happy thanksgiving

being an american holiday, i totally forgot about it.

so to you americans, best wishes! have fun with family.  :)

things the europeans do right...

so far, these are the things i have observed over here that have made me say "wow, what a good idea" or "ooooh that's better than at home."

1. in england, all the bathroom lights have pull-cords, so that nobody electrocutes themselves with potentially wet hands.

2. also  in england, they keep and little plastic basin full of water full of soapy water in the sink, thereby keeping the dishes from getting crusty until you do them, and yet still having a functional drain. probably also saves water by not running the tap while scrubbing the crusties.

3. free or inexpensive health care and other insane benefits that generally allow people to live longer happier lives than americans.

4. they drive small cars that are both space and fuel efficient.

5. their electrical outlets have on/off switches... another innovation in saving electricity and potential hazards.

6. great rail systems.

7. learn other languages in school... i met many many multilingual europeans

8. take the time to enjoy life... they value family, vacations, and good food to a wonderful degree.

alternately, i am not a fan of roundabouts... they make me a little ill.

anywho... i as i am about to leave northern europe, i realize i haven't revisited my poland times. sooo...

    as i said, i had no intentions of being in poland for more than a week. however the combination of unbelievable hospitality and my intrigue of communist history kept me hanging around. at first it was the architecture that got me, though i didn't know it. i had noticed on the bus on the way to auschwitz that most of the buildings and houses were simple, concrete, grey, square structures... and i though, geeze that's so odd.... and ugly. and i promptly forgot about it because i went to auschwitz-birkinau and not much can fit in yer brain after that. returning to krakow, the architecture is much more typical eastern-european and old looking. 

    then it was onto inowrowclaw (eeno-vrot-slov? i still can't say it)... a small city in the north-western region of poland where joanna, and most of the polish camp crew grew up. when we got to joanna's neighborhood, she and her brother turned to me and asked "have you ever seen buildings like this?" -- frankly, no not really, i mean they look a little like nyc housing projects because of the way they're spaced, but they're painted with stripes or shapes. 

(trying to insert pics here but it's not working)

they explained to me that this was the polish way of trying to make all the communist era buildings look nicer and not so depressing. ah HA!! and i exclaimed out loud "so THIS is what they were trying to teach me about all those years in high school!" ...they gave me a funny look and i explained that i had suddenly made the connection between all the stuff i was supposed to have learned in social studies and what i was actually looking at. it now made sense, now that i had seen it...  the nazi concentration camps... the soviet liberation... soviet rule in poland... communism... the end of soviet rule -- it had all been just a piece of history that i couldn't comprehend, but was now right there and i was so keen to learn as much as i could about what it was like to live in poland during communism. luckily for me, joanna was happy to provide me with impromptu history lessons whenever she saw the opportunity. she taught me that the stores only sold vinegar, she didn't have toys when she was a kid, there's no old buildings in her town cus it was flattened by the germans as it was a transportation hub between berlin, poznan, and warsaw, the communist government dictated where you would go to school, where you would live, and where you would work and they put up all the concrete buildings and said "you, here" and that was that. we discussed the generation gap between people our age and those who came of age during communism and how different life is now than it was for her parents and grandparents.  so even though i have a greater grasp on this piece of history, the actual comprehension of how it all happened still eludes me. 

    wanting more, i decided to travel to berlin to soak up even more. i didn't fully accomplish my goal, mainly i wanted to see the difference between the architecture on the east and west sides of berlin -- but one, i ran out of time before getting to do some good footwork, and two, much of berlin was destroyed during world war II and has been rebuilt on both sides anyway. a lot of the city has been painstakingly renovated. but i will say this -- it s a very brown and therefor ugly (in my opinion) city. nevertheless i had a great time on a 4-hour walking tour during which i soaked up lots of history. again seeing it was much more valuable than years of social studies classes with term papers, text books, and tests. i mean for crying out loud, i wrote a paper on the fall of the berlin wall for my 8th grade social studies class and i STILL had no idea. ( i can admit, it was an awful awful paper, but with excellent cover art! i blame ms. eichler, for she was more concerened about beeping watches.)

    i was ready to say that i wish had i made this sort of trip when i was younger, when teachers were wasting their time trying to teach it to me, that i would have learned much much more. but i doubt i would have been able to comprehend it enough that it would have been worth it. for one thing, i would have been concerned more with trying to learn for school's sake -- nodding and uh-huh ing through the days. and had i made this sort of trip then, i probably would not have done it again now. and though it sadly took me until i was 28 to truly fathom what this portion of european history was like, i am thankful that i now have the maturity, intelligence, and enthusiasm to want to know more about the world and it's history. what really struck me was that this was not some far off history that can only be seen in an artist's rendition... this has all happened in my life-time (barely) and more so that of my parents, grandparents, and friends. ... making it harder to swallow and more valuable.

bring it on.

stage 1

i am about to complete the first leg of the trip -- that would be the "visiting-my-friends-in-northern-europe" leg... coventry, york, somewhere in the coutry nearby, stoke-on-trent, liverpool, edinburgh, glasgow, krakow, inowroclaw, poznan, berlin, and london. and i would like to express my deep gratitude to those of you whom have had me over at your homes or entertained me in the last month and a half. so to brodie and anna, danny and jill, stephanie, budd, nikki, joanna, nina, ewelina, and your families -- THANK YOU! I only hope that i can return the favor to all of you. i have had SO much fun, and been well fed, and had lots of tea, and slept comfortably, and seen/done lots of things that i otherwise would not have. i have also realized how much americans have to learn about hospitality -- myself very much included. i officially open my home to all of you (those whom have played host, and those reading as well) in new york once i have returned home... i vow to apply what i have learned.

i will be flying out of london this saturday, bound for spain. on xmas eve i am meeting trudy in lisbon, and we will head to morocco for new years! that's the plan.

much love and happy holidays to all. :)

k

poland... more than i expected.

first of all, i didn't expect to be here for two whole weeks. infact, had i not been wanting to come visit my friend joanna, i would not have come here at all. at least not on this trip. but in the time i have been here i have eaten tons of great food (really, maybe actual tons) and learned way more about history than i did in high school social studies. but lets talk about food and other random things, the pictures are sillier. and one day i'll get to the other stuff like the architechture, communism, and concentration camps.



first authentic polish meal & first halloween in poland




joanna made these from scratch -- they're polish crossiants made to celebrate polish independance day... she filled 'em with plum jelly (i think?.... it's polish, who knows), chocolate, or apples... didn't last long, as you can see.



and i present to you the ZAPIKANKA!! the best late night concession i have encountered in all my 28 years of late night eating. note, those are two seperate zapikankas on consecutive nights. mmmmmmm yum!


i didn't eat anything in there... but tee hee!



polish staples, beer and vodka, ouch ... and that's a fridge


big ass american car... look at that thing!! the front in the size of the little european (normal for europe) one behind it!!


ha!


a tad far from home.... but that ain't nothin yet


flags on polish independance day

trudy, how i love thee...

let me count the ways

1. you came to puerto rico with me and my family when we were 15 where we had our stuff stolen, including our underwear and there was not a pair to be found anywhere on the island of vieques and we wore our bathing suits for a week, and then we drank a bottle of champagne on new years in the hotel bar with a man named froggie... celebrating twice, once for PR and once for NY and didn't feel so hot on the plane home the next day (sorry mommy and daddy. you still love us right?)

2. you took me to join a yoga cult on the sun-drenched beaches of the bahamas, where we had a top-notch gorgeous camping spot and then got kicked out of it and i went effin' insane at the little man as we followed him all over, refusing to sleep next to garbage or the bathrooms, until we ended up on a staff platform -- holler!

3. and she's coming to morocco!! new years 2008 -- bring it on!

... oh, there's so many more ways, but seeing as how this is a travel blog, i'll keep it to travel related love

thank you for fixing my blog so that it looks prettier... as always, you are my computer-related problems savior!

so folks, from now on, this blog will be co-maintained by my trood, and all i have to do is re-pay her with love... which is like stealing really, cus she's so easy to love.

hold it down in nyc.

now this s#!^ is starting to piss me off, pardon my english

i knew there would come a point in time where i would wish i hadn't decided to do a blog... well, it has arrived, only a month in.

the idea of it excites me... to be able to publish something that is of my own, without all the facebook distractions. i also like the black backing that so nicely displays photographs. BUT i now have several gripes with it... number one being that i can't figure out how to make each post look how i want it to... once i start uploading pictures, they come out in funky orders and with the words all over the place, seemingly never where they say they will be. number two futher compounds issue number one, everything is in polish! i am fully aware that it won't stay this way, but if everytime i try to blog, the directions are going to be in the native language of my current location then i am going to have a lot of trouble rectifying issue number one. and issue number three is that this is not really a jewish travel guide and i never intended it to be... i just liked the ring it put to the tittle.... so i will change that shortly.

the solution? well i'd like to keep this up, the blog that it, not the complaining... so until i get back to england the posts will be ugly, and being the perfectionist that i am, i will hate it... but the solution i'm getting at is that i will have to memorize the layout of the blog once i get back to england and before i depart to nations that use entirely different alphabets (at least here i have figured out what "novy pasta" and "edyuj" mean.)

pardon my frustration, please don't take it as any indication of how i am doing... i'm am very happy, and so far right on track with the missions outlined at the start of this blog.

ew, i said blog.

back tracking a little to the uk

first football game of the trip! stoke-on-trent vs. scheffield wednesday ... stoke played TEERRIBLE defense



yesssss, english chocolate fountain!



out with the girls... never go to bed on an empty stomach




thank you all for a wonderful time!



it was like the movie... green street houligans, where the police have to be at the train station in case shit goes down with the visiting team... ha!

a few shots of krakow, poland

climbing the bell tower of the wawell cathedral was a scary task at times... the wooden stairway was narrow, steep, and dark... a very tigt squeeze all the way up and twisty and turny... interesting engineering.

krakow from above

no, the picture isn't cut off... that's the exit.