Torun is celebrating its 777th year as a city.
Last year at camp students sang the praises of Obama. Partly they'd gotten caught up in the fever of "hope." As victims of history, I think they identified with a black American. Bush was not well-liked in Europe, period.
But this year it seems their "hopes" have been shattered. And it's almost entirely centered on Obama's not coming to the big state funeral for the Polish president and others killed, in April. Obama & many other world leaders didn't come, because of the volcano's effect on air-traffic. But Poles say he could've gotten here through a more northerly route. And they're doubly insulted because of images showing him golfing during that weekend, as though he turned down the funeral so he could go golfing.
This being a politician is a hard row to hoe...
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Cold beer & a pronunciation test
Last night's new beer was Czarne Fortuna ('"black luck?"), a black, sweet, honey & spiced beer, brewed in Szceczin by Browar. Way too sweet for me.
There's another Polish beer called "Lech," which was also the first name of the Polish president killed in the airplane crash near Katyn this spring -- Lech Kaczynski. He was not all that popular at the time, though his martyrdom improved his standing among SOME Poles. Not all. A Polish student told me, last night, that shortly after the crash, a big billboard went up in Sczeczin which said: "Cold Lech is the best."
When Judy & I were picking grapes in the Beaujolais region of France, eons ago, one of our co-workers, French, told us that during WWII the French used the word "ronronner," which is the word for "to purr," and is very hard to pronounce correctly, to determine if a suspected spy was really French or a German in disguise, because the German would not be able to pronounce it.
Yesterday the student Kuba who is teaching us Polish gave us the equivalent Polish word, used in WWII by the Poles to determine if a person really was Polish. It's a name, maybe never anyone's, but made-up for the test. Try it out:
Brzeczyszczykiewicz.
(The first "e" has the little tail on it called an "ogonek" which gives it a nasal "en" sound, almost the sound of "on," but more nasal.)
I learned, too, that when two consonents are repeated in a Polish word, they are both pronounced. E.g. Kamiennek Gora, a little town in the Sudenten, is pronounced Kamien-nuh-nek Gora. Kennedy, in other words, would be Ken-nuh-nedy...
There's another Polish beer called "Lech," which was also the first name of the Polish president killed in the airplane crash near Katyn this spring -- Lech Kaczynski. He was not all that popular at the time, though his martyrdom improved his standing among SOME Poles. Not all. A Polish student told me, last night, that shortly after the crash, a big billboard went up in Sczeczin which said: "Cold Lech is the best."
When Judy & I were picking grapes in the Beaujolais region of France, eons ago, one of our co-workers, French, told us that during WWII the French used the word "ronronner," which is the word for "to purr," and is very hard to pronounce correctly, to determine if a suspected spy was really French or a German in disguise, because the German would not be able to pronounce it.
Yesterday the student Kuba who is teaching us Polish gave us the equivalent Polish word, used in WWII by the Poles to determine if a person really was Polish. It's a name, maybe never anyone's, but made-up for the test. Try it out:
Brzeczyszczykiewicz.
(The first "e" has the little tail on it called an "ogonek" which gives it a nasal "en" sound, almost the sound of "on," but more nasal.)
I learned, too, that when two consonents are repeated in a Polish word, they are both pronounced. E.g. Kamiennek Gora, a little town in the Sudenten, is pronounced Kamien-nuh-nek Gora. Kennedy, in other words, would be Ken-nuh-nedy...
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Oddsnends
Gas here is just over $6.00 a gallon.
At the little grocery not far from camp where we pick up odds & ends yesterday I counted 8 different kinds of kielbasa. I'd like to try them all, but don't have any way to cook them.
We have bread, tomatoes, cukes and cheese (Polish cheese doesn't have much character) at every meal. The tomatoes & especially the cukes, tho, are really delicious. We have ham with at least 2 meals a day.
Watched Ghana beat the US soccer team last night on a barge/bar in the Vistula. Not a big crowd, and was surprised there seemed as many Ghana fans as US fans, among the locals. Twenty years ago anything to do with America was admired. Is this fallout from Bush & Abu Ghraib?
There's no toilets on the barge, but several portapotties on the levy. Public toilets in Poland have their women who watch over them, clean them, etc., and so they're not free. Last year I paid up to 80 cents in one train station, just to pee. Last night they were 1 zloty, about 33 cents. I didn't have that in change, was fumbling with my billfold to get out a bill, pretending not to understand what she wanted, making a small scene because I'm pissed you have to pay to piss, and a guy came out of one of the portapotties & handed her a zloty coin, for me.
We have two sets of couples teaching this year, one from Nevada, the other from Chicago. Bob & Carol, from Chicago, recently returned from a round-the-world trip of about 8 months, including several weeks volunteering at a camp in S. Africa for kids affected by (either themselves or their relatives) by AIDS. I'd guess he's near 70, she's 65? (I later learned he's 77, a tennis-player like me, and we share bad knee stories...)
At the little grocery not far from camp where we pick up odds & ends yesterday I counted 8 different kinds of kielbasa. I'd like to try them all, but don't have any way to cook them.
We have bread, tomatoes, cukes and cheese (Polish cheese doesn't have much character) at every meal. The tomatoes & especially the cukes, tho, are really delicious. We have ham with at least 2 meals a day.
Watched Ghana beat the US soccer team last night on a barge/bar in the Vistula. Not a big crowd, and was surprised there seemed as many Ghana fans as US fans, among the locals. Twenty years ago anything to do with America was admired. Is this fallout from Bush & Abu Ghraib?
There's no toilets on the barge, but several portapotties on the levy. Public toilets in Poland have their women who watch over them, clean them, etc., and so they're not free. Last year I paid up to 80 cents in one train station, just to pee. Last night they were 1 zloty, about 33 cents. I didn't have that in change, was fumbling with my billfold to get out a bill, pretending not to understand what she wanted, making a small scene because I'm pissed you have to pay to piss, and a guy came out of one of the portapotties & handed her a zloty coin, for me.
We have two sets of couples teaching this year, one from Nevada, the other from Chicago. Bob & Carol, from Chicago, recently returned from a round-the-world trip of about 8 months, including several weeks volunteering at a camp in S. Africa for kids affected by (either themselves or their relatives) by AIDS. I'd guess he's near 70, she's 65? (I later learned he's 77, a tennis-player like me, and we share bad knee stories...)
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Parejko in Poland, the Sequel
No pictures, yet. I left my camera-computer cable at home, and til I beg, borrow or buy another, they'll stay in the camera.
Flight out of Chicago was supposed to leave Thursday 10 p.m., didn't get off til 1 a.m. Otherwise the trip was uneventful. Getting used to the new time. 2 p.m. Saturday here, which means it's 1 a.m. Saturday, your time (I'm 7 hours ahead.)
On the plane (LOT, Polish airlines) sitting across the aisle from me was Janusc Majewski, wearing a Boston Marathon t-shirt. I asked him if he was a marathoner. He said, yes. I think he was returning from the Chicago marathon...we got to talking. His first marathon was when he was 40. He's my age, now (64.) LOT & other companies sponsor his runs. He's from Gdansk, up on the Baltic, and is a trainer for the Polish Navy. He said he's run 1400 marathons, all over the world. I'm pretty sure I heard him right, about the 1400. That works out to about one a week for the last 25 years...He did say his knees are going. I commisserated with him. The plane was pretty full, and LOT gave him a whole row of center seats so he could sleep lying down. I told him about Jim running his second marathon earlier this year, in Calgary. He said it takes 6 or 7 marathons before you get a real sense of what your body can do.
The first thing that drew my attention to him was hearing a black man speaking Polish...
On the 3-hour bus ride up here from Warsaw, watched a beautiful sunset over the Polish countryside, the sun setting just a big later than back home (we're farther north here...)
It's great to be back here. Feels like home, in a way. Andrzej has found some money somehow to fix the place up. The bathroom on our floor is brand new, a big improvement. They had been embarassingly substandard.
After a 10 o'clock supper last night, in the school cafeteria, several of us went out for a beer, at our favorite watering hole the Krajina Piva. As buddy Jim & I walked in, the bartender's eyes lit up, he smiled, and reached out a hand, welcoming us back, in English. Pints of really good mostly Polish beers run about $1.50 to $2.00. That's after paying $5.50 for a pint of Smithwicks or Guiness, in New Haven. My first pint back on Polish soil was a Svyturys Ekstra, a light Lithuanian lager that was great, and rates very highly on the internet.
I got up early this morning & went out to the farmer's market & bought some nice sweet cherries (ceresnia) and at a small grocery some kefir, kind of like yoghurt but drinkable, and this one had beets, dill, cucumbers & radishes in it -- it was labeled as chlodnik kefir; chlodnik is beet soup. Really very good.
More, later!
Love,
Ken
Flight out of Chicago was supposed to leave Thursday 10 p.m., didn't get off til 1 a.m. Otherwise the trip was uneventful. Getting used to the new time. 2 p.m. Saturday here, which means it's 1 a.m. Saturday, your time (I'm 7 hours ahead.)
On the plane (LOT, Polish airlines) sitting across the aisle from me was Janusc Majewski, wearing a Boston Marathon t-shirt. I asked him if he was a marathoner. He said, yes. I think he was returning from the Chicago marathon...we got to talking. His first marathon was when he was 40. He's my age, now (64.) LOT & other companies sponsor his runs. He's from Gdansk, up on the Baltic, and is a trainer for the Polish Navy. He said he's run 1400 marathons, all over the world. I'm pretty sure I heard him right, about the 1400. That works out to about one a week for the last 25 years...He did say his knees are going. I commisserated with him. The plane was pretty full, and LOT gave him a whole row of center seats so he could sleep lying down. I told him about Jim running his second marathon earlier this year, in Calgary. He said it takes 6 or 7 marathons before you get a real sense of what your body can do.
The first thing that drew my attention to him was hearing a black man speaking Polish...
On the 3-hour bus ride up here from Warsaw, watched a beautiful sunset over the Polish countryside, the sun setting just a big later than back home (we're farther north here...)
It's great to be back here. Feels like home, in a way. Andrzej has found some money somehow to fix the place up. The bathroom on our floor is brand new, a big improvement. They had been embarassingly substandard.
After a 10 o'clock supper last night, in the school cafeteria, several of us went out for a beer, at our favorite watering hole the Krajina Piva. As buddy Jim & I walked in, the bartender's eyes lit up, he smiled, and reached out a hand, welcoming us back, in English. Pints of really good mostly Polish beers run about $1.50 to $2.00. That's after paying $5.50 for a pint of Smithwicks or Guiness, in New Haven. My first pint back on Polish soil was a Svyturys Ekstra, a light Lithuanian lager that was great, and rates very highly on the internet.
I got up early this morning & went out to the farmer's market & bought some nice sweet cherries (ceresnia) and at a small grocery some kefir, kind of like yoghurt but drinkable, and this one had beets, dill, cucumbers & radishes in it -- it was labeled as chlodnik kefir; chlodnik is beet soup. Really very good.
More, later!
Love,
Ken
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