Manic Bookstore Cafe

The main campus of Warsaw University, where I work, is on a hill, with the Kazimierz Palace overlooking a slope down into a small park. At the base of the park are several terrific bookstore/cafes, where I have already spent a pleasant half-hour drinking amazing cappuccino and playing Othello with my son. But on Valentine's Day I announced at the Center for East European Studies that my husband was coming to take me to lunch. The largely female staff found us endearing and shooed us out the door. We wandered a bit along Krakowskie Przedmiescie, the main street, but were not tempted by anything we saw. The destination of last resort would have been the bufet  in the Old Library building, but we've eaten there several times already, and the day called for a special treat, so we headed down the hill. Halfway down, just at the point where stone steps go down into the park below the Palace, there was a signboard: Cafe Kafka, with specials of the day listed in chalk. We ...

On our first day in Warsaw, I went to the Tesco. Yes, there's a Tesco -- the British supermarket -- just 100 meters from our apartment. When we got to the checkout, the cashier asked me (in Polish, of course) whether I had a Tesco card. In the Polish I use (i.e. faking it, guessing wildly based on my Russian and what I hear around me, plus what little I remember from 20+ years ago), I then said: "No, I don't, but I wish I did." She handed me a form. I filled it out. I became the proud owner of a Tesco card. Success, of a kind. Now, when these cards were first introduced at various grocery stores in the US, I resisted them. I know that they collect information about me as a shopper, sometimes generate coupons and offers to my email, and generally make me a tad uncomfortable that some Big Brother is watching when I buy a Twix bar and checking on my brand of tampons. On the other hand, often "sale" prices only apply to those with a card, and I can g...

Cough cough cough ... hack hack. My poor child. Somehow on the way over the Atlantic Ocean, he picked up a virus, and now we think he has bronchitis. Not "acute" bronchitis, as he points out -- it's ugly. Yesterday I went into the apteka to ask for cough medicine. Pretty interesting -- the drogeria and the apteka are connected, but only for people who work there. So if you need shampoo, you go in one door, and if you need medicine, you go in the other. (I discovered this, of course, by walking in the drogeria door and feeling like an idiot -- not in need of lotion or conditioner, I backed out quietly and went in the other door.) Separating the banal -- beauty products -- from the serious -- medicine -- makes a lot of sense. However, as I listened to the woman in front of me in line at the apteka , I realized that I was going to have to ask for the medicine; an apteka has a glassed-in counter with the pharmacist on the other side. I'm familiar with this set...

So today I set myself the task of buying a soup pot. I had spotted a household goods store the other day when we were headed to the subway, so I had the destination all planned. What I hadn't planned, though, was how to tackle the linguistic task. Because this store had some goods on shelves, I was able to choose a soup ladle and a second cutting board, but the pots were all behind the counter. I started in: "I don't speak Polish" (in Polish, of course, with errors, I'm sure). I wish I remember the word the shopkeeper used. Its sense was: "we'll figure it out." And we did. I wanted a soup pot, not too expensive, so we somehow discussed the options, and made a choice. Now I can add the word garnek  to my vocabulary.

Warsaw. Today was just above freezing and a light rain fell much of the day. But we ventured out anyway and did a little exploring -- of the buses, the subway system, and the mall. The 141 bus goes along Chelmska street in the direction of the children's school. We got off a few stops before the school right next to a huge section of garden allotments. These were set off by a fence and each allotment had its own fence, some with sheds and others with cottages that made me wonder if anyone actually lives there. We walked to the subway station and took the metro up to a huge new indoor mall near the Gdansk metro stop -- and right there, too, there were new luxury apartment buildings going up, and another set of garden allotments. When Lewis Mumford talked about the "layered history" of the city, he might very well have had Warsaw in mind. The mix of 18th century French-influenced mansions, country cottages, Soviet monumental blocks, and luxury highrises is really som...