Matching Tracksuits

polska 2022

Polish Stores

Tuesday 5 July 2022

You can tell a lot about a country from its stores. American stores, by and large, are enormous. The Big Box stores rule, in short. The aisles are wide. The shelves have some space at the top — things are not packed into every possible corner.

Stores here are small. Every inch of space is put to use. The aisles are narrow. But that’s only the surface differences.

Look closer and you’ll learn a lot about the culture itself. What does an almost-entire row of various kinds of preserved, canned fish tell you about a culture?

When a village of only about five thousand stretched along three roads has multiple bakeries, and some shops sell almost 20 types of bread, you get the feeling that bread is of utmost importance.

When an entire corner of a store is dedicated to different types of juice, one realizes that everyone, young and old, must drink juice in that country.

But the biggest change since I first arrived in 1996 is the style of the stores: virtually none of the stores were self-service. The salesperson stood behind a counter and all the products were on shelves behind her. It was like the old fashioned general stores of the American past.

Initially that was frustrating; eventually, I learned that it was one of the best things that could happen to my budding Polish language skills.

The only thing that’s really changed since we left Poland in 2004 is the variety.

Family Party

Monday 4 July 2022

This evening, we got together with Dziadek’s side of the family: two aunts, a handful of cousins, a lot of food, and a wonderful evening.

This is the primary reason for coming back at all. All the rest is wonderful, but none of it feeds the soul like evenings such as this.

Wypasiona Dolina Plus

Monday 4 July 2022

There was so much more — so much more — today that, at 11:59, I don’t care to cover. But this was the most insignificant event of the day.

Trzy Korony

Sunday 3 July 2022

Climbing mountains is something my mind loves but my body questions. Ever since I seriously injured my knee about 25 years ago hiking in the Tatra Mountains, I’ve been wary of mountains. The way up is not the issue. In fact, it’s a great relief sometimes to be heading up. No, it’s the way down – that crash! crash! crash! against the knees. Almost 190 pounds dropping on knees time and time again.

So when we started our trek up to Trzy Korony today, I was a little concerned about the effect it might have on my knee. I was more concerned when I saw just how steep it was. Fortunately, we all made it fine.

And I’m so exhausted that I can’t say much more than that about the whole day.

First Saturday

Saturday 2 July 2022

Originally, the plan was to meet with K’s brother’s family and head out for an adventure on the Dunajec River this afternoon after a morning hike around the Three Crowns Mountains. But in fairly typical Podhale fashion, the weather turned suddenly overcast, threatening rain. We decided it wasn’t worth it: what’s the point of hiking up a mountain if you can’t see any views? And we always have tomorrow.

So since we were all up (meaning, the adults and the Boy) early, we went ahead and had an early breakfast. And as we had nothing else to do in the morning, I went out for a walk in the hilly fields just west of the village.

Images from the morning walk

I saw a gentleman sweeping hay from the floor of his barn with an old-fashioned twig broom. I thought to ask him if he would mind me taking a picture of him, but I didn’t. Why? I really don’t know. What’s the worst that could have happened? He would have laughed, said “No,” and I would have gone on about my walk. Instead, I am writing about it hours later with just a little regret. Next time.

After lunch, the plan was to head to Wypasiona Dolina for a little line-park action, but just as the weather put a quick end to our river plans, the rain put an unforeseen end to our afternoon adventures: though the park is only a few kilometers from Jablonka, and though it didn’t rain all day today, it poured there apparently, and the owner, seeing that all the wood was wet and thus slippery, sent all the workers home.

Instead, we went to the outdoor museum that we almost always seem to visit while here. It seems to grow each time we go.

On the way back to Babcia’s to pick her up for church, we stopped at a new place that had — strangely enough for a small village — a small bowling alley. It was not quite a normal bowling alley: the pins were suspended by strings and seemed to be lighter plastic. The Boy managed to win the first game but didn’t do so well with the second game.

After bowling, we rushed to pick up Babcia to head to church so that we can have tomorrow completely free. Afterward, we dropped by the cemetery to tidy up around Dziadek’s grave and pay our respects. As always happens at the cemetery, we met an old friend of Babcia’s, a former teacher of K’s.

And finally, back home, Babcia began teaching the Boy how to make a fire for hot water — a basic skill in old-school rural Poland

First Day 2022

Friday 1 July 2022

Coming to Poland is always the same old new: it is always a question of what has changed and what has not changed. The things you would think are timeless are just that: without change from who knows when. Yet some of these things for our kids are indeed new — at least, they don’t remember doing them.

Like drinking hot black tea with breakfast. Admittedly, we don’t even really have that with breakfast in the States. We generally have spiced Indian tea — close to the traditional breakfast drink here, but taken in an entirely different direction.

The food largely stays the same, too, yet completely different from our everyday reality. Boczek, for example, is the impossible dream where we live in South Carolina. Sure, there’s bacon, but that’s hardly the same.

These differences create differences in L’s breakfast patterns, too. Smoothies are out. Scrambled eggs z boczkiem are definitely in.

Or just some slices of boczek on some good Polish bread with a little butter.

After breakfast, a bit of unpacking, and some ironing (everything we packed of course is now too wrinkled to wear around here — what a shame that would be), we head to the store to do some shopping after dropping in at the kantor to get some zloty. Another different-same: while the stores in Jablonka are much bigger than what they used to be but still much smaller than what we’re used too. Granted, such mega-shops exist in cities, but your average rural sklep here will be only a fraction the size of its American counterpart.

On the way home, we stop at Pasieka, the small restaurant where K and I met when dating, for some afternoon refreshments. We look over the menu, commenting on how much inflation is evidence from the time we left in 2005. Beer now costs double what it was, for example.

“Prices are starting to equalize” seems to be our mantra this trip. It’s not so ridiculously cheep for someone earning in dollars despite the generous exchange rate.

On returning, we resort to one of our favorite pastimes: sitting at the table and chatting with Babcia. I don’t know how many times I’ve taken this same picture.

Babcia is so easy to talk to that it’s hard not just to sit around and talk about anything and everything.

After dinner, the Boy, K, and I head out for a walk to the river, stopping to talk to an old childhood friend of K’s for some time.

All in all, a perfect first day — and only the second post on this site that I’ve completed completely on my telephone, pictures and all. The ease and convenience of it all…hard to beat.

Arrival 2022

Thursday 30 June 2022

The trip here seems endless — completely

Coming to Poland is always worse than returning as far as the travel itself goes. Returning to America, due to the time change, only feels like a really long day. The sun just never seems to set. Going, however, is deceptive because you have that night in the middle, but in reality, it’s not much more than a short nap at best. So you feel cheated, tricked — and your body does not appreciate it. It was not expecting one long day with the illusion of sleep in the middle.

Having a six-hour layover after an eight-hour flight doesn’t help much either. It seems like that will be long enough to catch up on sleep just a bit, but just like the night itself, it only teases.

So we board the plane from Munich to Krakow some twenty hours after we began the whole adventure with eyes barely open. K and L try to nap on the flight, but it’s of little use. E and I, each having a window seat, spend the flight looking out the windows at the shapes below.

Anyone flying into Poland with a window seat as we have knows exactly when we’re over the border. The shapes change immediately and drastically. The irregular, large shapes of fields and forest interspersed with houses and towns disappear, and in their place stretch long, narrow fields, one beside another. This is Poland from the air.

Departure 2022

Wednesday 29 June 2022

We’re in the air at the moment; I write this still sitting at my desk in South Carolina, the whole adventure still ahead of us all. The waiting, the sitting, the endless masks — they’re all ahead of us.

All our indoor plants are behind us — on the kitchen counter.

A small portion of the eventual garden

But best of all, Babcia awaits

Packing

Tuesday 28 June 2022

Tonight is our last night in the States for a little while. Four suitcases and four carry-ons are ready to go. The Boy is going around the house constantly saying, “We’re leaving for Poland tomorrow!” K is going around the house saying, “I can’t believe we’re leaving for Poland tomorrow.” I’m going around the house saying, “Does anyone know where the bladder for our backpack is?” And L — she’s been at work, so she hasn’t been saying anything this evening.

End of the 2021/22 School Year — Countdown Begins

Monday 6 June 2022

Today was the final day of school for me. The kids didn’t have school, but teachers have to go in for at least one more day to get things squared away for the summer: materials returned, documents completed, papers signed, report cards mailed. During my first year at Hughes, I was overwhelmed with the amount of stuff we had to do. Since then, teachers’ “To Do” list has been drastically simplified. One whole task, which often took hours, has been assigned to others. I use the passive voice there because, quite honestly, I don’t know who made that change, but I am grateful nonetheless.

Getting this last day out of the way is such a relief because I reach a point where I can finally stop thinking about school for a while — I’m not even planning on doing any prep work this summer. For one thing, I have too much to do this summer:

  • Trim the Leyland cypresses (a two-day job in and of itself)
  • Clean the outside of the house
  • Pressure-wash the deck
  • Apply ample coats of water-proofing to the deck
  • Pressure-wash the concrete portion of the drive
  • Complete the furniture assembly for the remodeled basement

Then there’s all the travel:

  • L’s final tournament in Orlando
  • L’s job
  • L’s physical therapy
  • L’s volleyball conditioning
  • L’s individual volleyball lessons
  • E’s play dates

Still, this is a fairly short list for the summer, but this is all in the next three weeks, for in just 23 days, we’ll be heading to Poland as a family of four for the first time since 2017. Five years. Five years. It’s the longest period of time I’ve not visited Poland since I first went in 1996. K and E went last summer; L went on her own in the summer of 2019. (Or was it 2018?) But it’s been five long years since we all went.

That means L was E’s age the last time we were there. And L has gone from being a pre-teen to an almost-licensed (driver-permitted?) employed teen with all that entails.

L on the day we arrived in 2017

The Boy has one from a little five-year-old thrilled with everything new to an increasingly cynical (but still fascinated by many things) ten-year-old.

The Boy on the day we arrived in 2017

We’ll probably take the same walk we always do on the day we arrive, and we’ll definitely enjoy Babcia’s rosół the day we arrive, but everything will be just a little different. And that’s probably good.