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."
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.
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