Full churches in Warsaw

Get up around 9 and at 10 we go for lunch with Marian and Ewa, together with her brother, father and sister in law. They recommend a restaurant outside Warsaw, on the road to Katowice, called Mak. We buy some "black" gasoline on the way, it is now pretty much routine.

Ewa's father reads our hands, and guesses a number of our personal character traits with surprising accuracy.

Marian is very happy because he has just obtained his passport and asks to change some money. We are given the usual lecture on the "real" Polish economy, this time concentrating on the real estate market. Comes in handy because I am looking for a short let when my parents will come visit in the Spring.

Marian also tells us a lot about the international sales of furs. Like many other things, these are cheap in Poland, if you can find them, and can command a considerable profit if sold in the West.

As we drive around on this easy Sunday we notice a number of packed churches, with crowds of faithfuls overflowing outside the door. Catholicism has a long and deeply rooted tradition in Poland, we know that, but this is surprising. We are told that rallying around the Church is one way (legal and unobjectionable) to demostrate political opposition to the regime. This even though the Church has come to a number of inevitable compromises with the Communist regime. Or perhaps precisely because it has.

Quiet evening at home.

Partying in the dorm

Andrew and Elzbieta

Evening party at the girls' dorm. One of an endless series of such parties we will attend during our stay i Poland, improvised on the flimsiest of excuses: it's my uncle's birthday, my parents' wedding anniversary... Anything goes to open a bottle of vodka and gobble up a few "kanapki", small open sandwiches topped with pickles, tomatoes, and the inevitable kielbasa (sausage), cheese, and anything else that happens to be at hand. Andrew and I are a bit tipsy but everyting is under control!

kanapki

 

Elzbieta is a quiet, soft spoken lady whom I will remember for a heart shaped decal on her glasses. Her friend Bonga is very different exuberant, hard laughing.

Marco Bonga Andrew

Marta is on the offensive: she tries with all her might to get into my bed. Or Andrew's for that matter. Fun company, not so much politics tonight.

Another duck

After our daily classes at SGPiS we drive again to the Stare Miasto for lunch and try a new small and unremarkable restaurant. We try and order a number of different offerings from the menu, but the only available dish is... duck!

It's actually quite good and (for us) dirt cheap.

Chinese restaurant

After an uneventful day we decide to try the Shanghai restaurant, on the Marszalkowska.

We try to order sevaral meat dishes but after repeated kind denials we are told that there is no meat today because it is Wednesday.

At the time we did not understand, but later on our Polish friends told us that, for some reason that we still do not understand, there is no meat in any restaurant on Wednesdays... I might have understood if Catholic Poland did not serve meat on Fridays, but why Wednesdays?

No amatriciana today

Full day at school and homework then out again for dinner at Ewa's.

I had planned to cook my famed "Amatriciana", which I execute following the traditional recipe very strictly, but none of us was able to find anything resembling guanciale. Not even bacon, nothing. Not even Ewa with all her black market connections.

Anyway we cook some spaghetti and have a good time, eating away while engaging in another interminable conversation on the "real" Polish economy.

Duck and wine

Easy Sunday. We get up late and drive to the Stare Miasto in search for food.

After some walking around we run into a pleasant small restaurant and take our seats. Using what little Polish we know (Ann actually gets by OK) we ask for the menu, but there isn't any. We then ask what is available, and the answer is clear: duck.

OK so we order a delicious duck and not as delicious red wine. Apparently duck is a pretty popular dish in Poland, it seems it's going to become a regular presence on our table. For the three of us the bill is 750 zloty (less than seven dollars).

Before heading home I saw some painters in the square and bought two water colors of the Stare Miasto.

Back in the dorm we learned that Marta has come looking for us...

Gasoline and the Russians

A Polish friend takes us to a gas station in town where he knows the owner and makes an introduction so we can now buy gasoline at the "Polish" price, without coupons, and pay in zloty. He charges us 25 zloty per liter instead of the official price of 16 zloty, so he pockets 9 zloty per liter but this is still a huge saving for us. Coupons cost 60 cents per liter, ie about 55 zloty.

We celebrate with a great lunch at the restaurant of the hotel Victoria. As we park Giallina in front of the hotel some guy asks us whether we'd like the car cleaned: 1.50 USD for the job. OK it's a deal. The restaurant is called "Canaletto" and two large paintings of the Venetian master are there to be admired by their patrons.

After lunch we go for a walk and some coffee in the Stare Miasto (the old city). The charming downtown has been reconstructed after having been completely destroyed by the Nazis during WW II. It is an exact replica of the original that is lost forever.

In the evening there is a party in Ann's dorm, where we meet Marta. She does not really study there, but is a friend of a friend or something, and is on the prowl for a Western boyfriend.

Most students are very happy to talk to us and their favorite topic of conversation is the Russians. They just loath the Russians and resent the system that the Soviet Union has imposed on Poland. One Arbus (Water melon?) is drunk and spends a good half hour spitting on the ground and yelling: "Russki" and then stepping on his spit. Even though we have no language in common that is communication enough.

What no one mentioned, or knows, is that gasoline in Poland is cheap because it is provided at subsidized prices by the USSR. It is a price Moscow is willing to pay to contain discontent in the satellite countries and avoid a repetition of the experience of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Exploring Warsaw stores

We spend the morning with Bogdan to set up the course schedule and sort out many small issues related to our stay here over the next several months. He is a quiet person who acts calmly and deliberately. He is obviously elated to be managing this exchange program with a renown American university.

In the afternoon the three of us explore the city. First we go the "Supersam": a mediocre supermarket, with long lines for the meat counter. As we go in the staff forces each of us to take a basket, maybe to keep count of how many people get in, I am not sure. The quality of available groceries seems rather low.

Later I went to the local police office to renew the temporary visa I got in Vienna, easily done, no problems.

By the end of the afternoon the three of us again exploring various stores and shopping malls: prices are incredibly low, at least for us, but for most Poles too. The shelves are pretty well stacked up with merchandise but again the problem is that the quality is so low. The same can be said of the cars we see in the streets: many of them, there is  even the occasional traffic jam, but mostly cheap locally made FIATs and Soviet Ladas (also FIATs).

Getting acquainted with Warsaw

Morning with Bogdan Radomski, who takes us around SGPiS and explains how everything works. He then takes us for a walk in the Marshalkowska, one of the main avenues of the city. First impression is of a general sadness. People don't smile in the street. Everything looks a bit shabby. The predominant color is grey.

In the evening we pay a visit to Ewa and Marian, two friends of Italian friends. He makes ends meet by doing a bit of everything, including selling telephone parts to Italy handset manufacturers. They live in a nondescript apartment building in the outskirts of the city but are doing pretty well by local standards. We have a great evening with them and two lady friends who are there.

Of course we are treated to a gargatuan dinner, during which we receive the first of many lessons on the "real economy" in Poland. We stay until 3AM (this seems like its going to become a habit) and exchange our first "black" money, 110 sloty for a dollar instead of the official 29.

Finally in Poland

We cross into Poland just after midnight and it is early on 20 February when we check into the first nondescript hotel we find on our way. It's pitch dark and very cold.

It's been a pretty intense day and we are exhausted but also elated for the extraordinary adventure we have just live through. I would of course never have guessed that thirty plus years later I would have copied my notes onto a blog...

I notice how cars here are parked ON the sidewalks and not just next to them. Also, all owner remove the windshield wipers for the night. Or for the day for that matter, just anytime they lave the car alone. I knew there was a chronic problem of spare parts for cars in Poland but would never have guessed it was that bad!

We wake up early in the morning and head onwrd to Warsaw. First we need money however, and we have to change at the official rate (1 USD = 29 Sloty) at a bank, one of the few times we would do it this way for the whole trip. But little do we know yet...

The second thing we need is to fill up Giallina. This time we would love to buy gas at the official price (very cheap) but foreigners are not allowed to and must buy special "coupons" (much more expensive) which can then be exchanged for fuel at the gas station. Again, this won't happen very often over the next several months...

We reach Warsaw in the late afternoon. I call Bogdan Radomski, our professor/supervisor at the Central School of Planning and Statistics who is in charge of the exchange program with Goergetown University. We meet up and he leads us to our dorms.

Andrew settling in our room

Andrew and I are in the male dorm, and our room is rather large if not so well appointed. Ann will share a room in the ladies' dorm with three other girls. We drop our bags in our room and spend the evening (until 3 a.m.) with the girls, getting acquainted and soaking our first shots of vodka.

A bit of Americana

The girls are extraordinarily welcoming, the offer us drinks and food, and are obviously ecstatic to have Westerners in their midst.