I have been drinking beer lately but today I missed my 4-6 pm bartime today, so went down the street looking for the Wines of the World store.
Due to my inepitude with the 24-hour clock (AND things in meters and kilos and degrees celsius, which makes noncommunicating in Poland surpass just the simple language barrier) I thought the store was closed. When I returned from the corner grocery, the winey world was open again.
My loss, no doubt. But at the corner grocery (which everyone in this buildng seems to love, and Why? - the one a couple of blocks over on Raymonta is far better), the Italian wine was only 12 zl (about $4, and it fizzed when I poured the first glass, no kidding, so there you go) and I got to discuss the qualities of various wines - red, Italian, semi-sweet - with the clerk in Polish. Memo to self: look up the word for "fizzy."
In grocery stores here wine is kept behind the counter, along with the hard stuff. "Oh, you would like to buy alcohol?" is the question. This, despite the fact that there are pallets and bales of beer everywhere. Beer is therefore not alcohol. QED.
My ankles are oddly swollen. I do not think I have been riding airplanes in my sleep, so what's up with that? I have been walking a lot, though, and my arches ache.
Strange Polish product: Woolite comes in a plastic pouch. The instructions direct you to snip off a corner of the pouch, and then pour the liquid into a container. WHY DON'T THEY CONSIDER SELLING IT IN A CONTAINER IN THE FIRST PLACE???
I have been working on dissertation stuff all day. Good progress, but far to go. I have to write a short essay tomorrow on my family. Did I mention that my piece on Wieslawa Szymborska is gonna be published in some local newspaper? (It's I'm sure the equivalent of when fourth graders write essays and they print them. "Hey, here's what some foreign kids studying Polish are writing about in summer school!" But why not, the CV needs some foreign stuff, right?)
This weekend with no obligations is a wonder. Another whole free day to follow!
I was thinking so hard about the meaning of place - Venice to Henry James more specifically - that I almost forgot to get off the tram at my stop.
I am trying not to think about the heat, since no relief is in sight. A lukewarm shower works - for at least 10 minutes you feel half-human again.
Interesting afternoon. Stymied at the library, since I hadn't read the fine print about their bizarre opening hours this week, I went to a whole row of bookshops, and actually purchased three things.
1. Lost in Translation, for the plane ride home, if I can wait that long (probably not).
2. Maciej Miezian's guidebook on Nowa Huta, which I've been looking for for awhile.
3. A guidebook for Krakow in Polish, with a lengthy section on NH, which I'll use as a representative sample.
I should do some homework instead of saving it for the early morning, but...
I found to my surprise that I was able to ask rudimentary questions and better, understand the answers, in shops. Reviewing my stack of verb flashcards in the bar this afternoon (they have AC now, and cigarette smoke too but the first makes the second tolerable) I was struck by how much I would know, if only I remembered everything we'd been taught in the last two years of Polish class. Ah well - get by for the next few weeks, and then on to the next thing.
I am trying to work up the motivation and heat-tolerance to go to the library at Jagiellonian University. Today's high is expected to be 91, and it's the same for the rest of the week, except tomorrow, when the high will be a measly 89.
Really, this unrelenting heat is sucking my will to do anything but drink cold beers and nap. We had thunderstorms right after lunch yesterday, and people were dancing around the plaza outside in sheer joy as the cool rain drenched them. But then we were off to Nowa Huta, where it never rained so the heat was exactly what we had had earlier in the day. I'm starting to have trouble sleeping, too - although that may be the beer talking.
And no: fans; AC; or window screens (the bugs versus stiflement is a toss-up). Someone remind me next January about my whining about the heat.
I spoke too soon (in the last entry) about not hanging out with Europeans. It's been all-German, all the time, this weekend. Friday night: talking with the bouncer of this dorm, a student of German. Saturday: lunch, dinner and beers with the Germans. Breakfast today: those Germans and some others.
I feel so technically apt. I bought more minutes for my phone and programmed the voicemail yesterday. Small steps, yeah: but that's how progress happens. Soon I will graduate to downloading photos from yesterday's trip to Pieskowa Skala castle. The battery light was flashing (what's up with that, I've hardly taken any photos since I switched batteries earlier this week!) so I tried to control myself and be selective, which turned out not to be too hard, because really, how many photos of Renaissance arcades do you really need, when all four sides of the courtyard look the same?
No photo-taking allowed in the castle rooms, which were filled with art/furnishings/objets leftover from the collections at Wawel. The garden was gorgeous, but completely inauthentic, all beds of annuals in boxwood hedges. The guide was out of her league in the art history field: "this very important painting is from the 17th century" but she could never tell you who painted it or even the school or nationality of the painter. Still, it was a gorgeous day; the river valley is geologically very striking; and I was happy to be in the Polish countryside, reminding me of why I picked this country to study in the first place.
It's only Tuesday and already I'm exhausted for the week from learning Polish. The worst is the tapes: they jabber on at top speed and EVEN IF I get a couple words here and there, it's not sufficient knowledge to answer a whole long list of T-F questions. (If I can understand what the questions are even asking: a different but equally pressing problem.)
Sat at lunch with a French guy; he was so excited that I knew a little French that we tried to speak for a little while. My vocabulary is mostly all there, but it takes a while to "rebuild" for conversation. Unlike last summer, I haven't really been hearing French and German amongst my colleagues. I enjoyed meeting Europeans last summer, but it turned out to be a bit of a distraction from the main purpose, in retrospect.
There were also some heritage speakers at lunch - who speak fluently but are in a lower class level than mine. What gives? They apparently can't read or write at all, have no idea about grammar.
Meanwhile - I have an hour to do some handwash (the laundry is apparently a disaster) and make some new flash cards for today's facial vocabulary. We'll be describing people for sure tomorrow: short neck, brown eyes, long hair. Today we had to have a debate about the veracity of TV news. Since we're all such overachievers, people had looked up new vocabulary so that they could express themselves. Good for them: but unfortunately the rest of us don't understand when we venture outside the common vocabulary.
On the plane over, I read an excellent review of what may be an excellent book: Reading Leo Strauss by Steven Smith. Smith argues that to make Strauss the progenitor of US establishment neoconservatism is to misunderstand his ideas about the relationship (efficacy, say) between the academy and political structures.
Fair enough. I'm interested in the genesis of policy, so when I get a chance, I'd like to check this out. Meanwhile, I am perpetually covered in a fine film of sweat, and am looking forward to the cooler days of August. Mid-to-high 80s for the foreseeable future.
For decades if not centuries, geography was about finding the underlying patterns in things - generalizing about the world, finding similarities and differences. Since the cultural turn in the 1980s (of which I was blissfully unaware at the time), it's passe if not a little gauche to generalize about people, their characteristics, and their habits.
But I don't care: what is the DEAL with exact change in Poland? Everywhere I go, there's this insistence on the exact change, as if reaching into the cash drawer for all those mini-coins is just TOO MUCH WORK. If you buy something that costs say 9.50, they are all pissed off if you hand them a 10-note. I bought an interim skirt and top when my luggage had gone missing; the total was 58.80, and they were all pouty cuz I didn't have 80 groszy and handed them 60 in notes. Today at the grocery I watched a very complicated transaction that involved multiple exchanges of coin, and reaching into multiple pockets and purses. Hellooo?? There are 10 people in line: JUST MAKE CHANGE.
Then I walked up, with 2 bottles of water (about 2 zloty each) and asked for a bottle of Chianti (incredibly cheap; don't even ask!) and handed her a 100-note with a look that said, "hey, I'm a member of the world's largest and most powerful economy. Open up that change drawer, honey" and she did, no whining.
The ATM's only give 100-notes for "large" (that's about US $30) withdrawals. What the hell are we supposed to do with them?
Judging from the roar that just went up outside, I'd say that someone - Germany or Italy - probably just scored.
And again!
Soccer: what's up with that? It has been pretty low-key here, since Poland's been out for some time. The dorm is quiet; the loud people must be somewhere else watching the game. Good for them.
I am thrilled that I have internet on my VERY OWN LAPTOP here and that I was able to configure it all by myself this afternoon. I can't get Outlook to work and play well with the others, but have some tips for how to sort that out as well.
Here's hoping I didn't distinguish myself in the placement exam this afternoon. I answered only if I was sure; I didn't guess at all, fearing I might generate randomly correct answers unsupported by true knowledge.
Still no suite-mate. Could I possibly be here alone in my own private bath for the next three weeks? That would be nice.
I've been in Krakow since Wednesday. My luggage just arrived yesterday - FINALLY!!! This will be the last trip that I don't have a spare set of clothes in my carry-on bag! I had to buy some cheap clothes finally - couldn't stand it anymore.
I've been visiting tourist information offices "under the radar" trying to see how the City tourism people promote the communist suburb of Nowa Huta. And I have been managing my cold (by curling up in the bed with black current juice (a little bitter aftertaste but delightfully not too sweet) and tissues.
And reading voraciously. There's a great used-book, English-language bookstore here, and they buy back books, too, which is great for me. It means I can indulge in trashy (or at least non academic) reading and sell back the books to get rid of the weight on the return. I read an old book by Neal Stephenson (The Big U) and a bio by Nicholas Gage about Ari Onassis and Maria Callas. The former was just goofy but had all the hallmarks of NS style already - the sly references to geek culture, the just-plain-invented technology. I think he must have been influenced by that Shampoo Planet guy - whose name is escaping me at the moment.
The Gage book was a bit sad - everyone dies (like the Moby-Dick-in-One-Minute summary: "everyone dies but the fish and Ish") but only after losing their youth and being rejected or failing miserably. After my flight time, I really focused in the book on all the jetting around - how could they stand to travel so much? Even first class is so claustrophobic, being stuck in a tin can all those hours.
Tomorrow I move to the dormitory for classes for 6 weeks. It will be hard to organize research around classes, but it must be done. I was hoping to arrange a tour for tomorrow, but no one answers the phone and the internet reservation failed, so I'm not sure what's going on there.
More to follow in the subsequent weeks....