One more from Zakopower.
polska
My always obsession...
This and That
Hania Chowaniec-Rybka was well known before she was famous. A singer who specializes muzyka goralska (the music the music of Podhale, the region spread beneath the Tatra Mountains), Hania had made a name for herself long before she was known outside the relatively small confines of Podhale.
Her album “i to, i to” (“This and That”) is a blend of jazz and muzyka goralska. When K told me about it and suggested we buy it, I cringed. Mixing goralski music with this or that genre is nothing new, but it’s seldom done well.
With this album, however, sometimes one style or the other stands out, but never at the sacrifice of the other. It’s music with integrity, in other words. So often, bands that mix Highlander music with anything else create nothing but a travesty, a mix in which bastardized forms of one music plays slave to the other. Sometimes it’s rock with a bit of muzyka goralska , but mostly its the goralska music that dominates. Or at least tries. Instead of sounding like a clever marriage it ends up like a bad date.
Hania’s mix of jazz and the styles of the Polish Highlanders bends both genres just enough to make an accommodating mix.
Here’s my favorite track from the album: “Ola boga.”
| Jo se jes dzieweczka Mam wesolo dusze Bez dzien moge robic Wieczor tanczyc musze. |
I’m just a little girl with a happy soul I can do without the day but I must dance at night |
| Ola boga swietego Co to komu do tego Ola boga swietego A kapela gra |
Oh dear God, it’s nobody’s business! Oh dear God, and the band’s playing! |
(Polish speakers: How would you have translated “Ola boga swietego” in this case? Nothing sounds right.)
“Worst organised Polish company”
scatts at Polandian has a horror story that sounds all too familiar to me.
My vote has to be given to the dearly beloved Telekomunikacja Polska S.A. or just TP as they prefer to be called these days. Admittedly, Poczta Polska provides tough competition for my vote with a strong performance in number of packages lost, sourpuss sales ladies and in worst queues, but my recent experience in trying to get Neostrada in the new home proves that it is going to take truly world-class incompetence levels for anyone to take the top slot away from TP.
(And the Polandian award for worst organised Polish company goes to… « Polandian).
While I never had to deal with TP (appropriate acronym), I did have a similar experience getting official state permission to marry K.
Polish bureaucracies have an obsession with exact documentation. And stamps.
Baptism
Lipnica Wielka
The village where I spent seven years of my life.
K held the camera as we drove to visit friends. Silly, but I’m sentimental, so it’s excusable. (It’s double-time so it doesn’t take so long, but of course it makes us all sound like chipmunks in the background. It also makes it jerky. Oh well…)
A Day at Gubalowka
We finally began putting together some of the video shot in Polska. First up: our day at Gubalowka, a ridge line above Zakopane that is basically one big playground. We took K's five-and-a-half-year-old nephew, W, with us.
NYT Frugal Traveler
There’s a new video blog at the New York Times called the Frugal Traveler. Week 10 is a visit to Gdansk Poland.
Why Gdansk? Why not Krakow? Unlike both Gdansk and Warsaw, Krakow was not totally destroyed during the Second World War, and its old town is just that — old. Perhaps the choice of Gdansk came from week 9’s spot: Vilnius, Lithuania. It’s a shorter hop from Vilnius to Gdansk than Vilnius to Krakow.
Still, it’s good to see Poland getting included like this.
Storm
A storm approaches over the Tatra Mountains of southern Poland. Often a land of gray skies.
Narrow Streets
Krakow is full of them.
Some less neglected than others.
In fact, there are narrow streets throughout all of Poland. Indeed, all of Europe. That's what happens when cities exist for centuries before the invention of the car.
Looking Back at Krakow
We made it home yesterday after an exhausting journey. L fell into fits of hysterical screaming on the flight from Munich to Charlotte, and there was mumbling about the plane regarding it -- as well as a few comments swirling around our heads while we stood in the passport control line. The temptation to say something was great, but I decided to keep it a win-lose situation (i.e., we win, acting like adults; they lose, acting like children) instead of descending into a useless argument, for there was no win-win situation in sight as tired as we all were.
The trip was exhausting, but we had wonderful memories to keep up our spirits, including two days in the most magnificant (and second most expensive) city in Polska, Krakow.
The first thing we noticed, coming by bus, was the new shopping center cum bus stop. When we left in 2005, it looked like this:
Three years -- and a surprising amount of initiative -- later:
The old bus station was a testament to the hideous nature of Communist architecture, and it was torn down before I even knew it had been slated for demolition. "Oh, what I wouldn't give for a couple of hours in that old place now," I told K.
Also victim of the renovation was the "Dragon Bar" ("Bar Smok"), a milk bar across the street from the old bus station. Filthy does not begin to describe it, and once again, I find myself wishing for a 4gb memory card and a day to photograph it.
As we made our way to the rynek, we noted that some things had mercifully not changed. The opera house still greets visitors after they emerge from the passage under Westerplatte Street.
And the corner of Pijarska and Planty streets still looks the same:
We finally made it to the rynek, where L seemed just as amazed as everyone else is they first time they emerge from Florianska Street onto Krakow's enormous square:
We fed the pigeons,
had a latte,
and watched the people around us. Some were trying to get the best shots with classic Russian equipment:
Some were simply passing through:
After a short break, we headed inside the Basilica of St. Mary -- what I'd bought the 10-20mm for:
I'd brought a tripod in order to try to get some shots to combine into HDR, but I was kindly informed during my final shot of my first series that tripods were not allowed.
I'm always amazed with the beauty of such places.
And I'm glad the Church so wisely followed Jesus' command to feed the starving, clothe the poor, and build ridiculously big churches.
We headed down Grodzka Street toward Wawel castle
Finally, exhausted, we fell into a cafe for some rest, respite from the sun (L was fussy and sweaty), and, most importantly, a chance to meet up with some of our dearest friends, Kuba and Maja:
We spent our last New Year's Eve in Polska with K & M in Hel, a little port town at the tip of a long finger of land into the Baltic Sea.
Maja -- the "maja" of comments here -- has been eager to meet the girl for some time, and they hit it off immediately:
The initial excitement of our reunion finally calmed (M was bouncing off the walls with joy!), we all continued down Grodzka Street
to Wawel, the royal castle
Finally, the Girl had had enough, and so we headed out of Krakow
to a little town on the city's outskirts, where K's brother, D, lives.
We had grilled sausage to accompany a wonderful evening of reminiscing and talking about the "realities" of life in America.
When D saw the wonders of a SLR camera's bulb setting, he took me to a place to get some night shots of Krakow.
Sadly, there was too much light from the street lights to get good shots, but that fact did lead to this:
Thus ended our first day in Krakow.
Our second day was much slower and shorter. It included a walk in the park surrounding the old town,
and K taking a few more shots.
It ended in the old Jewish section of town, at an outside cafe, where still more friends came to meet us.
And thus our not-quite-two weeks in Polska came to an end.
More reflections -- not to mention pictures -- later.