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musings from a man on sabbatical

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Warsaw was as dreary as promised, but the pierogi and zurek were plentiful, so not a bad end to the trip!

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So, definitely the highlight of my European adventure was my time with my new friends Magda and Mathieu (who also happened to be my Airbnb hosts in Kraków). On Friday night, they decided I'd budgeted far to much time in dreary Warsaw and that I should come with the to visit Magda's parents in their village outside of Zywiec. Peter and Barbara live on a very functional small farm inside the village, complete with pigs, chickens, and "the little bull." By the end of the weekend, I had gifted Peter my hat and enjoyed countless rounds of bimber (Polish, apparently, for moonshine). No I just have to figure out how to get back for Magda and Mathieu's wedding in May!

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Wawel Castle, Kraków. This massive royal palace sits on a hill overlooking the Old Town area. Legend has it that a a dragon lived in a cave underneath the castle until he was tricked into eating a bag of sulphur and drowned in the river while trying to quench his thirst. (The more colorful version is that the dragon, who ate only virgins, starved to death after the founding of the university). The statues are of John Paul II and General Tadeusz Kościuszko, the Polish military advisor to the Continental Army.

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Scenes from the end of Polish Communism: the window from which Pope John Paul II used to give speeches (before he was Pope) and the Kraków office of Solidarity.

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Also in Market Square, St. Mary's Cathedral and the Old Town Hall Tower (the rest of the building was destroyed by the Austrians in the 1800s).

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An example of a "Polish style" roof. (No cracks from the peanut gallery about leaks).

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First stop in Kraków, lunch in the Market Square!

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My first day in Kraków, my first hour really, I was walking through a park on the way to the main square and thought I'd see what this little memorial on the wall of a building was. Turns out, it is a memorial to the victims of the Ukrainian Famine Genocide. Not as big as ours in DC, but a prominent location and nicely done. Apparently there is a large Ukrainian population here in Kraków.

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Gendarmenmarkt. A bit of classical Berlin at night on my walk home from dinner.

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The Stasi Museum. From top left: crests of the KGB and Stasi, the latter having been explicitly modeled on the former - the building is filled with images of KGB founder Felix Dzerzhinsky; Stasi uniform and weapons, though uniforms were rarely worn by Stasi officers; the nondescript edifice of Haus 1, the main headquarters building in a sprawling 20+ acre complex; Office of Erich Mielke, Minister for State Security from 1958-1989; briefcase that contained Mielke’s stash of dirt on his boss, General Secretary Erich Honecker. I'm not 100% sure, but as I was leaving, it seemed as though other buildings in the complex were being used to house Syrian refugees.

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A former bit of wall.

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Memorial to George Eisner, who missed assassinating Hitler with a Bonn in 1939 by 11 minutes. Not terribly far away, an apartment block and car park stand on the site of the Reich Chancellery and Hitler’s bunker, marked my a small sign.

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Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. While ostensibly abstract, our guide today offered his own interpretation that walking among the 2,711 concrete blocks on the sight evokes how quickly the ground can sink away and you can find yourself disoriented and insignificant when the darker side of human nature goes unchecked. I found it to be like walking through a forest of chimneys.

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Obligatory shot of the Brandenburg Gate. Fun fact, just over my left shoulder as I was taking this is the Hotel Adlon, where Jacko famously dangled his infant out the window.

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Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin. Or at least a facsimile thereof. The original sign is in the museum upstairs. And as my guide today pointed out, the fake soldiers posing for photos with tourists for a few euros a pop is all the evidence you need that capitalism won. The ubiquitous Golden Arches help too.

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The Stalin-era Academy of Sciences Building in Riga (I'm told most Eastern European Capitals have similar Gothamesque towers), along with a view of old town from the observation deck on 17.