July 20, 2013 · 3:43 pm

Being gay in Poland – what I learned from two young bright lesbians

Photo of the steps of the United States Supreme Court building on the morning of June 26, 2013, hours before the court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act.

You meet interesting people on trains and so I did on a recent trip from Germany to Poland: two bright, articulate, young Polish women who, as it turns out, are a couple. We got to chatting during a long train ride and the topic somehow moved onto the subject of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions in June that strengthened gay rights. The women talked about how heartened and moved they were by the advances in gay rights in the U.S. – and then gradually mentioned that they were a couple and had few such rights in Poland, in part due to the pervasive conservative influence of the Catholic church.

One woman, college-age, said she could not tell her parents she is gay because they are very conservative (anti-gay, anti-Semitic et.al.)  and definitely would not approve. The other woman, slightly older, said she’d told her parents and was surprised and pleased that they accepted the news reasonably well. I felt for them – and it reminded me that the fight for gay rights in the U.S. is being closely watched by gays/lesbians elsewhere who, alas, have an even tougher fight.  Interestingly, this conversation took place after a young guy who was also in our train cabin  left for a bit. When he returned, the women and I exchanged a quick knowing look and changed the subject.

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July 19, 2013 · 2:49 pm

Arriving home from abroad to: Google page now in German

After traveling for three weeks through four different countries, using a variety of computers but primarily my ipad, I’ve returned home to a strange dilemma: my google page is now in German. At first I found it amusing but it’s starting to get on my nerves and I can’t figure out how to change it back to English.  Below is what my Google news looks like.  (Oddly it still comes up as “Google News” but my weather comes up as “wetter”; my date/time as “datum & uhrzeit” ).

Ach! (We think that may be the German equivalent of “arg!”)

Wer mit dem Boot nach Australien flieht, wird künftig nach Papua-Neuguinea abgeschoben. Mit einem Abkommen will die Regierung Wirtschaftsflüchtlinge abschrecken. © Scott Fisher/GettyImages. Bootsflüchtlinge vor der australischen Weihnachtsinsel im …
Energiepolitik Wirbel um Atomkraft-Pläne der EU-Kommission – FAZ – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
19.07.2013 · Die EU-Kommission hat Medienberichten widersprochen, wonach sie künftig den Bau von Atomkraftwerken fördern will. „Die EU-Kommission möchte in keiner Form zu Subventionen für Kernkraft ermuntern”, sagte der Sprecher von …
Erst verhaftet, jetzt vorerst frei – Russland rätselt über die Wende im Fall von Alexej Nawalny. Schon machen Verschwörungstheorien die Runde: Putin-Anhänger könnten interveniert haben, aus Angst, der Kreml schade sich mit dem drakonischen Urteil …
Die Enthüllungen des ehemaligen US-Geheimdienstmitarbeiters Edward Snowden haben für einen weltweiten Aufschrei gesorgt. Ein Vertrauter Snowdens kündigte nun weitere

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July 18, 2013 · 3:19 am

Steamy Chicago: eating Cuban and afghani food

Back to the USA and steamy weather – it reminded me just how lucky we were with our weather in Europe, which was warm but not muggy or humid. (When I changed planes in London Monday, it had become beastly hot.)

I met my son and stepdaughter, who both work downtown, for lunch at a good Cuban restaurant, Cafecito at 26 E. Congress Pkway (good pressed sandwiches, salads, soup, coffee and loved that it is next door to Chicago’s youth hostel); later visited the farmers market next to the federal building at Jackson and Dearborn where my son’s working (summer internship with a U.S. senator), buying some cherries, raspberries and peaches from vendors with farms in my home state of Michigan.

At night, when I took a wrong train and ended up in Skokie rather than Evanston, my son and I ended up at an excellent Afghani restaurant in Skokie – Kabul House. I had a delicious dish – lamb stew served over sautéed spinach that reminded me a bit of saag paneer.

The Sunday before I left for London (that seems like a long time ago) my aunt took us to several places she’d discovered and we’d never seen before including:

– Prairie Avenue, which has some of Chicago’s oldest homes, and a nice café.

– A hidden new neighborhood just north of the Harris Theater in Millennium Park.

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July 15, 2013 · 6:50 am

Prague Castle and thereabouts

133.JPGAnother day of perfect weather Sunday and we joined hordes of tourists — no joke, I’m talking Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade size crowds, Iowa State Fair Size crowds, Obama’s (first) inauguration size crowds – crossing the fabled Charles Bridge to head up the hill to the Prague Castle complex, a series of grand buildings centered around the massive St.Vitus Church, where we watched the rather amusing changing of the guards, who wore shades and powder blue uniforms designed by Hollywood director Milos Foreman’s costume designer Theodor Pistek (at the then-new president Vaclav Havel’s request, no less!). (see bottom photo) Church construction began in 1344 and ended in 1921. yes, you read that right. Although the glorious Alfons Mucha art nouveau stained lass window came later, in 1931. (This trip has made me a mucho Mucha fan.)

Much of the complex required an admission ticket, alas, which we didn’t feel like paying. We did pay to wind down from the palace through some lovely terraced formal Royal gardens (
Zahrady gardens) and landed at Besada, a surprisingly good restaurant in Malostranska Square for lunch that we just chanced upon, that served surprisingly good hearty Czech food- snitzel, pork medallions, potatoes, potato and sauerkraut pancakes.

Next stop, we walked up and up and up steps of a nearby park to the funicular, which we used to sail down the north bank. Then we walked along the river, admiring the boats and the Sunday strollers until we reached the Charles Bridge again, this time dominated by a French food fair and a boisterous French brass band that the locals and tourists seemed to love.

Back at our pension, the lovely Green Garland Pension (Pension U Zeleneho Vence) on Retezov Street, we had one last coffee (tea for some) at Montmarte, an atmospheric cafe across the street and excellent gelato at a good place near the hotel, Creameries Milano ( 12 Husova) before bidding a sad goodbye to our London friends who flew home to London. We had adequate Italian food near our hotel at Olive Nera, enjoying eating at the outdoor cafe overlooking a pretty square and people watching. (Our evening was marred only briefly by a garbage truck that parked right in front of our table to pick up, slowly, the trash. On a Sunday night no less.)

On Monday morning we took one last wander around the area behind the big church in the Od Town square, finding even more gorgeous art nouveau and art deco buildings. And then off to Prague’s airport where I flew to London (on a decent British Airways flight) and then to Chicago (on a worn-out American Airlines plane)  after going through three security checkpoints for that flight alone. (Another in Prague.)

 

 

 

 

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July 12, 2013 · 10:16 pm

Prague fairyland

146.JPGPrague is stunning. My neck seems to be locked in an upward position as I walk through the OlD Town staring up at one spectacularly ornate building facade and church after another. Ornate decorative details everywhere you look, rococo and baroque and art nouveau; buildings adorned with sculptures of buxom women, elaborate iron balconies, gold leaf, geometric patterns. My favorite today hands down was the incredible art nouveau Municipal Building and a small museum devoted to the work of alphonse Mucha. Also walked across the Charles Bridge in early eve.

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Prague Castle

We are staying in the heart of it all at the Green Garland Pension, a 14th century building on Retezova Street, a narrow street made of old paving stones. Already we have eaten very well, first at The Bake Shop, which we found instead of the Jewish deli we were looking for and has a wide selection of salads, breads, meats, pastries; later at Club architecture, which served nouvous Czech cuisine…I had an excellent beef goulash with dumplings. We also had coffee yesterday morning across,the street at an old place called Montmarte and beer at a brew pub down the street and tonight at another bohemian bar, Literati Kavarna Retezova.

Tonight we splurged for Russ’s 56th birthday at Celeste, a fancy French restaurant atop Frank Gehry’s building on the river known as Dancing House (because you cn almost make out ginger and fred dancing). excellent food, spectacular view of the castle across the river high on a hill above the river. AFter that went to a small cavernous blues club around the block from our pension to hear a band fronted by a guy from small town Oklahoma.

We also had good thin crust pizza at a little open air place near Wenceslas Square, pulcinella, (via melantrichova #11) and coffee and pastry at a hard to find place, Mysak, opened on 1911.

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Municipal Building

We toured several,incredibly beautiful synagogues and a very old Jewish cemetery in the Jewish district, including one temple,where the walls are painted with thousands of names, one afte another after another of Czech jews who died in the holocaust. very moving. We also walked across the elegant Charles Bridge and into the main town square.

we met up,as planned with our friends from London Francine and Russ who,we,last traveled with last october in New Orleans. I have traveled,to 17 places and counting with Franc during our 34 year friendship, about a third if those the trips with our husbands in tow, to a,variety of places from Arkansas to Ireland, Santa Fe to Paris.

 

 

 

 

 

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July 11, 2013 · 8:55 am

krakow This and that

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Klezmer Place in Old Town

OLD TOWN

Bar Smak, for Bigos, pickled cabbage with bits of meat, sausage, onion,garlic,mushroom, and pierogi filled with spinach.
– CK Browar, well known microbrewery, classic beer hall interior, cloudy warm ginger, wheat, dark, light beer
– Yellow Dog, hip minimalist Asian restaurant looked good but decided to stick with bar Smak, small untrendy,popular with locals. When else will we have authentic Polish food?

KAZIMIERZ
– Plac Nowy outdoor grill for kielbasa and fruit stands for fresh blueberries, raspberries, cherries(we couldn’t bring ourselves to try the zaplekanka, a toasted pizza – ish half an old baguette topped with
Smoked Cheese, salami, garlic sauce, mushrooms, pickles, whatever. We saw people eating this late at night, presumably taking a break from a beer garden.
– beer garden across the street from our Kupa Street hotel, Karmel,, on Jozefa Street.
-warsztat, recommended little restaurant among the busy ones on the one block but hopping Izaake Street, just north of our hotel.

OLD TOWN
– Watched troupe of German kids perform quasi circus tricks (unicycles, juggling, acrobatics, dance) before a large crowd in Rynek Glowny, the elegant main square that’s reportedly Central Europe’s largest square (not Europe’s as previously written here.)

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Young traveler from south America who we met on a walking tour

FREE WALKING TOUR
We spent much of our last day in krakow on a free walking tour, first of,the,Jewish district and then of the old town. Great deal. Our guide worked for tips,which we gave him. he was funny and well informed and we also met a sweet 23 year old guy from Chile who reminded me a bit of my son and of my much younger self. He was traveling on a budget of 15 euro a day (about $20), hitch hiking and sleeping at hostels or couch surfing (something they did not have in my carefree youth.) It was fun to meet people from so many places on our English speaking tour – Ireland, Mexico, Portugal, Kurdistan, Idaho, Pennsylvania. We had drinks with an Indian guy from Stockholm.

TRAIN from Krakow to PRAGUE
And now we are on the overnight train to Prague which is all good except that our sleeping cabin is next to a loud American woman whom is having an argument with her grown son who apparently doesn’t appreciate the trip she is funding. My ear plugs are not up to the challenge. I may have to resort to my iPod which Dirck, on the upper bunk, has already employed. I am definitely glad that we booked these tickets well In advance because the sleeping cabins appear to be full. photos below of area outside train station in Prague and aboard krakow-Prague train.

 

 

 

 

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July 11, 2013 · 5:57 am

Auschwitz – Birkenau visit suggestions, early thoughts

I am still working through my thoughts about visiting the Auschwitz-birkenau death/concentration camps but I can share some insights about the logistics of visiting the place (I.e. the far easier stuff) and, during that process, some initial raw thoughts:

– The trip did, as promised, take most of the day. Prepare to be exhausted, physically (especially if you are walking long distances in the seering sun, as we were). And exhausted emotionally. The bus ride there took about 1 hour 20 minutes, each way. The tour takes about 3.5 hours, the first two at Auschwitz, the last at Birkenau nearby (shuttle bus transport provided.)

– No need to join a tour group to visit. It’s not hard to visit on your own.

– We.took a bus from Krakow’s main bus station north of Old Town directly to the site, now a museum. The Train doesn’t leave as frequently and doesn’t go directly to the museum but instead to the town of Oswiecim, the town where Auschwitz is located.

– You buy your bus ticket on the bus from the driver. Exact change not needed. (This would have been helpful to know. Instead we stood unnecessarily in two lines…)

– The bus comes about twice an hour from what we could tell. The return bus was particularly packed with hot, tired, sometimes cranky travelers.

– The place was swamped with visitors but mainly well organized after some initial chaos. People are divided into large groups, by language, and led through both camps with a guide. We also received headsets so we could hear the guide better. Our guide was informative, as expected, and more caustic than expected, clearly repulsed by what he was showing us but convinced of the need to show us. Hard, strange job to have.

– Our English speaking group had only a few Americans. most people were from other European countries. There was also a family from Israel with three elementary school age children. I was surprised by how many children were there. Not sure I would bring my kids when they were grade school age. The guide told parents not to bring their kids into certain rooms and the parents complied.

– There were many very sad and disturbing things on display…piles of abandoned suitcases, the keys of people who locked the doors to their homes when they were deported (thinking they would return), huge piles of human hair, human ashes, photos of emancipated people and their pitiful daily food ration, the large model of the gas chamber and the chilling detail about its efficient design and operation. What got me most, in a tangible emotional way, was anything to do with children – the discarded baby clothes, the haunting “official” Nazi photos of children, some eyes almost lifeless, some eyes too full of life and clouded with tears.

-Do not skip,the Birkenau visit. It is a particularly haunting and moving place that in some ways matched my preconceptions about death/concentration camps even more than Auschwitz, with its vast size (25 times the size of auschwitz); long abandoned railroad track leading from the imposing dark brick building st the gate deep into the camp which has some remaining barracks but also the burnt out shells of many burned out others; the swampy lagoon containing the ashes of so many murdered people; the dark chicken coop like barracks for human beings with rows of worn three level bunks where people were packed like sardines (or chickens) into each level. Hard. Wood. Primitive. Barbaric. Dehumanizing. Unfathomable. Heartbreaking. Evil.

– Go even if you don’t really want to and aren’t sure you can bear it. You will be glad in the end that you and some many others bore witness; that it is there for people to see. It has to be seen to be believed, even if its hard to see or believe or understand.

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July 11, 2013 · 4:33 am

To Auschwitz – Birkenau

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July 9, 2013 · 3:21 pm

Schindler factory, Podgorze Ghetto, Mocak (contemporary art museum) – Krakow

Oskar Schindler’s famous factory in an industrial area of the Podgorze neighborhood south of the Wisla River (and south of the Kazimierz district where we are staying) has been turned into a very powerful museum tracing the history of the 5+ years of the Nazi occupation of Krakow and Poland and the devastating effects for Jews and other Poles. Apparently Steven Spielberg helped increase tourism to Podgorez and especially Kazimierz by filming “Schindler’s list” on site. Like the Solidarity Museum in Gdansk, this museum uses artifacts, old photos, old films, survivor interviews and recreated settings to give you a real feel for the time and place. Like the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, I found that I got choked up at first but then quickly sobered and pushed through the museum. We will see it this works with Auschwitz, which I am trying to steel myself for a visit tomorrow.

Podgorze was the Jewish ghetto where Jews in the Kazimierz neighborhood and elsewhere in Krakow were forced to relocate by the Nazis before they were moved to concentration camps. Today, there are plaques all over the area explaining what various buildings and sites became during the Nazi era, including most powerfully a central square where Jews were deported, beaten, executed, separated from their families et al. Today it is an expanse of asphalt with a sculptural tribute – 70 large metal and achingly empty chairs and is called Ghetto Heroes Square (Plac Bohaterow Getta). Holocaust tourism, for lack of a better phrase, is a strange thing,because you cannot help,but feel uncomfortable about it,,guilty even.

We also visited some far more cheerful places in the area including MOCAK, a contemporary art museum in a striking modern building next to Schindler’s factory and BAL, a hipster cafe/restaurant with artsy people hidden in a still industrial area behind MOCAK (and tricky to find). It is on Slusarska Street, an evocative name for us since it is very close to the last name of good friends of ours back in Iowa.

We trekked back to Kazimierz, crossing a cool new pedestrian/bike footbridge whose grates are filed with padlocks, each inscribed with the names of lovers and sometimes dates ( apparently this is a tradition akin to the one D. saw in Odessa, where newlyweds declare their undying love by padlocking the bridge and throwing the key into the river). we rested our (yes) aching feet at Mieckamia, one of Kracows most scenic beer gardens, on Mleczarnia Street near the central hub of Plac Nowy, where we later picked up some blueberries and cherries at the fruit stalls (I was also tempted to buy some of the dill pickles, which looked like the kind we had for breakfast.)

Tonight we went to Klezmer Haus, an old restaurant serving Jewish,food and klezmer music. Nice to see some jewish traditions still alive….excellent “Jewish caviar” aka chopped liver although different then my grandma’s, not creamy but instead dry chopped liver with shredded egg on top.

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July 9, 2013 · 6:55 am

Drawn to my heritage in Krakow

No, I am not Polish. (Or I sort of may be because like a lot of American Jews I am not sure where all of my ancestors came from and I do know that some came for parts of Lithuania that were once parts of Poland). But certainly I identify more with being Jewish than Polish, which explains in part why I was drawn from the start to Kazimierz, the historic Jewish district of Krakow. (I was also attracted by its reputation as the happening, sub-culture district.)

Still I was a little worried that we should have stayed in the picture postcard perfect Old Town, about 20 minutes walk north of Kazimierz…until we got here (our train arrived right on time by the way, despite the dire predictions of our Polish friends). Old Town is spectacular, with the largest Medieval square in Europe, full of imposing churches and other historic buildings. (Our terrific guide “In your Pocket” described the buildings as looking like they were sculpted out of marzipan.) But there are tons of tourists and the place looks almost too perfect.

We like the rough around the edges Bohemian Lower East Side (another NYC comparison, cant help myself) feel of Kazimierz which has a more grubby and much smaller but somehow endearing square Pl. Nowy, with a flea market and a strange round building selling a popular street food that’s basically a pizza bread. We also like our sweet old 11-room Hotel Karmel, on Kupa street, right in the middle of the district. It is an old fashioned place, with a light wood central (no elevator) leading two flights up to our narrow room with light yellow walls and drapery and an old wooden armoire. I am also intrigued by all the Jewish buildings and the hopping cafes, boUtiques with handmade dolls, and beer gardens. Its an interesting mix of Old World and edgy.

For dinner we went to Szara, one of the restaurants lining u. Szeroka, many of them Jewish, serving Jewish food and klezmer music. Pork chop and grilled salmon and potatoes and oneof the better mixed green salads we have had during the trip. Also went to a beer garden down the street from our hotel where Dirck mistakenly ordered a liter of beer (enormous…see foto below). Also had Krakow’s famous apple pie, Szarlotka, and coffee at the old cafe, Noworolski in Old Town in the Cloth Hall where comrade Lenin hung out, and after that, alas, lots of Nazis.
A few random observations:
– There sure are a lot of stunning Polish women.
– The names of Polish towns remind me of the lines you are asked to read on an eye chart at the optician’s. ex: TCZEW ( one town we passed on the train ride here). Imagine trying to pronounce that.
– We haven’t seen (or heard) many U.S. tourists. More of the English speakers appear to be Brits.
– the best thing at our hotel breakfast this morning was the sour dill kosher pickles, akin to my favorites at home but I found it hard to eat them first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee.
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