Oskar recently posted ten observations from his recent trip to Poland. This reminded me that, on my own recent trip, I had made of list that ten small delights that Poland makes much better use of than the United States (this is not to say that there aren't larger delights that one could also mention). Anyway, I never posted the list, but I pulled out my trusty travel notebook and here it is:
1. The color yellow in exteriors and interiors of buildings.
2. Mushrooms.
3. Snails.
4. Bendy straws.
5. Train travel.
6. Accordians.
7. Smaller, more formal servings of soda.
8. Small cars.
9. Cute, classy glassware.
10. As Nina taught me, the ability to order anything by simply making a buzzing sound and then saying the name of the product. So, to order a Coke, you just have to say "zzzzCoca!"
I had also made a list of ten things I didn't like so much about Poland, which included (a) its obsession with cabbage, (b) dubious claims about the availability of WiFi, (c) weird doorknobs that make the door, in the words of the hotel staff, "locked for an American", and (d) how if you (or, say hypothetically, Nina) spill a full drink in what one could say was just as much the server's fault (or, again hypothetically, wholly and obviously Nina's fault), the restaurant expects you to pay for it. But all those things are so outweighed by the positive memories that it would seem petty and distorting to list completley.
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I have to add clarifying notes, so I apologize in advance for the length of this comment. After this I promise to hang back and bug Tonya’s posts.
Snails: Jeremy fell in love with these. To my knowledge, all his snail eating was confined to France.
ZzzzzCoca: the author of JFW could not get over the fact that many words in Polish consist of one letter. Upon seeing one of them (“z”), he asked for a translation. I obliged. “z” means “with.” Being rather coca cola obsessed (this was before his WW obsession) he asked how to order something with coke. I told him “coca” is often used as a nickname for coke. Hence his perpetual “zzzz coka.” It made people regard him with sympathy – they thought he had a speech impediment.
Door handles: this is a true story: Jeremy really did believe that all corridor doors in the hotel were locked to keep him out. He devised an ingenious and elaborate path that would, through the use of the elevator, get him to his room. I hadn’t known of this until one day I asked him: how come I walk up stairs to my second floor room and you keep using the elevator for your first floor room? He gave his answer about conspiracy against Americans bla bla bla, at which point I showed him how to use a regular old European door handle which you simple push down and lo!-- the door magically swings open! Even for Americans (especially for Americans: see NYT Week in Review article today about how only residents of Poland and India still think America is cool).
Finally: Jeremy kindly suggests in hypothetical terms who spilled the kir royal at the outdoor cafe as the waitress was serving it. It was windy, what can I say – I reached to save a napkin and in saving the tree, undid the forest. For which I was then charged. Damn money grubbing café.
Many truths in that list. Especially the one about good times. And the good mushrooms.
I should have been clear that what I meant by delighting in snails were the regular snails ambling around on the sidewalk and not necessarily the eating of snails, although I do in fact like eating snails.
The rest of Nina's post, except for the part about the good times and good mushrooms, is mostly fiction. I will leave it to the reader's taste as to whether it is entertaining fiction.
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/
Like all print journalists, Garry Trudeau is scared.
So another note is needed: when Jeremy writes "the rest of Y post is mostly fiction," he means just the opposite. I believe it must come from a desire to appear mysterious and evasive. Me, I'm into plain meaning and so I tell it like it is.
And speaking of telling it like it is (don't you just hate it when people refer back to their own blogs) my real rebuttal, with a list of ten Polska things (responding to Oscar's challenge) is summarized here.
Anon 12:10: don't feel bad about reading blogs and commenting on them. really, we all do it. hang in there, you'll get a life soon!
Anon 12:10: don't feel bad about reading blogs and commenting on them. really, we all do it. hang in there, you'll get a life soon!
i guess i can at least take solace in the fact that i don't have enough time on my hands to post messages twice.
Nice post about the delightful minutia of Poland. Previously, Poland was probably #50 on my list of future travel destinations. After reading your posts and Oscar's, I am looking forward to planning a trip to Poland sometime soon -- with Nina of course. When I go, I'll be checking out the bendy straws, train travel and zzzzCoca and, hopefully, the WiFi situation will be improved, thus making it easier for me to share Poland's brand of quirkiness with readers of my blog.
Tonya: I definitely recommend making a trip to Poland with Nina if you can. And: don't forget about the zzzzCoca trick--it works every time.
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