You can get anything you want at Alice´s Restaurant
Unfortunately am updating after 2 days from the world´s worst keyboard so am having trouble typing but will do my best. Am in Berlin for sure but am trying to remember accurately my last day in Warsaw, which was, actually pretty great.
I will begin mentioning the coincidence of the century because I, as we all know, love coincidence. I took a bus in the late morning to Wilanow, the great 17th century palace built by the legendary Polish king Jan Sobieski (so famous that I learned about him in high school) which was also miraculously not destroyed during WWII. The palace was what it was; that is, I enjoyed it and got a taste of 18th and 19th century Polish history from the audiotour but couldn´t help feeling that "it´s just a really fancy house!" Nice portrait gallery though. Learned that the Glenn Danzig hair lock I saw on the guy on the street the other day was actually a fashionable style back in the 17th century. Which is NOT my favorite century when it comes to aesthetics, so no big surprise. I got stuck behind a class full of Polish kids on a field trip (everywhere I go there are TONS of field trips--´where did I ever go in elemetary school? the water purification plant?) but I didn´t mind because they were well behaved.
But the coincidence part...
I´m walking outside the museum, passing by a chocolate store, trying to find a place to eat lunch when I hear "Oh my God! Oh MY GOD!" in what was ultimately a Canadian accent. Remember those two girls from Cinqueterre that I magically ran into on the steps of St. Peter´s Basilica in Vatican City? It was THEY! Having "drinking chocolate" with one of their grandparents. I vaguely remembered that they would be going to Poland, but the chances that they would be taking the same day trip at the same time was almost too much.
After they left I had my own glass of "drinking chocolate" followed by a much too big salad and finished my Hunter S. Thompson. Upon which my final judgment is positive! Not a GREAT book by any means, and not as innovative as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but an enjoyable straightforward story about journalists in Puerto Rico in the late 1950s.
Later in the afternoon I was stopped on the street by a girl using the old line "Do you speak English?" I immediately told her I had no money to spend, which was true, but she said that she didn´t want money, only to tell me someone about the religious organization to which she belongs. I mostly nodded my head until I noticed some ´conspicuous Chinese writing on all of the pages of the notebook she was holding. I asked what the deal was.
She was a Moonie! A follower of Rev. Moon! Yikes! I smiled and said "well THAT´s interesting" and made my way away.
The early evening was less enjoyable and moderately frustrating as Alice´s cell phone that I had been borrowing in order to contact her ran out of batteries and I had to use an internet call center to contact her. When I called her work, one of her coworkers told me to call her at home. When home didn´t pick up after several hours of trying I gave up and decided that I would GO home and meet her there. I walked a good deal of the way, until I did´t recognize my surroundings and found a cab.
The cabdriver spoke no English and I no Polish so we negotiated the cab fare in German, a language neither one of us seemed to have much competency in. I THOUGHT that we had agreed on "fumph" but instead (as I discovered when I got to Alice´s parents´ place) that it had been 15. I argued with the cabdriver with hand signals but gave up. 10 zloti is only worth about 3 bucks anyway so not a big deal.
But Alice was not at home, but rather at work. So her stepfather had to drive me all the way back to the city to meet her!
I had my final Polish meal (potato pancakes with cream and sugar, veal pierogi and Hungarian wine) and kept our eyes on the clock so I wouldn´t miss my train. I´ll miss that Polish food. Not easy on the stomach but great in the mouth!
Alice walked me to the train station, I recovered by bag from the locker and I got on the night sleeper train to Berlin.
I will begin mentioning the coincidence of the century because I, as we all know, love coincidence. I took a bus in the late morning to Wilanow, the great 17th century palace built by the legendary Polish king Jan Sobieski (so famous that I learned about him in high school) which was also miraculously not destroyed during WWII. The palace was what it was; that is, I enjoyed it and got a taste of 18th and 19th century Polish history from the audiotour but couldn´t help feeling that "it´s just a really fancy house!" Nice portrait gallery though. Learned that the Glenn Danzig hair lock I saw on the guy on the street the other day was actually a fashionable style back in the 17th century. Which is NOT my favorite century when it comes to aesthetics, so no big surprise. I got stuck behind a class full of Polish kids on a field trip (everywhere I go there are TONS of field trips--´where did I ever go in elemetary school? the water purification plant?) but I didn´t mind because they were well behaved.
But the coincidence part...
I´m walking outside the museum, passing by a chocolate store, trying to find a place to eat lunch when I hear "Oh my God! Oh MY GOD!" in what was ultimately a Canadian accent. Remember those two girls from Cinqueterre that I magically ran into on the steps of St. Peter´s Basilica in Vatican City? It was THEY! Having "drinking chocolate" with one of their grandparents. I vaguely remembered that they would be going to Poland, but the chances that they would be taking the same day trip at the same time was almost too much.
After they left I had my own glass of "drinking chocolate" followed by a much too big salad and finished my Hunter S. Thompson. Upon which my final judgment is positive! Not a GREAT book by any means, and not as innovative as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but an enjoyable straightforward story about journalists in Puerto Rico in the late 1950s.
Later in the afternoon I was stopped on the street by a girl using the old line "Do you speak English?" I immediately told her I had no money to spend, which was true, but she said that she didn´t want money, only to tell me someone about the religious organization to which she belongs. I mostly nodded my head until I noticed some ´conspicuous Chinese writing on all of the pages of the notebook she was holding. I asked what the deal was.
She was a Moonie! A follower of Rev. Moon! Yikes! I smiled and said "well THAT´s interesting" and made my way away.
The early evening was less enjoyable and moderately frustrating as Alice´s cell phone that I had been borrowing in order to contact her ran out of batteries and I had to use an internet call center to contact her. When I called her work, one of her coworkers told me to call her at home. When home didn´t pick up after several hours of trying I gave up and decided that I would GO home and meet her there. I walked a good deal of the way, until I did´t recognize my surroundings and found a cab.
The cabdriver spoke no English and I no Polish so we negotiated the cab fare in German, a language neither one of us seemed to have much competency in. I THOUGHT that we had agreed on "fumph" but instead (as I discovered when I got to Alice´s parents´ place) that it had been 15. I argued with the cabdriver with hand signals but gave up. 10 zloti is only worth about 3 bucks anyway so not a big deal.
But Alice was not at home, but rather at work. So her stepfather had to drive me all the way back to the city to meet her!
I had my final Polish meal (potato pancakes with cream and sugar, veal pierogi and Hungarian wine) and kept our eyes on the clock so I wouldn´t miss my train. I´ll miss that Polish food. Not easy on the stomach but great in the mouth!
Alice walked me to the train station, I recovered by bag from the locker and I got on the night sleeper train to Berlin.
posted by Jed at 5:08 AM
2 Comments:
Wow, veal pierogi sounds AWESOME.
It´s good for sure, but not as exciting as it sounds. The big thing of fatty pork on a bone was much more exciting.
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