Techniques and Technology

As of this week, I have lived 18 months in Poland. My last language class was three months ago. I still don't speak Polish.

As I have written before, it is very easy to not learn Polish when you live in Warsaw. As I have also written before, Polish is notoriously difficult to learn (even for Poles). The combination of both those factors makes it challenging to get motivated to study, and when I attend a class I always have a headache by the end (and I get tired when I do homework or do self-study).

By the end of my last language class, I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed and each new exception to the exception to the grammatical rules made me laugh out of frustration. I thought I bombed the exam at the end of the third course but was pleased to learn that I actually did pretty well. Despite the overflow my brain was feeling, I considered continuing immediately into the fourth course (because I knew I would not be able to take classes in the fall and was afraid that a long gap without classes would cause me to lose any knowledge I had built up). But then two things happened that turned out to be very good.

Firstly, the school determined that the class I wanted would not be offered during the summer. The school I have been going to will only have a course if a minimum of five students sign up. There were nine of us in course three and only two of us were willing to study in the summer - so the decision was taken out of my hands.

Secondly, my teacher recommended some books for self-study and one turned out to be perfect for the way I learn. The book illustrates that there are actually logical patterns underlying the exceptions to the exceptions to the exceptions. I understand better the dozens of ways to say "to go" and how the words are formed. I have not yet seen any logic as to why past tense is different for men and women, or why plurals are differently constructed for 2-4 of something than for any other numbers, at least the language seems to be consistent in that regard and there are rules you can follow (provided you memorize them).

One net result has been that I am studying less, although I am still studying. My current technique is a mixture of approaches:  I try to do an hour of self-study per day, reading through that grammar book a second time now, or watching Polish television or skimming a newspaper while also mentally translating all of the signage I see on the street.

A second net result, oddly enough, is that I seem to be understanding more despite studying less. Similar to when I was learning Armenian, things started to seep in when I stopped pushing myself so hard. If I eavesdrop, I still can't fully follow a conversation but more words are getting through now. If I skim a newspaper, bits and pieces break though. When I watch a movie in English and look at the Polish subtitles, I am starting to identify when translations are not literal, and sometimes understanding why they aren't. When I go to a restaurant, my Polish is still met with English responses, but when I persist in replying in Polish I make some headway and it becomes a mixed conversation. I now know enough to realize when I have made a grammatical mistake even when nobody points it out to me.

My biggest problems are still (1) listening comprehension and (2) vocabulary. The first is getting somewhat better as I understand the rules more and my ear gets more attuned to the Polish sounds. The second just requires me to knuckle down and do some regular repetition study - or try using words in real life. I confess that I have not done much of either but that is the next step after my second spin through my grammar book.

=================================

In addition to honing my learning techniques, I also paid a visit recently to the future of the past (or maybe it is the past of the future).

The Palace of Science and Culture was given that name for a reason. Beside housing a movie theater, three live theaters and a concert hall, the building also has the Museum of Technology and Industry. At the time it opened (1955) I am sure it was intended to showcase the wonders of science that the good Communist people were producing. The collection there has been broadened somewhat, but the setting doesn't seem to have changed.

The museum has sections devoted to transportation - with two halls of motorcycles (most Polish made), and another with cars and some life-size models of early aviation - as well as mining and metallurgy, computers, space exploration and music (phonographs, jukeboxes, etc).

The place is pretty run down and it seems that some of the employees have been there since opening day. Regardless, it is an interesting opportunity to see how the idea of "new and exciting" changes constantly.

The most popular exhibit the day I went was about video games. Along with their collection of seemingly every generation of computers there were video games for each system and they were available to be played. Adults were reliving their youth or showing their kids what technology was in the age before smartphones.

I suppose that the museum doesn't draw too much of a crowd since the state-of-the-art Copernicus Science Center opened a few years ago. But it seems to me (seeing as places like this put one into a mindset of thinking about the future) that the Copernicus Center could one day seem as quaint as the Muzeum Technniki looks now. As a colleague of mine told me, he used to have his parents take him there all the time when he was a kid but he hasn't been in many years (his kids want to go to the Copernicus Center all of the time). Perhaps what I saw at the Technical Museum was not only the presentation of what used to be the future, but also the future of what is now the view of the future.

Now I am getting so deep that my head is hurting the same way it does after my language classes....

The Shop Around the Corner

As with every place I visit these days, I see people all over Poland on their phones - texting, surfing the web, checking their Facebook pages, just like I see in New York. But in addition to that, I see something that I found more and more rare in New York - people reading books.

Nearly as often as I see someone walking blindly on the sidewalk because she is texting, I see someone almost walk into someone because she has her nose in a book - a real book. On the trams, buses and metro, most people have something to read - a newspaper, a magazine, a textbook, a printed book or a Kindle.

Looking on Wikipedia, I see that Poland has a 99.7% literacy rate (higher than the US which is listed at 99.0%), so maybe that is the reason. I saw an article recently that discusses the cities with the highest number of book stores per capita and that Buenos Aires is the winner. Digging into the data source, I noticed that Poland wasn't even included in the survey, so unless I go out and start counting I don't have a real comparison. Whatever the reason, in times when it seems New York has fewer and fewer book stores, it is quite refreshing to see how many Warsaw has. While it can be expected that my neighborhood should have a lot (I am near a University) and places such as train stations and airports have more than one, I see them all over the city where it is not so easily explained.

Some specialize by topic such as law or education, some are part of a chain of multimedia stores (think Tower Records back when it still existed or what Barnes & Noble still is for now), some are small and quite a few are big. Many seem to be independent, but there are several other chains that I have noticed, which is more than come to mind when I try to remember what is left in New York, I can think of three individual stores offhand that are within a few blocks of my apartment, and I can think of at least ten more without having to go too far. Striking to me is that with so much new construction in the city (most with retail space), I am seeing bookstores in those buildings also which tells me they are a growth industry rather than a sinking one.

Granted, Amazon has not fully entered the Polish market yet. While there are Amazon warehouses in the country, there is not an Amazon.pl yet (many people order from their German site). Still, even when Amazon does launch it's Polish site, it might put a dent in the number of book stores, but it will likely feed the hunger for books themselves.

Meanwhile, I just try to keep out of the way of someone with a book she literally can't put down.

=====================

Something else you can't help noticing here is how many used clothing stores there are. Not that there aren't plenty of high end places to shop also (as I have written about before) but they are all over the place. 

As with many other countries, there is a growing issue of income inequality (the perceived lack of response to which I have heard is one reason for the surprise result of the recent presidential election), and many people are living on pretty low wages. And I have read that there is some resentment to the fiscal bailout of Greece (Poland is also a member of the EU) since average wages here are lower than in Greece, 

While there are opportunities for conspicuous spending here, I have a sense that thrift is more common and there is a general aversion to debt. The used clothing stores are an emblem of that - it's not just hipsters and the poor who shop there, it seems to be a broad cross section of the population  with no shame associated with patronizing them.

And, honestly, I like some of the shirts I have bought at the Humana store better than the ones I've bought in a mall. 

=====================

Then there are the kebab stands. While I like it, Polish cuisine is pretty basic, hearty and not terribly spicy, Since the fall of communism and joining the EU, I have heard that different types of food have become trendy and seem ubiquitous until the next thing arrives (I understand that the recent sushi mania was preceded by a wave of Vietnamese restaurants) so maybe kebabs are the current fad. 

But kebab has two things going for it - it is cheap (in line with my perception of thrift as noted above) and is a very handy antidote to the high consumption rate of alcohol here. A third (more minor) factor could be that these places are open on the religious holidays on which much of Poland shuts down. 

======================

Other places I tend to see everywhere:

• Dental clinics
• Flower shops
• Travel agencies
• Bakeries and sweet shops
• Electronic cigarette shops
• Military clothing and gear

This is in addition to the pharmacies, banks, mobile phone sellers and coffee shops that seem to be overrunning every city I have been to. 

======================

These aren't the only retail spaces that I am somewhat surprised to see in abundance - there is a large supply of, shall we say, "adult emporia". Not far from my first apartment, there was a stretch of the main road (named after John Paul II, no less) on which there were at least eight adult shops all on one side of one block (the other side of the street had a lot of kebab shops). This is not a marginal area like where they cluster in New York but in the middle of a residential neighborhood. My current neighborhood doesn't have as many, but the few that are there are brightly lit, with big glass windows showing their featured merchandise. 

While the existence of the shops isn't very surprising in itself, it is a little to me because of how conservative this country remains. Wikipedia indicates that 87.5% of the population identified as Roman Catholic (2011) and, according to an article from last year on sexual norms:

In today's Poland, both doctors and pharmacists can deny women contraceptives, abortion law is the tightest in Europe (with attempts to punish women who do it illegally) and sex education practically nonexistent.
So maybe the shops are just for tourists. Or maybe it relates to what everyone is reading about...

What's In a Name?

I was talking recently with a fellow student in my language class about the impending birth of his twin sons. Like several of my other classmates, he has a Polish wife and he was describing the discussions that have been going on about naming the children.

Names here have been a little confusing to me from the beginning but I hadn't been aware of other factors that play into the naming itself, complicated when the parents are from different cultural backgrounds. In this case, the husband has specific names in mind, but he mentioned that his wife's family was involved in the conversations and they seem to have some influence in the decision. While it doesn't seem as tradition-bound as in Armenia (where I was told the new mother's mother-in-law chooses the name) this was more communal than I have seen in the US.

One problem that he was having related to (I think) one of the names ending with an "A" since in Poland that would signify a women's name. I am not aware of a single female name that does not end in A, meaning the whole joke of "It's Pat!" would fall flat here. On the other hand, I have noticed several men's names in Polish that sound like women's names in English. Marian, Kamil and Karol come to mind, although the latter is the local equivalent of Charles.

For many of the names here, it is easy to identify the English equivalent. For example, Mateusz, Marek, Łukasz and Jan are pretty easy to figure out, Małgorzata  = Margaret, and many of the female names are exactly the same although the spelling may be different (Katarzyna, Ewa, Karolina). But there are names that don't really have an English equivalent, such as Przemysław, Radysław, Wojciech, Malvina and Jagoda (the latter, by the way, means "berry").

Unlike in English, some of the diminutives of names do not have apparent connections to the formal name. Some are easy (Katarzyna => Kasia, Magdalena => Magda, Przemyslaw => Przemek) while others are a bit more difficult (Jakub => Kuba,  Joanna => Joasia => Asia) and some just confuse me (Aleksandra => Ola and Aleksander is Olek).

Since the people working in my office are from different countries, some of the diminutives differ. A Polish Ola is a Russian Sasha. It can be difficult to remember the name to use, and which person you are talking about when it is a popular name. I work with at least four Kasias and two Katias and usually have to specify which department the one I am referring to works in. This can also cause some potential awkwardness as I learned that the word "tania" in Polish is the feminine form of the adjective "cheap". I guess maybe one should stick with Tatiana....

Names pose one of the (many) complications in learning Polish as they have declensions like other nouns. The Polish equivalent of Mark is Marek (nominative case), but depending on the sentence it can be Marka (genetive and accusative cases), Markiem (instrumental case), Markowi (dative case) or Marku (locative case). Depending on your surname, it can have a declension like a noun or like an adjective. Making it more complicated, "noun" surnames may be treated differently for men and women depending on whether it is a masculine or feminine noun. Therefore, Robert Nowak's surname would change based on the grammar case (it is a masculine noun), although Kim Nowak's would not. But if the surname is a feminine noun, both sexes are treated the same. With names that are treated as adjectives, the women in a family will have a different surname than the men - Krakowska versus Krakowski - and both have multiple versions depending on the sentence.

Name days (imieniny) are important here and may be celebrated instead of birthdays (although some people celebrate both, which is good because it means more cake). Each day on the calendar is a name day for at least two names. Some common names (such as Jan) have multiple name days and you celebrate the first one following your birthday. Most of the office calendars I have seen here show the daily names and, while I have not seen it in Warsaw, I have read that some cities display them on buses.

Some of the names here can sound comical to English speakers, including the newly elected president - Andrzej Duda.

Personally, I can't hear his name without thinking of this song. But that issue cuts both ways. I was recently informed that one of the candidates in next year's presidential election has a name that Poles find amusing.

Apparently, "jeb" is the imperative form of a vulgar verb in Polish (and the exclamation point only reinforces that). In case you are wondering which word, think of what the director of a porn movie might instruct his (or her) actors to do....When I was told this, my colleague was even more amused when I informed him of the off-color alternative usage of said candidate's surname.

What's in a name, indeed. I wonder if his advisors warned him about this before his recent trip to Poland.....

Visible History

To me, one of the striking things about being in Europe is how close you can be to things you learn about in history class, read about or have just heard about your entire life.  There are an abundance of historical sites in the US, but being in a relatively young nation they don't have the same historical heft as, for example, the Coliseum in Rome.

Last year, I was reading a book that took place in various parts of the world in the decades following World War II. Sections of the book took place in Warsaw, and it was interesting for me that I knew exactly where the landmarks mentioned are. I happened to be in Berlin when I reached the part of the book about the construction of the Wall, which added another dimension to my visit of the memorial park there.

With it's complicated history, Poland has quite a few fascinating stories to tell and the country has made quite an effort to make the history visible.

Concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Majdanek are good examples. Just after it was liberated, a museum was founded on the grounds of Majdanek making it the first memorial and museum on the site of a camp. The area is largely intact and is said to include all of the victims' belongings found there upon liberation. Auschwitz was dismantled to a degree after the war but became a museum in 1947 and I recently read an article about the painful process of maintaining the exhibition without diminishing the authenticity. Such preservation was not possible with Treblinka, which was leveled by the Nazis before the Soviet army arrived, but its absence makes conserving the others more necessary.

Some sites in Warsaw that give a chilling view into history are the former Gestapo headquarters office and what remains of Pawiak prison, both of which are museums now. The two are linked because many of the people held in the prison were transported one or more times to the Gestapo office and one of the displays in both museums shows a video simulation of the route taken between the two. Much of the prison was demolished following the Warsaw Uprising but what could be preserved has been. Preservation went so far as to create a bronze cast of a tree that stood at the entrance, which replaced the actual tree when it died.  

The remains of the prison gate

Replica of the tree with badges of remembrance

The Gestapo office was in a part of the city that was used by the occupying army and therefore not destroyed, and part of it is an office area much as it would have looked during the war, including an SS officer coat on a coat rack and a framed picture of Hitler. The building that houses the museum is, fittingly, the headquarters of the Ministry of Education.

While the Old Town section of Warsaw is mostly reconstruction,  buildings that were used by the Nazi regime were not destroyed (the beautiful building where my gym is had been a bank before the war and was used by the Wehrmacht. 

Former State Agricultural Bank Building

Many buildings around the city have descriptive plaques mentioning the architect, the style and whether it is an original structure or rebuilt. One of the more interesting ones is on the Polonia Palace Hotel, which was used by the German army to house officers during the occupation, was not destroyed and became a mini-UN afterward when nineteen nations had their diplomatic missions there. 

As I wrote previously, there are memorials to the Warsaw Uprising all over the city and an information-packed museum, while there are also markers in many places where the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto once stood.  Almost every building in the ghetto was demolished before the German army departed but others from the period have been left with visible bullet holes, bomb damage and other scars.

Everything I describe above relates to World War II, but that is not the only history on display in Poland. Wilanow Palace was not destroyed and allows a view back to the 17^th century, Wawel Castle in Krakow is from the 16th and Malbork Castle near Gdansk dates back to the 13th. 

Wilanow Palace

Wawel Castle

Malbork Castle

You can also see evidence of the more recent Communist era history and its unraveling. There is a museum on the site of the Gdansk shipyard, the birthplace of the movement that eventually led to the end of communism in Poland, that provides a history lesson about the period and its end. 

European Solidarity Centre

Another view into the Communist era can be had by apartment hunting as some of the places built during that time have not been renovated. Not long ago I went to the Museum of Life under Communism, one part of which displays typical apartment furnishings from that time. 

The living room display

While it may seem like a kitschy spoof (heightened by the ABBA music playing in the background), it was very similar to an apartment I looked at when I was house hunting last year. I did not want to rent that apartment for a long period of time, but I would have loved to stay there for a few days. 

One aspect of historical preservation that is inconsistent though (at least from what I have seen in Warsaw) is architectural preservation. Many areas, such as where the Warsaw Ghetto was, were only built up gradually over the years and don't have remarkable buildings. In other areas, older buildings that were not completely demolished were rebuilt and others survived the war. I just moved into an apartment in a nicely restored building from about 100 years ago and I notice a lot of others on the street and the surrounding area that either have been or are being restored.

My new old building

In other parts of the city, however, there are buildings with good bones and character but that are currently run down. In one neighborhood (close to stops on the new metro line) t seems that no preservation is likely and the properties will be torn down and replaced by newer, bigger buildings. 

There is a lot of new construction in the area of this lonely place

Recently, however, a piece of history in Warsaw was erased - the first McDonald's that opened in Poland after the fall of Communism. While this may not seem like a big event, I am told that, to Poles, it was huge. People got dressed up for the occasion and stood in line for hours to experience a true symbol of the West.

Opening Day - June 1992

The location, and an adjoining department store that I loved browsing in, have been torn down to make way for a new office building. If the architectural renderings are to be believed, both will be revived in the new building but I think something will be lost in the process. 

Maybe a lesson can be learned from these famous quotes:

• Edmund Burke: "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it,"
• George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,"
• Winston Churchill: "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,"

The lesson may be that if the McDonald's doesn't reopen, Warsaw will be doomed to get a Chick-Fil-A.

Tongue Tied

This past week I finished my second language course. While I still cannot hold a conversation of any substance in Polish, I do feel that I am making progress. 

As I wrote a few months back, the language has a lot of rules. And when there are rules, there are exceptions to the rules. And when there are exceptions to the rules, there can be exceptions to the exceptions. But there are rules about the exceptions (and the exceptions to the exceptions) and once I get them all straight in my mind, I might become fluent. Meanwhile, I usually have a headache at the end of each class. 

I recently read an article written by a British expat who says that with dedicated study, a non-native speaker can become reasonably fluent in about three years. He also mentions a statistic that I have heard a lot that people born here are often not fluent in their own language until age 16. Why my classes would make it faster than that I don't know but I do intend to keep trying. 

So, just to provide a sample of what one needs to contend with, here are  a few things that we covered in the second course (in which we discussed the plural present tense of verbs, past tense, a shortcut to future tense - but not real future tense - and three of the seven noun cases). [Warning - grammar terms ahead]

• In the present tense, the same word is used for third person singular (he, she, it - also including the formal version of "you")

• In the past tense, there is a different verb form depending on whether the subject is masculine or feminine (I say "I was" as byłem while I woman would say byłam)

• Sometimes these different verb forms involve different verb stems (I say "I went" as szedłem while a woman would say szłam)

• There is a separate verb form for past perfect of most verbs (in the bullet point above poszedłem and poszłam) to indicate the action was completed at a specific time

• In third person singular past tense, there is also a third verb form for neutral subjects (byłe, była, było) 

• Some verbs change a letter in the verb stem when forming the past tense (rozumieć, which means "to understand" has a verb stem of rozumia- in the past tense)

• When you talk about plural past tense, this letter change continues to apply....unless one or more of the subjects is a person who is male. In that case, the letter change does not apply plus you have a different ending. For a group of women to say "we understood" would be rozumiałyśmy but if at least one of the group is a man, the word is rozumieliśmy. 

• The masculine past tense only applies to people, and not impersonal masculine subjects (such as cars and dogs). 

• There are at least four ways to say "to go" in the present tense - depending on if you are talking about on foot (iść), going on foot but mentioning frequency (chodzić), going in a vehicle (jechać) and going in a vehicle but mentioning frequency (jeździć). Two of those four (iść and jechać) each have two separate past tense forms - one for past perfect and another for past imperfect. And all of those past tense forms have different versions for masculine, feminine and neutral subjects. 

• In addition to the point above, if you toss in other variations to indicate going to somewhere przejechać, going from somewhere wyjechać, etc., you have a lot to choose from.  

When it comes to the nouns, you also have a lot to remember. If "my sister" is the subject, you use one case (moja siostra). If I want to say "I have a sister" that is a second case (mam siostrę). If I were to say I don't have a sister, that is a third case (nie mam siostry). The same works for a masculine noun - if it is alive, such as a person or an animal - but the second and third cases are the same (for "brother", mój brat, mam brata, nie mam brata). For an inanimate masculine noun (such as "car") the first and second are the same, but not the third (samochód, samochód, samochodu) plus in this case the second to last letter changes also. As I said, I have not yet learned all of the cases, so I am sure this is not the end of it. 

As I started getting more familiar with the vocabulary, some patterns started to show up and my teacher points them out as often as possible (for example, verbs starting with wy- normally have something to do with leaving, such as exit, depart, disembark, throw out, rent out. Also, the word od (sometimes) means "from" and po (sometimes) means after. But that doesn't clarify for me the build up of verbs such as "to know" (wiedzieć) "to say" (powiedzieć) "to answer" (odpowiedzieć) and how close they are to the word "to see" (widzieć).

I have been asked recently whether learning Polish is easier or harder than learning Armenian. After giving it some thought, I have concluded that Armenian was easier - not to read, not to write, but to speak. Even with the reverse sentence structure it did not seem to me that there was as much to remember about the grammar. Granted I had more intense language lessons there and more situations where nobody spoke English forced my learning, but it seems to me that Polish is just more complicated. 

Having said all of this, some of it is sinking in. I have managed a few small successes entirely in Polish (retrieving my glasses after leaving them in a theater, buying tickets for a concert, ordering in a restaurant). Although my listening comprehension is still poor, I can pick up more words than before when someone is speaking (although I really wish people would speak more slowly...). I am paying attention to the subtitles when I see movies as a supplemental study and soon will get cable TV and start watching Polish programs to see if that helps. But I doubt they could be as good as this.

=================================

Meanwhile, spring has arrived. Cumulatively, I estimate that Warsaw got about six inches of snow. I wore long underwear three times. It was achingly cold for about five days. So, in response to any fears I had about the weather....

Very ironic that I came to Eastern Europe to escape a cold winter. 

And Also With You

Lent is now upon us. 

Having grown up in New York, I am used to certain things in the lead up to Easter and hadn't considered that things here might be different beyond what I noticed last year. As I wrote then, everything shuts down on Easter Weekend, and I now have time to make plans so that I won't get caught unprepared again. But as I am learning, there are different approaches to things here that I did not know about and I am finding them as interesting as I find everything else.

As Ash Wednesday was this past week, I was prepared to see signs of it everywhere. In New York, I recall seeing people who had gone to church in the morning and had ashes on their foreheads the remainder of the day. Given that most of the Polish population in Catholic, I expected to see the same and was surprised that I saw nobody at all with ashes visible. Thinking that maybe it was more common to go to church after work (I have often seen full churches for 6 PM masses here on weekdays), I was again surprised to see no indications on my walk home later that day. That night, I learned that the custom here is for ashes to be sprinkled in your hair at church rather than put on the forehead.

Having learned about this, I started asking questions about how customs differ here from the US and learned that there are quite a few. For example, I was the godfather in Catholic churches for three of my nieces and nephews despite not having attended church regularly for decades. I am told that here the godparents need to be approved in advance of a baptism, including documentation from your parish priest that you have received all the appropriate sacraments and attend are, as I put it, "in good standing".

I am told that children in Poland tend to receive their first communion at about age 10 while I recall having mine at about age eight. Similarly, I had my confirmation in eighth grade, when most of us were 13 years old and I am told confirmations here are more in the mid- to late-teens.

Another learning experience was being introduced to the tradition of "Tłusty Czwartek" or "Fat Thursday". In preparation for the normal fasting during Lent (no sweets or meat for forty days), on the Thursday before it is traditional to eat  pączki, or, as they are called where I come from, jelly doughnuts. As most of the people in my department at work are Polish, every single office in my part of the building had piles of them. This picture is a bit of an exaggeration of what it was like, but only a bit. 

Again, I was surprised about the no meat rule during the entirety of Lent. As I recall being taught, the prohibition was no meat on Fridays only and you normally choose something else to forego the duration. I don't know how well the "fasting" is adhered to here (it's not as if the numerous burger joints are empty), but I was surprised to learn that my Catholic education from many years ago was more lenient than the current teaching in Poland. 

Holidays are also skewed toward the religious. With respect to Easter itself, it is a four-day weekend as Good Friday and Easter Monday are both national holidays and many others are religious ones. While the American tradition of Halloween is making inroads here, All Souls Day on November 1 is a much bigger deal, with most businesses closed and special transportation service to accommodate an extraordinary volume of visitors to cemeteries. 

Not least worthy of mention is the John Paul II factor. The fact that a Polish priest became pope, lent the weight of his station to help nudge along the collapse of communism in Poland and later became a saint is of no small consequence here. Upon the collapse of communism most streets, buildings, airports, etc were renamed in honor of famous Poles and he is among the honorees. The street on which I live, formerly named after Julian Marchlewski, a noted communist, is now Aleja Jana Pawła II. The day of his canonization mass was also quite a big deal, with a jumbo screen in one of the big plazas broadcasting the proceeding from Rome and yellow and white flags, balloons and banners all over the city.  

I knew coming here that Poland is more homogeneous as to religion than the US is, but I continue to come upon aspects that take me by surprise. As a result, even seemingly ordinary things are a chance to learn and I kinda like that.

==================================

On a separate note, maybe this place is blessed since the canonization. New York has been getting walloped with frigid weather and snow, while it has been relatively mild here and the dustings of snow have melted pretty quickly. I am not expecting it to be snow free from here on in, but so far so good.

So peace be with you....

Plenty to Do

While this is my second time living outside the US, it is my first living in a national capital. Having lived in New York for most of my life, I am a city person and one of the things I like about cities is the variety of culture available. While I might not take advantage of all of it, I like knowing it's there when I want it.

As I have written before, my image of Poland before I visited a few years back was tainted by cold-war images of drab communist life but with classical music. Some Polish films I have seen (such as The Decalogue) didn't present a much different picture. Like I am sure many people believe (including people in Krakow), I did not think of Warsaw as a place with a lot of things to do.

I was pleasantly surprised on my first visit, though. As a typical tourist, I spent a lot of those few days visiting the highlights of the Royal Castle, the Warsaw Uprising Museum and Wilanow Palace. I enjoyed all three of those, and have been back to each since living here, feeling rewarded by the return visit.

The Castle is a recreation, having been set bombed by the German army when Poland was first invaded in 1939 and then blown up after the Warsaw Uprising. Rebuilding did not begin until the 1970s (castles don't square well with Communism) and wasn't reopened until 1984, although some of the reconstruction is continuing.

Castle Square

Part of the interior

The Uprising museum has an overwhelming collection of information and artifacts about the lead up to World War II, the German occupation, what led people to revolt and what happened when they did. It's a fascinating place and my only criticism is that it helps to know something about it before you go in, There is so much there that multiple visits aren't wasted since there is too much to see in one.

Wilanow was built for King John III Sobieski toward the end of the 17th century and, while damaged during the war, it was not demolished. After renovations and recovery of looted artwork, it was reopened to the public in 1962. You can tour the (former) royal residence, there are gardens and a park adjacent, and there is a poster museum (apparently the first of its kind) in one of the outbuildings.

Wilanow Palace

Part of the Gardens

Those are the obvious places to visit, but since I moved here, I have discovered a lot of other things as well.

The Grand Opera house near the Old Town has the National Opera and the National Ballet. The exterior of the opera house was reconstructed after the war, but the interior is clearly Communist era. In the fall, I saw a Polish production of Madame Butterfly that I really enjoyed and learned that it had been presented at Lincoln Center a few years back. Luckily I had seen the opera before and knew the story so I didn't need the supertitles since they were in Polish.

Opera House

There is also the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, Unlike the opera house, after its home was destroyed a new building was constructed instead of being rebuilt and has a Communist era exterior. This coming Friday will be my first visit there.

Philharmonic Hall

Chopin was born near Warsaw (and his heart is actually in one of the churches) so at times the city can seem like Chopinland. In addition to the benches in and around the Old Town that play his music when a button is pushed, there is a museum dedicated to him and a series of outdoor concerts in one of the main parks every summer.

In addition to classical concerts, a variety of musicians play here (although some of the bigger ones seem to be in other cities). Recently, there were concerts by Patti Smith, Suzanne Vega and Yanni while I have the opportunity to see Toto next month if I start feeling nostalgic for my college years.

There are a lot of movie theaters here, and most of the movies are shown in their original language with Polish subtitles (unlike Russia and Armenia where everything is dubbed). Some Polish movies are shown with English subtitles, which is nice since I can otherwise only watch the American and British imports.

There are a lot of theaters with stage productions. When I arrived, Tramwaj Zwany Pożądaniem (A Streetcar Named Desire) was running. While I didn't see that, I did see a local production of Rent in Polish and I may soon see Mamma Mia which begins next month. I don't know yet if that will be in Polish, but the show is not exactly challenging material, so I don't think it would matter. 

A few of the movie theaters (and the Opera house) also have periodic broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera, the Bolshoi Ballet and the National Theater in London. While these are pricier than a regular movie (I just paid about $15 to see the Bolshoi) it is a wee bit less than the same ticket costs in New York. 

As far as museums go, there is a wide range to visit, from the expected to the oddball. The National Museum has a large collection of Polish paintings, but also has a great collection of medieval sculptures salvaged from churches around the country. There are contemporary art and modern art museums with rotating exhibits. There is an ethnographic museum, one dedicated to the history of Warsaw and another to the history of one of its neighborhoods, one dedicated to caricatures and another to Polish independence. In the past six months, I have been to the Neon Museum, the Museum of Life Under Communism, the Railway Museum, The Chopin Museum, and a museum housed in the wartime headquarters of the Gestapo. Soon will be the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the Copernicus Science Center, both of which are highly recommended, and perhaps the car museum and the Technical Museum at the Palace of Science and Culture. An added aspect about a lot of these is that the buildings in which they are housed are often as interesting as what they contain, given all the history here.

Railway Museum

Neon Museum

Museum of Life Under Communism

So, other than the numerous neighborhoods I have yet to explore and the glut of shopping malls to visit, there is plenty here to keep me from getting bored. And I forgot to mention the chocolate factory here (no news yet on whether Willy Wonka is in residence). Tours aren't open to the general public, but I have time to find my way in....