In Poland, we just smell the bread

            I am, in every definition of the word, a sun-worshipper. Which is why, when I decided to spend my spring break in sub-zero temperatures, I almost declared myself certifiably insane. For many people, Poland could be considered quite a random vacation choice. It’s not the sunniest or happiest of places, but it’s a country full of culture and history, no matter how devastating. So, when my plans came together, and Warsaw and Krakow somehow made their way into the itinerary, I thought, why not?

            As always, my trip started with a train. It always starts with a train somehow, I find. On Friday, February 18^th, I took an overnight train from Kehl to Berlin, where I was connecting for my next train to Warsaw. I must admit that I was thoroughly pleased with my digs on the Deutsche Bahn. Their reclining chairs laid back almost into beds, and I had so much space, I almost couldn’t reach my footrest! This was a welcome change of pace from flying RyanAir, let me tell you. I boarded the train around 10pm, and settled into my chair to read my book amidst the snores and heaving breathing of those already asleep. Catching a few winks myself, the 7-hour ride flew by.
           On Saturday morning, around 7am, we arrived at Berlin’s central train station, and I had my first taste of how cold this leg of my journey was to be. The station is semi-open, welcoming birds to fly in and out at their leisure and poop wherever they please. However, I did spot out of the corner of my eye, a little jewel squeezed back into the corner of the station, the blissfully familiar green and white sign of Starbucks. For my two-hour layover, I sat with my hot cup of coffee, staring out at the typically grey, winter day in Germany. When I finally boarded my train to Warsaw, my feet and hands were practically numb. Despite what anyone tells you, leather gloves do not keep you warm.

Poland. Covered with snow.

            My second train ride was rather enjoyable, as I squished into a 6-person cabin occupied by three old, Polish ladies who, resilient as they were, would not give up trying to include me in their conversations, despite the overtly obvious fact that I do not, in any capacity, speak a single word of Polish. When they finally realized my blank stares were stares of utter incomprehension rather than unawareness of their existence, they offered me candy and got back to their conversation. As we rolled along through the Polish countryside, the amount of snow on the ground seemed to increase as headed eastward. This was not a welcome sight. I am of the firm belief that snow has no purpose unless it is for skiing. Poland does not seem to agree. When I arrived in Warsaw, I had absolutely no idea where I was going. No one spoke English, I couldn’t understand the signs, and I was quite alone. My friend Nick, who I was meeting there, told me to “look for a taxi sign, and then take a right.” Simple enough. Except try finding about 500 taxi signs within 10 feet of the platform. I chose the nearest one (wrong), and ended up in an underground labyrinth of stores and shops that seemingly had no end. Spotting a coffee shop, I thought it would be best to sit and wait until I heard from Nick on where to go. I delighted in my overpriced, unpalatable cup of coffee as a refuge from the confusing maze of Polish life I had unknowingly entered below the train station.

            An hour or so later, I met Nick, and could settle in comfortably to my new Polish digs. Back at his house we enjoyed an afternoon snack of quesadillas and cupcakes, quite an odd combination, before I got the grand tour, and then prepared myself for a dinner out in downtown Warsaw. We went out to a restaurant called Kucharzy, which Nick amusingly described as a “communist restaurant”(I’m still not sure I understand why). At dinner we were five, Nick and his friend Monika, and another couple, Anastasia and Johnathan. As we walked into the restaurant, I felt I could only describe the décor of this place as sparse. Nothing on the walls, or anywhere for that matter, and seemingly covered everywhere with white tile, it can only be said that it strongly resembled my bathroom.

Tastes much better than it looks...

            Nick’s favorite thing on the menu is their steak tartar (done in a “Polish manner”, I was assured). So in an effort to do and try everything, which should be one’s motto whilst traveling, that is what I ordered. Apparently in Poland, this delicacy is accompanied by a shot of vodka. As their waiter said, “you need a tough drink to counteract the tough meat.” Being the only one eating tartar and not driving, I was on my own for the vodka shot. Oh how I love drinking alone. Not. However, I did learn an interesting Polish trick, if you will. When the vodka gets to be a bit too much, and you have the strong alcohol taste sitting in the back of your throat, you are meant to “smell the bread” to cut the taste. Let’s just say I needed about 12 pieces of bread for this shot. In other words, it doesn’t work.

            Overall, dinner was fun, and the beef tartar was thoroughly enjoyable. We spent the better part of the meal discussing how the Polish language sounds to Americans, and I think I can say, with all honesty, that when I hear Polish, it sounds like this, “smeh smeh smeh, smeh smeh.” I will not be making an effort to learn this language…After dinner we raced off to a club called Sketch, where we were to meet (get ready for this) my UVA friend Jose’s best friend from home in the Dominican Republic, Yong, who currently lives in Warsaw. How I love how small the world actually is. Sketch was crowded, seemingly the popular place in Warsaw for people to spend their nights out. We stayed until close, and then made our way back to Nick’s to get some sleep.

Warsaw Old Town

            Sunday morning we woke up to a breakfast of French toast, coffee, juice, homemade bread, and hot dogs (so random, but apparently Polish people eat these for breakfast), all prepared by the family’s amazing chef. After our meal, we decided to check out the Chopin museum, and arrived there in early afternoon. It must be said that the Frederick Chopin museum is the most poorly laid out museum I have ever been into in my life. The exhibit starts out two floors below the entrance, so that if you proceed as normal, and go to the exhibit on the first floor, you end up in the middle of his life. None of the exhibits flowed into one another and I caught myself staring at some things thinking, “why in the world is this here?” The top floor of the museum was entirely devoted to his death, which is somewhat creepy. There were even some locks of his hair on display that had been taken before his embalming. Walking through, I felt it was just a bit TMI for everything. They retell practically every letter he ever wrote in his entire life in exact detail, and even letters people wrote to one another about him. For some, it was a bit like, who cares? The museum’s attempts at being interactive were incredibly confusing, as you had to use your museum pass to play things, but your pass was coded to Polish, so if you didn’t speak Polish…well, too bad. To boot, a lot of the time the interactive bits didn’t even work. Essentially, the moral of Chopin’s story is that he was a musical genius who died young and was a big weirdo during his life. One thing that was cool though, was that they had the last piano he ever used on display inside the museum.

Enjoying Polish doughnuts

            After the museum, we went to Warsaw’s Old Town, basically the only part of the city that doesn’t look like Stalin built it. Probably because it’s the only part of the city that survived when Hitler boomed the living daylights out of Warsaw. It has windy cobblestone streets and old brick buildings, and feels a lot like old Europe. We ducked into an old church, ate Polish doughnuts (filled with marmalade, delicious), and explored as many of the little shops as we could before our hands and feet were numb from the cold. Late in the afternoon, we had lunch at a sushi restaurant, which, I’m really surprised to say, was very good. For being in the middle of Poland and not on the water, I was impressed. Afterwards, I had just enough time to change and get ready for dinner, before we dashed out to drop Monika off at the train station and make it to Yong’s for 7:30pm. The dinner was a lot of fun, as Yong had two Polish friends there to join us. They had made a delicious meal of saffron rice, salad, shrimp, and garlic bread…not very Polish, but still good! We talked a lot about life in the Dominican Republic, and Yong recounted stories of his misspent youth. One thing I did learn was that poor people in the Dominican steal manhole covers to melt them down and sell the metal. So, if you’re ever in the Dominican and see a missing manhole cover, you now know why. Apparently, Polish people also steal manhole covers for the same purpose. The average annual Polish salary is 24000 złoty, about $8,300. If you had to live off of that, you’d probably steal manhole covers too.

            After a few bottles of wine, we waxed philosophical and moved on to topics such as, “Does having a lot of money truly make you happy?”; “Is there such a thing as a selfless good deed?”; “If you were the richest person in the world, what would you do with your money?”; and my personal favorite, “Do the illuminati actually run the United States?” Looking back, I have absolutely no idea how we got onto these topics of conversation, but I must admit, it was very entertaining.

Exhibit from the Warsaw Uprising Museum

            Monday morning we were up early, as my only way into the city for my day of sightseeing was to accompany Nick as he drove to work at 8am. Let me just say that sightseeing in Warsaw, in February, when it’s -16 degrees outside, is not my idea of fun. I nabbed a cab from Nick’s office to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, using the time to test out the few words of Polish I had learned. After my complete butchering of the language and the cab driver’s inability to understand (I don’t blame him), I reverted to English and was on my way in no time. The museum itself, placed a bit outside of city center, had an incredibly austere exterior. If the cab driver hadn’t pointed the tiny, almost imperceptible sign saying, “Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego”, I would never have known this was a museum. When you walk in, the first thing you hear is the sound of planes flying overhead and bombs dropping. It was so lifelike I looked up to see what in the world it could be before I realized it was more for creating a mood inside the museum than for scaring patrons. In all of my studies of World War II, I had never even heard of the Warsaw Uprising, the event to which this entire museum is dedicated. Essentially, during the war, Hitler destroyed the city of Warsaw. He blew up the palace, stopped education for Polish children, censored all news and information, etc. Finally, in August of 1944, the Polish resistance Home Army rebelled in an effort to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. In the end, over 200,000 people died, mostly civilians.

Palace of Science and Culture

            As you walk into the museum, there is another sound that mixes in with the sound of bombs and airplanes, a sound so familiar to us, we hardly notice it anymore, the sound of the human heartbeat. The constant heartbeat is loud inside that small space, and “beats in remembrance of those who fought and perished” in the uprising. This museum, in contrast to the Chopin museum, was very well done. There was a lot to do: movies to watch, texts to read, drawers to open, and binoculars to look through to pick up pieces of information. A lot of it was nauseating. Movies of people picking up emaciated dead bodies from the street, Jews being shot, hanged, and gassed, or bodies being unceremoniously dumped into piles and then burned.

            During the rebellion, the Poles used the sewer system to carry messages and important information about Nazi whereabouts. The museum has a replica of the Warsaw sewer system that you can walk through and really feel what it was like to be down there. After exploring the museum, you begin to understand that this uprising is one of the proudest moments in Polish history. The people came together to fight their common enemy, and that is a beautiful memory in the midst of all their horror.

View from the Palace of Science and Culture

            After 2 hours in the museum, and swelling with some adopted Polish pride, I grabbed another cab back into the city to explore the Palace of Science and Culture. This downtown Warsaw monument, which was built by Stalin, has become synonymous with the city itself, and stands as the most elegant and largest building in the city. I entered the building and took the elevator up to the 30^th floor for a panoramic view of the city. To be honest, Warsaw is not the most beautiful place on earth. It’s very grey, industrial, and looks as if construction is going on all over the city. From the Palace of Science and Culture, you can’t see the one building that makes the city stand out because you’re in it! When you ride the elevator down from the 30^th floor balcony, it does not take you back to where you started. Confusion begins. It drops you down into an exhibit about evolution, that even if you don’t want to see, you’re forced to. There was seemingly no exit to this place, and as I was wandering around the endless halls, looking for some way to get out, I actually thought I would be trapped there for hours, with no one in sight, no service on my phone, and if someone did eventually come, I wouldn’t even be able to explain to them the problem because I didn’t speak Polish. I managed to escape after a number of minutes, and welcomed the fresh air outside.

"Here lies the heart of Frederick Chopin"

            I walked a good twenty minutes or so in the direction of a church across town where Chopin’s heart is buried. Spying a coffee shop out of the corner of my eye, and knowing I had a good book in my bag, I popped in for a good hour and half to relax and read before finding the heart. I did eventually make it to the Church of the Holy Cross, which has the most gilding I’ve ever seen inside a church (in addition to the heart). There are incredible paintings and triptychs, and it was so quiet, I could just sit and soak up the art and religion. After some peaceful contemplation, I walked to the Church of the Nuns of the Visitation, one of Warsaw’s oldest buildings. Not being able to read the sign in Polish on the door, and oblivious to a very specific car parked outside, I waltzed into the church, only to find that I had stumbled upon a funeral. The car? A hearse. The sign in Polish? Probably said, “Do Not Disturb”. It’s times like this when I wished I understood at least a little of this complex language…

            I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city, doing a bit of shopping, and waiting for Nick to get off work. When he did, we went out to a classy little bar for a glass of wine, and then home for an amazing dinner of pierogi, which are essentially boiled, fried, or baked dumplings filled with a multitude of foods. For the main course, one can have pierogi stuffed with meat or potato, and for dessert, ones filled with fruit or cheese, topped by a special cream sauce. Afterwards, because Nick wanted to complete my knowledge of the Warsaw Uprising and WWII, we watched The Pianist, a Roman Polanski film in which Adrian Brody plays a Jewish musician who struggles to survive in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw during the war. If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s a great film.

Krakow

            On Tuesday morning, I was up early to pack, shower, and eat breakfast all before I needed to catch my 9:30am train to Krakow. As Nick had to work, his brother drove me to train station, and thank god he did, because I otherwise would never have made my train. Here is the thing about Polish train stations: no one speaks English. On top of this fact, none of the announcements are in any language other than Polish, so if the platform of your train gets changed, and you don’t speak Polish, you’ll most likely miss the train altogether. Feeling quite helpless, Mike helped me get my ticket, find the platform, and decipher which wagon and seat I was in. After that, the train ride itself was easy. Once in Krakow, I found my way easily to my hostel, as it was on the main square in Krakow that constitutes most of the tourist beat. After settling in and booking my Auschwitz tour for the next day, I went to have lunch and walk around for a bit.

Pierogi

          Taking a recommendation from the Krakow native running the hostel, I went to a place called Babci Maliny, a restaurant that was decorated much as if the Victorian age had never ended. There were copious amounts of pink lace, velvet, dainty chairs, and kitschy Polish paraphernalia that decorated the subterranean restaurant. Still on a pierogi kick, I decided to order one of their specials, a plate that came with three different kind of pierogi: Russian, which are filled with cheese and potato, meat (which were my favorite), and mushroom and cabbage (not so good). I also had a small side of Cracovian potoatos, which were to die for, if you like dill. Basically I spelled lunch C.A.R.B.S., but it was delicious. Not able to finish the meal, as there was too much of the very heavy and filling food, I moved on to do some sight seeing. One of the landmarks of Krakow is Saint Mary’s Basilica, which houses the Veit Stoss Altar. The church itself, built in the end of the 13^th century, is a perfect example of Gothic architecture in Poland (or so I was told). The interior is predominantly painted in gold and blue, with symbols of the Polish monarchy on the walls. It’s relatively dark, but as you look towards the altarpiece, with the stained glass windows behind it and the ornate ceiling above, it generates a light that is powerful and overwhelming. The altarpiece, which was designed for the worship of St. Mary, is the largest Gothic altarpiece in the world, created in the 15^th century by sculptor Veit Stoss and funded by the townspeople of Krakow.

Cloth Hall

            After visiting the church, I made my way to the Cloth Hall, a sort of central market that has all kinds of jewelry, devotional objects, furs, leather goods, souvenirs, glass, pottery, etc. You name it, they probably have it. It used to host the city’s central market, but is now home to Krakow’s biggest tourist trap. As I walked around outside, I noticed how much the city was a mix of traditional and modern. For example, you’ll find the Hard Rock Café in an old, prewar building, sitting right next to St. Mary’s Basilica. It’s much prettier than Warsaw because it wasn’t bombed and ruined by the Nazis. After the Cloth Hall, I walked to Wawel Castle and Cathedral, built in the 14^th century. As luck would have it, all of the exhibits inside the castle were closed, but the cathedral was still open to the public. Essentially the Westminster of Poland, Wawel Cathedral is the burial place of many Polish kings, queens, and princesses, as well as poets, musicians, bishops, etc. The church, fitting in with all the other Polish churches I have seen, is impressive. It is very ornate on the inside, with many little chapels and monumental tombs. As I walked outside the church, the snow started to fall in tiny flakes, which cast a romantic glow over the whole castle and cathedral exterior. I walked home not hating the snow, but rather enjoying it for the first time in a while.

Wawel Cathedral

            Back at the hostel, I met the two girls sharing my room, Sunita and Sheena, two Canadian girls who were traveling all over Eastern Europe for about 6 weeks. Still full from our respective lunches, we decided to go out to grab a drink together. As always, we looked for the quirkiest and most idiosyncratic place we could find: The Mexican. A clever name for this tiny hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant that served by far the weirdest tortilla soup I have ever seen. Basically a mix of whatever was left in the kitchen, the girls’ soups looked like chicken broth mixed with kidney beans, whole tortilla chips, cheese, and peppers. Happily content with my Corona, I found the “Zorro” that zoomed around the restaurant with sparklers to be the highlight of my evening.

            The next morning, the three of us ventured out for our tour to Auschwitz-Birkinau. Now, I don’t have to tell you how depressing and sobering the experience was. But I will tell you some of the things that astonished me throughout the day, and some of the facts I had never really comprehended before visiting this place of horror for myself.

            Over one million, one hundred thousand people died in Auschwitz during World War II. Established in 1940, it was the largest Nazi death camp, equipped with four crematoria, 46 furnaces, and barracks that each housed over one thousand people, six to a bunk. Almost all the Jewish children that were sent to this camp were murdered. And of the 1,300,000 people sent here, only 200,000 made it out alive. Auschwitz was chosen as the perfect place for a concentration camp because it had previously been a Polish garrison, so there were already barracks here. It was isolated and the area had never been bombed by the Allies. In 1942, the Nazi’s decided that the “solution to the Jewish problem” was their complete and total annihilation. For whatever reason, the majority of Jews at this time lived in Poland - over 3.5 million. Today in Poland there are only 12,000 Jews.

Gate to Auschwitz

            Of the 1.3 million people at Auschwitz, 90% of those killed were Jews. Others included Soviet prisoners of war, Polish political prisoners, gypsys, etc. Our guide’s uncle was among those sent to Auschwitz to die. As we toured through the barracks, now converted into museums telling the story of the concentration camp, our guide explained that “nothing in the camp went to waste”. All of the belongings that people brought with them to the camp were taken, sorted, and sent back to the Third Reich to be sold. Their shoes, combs, cooking utensils, suitcases, crutches, eyeglasses, prosthetic legs, etc. Everything. Even their hair was taken to be made into yarn. I had to resist the urge to vomit as I walked into a room where over 2 tons of human hair sat piled up behind the glass window. In the next room sat thousands upon thousands of suitcases with peoples’ names, dates of birth, and country of origin written on them. Sarah, being a Hebrew name, was written on more than a few.

            In some of the barracks, pictures of those who died at the camp adorn the walls, with their dates of entry into the camp, and their “date of expiry”. Many died within just days or weeks of arrival. We toured the torture units, where the Nazis had “starvation cells”, “suffocation cells”, and “standing cells”. We went inside the gas chambers and crematorium where so many were killed. A sign read, “you are standing inside a building where the SS killed thousands of people.” To stand where they had, decades before, been led to their deaths, was a lot to handle. As we walked around, our guide explained the “industrial genocide” that occurred in Auschwitz. On the bus ride home, it was hard to shake the mood from the experience.

Smalec. Nasty, nasty, nasty.

            A few hours after our return, the girls and I had regained our appetites, and decided to try a restaurant that Nick had recommended. We found Chlopskie Jadlo not far off the main tourist beat, in a comfortable, farmhouse-type atmosphere. Much like how you’ll find bread on the table in an Italian restaurant, or tortilla chips in a Mexican restaurant, a loaf of bread was placed on our table with two condiments. One was a white cheese, that looked basically like cream cheese with dill and cucumber, and the other, which before knowing what it truly was, I could only described as Thanksgiving in a bowl, and not in a good way. It was incredibly salty and tasted of some kind of unidentifiable meat. When we finally asked the waitress what it was, she said, “Oh, pork fat and lard,” like it was the most normal thing in the world. Known to Poles as smalec. It's apparently a peasant dish. I could not believe I had tried it. Again in an effort to try everything once, I ordered some typical Polish dishes. To start, I had a cup of rye flour soup, which was so sour and bitter that I had about two bites and had to stop (I also found some unidentifiable chunks at the bottom that I was not about to risk). For my main meal, I ordered a special Polish dish that has no English name. It came with three different kinds of meat, including ham, sausage and chicken (I think), plus roasted potatoes in a yogurt-based sauce with dill (they really like dill here). The meat was made with lots of garlic and other spices, and altogether, that part of the meal was not so bad.

            Later that evening the girls left for the train station, and I was alone in our room. Alone with my thoughts. Not able to shake what I had seen earlier, I decided to take a few Benadryl and get a good night’s sleep before traveling early to Scotland the next morning. Having spent a good five days trapped in a vivid memory of Hitler and WWII, I knew I would welcome Edinburgh’s more pleasant history…