East-West Seminar party and blind singer

Party at our university with the participants in an East-West trade seminar. The substance of the seminar is not so important as the opportunity for young colleagues from the two sides of the Cold War to mingle together and speak freely.

We are not official participants: those come from the many countries represented: Common Market, Comecon, North America. But everyone seems to be eager to have us around. It seems any opportunity is precious for most of our Polish colleagues to associate with Westerners. And we are very eager to be here. We can hear more candid talk, and learn more about politics and economics, in this kind of context that in any classroom.

Lots of flags hanging from the balconies in the inner courtyard of the university. I wish I could take some home for my collection but no chance. Just kidding. The flags are hanging in no special order, and the American and the Italian flag happen to be next to each other, how appropriate for the three of us!

In the evening we all go to the home of Karol, a blind singer. It's amazing how he can not only sing but actually have a very positive attitude to life in his circumstances. He can sing in English as well as Polish.

I end up staying out until very late with some friends, but Andrew somewhere else with some other friends. Because we did not coordinate Andrew ends up locked out of the dorm! The dorm door is locked at midnight but this is never a problem, a little tip and we are always let in.

But today somehow the porter woman, a gargantuan lady who never smiles, and who usually will let us in after hours for an American quarter, is not around. Probably fast asleep. I feel sorry for him, oh well not too bad, stuff like that can happen in college, especially in Poland, and I guess he was in good company.

Parents fly over from Italy to meet us in Warsaw

After the usual morning classes and lunch, in the early afternoon I drive to the airport to pick up my flying in from Rome to visit for a week.

It is going to be a week of surprises for them, their first time beyond the "iron curtain". They are obviously very happy to see me and excited about visiting. They flew with Lot, the Polish flag carrier. Alitalia does not serve Warsaw. The Soviet-made aircaft is not especially comfortable the the service on board leaves a lot to be desired, but the flight is only a couple of hours, no big deal. I take them to the rented apartment so they can freshen up.

In the evening, Andrew and Ann take us out for a meal of duck at our "1st duck place" as we refer to the anonymous restaurant where we have consumed many a duck in recent weeks. We named it so in order to distinguish it from the "2nd duck place", a similar eatery in the center of Warsaw. Who knows why duck is so popular on Polish menus.

Classes and some privacy

Usual classes in the morning at SGPiS. Nothing to write about.

In the afternoon foreign policy class at the foreign policy institute, more propaganda coming our way but I must admit that these classes are actually fun. Not because of what they want us to learn, but because it is interesting to see how educated professional bend reality to suit the mandatory party line. They actually do a pretty good job of it. Basically they zig zag between "well you know we did not like doing it but we had to do it because the USSR so decided" and "we had to do it but it actually made sense, in a way, if you think about it from another point of view".

Dinner is at the Pod Golembiami restaurant (it means "under the doves"), pretty good and as usual dirt cheap for us.

Spent the night at the apartment I rented for my parents, they don't arrive until Thursday but the landlord was nice enough to give me the keys a few days in advance for free. Nice to be away from the student dorm for a few days, privacy and space!

Duck and private lodging

Another big lunch at Borzena's home. Her mum has prepared duck, a favorite dish in Poland and it is delicious as almost everything she prepares. In fact, judging from the voracity of our appetite at every meal, I'd say everything must have been very good. Simple cooking, lots of proteins and fat, hearty cooked cabbage. We are really very lucky to be treated like royals every time we come here, which is almost every day. The duck is crispy skin and tender tasty meat.

In the evening we all go the the Chopin Academy for a concert by the Italian pianist Ruggero Gerlin, he is getting on with age and shows it but still plays quite well.

Afterwards Ann and I go to our friends Ewa and Marianto pick up the keys to an apartment of some friends of theirs where I will host my parents who are planning to visit soon. Strictly speaking it is illegal to rent out to foreigners fnr hard cash, but of course it is a widespread practice among Poles with extra real estate to spare.

We then go and have a look: a fairly dreadful gray building, typical Soviet block construction. But everything is in order, it is big enough for the purpose and clean. Obviously I will pay in dollars for this and for the owners it is going to be a significant boost to their income for the month.

Wedding stripping and beers

During breakfast somehow the conversation gravitates toward a the wedding party of P. She says how it was an unusual wedding, people got a bit drunk and started to strip until some were totally naked. Some guests rushed to cover up the a naked man, but she did not mind to see that at her wedding. it make it all more natural. Well, I guess why not? Going naked is something that is sometimes used in Communist countries as a display of protest. Not many other ways of protesting are allowed and this is a cheap and cheerful one. In East Germany they are especially good at it.

I spend the afternoon in my room studying for the upcoming exams. But not too long. Romek comes up with an invitation to go out for a beer. We all go to the "Bolek" pub. I down one beer, some of my classmates up to five or six. It is really amazing how we have become close friends with Polish students is such a short time. I guess it is in part because of their eagerness to meet people from the West, and our eagerness to penetrate the Iron Curtain. Beer can do a lot to facilitate this.

Football and mountain climbing

Easy day. Tried to go to a bank but it was closed. Sometimes they are open on saturday, but not today.

Visit at the post office to call Italy. Must wait half an hour or so. It must be easier to call the moon.

Easy afternoon at Larissa's home watching Italy vs Poland, a friendly match. Not so exciting, ends up 2-2. Anyway better than when we lost to Poland in the 1974 World Cup in Germany.

After the match Borzena gives us no choice: her mother has prepared dinner for us and we are expected. Again an avalanche of proteins, cold and hot, has fallen over the dining table by the time we take our seats.

During dinner we watch some TV and today there is a program on mountaineering. The whole country is justifiably proud that a Polish expedition has reached the summit of Mount Everest in February of this year, the first team to make it in Winter. Leszka Cichy and Krzysztof Wielicki are national heros.

It is, appropriately, unseasonably cold in Warsaw. When we leave Borzena's place to go home it is snowing!

Shopping, smoking and tea

In the morning, after class, we go downtown, to the CENTRUM shooping area. There is very little to shop. I was looking for Summer clothing, some shirts with short sleavees, but no luck. What is available is cheap but so depressingly dreary that even someone like me who knows little about clothing and cares less ends up not buying anything.

In the afternoon it's foreign policy classes again. Usual propaganda nonsense. But the professors, retired diplomats, are very polite and kind. One former ambassador to the UN asks politely whether we would mind if he smoked. Andrew immediately says of course it is not a problem, and we all nod. I am not too happy but what to do? We are guests at his office. He then starts to light up a long, uninterrupted series of really awfully strong cigarettes for the whole duration of the class. Poles are on average heavy smokers, here there is nothing like the relentless campaigns we have in the West to raise awareness of the negative health consequences of smoking.

Later we are invited by Pat, an American student at our same university, to go to the American Embassy for a drink at the "Marines' bar".  A strange place where "Eastern" people are not admitted and marines get drunk mostly among themselves since they are not allowed to socialize with local girls. I politely turn down the offer, though the others go for a drink and meet a certain Michael, a diplomat in search of adventures.

In the evening it's tea time at the home of Larissa, Borzena's best friend. She is quite well off, the daughter of a successful diplomat, and lives alone in a three-bedroom apartment in Lazienki, a (relatively) posh neighborhood of the capital. Not quite what you would expect from the daughter of a diplomat of a socialist regime but whatever, she is a pleasant young woman and we spend an enjoyable evening together.

Mail and telephone

By chance, we meet Stefan at the university. He looks at our books on the economics of the socialist bloc and says: "All lies". Succint and to the point.

In the evening I wanted to go and visit Ewa with Borzena. As I pick her up at home, I am invited to another - you guess - unnecessarily large dinner. We drive to Ewa's but she is not at home.

Private telephone lines are not always to be taken for granted in Poland, even in the capital. Therefore sometimes the only way to communicate with someone is to go to their home and if they are out for the evening, well try again another time! And international calls are even more difficult. I have to go to the post office every time I need to call Italy. I could be wrong but don't think it is a matter of cost, but rather of control: if everyone had a phone line it would be impossible to bug them all!

Even sending letters abroad is not easy. This morning Ann and I went to the airport to ask someone, anyone, traveling to the United States to post a letter once across the Atlantic. We find a cooperative gentleman in the check-in line for the flight to New York. Posting from Poland might take ages and many letters are "lost".

Meals, music and socialist toilets

Morning classes and afternoon homework. Sort of. This program is not very hard, really, much less so than our courses back at Georgetown. But that is not the point. We are here to experience much more importantly than we are here to learn. And we sure are experiencing beyond expectations!

Dinner again at Borzena's, where we are, as usual, hopelessly overfed. Her family hospitality is beyond imagination.

We then all go to the Sala Koncertowa for a  concert by the orchestra of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, a famous London chamber orchestra. They make a triumphal performance and are called back by the public for five encores.

After which, do I need to add, we go back to Borzena's for a little night snack: cheese, cold cuts, vodka, bread (excellent Polish brown bread) and butter...

Back at the dorm we meet Stefan who is just back from the USSR, Armenia to be precise. He went there to represent Poland at some event for the socialist youth organizations of the East bloc. He gets to travel a lot in his capacity as head of the communist youth organization at the university.

He recounts as the student dormitory where he was housed in Yerevan did not have toilet paper, in fact no toilets, just holes in the ground. No hot water, only cold water three hourse per day. He did find one toile for his use before returning however: at the airport, and it was reserved for foreign travelers only!

Why is this is beyond our understanding: the only explanation is that, toilets being scarce, one does not want to look dirty to foreign capitalist imperialists. But toilets can't be that scarce, or expensive. It is a refrain we'll encounter often in socialist countries: the hated (by the regime) foreigner (ofter a capitalist, though not in this case) gets "privileges" the locals don't even dream of.

He sees the pamphlet "Facts about Poland" which we have been given at school and comments drily: "Not a word of truth in there".

Visas and ice cream

After our usual morning classes we must once again to to the government visa office: our last Polish visa was cancelled because we left the country to go to Berlin. Why? Who knows, but must there be a reason? Maybe to provide a few more government jobs in the visa office. Whatever... Three more forms to fill out and two days to wait before we must return and pick them up.

The employee who is dealing with our stuff is amazed to find out that Ann speaks Polish and is of Polish origin, and starts a long conversation on Polish literature. I have a feeling Ann does not always follow all the details of the conversation, but that is not the point. It is pretty amazing to see her carry on with total control of the situation. So the visit to the visa office takes even longer than usual, but it is actually almost fun!

In the evening, after the inevitable huge meal at Borzena's home, we all go to a local park and play frisbee. Frisbees are all over the place in American universities but still a novelty over here. After having burned a lot of calories running after the disc, we go and put them back on by devouring excellent local ice cream!

Walking and eating in Warsaw

In the morning we take a walk around the Wilanow park with Borzena and one of her friends. Andrew and I are thereafter invited to lunch at her place (needless to say we are again overfed with precious meats and other hard to find delicacies) and then out again for a walk in the old city. Stare miasto is always charming, it has been recontructed very well after the near total destruction of World War II.

Borzena is a very friendly and smart young lady. She clearly wants out of Poland, sees to end to the dark days of socialist depression. It is for this reason, I think, that she hangs out with as many Westerners as she can. Being smart and pretty, of course, helps her make friends. Her brother is the same, though of course has less of a chance attracting Western females.

She gets upset when, at about 8 o'clock in the evening, we tell her we are really not hungry for another meal at her home.ut there is nothing to do and we have to go and eat again. (And drink: vodka is never absent from the table.)

This extreme hospitality is not totally new to me. It is the same I found every time I visited my family in Calabria and Puglia. You have to eat everything all the time or else they take umbrage. And if you eat at the home of one relative you automatically must eat at everyone else's, lest they take offense and don't talk to you again. Which is one reason, I admit, why I don't visit my relatives as often as I otherwise might. I eat a lot but hardly have time to visit their beautiful regions.

Both sides of Berlin and return to Poland

Wake up around 8. Our landlady serves us a most welcome large breakfast and while we eat she tells us stories from her fading but still lucid memories from World War II. She lived in Gdansk (Danzig) at the start of the war, on 1 September 1939, when Germany attacked. Like many older people she likes to talk and inevitably repeats herself. We heard it the other day too but it still sends shudders down our spines.

The copious breakfast takes time to consume and we are in due course taken to Berlin, where our lady was displaced during the war. Here, under relentless Allied bombing, her 4-month old child starved to death while her husband went crazy on the Russian front. She tried to commit suicide by cutting her veins but did not do a good job and survived. After taking leave from her we move back to East Berlin. here we visit the Treptower Park, with another huge mausoleum to fallen Soviet soldiers.

We leave Berlin and the wall behind for one last time.

The old Reichstag and the wall on the right

The Wall: hard to believe neighbours are now on the opposite side of the Cold War

On the bombing ot Berlin, read

Visiting Berlin

Lazy wake up call at 9:30 and long walk in the Tiergarten.

Tiergarten and Victoria column

We see the Victoria tower, enjoy a great panoramic view from the top and walk all the way up to the Brandenburger Tor, from which we can see the Berlin Wall. Nearby we can also visit a colossal monument to the Soviet soldiers who conquered Berlin. However, unsurprisingly, there are no West Berliner visiting the shrine!

Looking into East Berlin from the Victoria tower

We also visit a history museum in the old Reichstag building, kind of boring, not nearly as much fun as the one in the East! An interesting exhibit is a collection of Deutsche mark notes from the 1920s, when Germany experienced hyperinflation and developed a sort of paranoia for expansionist monetary policies that will last many decades.

One billion mark notes seem small change. I am struck by the two hundred billion mark bank note! That's serious money!

DM hyperinflation bank notes

Exploring West Berlin

Early in the morning we are ejected from our guesthouse and start looking for another place to spend the night. We found a couple of rooms for rent in the house of a friendly eighty-year-old woman in Charlottenburg. It's a beautiful home if a bit tired in terms of furniture and decorations.

Our hostess in Berlin

As soon as we arrive, and she hears we are studying in Poland, she starts telling us stories about the war. She lived in Gdansk (then Danzig) and saw the first Stukas dive bomb Poland on 1 September 1939. She also saw German battleships shell Polish territory but not a shot coming from the other direction. She is not nostalgic of pre-war Germany, but quite a bit worried about living in divided contemporary Germany, especially in isolated West Berlin.

In the afternoon we visit Charlottenburg and the big radio tower. We walk for many kilometers, I am quite exhausted by the end of the day.

Dinner at a simple Italian restaurant, San Giorgio, OK quality and cheap, what we need. Italian food abroad is rarely as good as at home in Italy, but it is usually inexpensive and filling, excellent for three students on the go!

We then walk around the city, aimlessly, hopping from one Bierstube to the next without any particular goal or target in mind. We are impressed by the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, left as a reminder the way it was after an Allied air raid in 1943.


To see what life in Berlin looked like at the end of five years of Allied bombing click here to watch a contemporary video.

East Berlin taster and move to West Berlin

Hotel Stadt Berlin in Alexanderplatz

Arrive in East Berlin at about 7:15am, it is raining hard and it's damn cold! Good start!

The city center is clean and every corner is almost manicured. First things first, we climb on top of the Fernsehturm, the long TV tower that is a point of reference for anyone moving around East Berlin. Built between 1965 and 1969 it is the tallest structure in all of Germany (NOTE in 2015: it still is!) and a symbol of pride for the authorities of the Germand Democratic Republic (GDR). Unfortunately because of the weather we can't see much from the top: it no longer rains but we can see just clouds and fog.

As we descend and walk around we discover that not all parts of the city are as spotless as we thought after our first impression around the station: many streets are dirty, they qualify for the title of slums really.

A few churches are available in this most strict Communist dictatorship. Re-built after the war, they are empty shells of bricks and concrete. No decorations. Only a few pieces of low-relief sculptures are on display, recuperated from the pre-war works.

Cold morning in Berlin

We then visit the Palace of Culture and the History Museum, both places replete with vicious attacks against the West in every shape or form: posters, caricatures.

We then try to cross the wall into West Berlin on foot, but we are not allowed to do so, can do only by metro, crossing at the Friedrichstrasse station. This is a unique station because it is in East Berlin but it is served by West Berlin metro, allowing for a more easily controlled border crossing.

The old pre-war German metro is still functioning but of course it is divided. Some stations had to be closed as the trains travel under West Berlin to go from one part to another of East Berlin.

When we arrive in West Berlin we start looking for a place to stay, and walk around the shining city for many kilometres. Very expensive for us after we have gotten used to Polish prices! Finally we find a mediocre room in the Buchenwald Pension for DM 26 per day. We are very tired and collapse soon after eight o'clock, and will sleep for a solid twelve hours.

Departure for Berlin

In the evening we board our long desired train for East Berlin. It's taken us so long to get the tickets, visas and legal cash we almost gave up. But now we are on.

The train is fairly comfortable, though we don't have a sleeper bed. Before it's dark we get a glimpse of the flatlands of Western Poland, the so long fought-over Pomerania.

We fall alseep knowing it's going to be a fascinating experience but a little worried about going to a society with a reputation for being much stricter and less forgiving than Poland.

Easter day procession at Jasna Gora

Get up very early in the morning. We are out of the hotel by 5.30 or so. It is VERY VERY cold!

The processions at Jasna Gora start at six o'clock, but they are not as impressive as we expected. Not so many people. Hundreds, not thousands. And it is Easter day.

Rather frugal arrangements, maybe resources are limited. Surely they must be. Yet we expected to find a lot more enthusiasm in the wake of the Polish Pope's recent visit and continuing commitment to change in Poland.

Trip to Czestochowa

Today we fill up Giallina at a new gas station. They don't know us so we must be a bit circumspect in negotiating a price. They readily agree to sell for 28 ZL/liter (instead of the usual 18 we pay at our friends' station but much less than the official 75 we should pay as foreigners).

Easy and pleasant trip to Czestochowa. We drive through several villages. In Sulmierzyce the local parish priest is excited to see our Roman car plate and insists to take us into the church and introduce us to the parishioners. Many people, they came for the Easter blessing.

Interesting to note that in this church, and others in small villages, a statue of Christ is guarded by two statues of medieval soldiers.

We keep driving along and run into a Soviet military cemetery. No crosses of course, just red stars and plain stones on the graves..

The Soviets are not loved in Poland, to put it mildly, but the official party line is that they liberated the country from the Nazi invasion. Which is true, except that they had partitioned the same country with the Nazi in 1939, and except that they did not really "liberate" it, as in give it freedom, but rather subjected it to a new communist dictatorship.

You can read more about this in many books, including the following.

Jasna Gora

When we get to Czestochowa it is really cold, there is a lot of snow on the ground. The Jasna Gora monastery is imposing, surely the most impressive site we have seen in Poland so far. It is the hear of Christianity in Poland. here, almost a year ago, Pope John Paul II delivered his farewell speech at the end of a trip that stirred emotions in Catholic Poland.

Black Madonna

Tonight we stay at the Hotel Orbis Patria, the three of us have to squeeze into two beds, but there is no choice... we are used to it.

You can buy a beautiful reproduction of the Black Madonna here

Train tickets and church music

After the usual morning classes I go for a hair cut at a barber shop in the Forum Hotel. 92 zloty with shampoo, pretty cheap and a good job.

Then Romek accompanies the three of us to buy our train tickets to Berlin. Despite the thorough preparatory work of the previous days, we need his help to overcome the indefatigable Polish bureaucracy. At one point a clerk wanted us to change money again, because the receipt of the money we changed yesterday had a different date (yesterday) than the date on the receipt of the train tickets (today). We manage to stay cool and Romek persuades the man to finally issue our tickets.

In the evening we go for a concert of Bach's Luke's passion in a small church in the center of town. Always a moving experience to listen to bach's religious music, even if I am not religious.

You can choose one of many editions of Bach's Passion according to St Luke on Amazon.

The best is probably this one:

Shopping for clothes and more study

Some more shopping for clothes in town, I need a jacket and trousers. Ann and I go around for a while and finally stumble is a nondescript department store, mostly empty and otherwise stocked with very very poor quality stuff. Finally I buy an almost decent kaki colored suit for 2250 Zloty. I am not difficult when it comes to clothes, in fact I don't really care, but this is really borderline. The cloth is rough, But it's the best there is, anywhere in the city.

After which we go to the post office to call Cathy, Ann's friend in Washington who will join us for a tour of Europe at the end of our course. Ann mentions to her for the first time that we'd like to drive to the Soviet Union, and she is not opposed to the idea. Ann feared she would be as she has little travel experience, very little. She initially said she wanted to see all of Europe in a few weeks, because she was not sure she would ever come back.

Apparently that's the way many Americans see a trip to Europe. I always noticed groups of Japanese tourists in Rome shooting pictures of everything as if it was the last thing they would ever see in their life. Rather gloomy prospect. But Ann talked to her and explained that it is much better to see less but go deeper. As I think about it, I am really lucky to have Ann and Andrew as my travel companions, we share a strong motivation to understand, which requires time and attention to detail. Never hurry. This trip would not be nearly as fun and useful as it is without them.

End of the day again studying in my parents' apartment, hoping that the landlord will let us keep it a few more days. More cheap and cheerful pasta and red wine for dinner. Better take advantage of it while it lasts.

Train tickets and Russian caviar

After class Andrew, Ann and I spend about five hours in various offices trying, unsuccessfully, to buy our train tickets to East Berlin. We even change some money legally, at the official exchange rate (I think it's the first time since we arrived in Poland, and it will probably be the last) but then some ticket issuing authority tells us we have the wrong receipt. They had never mentioned that there is more than one kind of receipt for foreign currency exchange. And they are serious, despite today's date it's no April Fool's joke. Or maybe they are not serious serious, they just want a bribe.

We'll see, but it seems this trip to East Germany is rapidly becoming more trouble than it's ever going to be worth.

At 7:00pm Marta comes to visit in my room. In her unceasing efforts to win my favors she has actually made a huge Polish flag for me. (I collect flags from the countries aI visit and I had mentioned I would have liked a Polish flag to take home.) Then we are joined by Borzena. After a while I leave Marta to her destiny and take Borzena out for dinner to Staropolska. Here I try black caviar for the first time in my life.

Borzena is a fine lady and even though we are just friends, and I have no plans to change that, I decide to invite her to visit me in Italy at the end of our course. She does not believe me. Also, she is not sure how to put this to her parents, so we agree that probably the best way is for her to be invited by Ann. (An invitation is indispensable to get a visa from any Western country and also makes it easier to get a passport in Poland.) Though Ann could invite her to the States while I could invite her to Italy, and the difference is not exactly irrelevant for planning purposes.

Caviar is readily available in Poland - for hard currency, that is. It is smuggled in from the USSR where it is produced by the Caspian sea. Because it is highly sought by Western tourists, diplomats, anyone relly, its exportation to the West is strictly regulated. It can be taken out of Poland only if one can demostrate that it has been bought legally, and no one can. During the course of my stay in Poland I'll have quite a few chances to buy it at various markets. Usually the price is USD 50 for a 2kg can that is worth several thousand dollars inthe West but has been paid peanuts in the USSR, where supply is not regulated by market prices but by access to the producers.

Ice skating and drinks

Downtown Warsaw

Usual morning classes. At 6:30pm Andrew, Ann and I meet Borzena at school and go for a skating session at a nearby ice rink. Borzena is quite good at it, and so is Andrew. Ann is OK and I am just pathetic. Anyway it's fun.

Later out for a drink at the Krokodil restaurant where we make the acquaintance of Rani, an young Indian who works in Tehran for an Italian company. Interesting guy. It's a difficult moment between the Americans and the Iranians because of the hostage crisis still ongoing, but for him it's business as usual. I forgot to ask him why he is in Poland.

Can't believe March is already over, we are moving ahead with our course. Our adventure is almost half-way through and actually I sort of begin to feel at home here in Poland. I have learnt enough Polish to carry on a basic conversation, order duck (and a few other things) at restaurants, buy icecream and break ice with the locals.

Easy Sunday over vodka and Katyn news

Katyn Memorial, Krakow

Easy Sunday. We get together with a few friends in our room. Ann, Romek, Tadek and a ping pong player whose name I missed all join for a few glasses of vodka. A bit funny to drink in the morning but well, we are in Poland.

Ann

They convey some harrowing news: a man in his seventies set himself on fire at the Krakow memorial to the victims of the Katyn massacre. Apparently he was one of the few from the group of Polish officers and intellectuals who made it out alive. Today's newpapers did not mention anything but the ping pong player has a brother who lives in Krakow and he told him over the phone.

The subject of the Katyn massacre is pretty much off the agenda in Poland. Everyone knows the politically incorrect truth (the Soviets did it) but no one is allowed to say anything other than the ridiculous propaganda line (the Germans did it) and so most prefer to just ignore the issue. The poor man who set himself on fire was probably sick of this fiction and lack of respect for the Poles who died such a cruel and useless death in 1940.

We are all in a somber mood after the news.

Tadek tells us about his brother's studies at the military academy. Apparently they have to study American weapons and the best instructors are Vietnamese soldiers who have recent first hand experience! Funny ironies of history.

Romek

A song for the Polish pope

At 2:30 in the afternoon we meet Jasmina, a friend of some Americans of Polish descent who live in Pascoag, Andrew's home village in the state of Rhode Island. She takes us to the home where she lives with her sister, a bit outside of Warsaw. One room without bathroom, no running water, and a wood-burning stove for heating.

She says she makes 5,000 zloty per month, about the national average these days. Very welcoming, she and her sister deploy a predictable array of drinks and food, though it is not meal time. Of course we must eat and drink all. Very simple people, they give all they can and are excited to meet us.

She then pulls out a cassette player and asks me to translate a couple of Italian songs about pope John Paull II. I translate into English and Ann then from English into Polish. JP II is clearly a superstar here, and his visit last year was, by far, the most memorable event to have taken place in the country in many decades. We made their day!

Stare Miasto, Warsaw

Evening out with Borzena, we walk around looking for a place to have a drink but somehow all bars are full on this Saturday night. Poles can't really splurge but know how to have fun! Dinner at Victoria, good food and a good deal as usual. Pleasant conversation with Borzena, who is open minded and very talkative about her (mostly negative) experience in making ends meet in Warsaw. She seems to have no secrets of any kind, and is eager to share it all, even if I don't ask. Interesting person.

After dinner a policeman tries to give me a fine for illegal parking and threatens to notify the Italian embassy if I don't pay. Maybe he wants a bribe, maybe not, hard to say, but I am not sure what to do. I simply tell him I have no money and he lets us go. That was easier than expected!

Gasoline and ping pong

After our usual classes we go for dinner at the Staropolska. Good. Then three more hours of classes at the Center for International Affairs.

Later on we go and fill up the tank at our usual gas station, where by now we are friends with all the staff and proceed with our usual "Polish" price purchase to fill up Giallina.

In the evening we are joined by a group of Poles, Vietnamese and Mongol (both countries are "socialist brothers" of Poland) students for an international ping pong tournament at the student house.

More Berlin planning and party

Socialist econ lass at SGPiS

Our usual morning lesson in socialist economics. The professor is rather shy, and sticks pretty closely to the party line. Even if I am really interested in trying to find out how they want to do away with the inescapable laws of demand and supply, this guy is just plain boring.

Afterwards we try, and fail, to buy our train tickets to East Berlin. We need to bring our passports, our visas and the receipt for our official money exchange. We'll have to come back another day. Can't believe they want all this paperwork just to sell a train ticket to a "brother" socialist country.

In the afternoon four hours of foreign policy classes at the Center for International Studies. As usual quite official and bureaucratic. However I get the definite impression that some of the professors speak to the limit of what is considered politically acceptable. I am sure they would say more if they were free to do so.

In the evening there is a party in Zbiszek's room. Nine men and two women, so it's not so interesting after all. Borzena is quite pretty and also the most friendly and open Polish girl we have met so far.

Planning a trip to East Germany

In the morning we drive to the East German embassy to pick up our visas. Have to pay USD 6 per person for a double transit visa: we'll be able to travel into the DDR from Poland and out to West Berlin, then return the same way.

In the afternoon we are invited by two Cuban students to have some coffee in their room. Cuba makes excellent coffee of course and they claim to have some of the best. Well, it's OK but not great, though of course we appreciate the offer and it is in any case better than what is available in Poland.

In the afternoon I go with Christopher to a piano concert at the Chopin academy. He tells me that he knows two lady friends in East Berlin, and would like to introduce them to us. He is sure they'd be delighted to have contacts with Italians and Americans but he fears for their safety should they be seen haning around with non-authorized Western company.

Wadim and Marco

In the evening we have a few drinks in our room. We meet Wadim, a jovial if somewhat shy fellow student, and Romek, a cool guy who speaks good Russian, French and German and some English. He says he taught English to himself because that is the language he will need in the future. Has experience abroad, having worked in the USSR and France. Very confident, he feels the system in Poland is a real straightjacket to opportunity and growth.

Another good dinner

Today we meet Larissa, a friend of a friend. Elegant and pretty lady, our age, speaks enough English to have a basic conversation. She is obviously interested in making our acquaintance.

Dinner at the Canaletto restaurant. We finally get to try their famed Chateaubriand steak (we had asked for it a few times but it was never available) and red Italian wine, Grignolino d'Asti. With dessert, it come to 500 zloty per person. About five dollars. So cheap, for us.

Struggling to get visas

After the usual morning classes we go and have lunch at the Ambassador restaurant, good as usual.

Then we are off to the Soviet consulate for our visa, there is still hope to get it but it's not yet there for us. We'll have to go back one more time.

Then to the Polish visa office: if we do go to the USSR, we'll need a re-entry visa for Poland, as the one currently stamped on our passport is valid for one entry only. And in any case it is going to expire before we return from the USSR, because it was only meant to last until the end of our study program, so we have to extend its validity as well.

By the end of the afternoon we have filled out a dozen forms in three different offices. And it's not over, they all tell us to come back in a few days. I manage to squeeze in a phone call to my folks in Rome from the post office. Everything is fine and they will try to plan a visit next month.

In the evening Marta comes over once again, she is really determined one has to admit!

Elections for Parliament

Morning walking about Sandomierz without any particular goal in mind. By lunch time we say goodbye to Elzbieta's family, but not before we are treated to another pantagruelic meal.

It so happens that today is election day in Poland. People are called to vote for the new Parliament, the Sejm. There are few political posters in Sandomierz, I guess because there is no need to campaign, really. The outcome is well known in advance. One poster does exhort voters to participate: "Support the party: vote!"

Just for fun, we go and have a look at a polling station. People walk in, take their ballot and drop it in a big box. Not one of them goes into a small booth to mark anything on the ballot. Not that there would be much choice. Only the Communist party and its allies are allowed on the ballot. A blank ballot is taken as a vote for the list of communist candidates printed on it. And anyway, in Poland, Parliament's role is maily to rubber stamp the Party's decisions.

We then set off to Kazimierz, a small medieval town with a pretty castle on top of a steep hill. We climb up the "Hill of Three Crosses", on top of which there are ...three crosses and from which we can enjoy a great view of the town. It's very cold.

Tartars and Lenin in Lublin

We spend the morning walking about the old town. There is not one single restaurant that is open for business. Also, most shops are closed so we can't buy a funnel, which we would need to fill our car's tank with the black market fuel we carry in the trunk.

In the afternoon we drive to Sandomierz, where we contact the family of Elzbieta P., our colleague at SGPiS who is the resident "przewodnicząca " (a kind of student/administrator) in the Sabinski dorm with Ann. They are extremely welcoming and of course absurdly overfeed us.

A young lady called Ulla offers to take us around town. We visit the Cathedral, whose walls are largely covered with bizarre paintings of horror scenes depicting the repeated Tartar invasions during the XIII century. People gutted, quartered, eviscerated. The friendliest thing the Tartars apparently did to the locals was to behead them. There is also some depictions of Jewish ritual murders of Christians. A bizarre Church indeed.

After a while a friend of Ulla's shows up. He tries,unsuccessfully, to make a few moves on Ann, but then resigns himself to showing us around the Lenin museum, overflowing the images of the revolutionary leader during the various phases of his rocambolesque existence.

The last highlight of the day is a long tunnel, about 420 meters, that was used by the local population to hide from the Tartars.

As we go to sleep it comes to mind that Lenin was of partial Tartar descent.

Lenin the part-Tartar (www.saveyourheritage.com)

Off to Lublin

After our classes at the Central School the three of us go for lunch at the Warszawa hotel. We order appetizers but for some reason each of us is served two portions. We ask but there is no explanations, we just get to eat double today.

In the afternoon foreign policy classes at the Center for International Studies for three and a half hours. Again, very official, stiff teaching by the professors who just push the party line.

In the later afternoon se set off to Lublin with Giallina. The "highway" is pathetic, no guardrails, lots of potholes, bumps, narrow turns, a mess. Truck drivers make things worse by using their high-beams very liberally, a coupld of times I risk an accident because I am totally blinded.

Lublin is rather underwhelming and unimpressive. The old town has been restored but still... too neglected, dirty.

I am at the same time a bit ashamed and a bit proud of the many times we broke the law today. Silly and unjust laws perhaps, at least some of them, but still laws. Bought fuel on the black market, moved it in illegal plastic tanks, drove into a pedestrian area of town, paid with Polish zloty for the hotel room that, as foreigners, we should have paid in dollars at the official rip-off exchange rate.

Class in Polish foreign policy

First lesson in Polish foreign policy. It is not held at the university but rather at a think tank run by the ministry of foreign affairs.

Our teachers are former Polish diplomats. The tone is very formal, official and while they are likable and reasonable people they stick to the party line. Let's see how it goes but we get the definite feeling that they sometimes don't really believe what they tell us.

Hope for travel to the East

Another visit to Orbis gives us some hope, apparently, for some reason, we are now likely to get an individual visa to the USSR and we'll be able to travel with Giallina and stay in various hotels and camping sites. We'll have to decide on an itinerary and not change it a bit after the visa is issued, but apparently we are on!

Evening at the restaurant "Under the Pigeon", pretty good and sooo inexpensive. (We did not eat pigeon.)

Tour organization for DDR and USSR

After our usual morning classes we spend the afternoon touching base with the respective tourist offices and consulates to organize our trips to East Germany and the Soviet Union. It seems we'll have quit a lot of problems in both cases. Especially in the case of the USSR: we are told at the ORBIS tourist agency that apparently all the Western exchange students who tried before us were refused a visa.

Marta again returns to try her luck with me and Andrew...

Evening in Stefan's room with a few friends. We all eat various cuts of meat, red beans and peppers. Everyone is so kind to us it is almost embarrassing. Even with those who dont's speak much English there is no problem of communication.

Lazenski park, old Jewish ghetto, change of the guard

Quite a full Sunday that starts with a tour around town in the company of our new acquaintance Jurek.

We first visit the Lazenki park, a mix of green and classic buildings and fountains. The Chopin monument is a moving permanent exhibit here.

Afterwards we move downtown and witness the very martial change of the guard at the monument of the unknown soldier.

FInally we walk around the old Jewish ghetto. There is an enormous monument to the victims of the Nazi repression there. A few people labor on the public gardens, it's the so-called Sunday voluntary work instituted by the socialist regime to show people's solidarity to the common good. The look on their faces shows something less than unbridled enthusiasm however.

In the evening another dinner with Marian and Ewa, but this time they take us out to the Krokodyl restaurant, one of the best in the old town. Another superb meal in Warsaw, repleated with red meat and good wines. I do feel a bit guilty about being able to splurge like this in the face of widespread penury meat in the city. But not enough to give it up! And it would not help anyone to give it up anyway.

Warsaw Museum and lines for bread

In the morning the three of us go to the Warsaw Museum and watch a film on the systematic destruction of the city by the Nazi. The first part of the film focuses on the diabolically methodical approach to the destruction, the second part on reconstruction. The Russians' contribution takes center stage in this second part, which is highly propagandistic in nature.

Patient Poles line up for bread.

As we drive away we see a long line of people, at least forty, queuing up for bread!

We then go for lunch at the "Habana" restaurant, which ha actually very little Cuban anything to show.

In the evening Stefan comes to talk to our room and tells us how when at official meetings (he is the president of the SGPiS students' association) they are always kept apart from the Russians. He makes no qualms of his growing disillusionment with the socialist big brothers.

Note: In 1983 they have established the Warsaw Uprising Museum, fully dedicated to the tragedy of the city during the Nazi occupation.

Fusilli alla carbonara

Uneventful day of classes and reading.

In the evening I go to the girls' dorm to cook pasta. For the occasion I invested in a 30-zloty pot of sufficient capacity. I also bought Polish pasta (fusilli to be precise), not without serious reservations (will be be made of durum wheat?) about its quality.

I also bought eggs and bacon (the closest I could find to Italian pancetta or guanciale) to make carbonara.

The end result is actually pretty close to the real thing, and the girls like it quite a lot!

Car wash and cold pork broth

After a history class Ann and I go to the Victoria anticipating a good steak, they are well known for their "Chateaubriand". After we park the car two rather destitute men ask whether we'd like Giallina cleaned while we eat. I decline, she is clean enough. besides, they asked for three dollars, while on another occasion, when we were with Polish friends, the rate was only one and a half.

As we walk in we realize that Canaletto restaurant is closed. and the "taverna" does not have it on the menu. We settle for another lunch. A waiter still asks to change money as we are about to leave. As we walk away a bit disappointed a taxi man drives by and he also asks to change money. We find that the two men had claned our car anyway! Well, I give them 200 zloty.

We then go with Ann to various tourist offices where we find no information at all on Wroclaw, Gdansk or Lublin, three cities we'd like to visit over the next several weeks. Poland is clearly not geared up to welcome international tourism. Or domestic tourists, for that matter.

On the other hand we walk into a photographer's shop to get some passport size shots in anticipation for various visas we'll be applying for in the near future. We get 21 pictures each for only 71 zlotys! Several days later I will come back to this shop and have more photographs taken of me, and I will use them for my passports, driver's licences, ID cards etc for many years to come, to the point that by the time I ran out I hardly resembled the twenty year-old man pictured in them.

In the evening we dine with Marian and Ewa. Lots of pork and a special sausage, kind of a "coppa", made by Ewa and served with a tasty cold broth.

Duck, moon and stars

After our usual morning classes we go for lunch at another "Duck Place", i.e. the restaurant Kmicic. I eat my usual duck, kaczka. Somehow there is never want of ducks in Warsaw.

In the evening we all go to a party at the home of a certain Leszek, also called Dyndol. Lots of friendly people and kanapki and vodka abound. People start behaving funny. A certain Jan sets up a barricade of furniture for the purpose of cornering Ann and making clear his predilection for her. This despite the fact that he is married, his wife Bozena is pregnant and everyone at the party is aware of this. I try to make some sense of this hitherto unheard of (to me) behavior but Alina explains to me that this is normal: "Jan is used to Bozena", she says, and it is natural that he is looking for fun with other women. All Poles do this, apparently, once they "get used" to their partner, and make no apologies for it. I will hear this expression on a number of occasions in the next couple of months. Apparently it is standard operating procedure.

Ann is a bit confused because at the same party Vadim promises "the moon and the stars" if she agrees to accept his love. Well, in the end the matter is resolved innocently and harmlessly, and we all go home safe, if a bit perplexed.