the indescribable and the everyday

I woke up to rain this morning, and empty early morning streets.  It is Saturday, which I just discovered yesterday.  I had lost track again.  I went for coffee in the Old Town and after a while the sun came out but windy and colder too.

I stood in line for tickets to see the Castle, and felt a little sorry for the people just in front of me.  Having been out in the wind, and with my cold still in full bloom, I was glad that I wouldn't see them again.

I sat in St. Anne's church waiting for an organ concert, writing these notes.  Koncert na Barokowych Organach-which I take to mean a baroque organ concert.  Church is Kosciola (the l has a slash across it, and the s an accent above it).

Yesterday I went to a museum and it was full of paintings, mostly 17th and 18th century creations.  Not being any kind of art history student, I just looked and admired the ones I liked. I felt rather like a philistine, but since my host spoke no English and I no Polish, my lack went undetected, I think.  He left me alone, after having unlocked doors and turned on lights.  I was the only person there.  I often could not see the paintings due to the glare from the lights.  Even more surprising was that I could walk right up and touch centuries old paintings (I only did this once, to see if it would set off an alarm or bring the doorkeeper running).

There was a hard to find remnant of the wall that formed the Jewish ghetto during WW II.  It is tucked away in the back of a parking lot and bookended by two apartment buildings.  I placed my hand on the wall and imagined life inside it.  I cannot, really, but neither can I ignore it.

There are so few Jews remaining in Warsaw, thanks to both Hitler and the Russians (many who survived the war were made to move by the Russians afterward).  There seems to be no one left to remember their history here.

Warsaw's story as a whole is powerful and impressive.  Hitler was determined to annihilate this city and its inhabitants so that nothing would be left for them to rebuild on, or for the enemy to use in the event of a need to retreat.  I had read of, but forgotten the Warsaw Rising, or rebellion, fought by under supplied and poorly armed members of the resistance, holding out for months against everything Hitler's army could throw against them.  They were undercut by Russian refusal to support or supply them, and eventually Russia imprisoned and even executed many of the survivors.  I am assuming that they knew they were dangerous to them as they had  been to Hitler.  There was an underground Polish government all through the war, including the army, and even courts.

The losses sustained here are astounding.  I have seen photos of the city reduced to rubble, and I do not know how they began to rebuild.

I stumbled on a market, situated inside and around what looks like an old hall.  I found a man selling honey but we could not communicate so that I could find out where it was from.  It was being sold in glass jars, with the price stuck on a hand-written label and re-used lids.

At another stall, a young woman was ladling something into bowls in small portions and I asked her what it was.  She called her neighbor over to talk to me.  She explained that it was a meat mixture wrapped in cooked cabbage-well actually she said it was meat, and salad, the closest she could come to cabbage in English.  But I got the idea, and asked for a sample. It had some sort of tomato based sauce poured over it, and it was delicious.

There were other stalls-rows of vegetable stalls, eggs, a stall with a huge barrel of sauerkraut, and pickles, comic books, meat of all kinds, socks and underwear, and many others. In front of the building there were dozens of flower stalls.

I stopped in another store and made a small purchase, but could not understand how much to pay.  So I held out my hand with my zlotys and the woman at the register reached over and selected what she needed.  Like Euros, there are 5, 2, and 1 zloty coins, plus something like 50, 20, 10 , 5, 2 and 1 cent coins.  I'm accumulating a mass of the smaller ones, unfortunately.  When change is given, it is not placed in your palm, but in a rounded out tray on the counter and you pick it up from there.

I got word today that my train ticket from Urumqi, China to the border has been arranged.  I am to receive instructions, plus some sort of printout that will assist me at the station with a presumably non-English speaking ticket agent via email.  My only challenge will be to find a printer between here and there.