speech congratulating Poland on the 25^th Anniversary of its first democratic vote, not about the message the visit sent about US and NATO support in the event of Russian aggression….but about his workout at a local gym.

While any security lapses that allowed a stranger to create a phone video of a head of state during a workout can be debated (and confiscating the cel phones of anyone in his proximity doesn't seem a practical plan anyway), the episode got me thinking about the differences I have observed between New York and Warsaw with respect to fitness.

In New York, I was a member of New York Sports Club, which at one point seemed to rival Starbucks for the number of locations near me, and there were three other clubs within a few blocks of my apartment. The largest chain I am aware of here, on the other hand, has four locations in all of Warsaw and the closest to me is almost a mile away. What seems to me is that there are not as many gyms per capita here as there are in New York, and the ones that do exist are surprisingly expensive compared to everything else. A full access membership in the ones I have taken a look at cost the equivalent of more than $60 per month (relatively expensive in my view), and the ones with swimming pools are considerably more. I have yet to join a gym, partly because I haven’t found one that has the combination of proximity and opening hours that I want (that, and I needed a break anyway).  The one Obama went to is in a Marriott, so I expect a lot of the clients there are hotel guests. Maybe it is just the neighborhood where I live, or maybe full-service gyms are simply not as much in demand. And I am willing to be there are probably not have gyms with a pizza night either. 

So how do people here keep in shape to offset a diet full of pork, potatoes and pierogis? Cycling, for one thing. While Warsaw is not Amsterdam, cycling is pretty popular here. The city is mostly flat and rush hour traffic can be heavy, so biking is a practical way to commute. There are bike shops all over the place, indicating to me that the cycling is not just for commuting. There are bike lanes all over the city, many of which are dedicated sections of the sidewalk. 

Follow the red brick road

For more open riding, one park I have been to (more of a nature reserve, really) seemed to draw a lot of mountain bikers on the day I visited. Similar to New York, there is a bike share program but, unlike New York, it is practically free (the annual fee is 10 zl - just over $3 - and usage charges are pretty low if you exceed 20 minutes per ride). I have yet to give it a try, being a bit hesitant to face the tram tracks (and the issues I have even with walking, which I'll get to) - which is kinda silly since I used to ride around Manhattan. Soon, though.

There are also clusters of fitness equipment in a lot of public spaces. One was installed right near my apartment just after I moved in, and it was immediately popular from what I can see. Yes, some children treat the equipment like playground apparatus, but I have seen people of all ages using it and getting kids used to exercise equipment can’t be a bad thing.

The family that exercises together....

While I have not seen as many gyms as in New York, I have seen that there are quite a few yoga studios. I dabbled a bit in yoga while in New York but am hesitant to try here since I have not learned much of the language yet and I would probably throw off a class if I did a warrior pose when I was supposed to do crow or something. I am still trying to remember how to introduce myself, so I can't devote the brain space yet to remembering  "w dół stoi pies". There are also places near me with basketball courts, indoor climbing walls and boxing. 

Running also seems popular here. The Warsaw marathon was held shortly after my arrival and I often see people running in the parks and along the streets. I don’t know if it is an established trend, but I have also seen people on roller blades occasionally. One weekend, I am not sure what the occasion was, but the street that runs past my building was shut for a while to allow a procession of seemingly thousands of skaters.

I am curious to see whether biking and running are as popular in winter, although one coworker of mine told me that he bikes in through almost any type of weather. The bike share program closes from the end of November until the beginning of March, but there will be ice skating rinks and the year-round ski slope in the city. I'm sure people find a way to stay active. 

So, if I am not going to a gym and I am not riding a bike, then what am I doing, I suppose you ask. The answer is walking as much as I can. It is my favorite way to explore a city, and I keep learning more about how the city is laid out and finding interesting pockets to go back to. The only problem is that I have yet to figure out how people move here when they are walking. In New York, people are fairly predictable in their walking patterns (even the tourists) and I developed ways to get through crowds, past people and generally stay out of people's way. Here, most walk as quickly as New Yorkers and everyone seems to be very focused on where they are going and not paying attention to others - yet they don't seem to collide with one another. I have not figured out yet why this is and, as a result, I often feel I am in someone's way, even when there are only two of us on a very wide sidewalk on a weekend when the city is empty.

But I will continue to walk, I will start to ride the bikes and soon I will start going to a gym. Winter is coming, and there are pierogis to eat. 

All Consuming

As I have been settling into my new apartment, I have been doing a lot of shopping. While the apartment I rent was furnished, I have needed to supplement the things it came with (dishes, pots/pans, etc) and want to personalize it a bit. I have needed to stock my kitchen with things to cook, I need to get my work clothes cleaned occasionally, and, as I would like to blend in a bit with the locals I have started buying some clothes also.

This is all notable because my thoughts about shopping in former communist countries are tainted by what I learned when I was growing up and as the cold war continued into my adult years. I remember a college professor I had (who had escaped from East Germany) telling the class what things were like there. She explained that, when walking down the street, if you saw a line outside a store you joined it. It didn't matter what they were selling, you bought one whether you needed it or not. If you don't want it, you can sell it to someone or trade it for something you do want. And, of course, there was this Wendy's commercial from the 80s (a favorite of mine) that spoke to the common American view of the communist world.

Well, Poland has not been a communist country for 25 years and things have changed a bit. To quote the Lonely Planet travel guide, it is "a case of goodbye Marx, hello Marks & Spencer".  There are two malls within easy walking distance of my apartment, and a third is an easy tram ride away. There are two supermarkets around the corner from me, numerous fruit and vegetable stands and the aformentioned Alkoholes. It seems that every block has a pharmacy and an eyeglass store. Unlike New York there are still bookstores everywhere. And, as I mentioned in my last post, there are the flower sellers everywhere.

As with everything, there are small differences between the shopping here and what I am used to. The first thing I confronted on my first trip to a drug store was the lack of bags. The EU had been pushing its member states to reduce the number of plastic bags in circulation so you normally don't get one unless you ask for one - and pay for it. I notice that in clothing stores, wine shops and other places where you pay more money they tend to give you one but in supermarkets and other shops you either bring your own or pay for what you need. I had been trying to do that in New York but only after I built up a supply to burn through. To avoid building up a surplus, I now tend to carry a bag with me whenever I go out in case I need to pick something up.

Then there is the idea of going to a mall to do grocery shopping. Every mall here seems to have a supermarket as an anchor tenant. While I have several to choose from near my apartment, the Carrefour supermarket at the nearby mall is Wal Mart sized and better for bigger shopping trips. You have to dodge the mall rats when heading out with your stuff but one gets used to that.

The malls themselves are pretty nice (I suppose they have not been around long enough to get run down) and have some features that I found interesting. Most seem to have a coat check, dry cleaners, and currency exchange kiosks. In addition to a food court, the ones I have been to have several full service restaurants, some with outdoor seating areas. There biggest gym near me is at a mall and is next to a pierogi restaurant (I am not sure to what extent they hurt each others business). While in Poznan (a city halfway between here and Berlin) I went to a huge mall in what had been a brewery that had art exhibits in some of the open areas.

Another interesting thing - good for convenience, but maybe not so good for stores' profit margins - is that the stores tend to be clustered together by type. If you need sneakers, the Adidas store, the Nike store and the big sports-clothing-and-equipment store are next to or across from each other. One open air shopping center in Warsaw has an entire mall with nothing but home furnishing stores.

The larger supermarkets can be overwhelming. I have seen entire aisles dedicated to bottled water, kielbasa or vodka. They are big enough that someone drives around in a zamboni to clean the floors. The Carrefour near me has a McDonald's inside.

One thing that took no getting used to is Ikea. On stepping into the store closer to me (Warsaw has two!) I appreciated part of the key to their success. If it weren't for the language on the signs, I would have sworn I was in their store in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The layout is identical, the Swedish meatballs taste the same and I think the music was the same also. There are subtle differences in merchandising (there are not king/queen/double/twin bed sizes, for example) but, like McDonald's, you know exactly what you are getting no matter which store you enter.

Because Poland is a member of the European Union, goods from other member countries are readily available. As I have already mentioned, Carrefour (France), Marks & Spencer (UK) and Ikea (Sweden) have a significant presence here. But other stores have good variety also. The wine selection ranges from all over the world, there are "specialty" sections in supermarkets (and entire shops) dedicated to cooking staples from other countries, and I have seen vegetable stands that indicate the country their produce comes from.

The old communist-era things have not yet disappeared, though. Also near me is Hala Mirowska, an old marketplace that takes me back to Armenia whenever I go there. It is a pair of beautiful old buildings with two supermarkets inside, but also including (and surrounded by) stalls where you can buy meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, individual eggs, spices, loose dry goods by the kilo, clothing, household goods and pretty much anything else you need.

Hala Mirowska

Hala Mirowska II

One of the many produce sellers

Going there is an exercise in competitive shopping, where people seem to have their favored vendors and little patience for people not as intent on their shopping as they are. I love it there, but how could you not love a place with multiple stalls selling nothing other than several varieties of cole slaw?

There are also people who have less formal "shops", whether it is someone selling strawberries out of the back of his car, the man selling socks from a table next to a bus stop, the couple selling all sorts of household items in a space adjacent to a local supermarket, the woman selling honey in the archway of a building arcade or the family with a produce stand that sets up outside my building every day. Sometimes I don't feel like walking to the mall and also want to throw some business to the little guy, plus I like to think the vegetables are a bit fresher.

So, other than the early closing hours of a lot of places that I mentioned in my last post, there is little to prevent you from getting almost anything you want when you want it - and the malls and Alkoholes are there for later hour needs. And no matter when it is, you can get flowers.

And as I mentioned before, things are a lot cheaper here, so there is more and more to buy. But that is a topic for a later day.

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A Side Trip to Montenegro

In the category of Another Sweet Business Trip, I spent a few days recently in Montenegro, a country that was formerly part of Yugoslavia. Herewith a couple of pictures and a hearty recommendation of Montenegro as a very nice place to visit.