This time without fireworks

Tuesday was Independence Day in Poland. They're celebrating 90 years since the founding of the second Polish Republic (at the end of WWI), so it's sort of a big deal. Above is a photo of the flag outside our apartment building.

Brian and I celebrated in the same way as many of our fellow Cracovians--we got on a jam-packed bus (I mean my face was up against someone else's coat for most of the ride), and rode to the zoo!

We weren't actually headed to see the animals, though. The Krakow zoo is surrounded by woods, called Las Wolski, which are full of walking and biking trails. It was our first time out there, and I would definitely return. It helped that we had an absolutely gorgeous day. How many days in mid-November are 55F, sunny and cloudless?


Some of the trails are densely wooded, and some are edged with jagged limestone ridges. Some paths are paved, and some are a bit more rugged. It's a pretty big and diverse area.


The highlight of the trip, and the reason everyone comes out there on independence day, though, is a mound. Ok, a really big mound. Krakow has four of them, each with winding paths leading up to a great viewing point at the top. This one, though, is called Independence Mound, in memory of Josef Pilsudski, the celebrated Polish leader, who took charge as Chief of State of Poland 90 years ago. The mound contains soil from various battlefields, and so it's a pretty important place for an independence day celebration.


Like I said, from the top you can see all of Krakow, which is pretty spectacular. The view's not actually as great as from the Kosciuszko Mound, closer to the center of town, but it's still pretty cool.


Meanwhile, in town, the downtown was pretty crowded, a stage was set up for a sort of pagent and for some reason, small children were on every corner playing instruments. In particular, we saw a few little boys with little accordians... mostly they seemed not very interested in playing. I surreptitiously snapped this shot of an accordian boy against a lamppost on the main square. He would only play a few beats before stopping to gape at the pedestrians or pick his nose. I can't assume it was a very lucrative day for these kids, but who knows?


All in all, a fun and classy Independence Day.

colorful food for fall

So, I'm living in Poland right now--perhaps you've heard me mention that.
We like to eat cheaply, and we do almost all our grocery shopping at the Old Market (Stary Kleparz), which is about five minutes' walk from our place. What this means: we eat a lot of cabbage, onions, bread, barley and button mushrooms. White foods, in other words.

Lately we've been trying to incorporate more color into our culinary lives. It's really a perfect time to do it, too, because fall makes me want to put color everywhere, but especially on my plate! Our number one secret weapon against colorless food has been salad, and I think we've been pretty successful.

Top five colorful ingredients that we can get at the market, while staying frugal:
1. Avocado (definitely our biggest salad-splurge item at approx. $1 a piece)
2. Spinach (about $0.80 for a tremendous bunch, usually takes three meals to get through)
3. Yellow Lentils! (we've taken to soaking and cooking dry lentils rather than using canned, which is cheaper and tastier--the texture really does something for a spinach salad, and, of course, the color compliment is lovely)
4. Red Cabbage (delicious change of pace from white cabbage, slightly more expensive at about $0.50 for a good sized cabbage head)
5. Tomatoes (about $2/kilogram, less for the smaller, sweeter varieties)

And I recently learned to best absorb the lycopene in tomatoes, you should eat them with some fat. That's the best reason for a light oil-based salad dressing that I know of, after the obvious (delicious).

Considering all the pierogi, naleśniki and zapiekanka we eat, the right colorful salad can be positively refreshing, not to mention vital to our health.

On the main square in Wroclaw, Poland

I took this photo of a small girl with a bicycle in downtown Wrocław, Poland, this past weekend. I love it. Enjoy.

Weekend Getaways

Today is election day. Maybe you've heard? Every blog I read posted something about it.
Here in Poland we won't know the results until 7 or 8 or 9am Wednesday morning -- and I have the mimosas ready and waiting.

Meanwhile, I spent the weekend in Wrocław (with my boyfriend and his father, who is visiting us) and Poznań (with one of my very best friends). It was a really nice getaway for a few days, and I got to see two lovely cities I'd never been to before.

I did what you might expect from me -- went to the cinema to watch a foreign film, drank tea and mulled beer in tiny dim cafes, bought (somewhat) old maps, went to a John Coltrane tribute concert and, oh, yeah, I took some photos!

Here are the main market squares of each town -- you can compare for yourselves.
Wrocław:



And Poznań:



And for good measure, here's a snap of the amazing breakfast spread courtesy of my dear friend Asia:


Wonderful! I particularly liked the blood sausage with barley -- I can't help but wonder, though, what my seventeen-year-old self, the vegan, would have to say about that. Not to mention my dear co-blogger, also vegan. Mallory? Thoughts?

It Might Snow Next Week...

...But we're making the most of Fall now.

This morning I was walking across Plac Szczpański, like I usually do, and I found a large obstacle in my way. It was a corral, and inside were three women handing out small bags of apples with pamphlets.
I've seen it before: apples given as incentive to read company literature, but never more than one apple, maybe two if you ask nicely. But bags of apples? Now we're talking.

Anyway, I immediately texted Brian: Free apples! At work I thought about the bounty in my backpack. Brian got two bags, and together we had nine apples (here it starts to sound like a word problem from third grade math class). When I got home from work, I knew what to do. I mean seriously, when life gives you apples...


I love applesauce. Nothing screams Fall quite like yellow leaves and the smell of apples simmering down to their most delicious essence with some help from cinnamon and cloves. And did I mention the apples were free?


It turned out delicious, of course. Some of the apples in the bunch were really very good. Even better, I managed to press out a couple of glasses of cider, too. Together with some trail mix, a great little snack:


I have to admit, though--we still haven't read the pamphlets.

Series: Things I Love About Poland, Part II: Flowers

Spending an extended period of time in a new place, you start to perceive the little cultural differences that aren't immediately evident. Those little things--customs in Poland like hand-kissing and using exact change--those are the sweetest parts of spending time in new places.


Here's another one I love: kwiaty. In Poland, there's an appropriate flower for every occasion. At my work, we rarely get through an event without the giving of red or pink roses; for birthdays its yellow roses but yellow chrysanthemums are reserved for funerals. I once gave a carnation for an apology, and the recipient actually laughed at me.

But the best part for me isn't really the individual instances, it's the overall omnipresence of flowers and flower-sellers. On Sundays the streets are full of young women with flowers, anxious dates with small bouquets, mothers pushing strollers carrying flowers, men holding flowers in one hand and their girlfriend's hand in the other. On sunny days, the main market square in Krakow is one huge flower-shop, and it's really not a tourist trap. I'm pretty sure it's--if I may dare to use the word--authentic.

Anyway, as traditions go, it's bright and cheery and definitely something special for me.

If flowers aren't charming enough for you, though, no worries: peacock feathers are also very popular.

Series: Things I love about Poland, Part I: Milk Bars

Remember the psychedelic black-and-white Milk Bar from A Clockwork Orange? The one that serves several varieties of milk, and nothing else?
Well, it's real. Sort of.


The milk bar (bar mleczny) does exist, but I've never seen any actual glasses of milk at one, let alone a table in the shape of a woman. The milk bar is essentially a cafeteria selling really decent polish food at really decent prices. They're usually poorly decorated and there is always, without fail, an aproned woman behind the counter, holding a soup ladle.

My personal favorite items are the most basic things on the menu: pierogi ruskie, or "russian" pirogi, which are filled with delicious potato and cheese; naleśniki z serem, or cheese-filled crepes, which can be sweet or savory; and placki ziemniaczane, potato pancakes. I also love the barszcz z krokietem (borscht with a croquette), in particular because it's usually considered an appetizer, not a full meal, and thus rarely costs more than about a dollar fifty. Beautiful.

The milk bar pictured above is located in the Nowa Huta district of Krakow, a city built as a "worker's paradise" in 1949/50 for the workers at the new steel mill outside town. This milk bar sits in Plac Centralny, or Central Square, which, in 1984, was renamed in honor of Ronald Reagan.
Seriously.


This infatuation with Ronald Reagan is not going to make it into this series of posts on things I love about Poland, I think. Sorry, Ron.

Jesień w Polsce (Fall in Poland)

My boyfriend and I are living in Krakow right now, in an apartment not far from the city center. It's my favorite time of year in one of my favorite cities. Still, it's nice to have a change of scenery from time to time, so this weekend we took the express train to Warsaw.
This is the Palace on the Water, which is surrounded by gardens. Even though it's not really gardening season, and I'll admit it, the weather this weekend was anything but ideal for strolling, I still absolutely adore walking through wooded gardens in autumn. Poland is a great place for that.


Back in Krakow, the leaves aren't quite as advanced as in Warsaw. Every day I walk through the Planty gardens, which surround the Old Town and are therefore on my way from our apartment to just about everything. For me, it's ideal and romantic and even sort of inspirational. But I love that it's not just a recreational garden -- for so many people, it's just a sidewalk like any other.


When I was in elementary school, my friend Michaela told me that if you catch a falling leaf, you won't get sick for a month. I've never been quick enough to catch very many leaves, but in gardens like these, on a windy day the leaves just swirl around and get tangled in my hair, and finally, finally I am becoming a champion falling-leaf-catcher.
Unfortunately, this weekend we got caught in a lot of that wind and some heavy rain, too, and I caught a cold.
Sorry, Michaela, it isn't true.

Hopeful Return from Hiatus

Hi Blog. I'm back.

In the almost two months since you've seen me, I've done a lot, sort of. Let me make a list:
1. Got a job. Yessss!
2. Went on vacation.
3. Visited my co-blogger and much-missed friend, Mallory, on her birthday.
3. Planned my next big move.

May I elaborate?

Okay.

1. I'm going to be working for Epic Systems Corporation starting next February. I'll be traveling a lot and living in Madison, my beloved hometown. That means several exciting things, including apartment-hunting, apartment-decorating and, most importantly, my own kitchen.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. That's not 'til Feburary.

2. My boyfriend, Brian, and my parents and I took off for two weeks of camping earlier this August. We went to Banff Canadian National Park in Alberta, by way of the Dakotas and Montana. It was a beautiful trip with lots of wildlife and frisbee and hiking... I'll try to remember to post some highlights in the coming days.

3. Mallory is supposed to blog about this, I think, and I'm going to post photos of the delicious feast we cooked up, but I thought I'd mention it. I visited my other hometown, Grinnell. I saw friends and ate muffins and chatted with professors and it was gorgeous and a little surreal, since I won't be returning to campus for another semester.

4. Did I mention I'm moving abroad? For the next five months I'll be in Europe, mostly in Krakow, Poland. On the way there, Brian and I will check out Iceland and Scotland to see new things and visit friends. I'm starting to get seriously excited for this. We leave in three days, and I'm already mostly packed and totally pumped. I've been apartment-hunting online for Krakow, but we still don't have a place to stay. That's the only really scary part...

I made granola for the trip, and it was nice because I haven't made granola in a few years. It's so easy and so delicious that I wonder why I don't make it more often. The recipe I used is from the Recipes for a Small Planet cookbook by Francis Moore Lappe, and focuses on complementary proteins. The upshot of this is that, even without adding milk, this granola contains complete proteins, which are, I guess, extra healthy.

That's my last few weeks in a nutshell. I hope to get back in the swing of blog-posting, and to never let you down again, Blog.

And in the mean time, because I don't like a post without a photo, here's a pretty one from Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Enjoy:

Wednesday Again!

Czestochowa, Poland
A popular Catholic pilgrimage site, the location of the Black Madonna, and a fun idol-filled day trip from Krakow.
November, 2006