Near my mom’s condo is a huge park, which includes one of Kraków’s several man-made mounds. From the top of this mound (Kopiec Krakusa), there’s a great view of the entire Kraków metropolitan area. You can even see the Tatry mountains (or at least the foothills) in the distance. Today was a gorgeous day, and I went to the top to see the sunset.
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, I present you the most amazing linens you’ll ever see:
I went with my mom and stepdad to the mall today and saw a funny sign. Let me explain: there are a lot of English words that have crept into the Polish language. Some of these words will be spelled with their proper English spelling and pronounced closely to what they should be in English, like the word “pub” (which is not pronounced “poob”). Many of these words, however, are transliterated so as to keep a similar sound when pronounced in Polish. Some of my personal favorites are “biznesman” (businessman) or “lejdis” (ladies). Sometimes, though, the English words get a bit lost in translation (not unlike Engrish, or as I like to call it here “Ponglish”), like the sign above for a blended, frozen beverage from a café; I assume that the name should be “Blizzard”, and the word for blizzard or snowstorm in Polish is “śnieżyca”, which is not even close to “blizzer”. No doubt, I’ll find more of these kinds of signs later during my time here and I’ll try to post them. Mathilda, a fellow Polish-American friend from back in the States, and I would regularly bust a gut laughing about this kind of thing last summer here in Kraków.
I went to Liturgy today at the Orthodox parish here in Kraków. From conversations with a few people, it sounds like it this is a pretty typical Russian-style parish: everything in Slavonic (except for the sermon and the Bible readings were also done in Polish), only those just having gone to Confession or infants received Holy Communion, and no one talked to me. In many ways, it was really different from my home parish, St. Joe’s OCA in Wheaton, IL.
I miss my parish family today.
I ran another five miles today, but went east along the Wisła since the Wianki festival is going on along the banks of the river to the west. The Wianki festival is held annually here in Kraków. Musicians perform (this year, Jamiroquai headlined), vendors sell food and drink, amusement rides are set up, fireworks are lit, and allegedly handmade wreaths are put to float down the river. After Vigil at church, I went to check the whole thing out. Being really tired though (jetlag), I didn’t stay until the releasing of the wreaths, but I did get some shots of the beautiful sky around sunset. (Apparently my jetlag prevented me from holding the camera straight, too! I promise I wasn’t even drinking tonight! 
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(The photos at the end of the fake dogs are ones that I saw walking by a storefront ["How much is that plastic doggy in the window?"]. They’re for my friend Missy VonShottsworth; Boxer has a friend!)
Tonight, I went to Kino Pod Baranami (Cinema Beneath The Rams; sounds better in Polish) for a special event entitled “In The Mood For Björk”. (Coincidentally, this is the same theatre that I saw Dancer in the Dark with my mom and stepdad back in 1996.) “In The Mood…” included screenings of:
– The Icelandic animated film Anna And The Moods for which Björk does the voice of the main character. (Other voices were done by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame and Damon Alborn of Blur/Gorrilaz/Good,Bad,&TheQueen fame.)
– About 15 of her music videos. Seeing the video for Jòga again reminded me of the work of Robert Seidel who did the video for “Futures” by Zero 7 (feat. José González. Check out Seidel’s _grau. It’s both uncomfortable and beautiful and has a dreamlike quality.
– The evening ended with a recording of Björk live at Cambridge back in 1998.
When the screenings were over, I walked on Rynek Głowny (the main market square in Kraków) and a military band concert was just finishing. There were military and police bands from different places in Poland, as well as (if I remember correctly) Serbia and Lithuania.
This spring, I bought an iPod nano and the Nike+ gadget so I could keep track of how far I run when I go running–especially while in Poland. I’m testing out the WordPress Nike+ plugin (displayed in the right sidebar) to show stats on my recent runs.
Today I ran five miles on a path that goes along the Wisła (Vistula) River. I ran west from where my mom lives (in the Podgórze neighborhood, which is where the old Jewish ghetto and Schindler’s factory were) past Wawel Castle. There was a lot of set up going on for the Wianki Festival (taking place tomorrow), so there were a lot of things to dodge. I’ll try going east next time as there’ll be a lot less traffic on the path from bikers, walkers, and runners.
I just got in to my mom’s in Poland after a day of traveling (and an intense week of packing stuff, moving out of my “apartment”, and goodbyes).
Expect posts about my time here to follow.
I spent some time today digitizing a tape that my stepdad, Wacek, made of himself reading Polish children’s stories for my nephews. I’m going to burn it onto a CD for my sister so it’s easier to play for the boys since cassettes have gone the way of the Betamax.
I think it’s cool that my stepdad did this for the boys even though they’re not his biological grandsons. I think it’s equally as cool that my nephew Tyler often asks for the tape of Dziadzu. (“Dziadek” is the word for grandfather in Polish; “Dziadzu” is the diminutive in the vocative.) Just the other day, I was over at my sister’s and Tyler wanted to play in my car, pretending that he was driving. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, playing with the wipers, the turning signal, and trying to turn the wheel. I asked him where he was going, and he said “Dziadzu home”.
My family is so cool.
This is my last week in Chicago before I go to Kraków, Poland, for two months and then straight away to seminary for three years. Sure, I’ll be back in Chicago, God willing, but outside of moving to Wisconsin when I was a kid, this is really the biggest move that I’ve made in life.