Feliz Navidad!

Friday -- Christmas Eve -- dawned bright in Rubite (pronounced Roo-BEE-te, as we have constantly, and properly, been reminded by Alice Blachly.) The day and night before had been wild and windy up in the mountains, just shielded from the Sierra Nevada.






Ellie and her new best friend Jen the dog went for a romp down on the beach, but came back in mid-afternoon. We went out for a drive up the ridge, and long walk/runs, to see the mountain light.



















Preposterous mountain peaks rim the northern horizon, and almond trees march at improbably angles across impossible slopes all around the village.




Rubite is a small village which runs down a ridge. Our cottage is at the lowest, southern-most point of the village; below us are a couple of barn ruins, paddocks for sheep and goats, and trails down to the arroyos, almonds, and olives. Other ridges have other surprising small villages.


















We are so happy to have a few presents sent from home: You Know Who You Are, and THANKS! And a few things for each other, under the "tree" made from pine, olive, and herbs that Ellie brought back from her walk. We had a great dinner -- salad with shrimp fresh from the sea -- and settled down to an evening of BBC telly. Ellie has been relegated to the roles of pillow (for the cat) and oracle (for the dog.)




















Tomorrow will be Christmas dawn. Far from friends and family, we wish a Healthy, Hopeful New Year for You, a Happy Holiday Season for Those You Love, and Greater Peace for Humans and the World We All Need. . .

Andalusia

From Gatwick's frozen fog to humid, tropical nights in a Portuguese fishing village, we have made our way to our winter residence here in Rubite, in the Costa Tropical region of Andalusia (Spain). We had several days to wonder at the Moors and the Christian warriors who finally booted them out 500 years ago, as we have travelled through Seville, Cordoba and Granada.
Coastal lowlands turned to rolling hills, to olive groves, to frantic rock outcrops, and finally to the snowcaps of the Sierra Madre as we neared our destination. In a day or a week or two we'll wander up some dirt road and see the December snowcaps. But today we went down to the Mediterranean, walking our new best friend Jes. She and three cats will be our company for the month. Tonight we're burning olive wood in the stove, and going to bed in some wonder of rural Spain. More of that later. . .

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Sunday, which fell on November 14th this year, is a significant day here; actually, it is more like Remembrance weeks. It commemorates the end of WWI, which ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Thus, the two-minute silence is at precisely eleven o'clock. People start wearing a poppy on the lapel in early November, the Flanders poppy being the official emblem. The purpose of the Day is to spend time remembering those British soldiers who have died in the two World Wars and, now, in the Afghan and Iraq conflicts. It is very different from the Memorial Day picnic we have, or even Veteran's Day. It is so different that I feel compelled to try to communicate it to whomever is interested to listen.

My own participation began with three rehearsals for the Festival of Remembrance at Albert Hall, which took place on Saturday, November 13.


















Albert Hall is a giant rotunda, and the performance space is the floorspace in the middle, like the hub of a giant wheel, and the regiments all enter down the aisles which are like the spokes -- except for the choir and band, which are on the side of the hub. I was one of four people from our church in Lane End who joined a chorus of 150 to sing for Saturday's concert. Our final rehearsal began at the Hall at 8:30 in the morning. We saw all sorts of military bands in their street clothes, until the first of two performances that day. Bruce was at the afternoon concert, and the Queen and Royal Family were at the evening performance. I was really excited to see what sort of rigmarole would attend the Queen, and, interestingly, the answer is, not much, at least at this event. Nearly everyone in the audience wears black, as though they were at a funeral. So the Queen was as somberly dressed as anyone there.

The choir sat immediately behind the military band, and I sat behind six French horns (and now I'm partially deaf). I had a good opportunity to study their uniforms, which were scarlet with gold braid and brass buttons. Each uniform conforms to the area the soldier is from: the Welshman's uniform has leeks embroidered on the collar and epaulets, and the buttons are of a specific Welsh design and the spacing of the buttons is specific to the uniforms. Some had buttons in groups of two, some five, some four. (I do wonder why!) The Irish had shamrocks on collar and lapel, the English had a white rose.

The event was a mixture of hymns like Abide With Me and How Great Thou Art, two hundred standard bearers, a military marching band doing spectacular intricate patterns while playing, the Army Training Corps doing a death-defying acrobatic routine that had my heart in my throat, an Anglican service, and all sorts of groups marching in gorgeous uniforms, including representative family members of those who have died in the recent conflicts, mostly widows and children. Seven Battle of Britain pilots are still alive, and they marched in with the use of canes, and the Chelsea Pensioners marched in wearing their scarlet coats and tri-cornered hats. Every branch marched in with superb precision; it was a beautiful sight to see. Men in uniform...! The most spectacular headresses were on the nurses from the Gurka regiment, white linen things on their heads that looked like a pillow case that had fallen off the line and frozen in a heap. (The grim angle of war was not completely ignored, as they had interviews on a giant screen with various soldiers who had lost limbs, sight, what have you, showing them trying on prosthetic limbs and learning to walk again. )

At a certain point in the event, there are two minutes of silence, while everyone is standing, during which millions of paper poppies are released from the ceiling, in the same way that "snow" is released in the third act of La Boheme. But in this case the snow is red. The poppies landed in silence, on the heads of the Coldstream Guard with their bearskin hats, the flat white hats of the Royal Navy, on the white robes of the London Gospel Choir, on the black clothes of the representative families. It was strange to stand with four thousand people in total silence for two minutes, watching the flowers fall a tremendous height, some fast, some slowly, each seemingly at its own speed. At the end of it all, everyone turned to face the Queen, God Save the Queen was sung, the military removed their headresses and hollered "hip hip hooray" three times to Her Majesty, and that was the end.

The next day, in Lane End, a Service of Remembrance was held outside the tiny Village Hall. In this small village, on a cold Sunday morning, the road was closed off and about 150 people of all ages came, wearing black, and those that had any military background at all marched to the world war memorials on the outside of the hall. Poems were read, The Last Post was played a little fuzzily on a cornet, two minutes of silence were observed, and a wreath of poppies was placed on the memorial plaque, listing the names of those in Lane End who gave their lives in those wars. Among those standing there was a 94-year-old RAF fighter, wearing a green beret. This scene was enacted at exactly the same time in every village in England, Scotland, and Wales, and Ireland, too, I'm sure, with two minutes of silence at eleven o'clock. All then repaired to the church for a service. At the end of the service, the national anthem (God Save the Queen) was sung (both verses). In our pew, we were amazed to find that our friend, a burly retired London Fireman, was in tears, free-flowing, because, he said, "by rights, you didn't need to sing our national anthem, but you did, and that just touches me!" After the day at Royal Albert Hall, full of the best marching, playing, uniforms, trumpeting that the nation could call forth, here in our village was the homely expression of one human being's gratitude to another, for something as simple, but as abstract, as singing God Save the Queen -- both verses.

The weekend was full of this sort of moment. The falling of the poppies in silence. Our friend the fireman. The whole village standing in silence while thinking of the deliberate sacrifice of tender young men. There are so many contradictions in it all: a flower that is a sign of beauty and life and regeneration and the blood of young men being absorbed into the ground. The dark drabness of the all participants at the Albert Hall, except the brilliant colours of the military uniforms. The knowing that for these people here, the Battle of Britain saved England from invasion by Hitler, and for a couple of weeks every year, they will think about the whole thing. For these people here, defending the homeland was not just an idea. Their gratitude is palpable, even now, to those who flew the planes, tromped through the woods, sailed the ships to their likely doom. Whether the wars were foolish or not, these people here must express their feelings about their country being saved, must remember at what sacrifice. Then there is the comfortable mixture of religion, the military, the Royal Family that is so foreign to an American, where the separation of church and state is so firmly held. This whole weekend was so tasteful and thoughtful and emotional, I began to wonder about this separation. For us, Veteran's Day is a strictly military event, and so I have always found it distasteful. This is a horse of a different colour, and I found myself challenging firmly held beliefs, and pondering our differences. I'm not sure where I stand on this anymore.

If I've gone on a bit long, forgive me! In my heart, both my father and grandfather were part of all this, saving England, and I thought how I have never said thank you. So, thank you.

I thought that this sentiment -- I don't know by whom --rather sums up Remembrance Sunday: "When you go home, tell them of us, and say for your tomorrow we gave our today."

November Dusk

Well, it’s never been my favorite time of the year in Vermont, either: storm windows, snow tires, weaker sun, and woodpiles.

November 1: I’m the USA, full of fear and loathing at election prospects, and already missing the friends and family I saw in Vermont. Another five days to go till I go home. Back in England, November 1 means that all the stately homes and gardens have shut down, the remaining roses in our back garden are forlorn, and even the brightest sky takes on a dusky hue at 2:30 PM.


















On the best days, puffy clouds and sheep rule the countryside. But can the gloom of Remembrance Day – November 11 -- be many days ahead? The day the guns fell silent in 1918. Sure, we have that day too, but Yanks have our Memorial Day of flowers and picnics, and who wants to decorate graves in the sleet?

November 7: I’ve been back a day, recovered from jet lag, and am happy to be in a land that feels like home. At very least, feeling slimed with USA electoral politics, I reflect on the need civil discourse and integrity. Here, the courts just ejected a Labour MP from The House for lying about his opponent in the spring elections. Back in the Wild West(ern hemisphere), a woman who vies for a leadership role in her party baldly repeats “facts” about her President (and mine) that are unsubstantiated and “wildly exaggerated.” Let’s just call them lies, shall we? But we don’t do that in the US, and we certainly don’t have courts helping to keep politicians to some standards of truthfulness. She can lie all she wants, and you can vote for her if you want (and live in her district). But in which society would I rather live?
















This afternoon Ellie and I walk The Long Walk©, from the gates of the Castle at Windsor out nearly three miles to the top of the hill. The way is marked by ancient oaks and at least one majestic buck, grazing safely in Her Majesty's Deer Park.
















King George III’s equestrian monument is at the top, brazen and huge, for all to see. We hurry back in the gathering gloom, stop quickly for a vivifying cup of hot tea, and make it to the palace gate, standing in a thin queue, awaiting entry to the Evensong service in St. George’s Chapel, in the lower ward of the Castle.


















Voices of men, boys, and a booming organ fill the 14th century vault, and we look from the carved quire stalls down on the tombs of kings. George III is under my feet, and I wonder what he’d think of his lost colonies.

This weekend in London I took the evening airs wandering back across Hyde Park, enjoying all the early evening baby strollers and joggers. On my way to catch the train, I walked the working class neighborhoods off the Edgeware Road, home to many falafel joints, hookah parlours, and travel agents with Arabic signage. I stopped in a traditional pub for a half-pint rest before catching my train. I asked a gent if I could put down my bag and share his table. He looked up from his racing form and said, “You’re not a Muslim, are you?” I laughed nervously, and headed for the loo.

When I came back with my beer, I learned that John had spent nearly sixty of his years in this part of London, was a long-time union man working on the trains, and had seen the neighborhoods fill over the years with Indians, Jamaicans and Pakistanis, all jostling for shops, jobs, and schools. I didn’t question his sarcastic snap of prejudice, but instead heard an intelligent, hard-working guy talk about how blokes like him couldn’t find work anymore, and no one he knew could possibly afford to buy his flat in 15 months when he and the missus retire and move out, and about his bitterness that his taxes have to support Tony Blair’s war instead of going to better social housing and schools and training for young guys. He paused to offer me another beer, but I had to be getting to the station.


















I guess “the Muslims” represent the things he can point to that make him know it’s a different city and a different world than fit his comfort level. Like nearly every Englishman I meet, he thought I was Canadian, seemed surprised I’d been here for coming on two years, and asked if I like it here and if I thought the people were nice.

Yes. And yes.


© Photos Copyright Peter Trimming and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Graduation Day -- 6 September

Well, the big day final came! We Yanks tend to mostly do our graduations in June. Don't ask me why, but Buckinghamshire New University graduates all its students the first week in September.

Ellie finished all her thesis, course, and projects last December, but we got all cranked up with cap, gown, hood, and party plans a week ago Monday. She arrived on campus that day as a "graduand", awaiting the award of a Master of Arts in "Furniture: Conservation, Restoration & Decorative Arts," along with five others. There were another eight MA recipients in "Furniture Design and Technology." Together, the graduands came from the UK, US, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Korea, and Japan!

There were times when her life would not have been bearable at the University, were it not for the wit and salty language of co-sufferers at the other work benches. First among them was our dear friend Andreas, who came here for a year away from his family in Athens. We were so happy that he came back for graduation, and brought his lovely mother with him, to stay with us. Can you tell that they are making tasteless jokes about the "Masters" hoods adorning their rented finery?



Graduation was held at the Swan Theater, a performing arts center just off campus. It was filled with graduands anticipating their transition to becoming graduates, and their families. The stage was full of the faculty finery, with different colors granted by the Universities from which they had come.




















And here are the Master's graduates, at least those who could be present. Dr. Campbell Norman-Smith (in the blue finery) was Ellie's course leader, and Paul Tear (far right) was a go-to-guy for lots of technical details. Like us, Keiko (at rear) was here (from Japan) on a student visa; our good friend Simon is at far left. His second son was graduating from University four days later!

The larger group includes a number of the Furniture Design graduates as well.

So that night we took over a country pub -- the Bull & Butcher, located in the village of Turville, near Lane End. There were twenty-two of us, including various mates, parents and hangers-on, babbling in French, Italian, with bits of Greek and Irish thrown in.

Well done, all!

Crossing la Manche

In the fall of 1066 Duke William of Normandy picked a fight across the waters, and was crowned King of England at Westminster by Christmas. Succeeding English sovereigns controlled great bits of what is now northern France until they were booted out in the 13th century. Mostly booted out, though loyalties remained. Read on.





















On an extended weekend in June Ellie and Bruce joined our friend the physician – cabinet maker – salty dog Simon Thompson, two of his sons, and several others, to cross the English Channel and explore the Duke’s domains.


















Crossing the Channel – la Manche (“the sleeve”) – always requires some head-scratching about tides, winds and weather. So we left the River Hamble at dusk, motored the shipping lanes of Southampton, heading eastward around the Isle of Wight. We passed the looming bulk of Horse Sand Fort, one of the Palmerston Forts -- a group of forts and associated structures built during the Victorian period as a response to a perceived threat of a French invasion.


















Captain Simon made a course for the French port of Cherbourg, 60 miles south, and set the watch. By the time the watches changed, we knew we were in for it: full complements of weather gear, safety harnesses, and a reef in the main were the order of the night. It blew from Force 4 to a full gale all night long and throughout the morning. Most all on board took their turn at the rail, and Ellie appreciated the wisdom of salt crackers and a dry place on desk, well-braced, to view a steady horizon.

Battered, hungry and sleepless, late the next morning Your Intrepid Sailors saw the fortified breakwalls of Cherbourg harbour looming out of the fog and winds. In the Napoleonic era the harbour was fortified to prevent British naval incursions; works began in 1784 and were not concluded until 1850; they saw active military service up through July 1944. The roadstead of Cherbourg is admirably sheltered by the land on every side but the north . The huge northerly breakwater, over 2 miles in length has a width of 65 ft. at its base, is protected by forts, and leaves passages for vessels to the east and west . These passages are guarded by forts placed on islands intervening between the breakwater and the mainland.


















We rested, walked the old port streets, consumed local shellfish and wine, and in the morning had a brisk sunny sail ten miles down the coast to the stone beach and protected harbour below Omonville la Rouge. Taking the inflatable rubber dubbie to shore, we walked up to the village, saw the lovely summer flowers and striking details of local design on houses. We saw the fresh flowers left for the Polish RAF pilot shot down on the shoreline on a summer’s day in 1944. War, defense, and reminders of byegone conflict are everpresent.




We hiked the sunken shepherd’s trail up to the top of the rocky outcrop and pondered the wall – how old? Protection by whom and from whom? – and the men who struggled to put it there.


















A half-day’s sail further to the west took us across the northwestern cape of the French mainland, where outbound Channel tides rip suddenly south, bringing the unwary navigator down to the Isle of Jersey. But our course was due west to Alderney, the smallest of the Channel Islands, and closest to France. Remember: William was Duke of Normandy before he was King of England. Alderney is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, and all these islands have retained their allegiance to the Duke of Normandy, a title passed through centuries from William to Elizabeth, the current Queen.


The Channel Islands mint their own currency, have as much French in their language and culture as English, and offer tax advantages to British capitalists. What we find is a gritty harbour settlement at Braye Beach: children and dogs running and playing in the grass that overruns the German gun emplacements abandoned in 1944. Alderney was evacuated (by all but six people) just days after France collapsed in June 1940, and was home to a German garrison and camps of Eastern European slave labourers for five years. Centuries of French and English fortifications were overburdened by Nazi prisons and batteries.


















Still, it is a beautiful walk up Le Val hill and (later) strolling down to the sea along Route de Picaterre. Flowers abound, and every structure seems to have some bit of crazy ironwork fru-fru that stands out.

A fortified lookout tower overlooks the public square in St. Anne, the village on a hill. A plaque in the churchyard memorializes sixty unknown Soviet citizens buried nearby. The reminders of a brutal past are everywhere, slowly decaying, and mixed among the lanes, countryside, and tourist bistros.

The Bible of Old St. Anne's Church, displayed in a case next to the lectern, was lost in the War, and only re-discovered on Maundy Thursday 1998. It was returned to the Island by the widow of a former Padre to the German Forces stationed in Alderney in 1942. A soldier had brought the Bible to the chaplain (presumably during the clearance of the church) who removed it to Germany after his posting, where it remained in his possession as a treasured part of his library. His widow was anxious to return it before she followed her husband's path, so made the trip to Alderney in the company of her Lutheran Pastor and his wife for that express purpose.
A nice afternoon's wander up the hill and through town found some provisions, and we retired to our sea-going bed & breakfast, had a hearty supper, and weighed anchor as dictated by the tide charts. It was a calm night, with a gentle following breeze, headed very near due North across the channel.


When crossing the paths reserved for the big East-bound freighters, and then the Westers, there are plenty of moving lights to be tracked, and nothing to be taken for granted, as they would not stop or change course to avoid our little wooden boat. As gray dawn grew upon us, the customary English rain came too, and we passed through 'The Needles' (at the western entrance to The Solent) while munching breakfast.

And so we followed William's journey, not to battle and victory at Hastings, but to dry clothes and a shower in Lane End.

Creature Comforts

We arrive, mouths agape, marveling at the wonders of every European city which we are so fortunate as to visit. Krakow (Poland) in mid-June, was the site of a conference Bruce attended for four days.

Ellie has written LOTS more about Poland!

Central Krakow is walkable, with the remains of narrow medieval streets, and a big market square, surrounded by the palaces of grandees long gone. A cathedral, and a much smaller church is there as well.
We were there wandering around after the conference on a Friday afternoon marking the start of the Festival of St. John -- one of those Christian celebrations which cozies up nicely with a pagan observance (Midsummer's Day, in this case). Groups of local musicians and dancers came to entertain on the square that afternoon at the start of the weekend bash.






Krakow was once a completely walled city. Most of the walls were torn down in the 19th century to become a ring-like park around much of the old city, but markers show where gates and guardposts stood, and one gatehouse has been conserved and reconstructed.



Visitors can take the electric trams or tackle the old city on foot, and are easily enticed by local coffee and pastries, or beer. The stone and coble streets and courtyards are hard on the feet, so sooner or later you have to take a load off.







One European convention which may shock sheltered Americans is the public pay toilet. I was fortunate that Ellie warned me to carry a franc to "the loo" my first time in Paris, and there was a little old lady awaiting, before I could go in. In the UK more and more you see modern, self-cleaning, securitized potties like space capsules set in public squares (about 40 pence, please).
In Krakow we were trolling a lovely working-class market square, with stalls of fresh country vegetables, housewares, cheap clothing, exotic foods: you name it. And to my complete surprise, when nature called, a dank tunnel led me to a sight for sore eyes. It was a pleasure to pay two zloty (about sixty-five cents) to enter this well-lit, freshly-mopped and scrubbed temple, complete with hand-towels, hot water, soap -- and a fresh fern. We're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy!

Poland

Bruce and I went to Poland in June, he for work and I for fun. We had decided to take the train there because when we had to make reservations, the Icelandic ashcloud was making all plane travel seem really iffy. So we took the train from High Wycombe to London Marylebone, tube to St. Pancras, Eurostar under the Channel to Brussels, changed trains to get to Koln, Koln to Warsaw on the sleeper train, and finally Warsaw to Krakow. Total hours in transit: 31. This is compared to about an hour and a half by plane.



















Here I am getting off the train in Koln (Cologne).



As soon as you come out of the very modern train station, Koln Cathedral blasts into view like a rocket, this ancient thing dwarfing the huge station, absolutely covered with intricate stonework, blackened with the ages of man, and slightly terrifying.




















Here I am on the banks of the Rhine. It looks pretty much like the Thames, but it is fun to know it's the Rhine!


We ate a delicious dinner in Koln, at a Tapas restaurant. We had gotten off a French-speaking train, were now in a German-speaking city eating Spanish cuisine, only hours from London. Bruce commented that he had never pictured himself as someone who is comfortable in Europe. But he seems comfortable here!




















The sleeper-train was very tight quarters, no restaurant car at all, a night of knees bashing into the bunk above. This picture was taken before I knew the bad night's sleep ahead of me. I kept thinking wistfully of Poirot, how he would throw up his hands with the modern train accomodations. Where are the tablecloths? The polished wood?



















By the morning we were crossing Poland. It is very flat up here, punctuated by startling churches in miniature villages.

In Warsaw we had another layover, and had our first Polish food: yummy pierogi, and apple pancakes for dessert (an apple dipped in batter and fried --must try it at home). Beets, carrots, and coleslaw were the staple salad, and very good, too.














We arrive at Krackow station, and within a hundred feet of the station, this beautiful city unfolds before you. I feel a little thrill to be in what I still think of as The Eastern Bloc. Yet the only customs we have been through was in London, boarding the Eurostar. The world has changed fundamentally.



In Krackow one notices the decorativeness of all the old buildings. Windows and the tops of buildings seem to be bubbling with curlicues and bobbles and faces.



















The main market square, beautiful buildings and churches, and Chopin concerts advertised. We went to a superb concert in one of these gorgeous buildings. Krackow seems to be awash in music classical music. We also ate at a Ukrainian restaurant, and I went to a market only a block from where non-Poles go and no one spoke English. It is amazing how people try to talk to you in Polish, and the more rustic the person is, the less put off they are by the fact that you can't speak a word in return.



Here I am looking out of our hotel window at the elegant buildings across the street.

This church is a fairly typical Krackow church. Though the outside is very sober, inside practically everything was burnished gold. I have never seen so much burnished gold. You can see what prompted the Reformation, as gilding was being taken about as far as it could go: at some point, the gold seems to be the point rather than the object gilded. On the other hand, it's also a way of pouring gold out to a deity, a very old practice. Just recently, in England, a man with a metal detector in a farmer's field found a Roman coin. Once he started digging, they found an earthenware jar full of gold Roman coins: 52,000 of them. They speculate that the jar would have been placed in the ground, and the coins poured in as an offering. The idea of giving one's wealth to a deity is quite difficult to imagine. I guess we're lucky that the 17th-century monks put the gold on statues for all to see, rather than burying it in a pot in the ground.












Kasimierz

I took myself on a walking tour of the two historically Jewish sections of Krackow: Kasimeirz, in the southern part of the city, and directly across the river, Podorgorze. Kazimierz was where the Jewish population lived before WWII. There are lots of synagogues.




















This is the first time I have ever been in a synogogue. Still a fair amount of gold, but no figures of any kind.
Kasimierz was not very remarkable as an area, visually, but the idea that a huge population of Jews was moved in one day, across a bridge to be crammed into tiny area of the city, was intense to imagine. It was difficult, actually, to imagine that day, because everything looks so ordinary now. Each family was allowed one cartload. I saw some remarkable footage of the day (who was filming, one wonders?) and the carts were loaded with chairs. Some of the children carried one chair. It is interesting that in our culture, chairs are a real symbol of our dignity. In another culture, that might not be the thing people carry with them.





This is an absolutely huge Catholic church in the middle of the Jewish ghetto of Podogorze, dominating the whole neighborhood. How galling it must have been.























This is one of only two remaining sections of the ghetto wall. After a few years of the ghetto, the Nazis separated the ghetto population again into workers and non-workers, section A and section B. The next step was to round up all the people in the non-working section and send them straight to the gas chambers, a pre-sorting process.

I was discomfitted by the utter ordinariness of the street on which this wall stands. One wants horrific events to have somehow made their mark on the landscape. Is that an American attitude? Since living on this side of the Atlantic, I am often struck by how unadvertised terribly important places are in Europe, and England.


This is the bridge over which the Jews were herded on that day in 1941. Just an ordinary bridge.




















Back across the Wistula into old Krackow



















Here is a manhole cover. Even this is pretty. It depicts the beautiful royal Palace that is on the River Wistula, and is a focal point of the city.

There is a beautiful green belt around the entire old city, connected in a loop, which gives a gentleness to the city.
The streetlamps are lovely, too.




The final night of Bruce's conference was a huge dinner in a salt mine. Very weird place for a dinner. The walls are literally salt. We had to take a creepy lift to go down to the level of the great hall.



There were all sorts of sculptures carved right into the walls.
Weird.











Here is a man carving a hunk of salt.

This is me talking to Bruce's colleague. (Note the walls of solid salt)

I was very interested to hear about growing up in Poland during the period of the Soviet Union, and it made me keenly aware of what a quiet, sheltered life I have led. She said that on May Day, all children were expected to go to school so they could be in the parade. One time she was sick, and the next day, the police came to see if she really was sick or if there was a "problem" with her parents. Parents were always aware that they mustn't talk openly until the children had gone to bed, for fear that the children might say something dangerous in school.

Going back two generations, when her great-grandmother was faced with the Germans advancing on one side and the Russians on the other, she gave these instructions to her elder daughter: "Here is a pistol. If you get caught by the Germans, that will be bad, but if you get caught by the Russians, first shoot your sister, then shoot yourself."

I tried to imagine having to tell my daughters something like that. War is hell, no mistake. And as bad as we think of the Nazis, the Polish felt there was no comparison with the Russians.


I just happened to be walking along the street on a Friday afternoon and came across this parade. They were headed to the main market square to sing and dance for an hour, which they do regularly on Fridays after school. It was enchanting to see the glorious costumes and cherubic Polish faces.




















The Polish guitar is triangle-shaped. It was wonderful to hear their singing.




















Back to architecture: the fun of looking up



















Funny things to do with roofs



















Funny things to do with windows








































Weird stuff coming out of the mouth is a clear theme. The shell, draperies, ribbons are frequent motifs.
































Auschwitz



We rented a car and drove west to Oswiecm. I was happy to find out that the name of the town isn't really Auschwitz but Oswiecm, pronounced, more or less, oz-vee-jim. This made the town seem like a real place before the Nazis made it famous. It's a surprise to see that it is just an ordinary Polish town, with new houses going up literally next door to the concentration camp. ( A note on Polish pronunciation: Greek is easy-peasy compared to Polish. I modestly tried to learn how to say thank you in Polish, but was completely stymied. Even after hearing it ten times in a row, forget about it; whereas, Greek is melifluous, like Italian, with pure vowels.)

I have been to Dachau in southern Germany, but the sheer scale of Auschwitz was mind-blowing. It is absolutely huge. At first the Nazis thought the work camp was big enough, but soon they had to build an extermination camp that was about eight times the size of the first: Auschwitz-Birchenau. The cattle cars came in loaded with people, to a train stop between the two camps; 75% of them went right, to the extermination camp without any record of their existence, and only 25% went left, to the work camp. Of those, all would die within a few months because of the deprivations, food in particular, which was 1200 calories a day -- in other words, starvation. At first the Nazis took pictures of each person, with date of birth, internment, and death; we saw many of them, lining the walls, their faces looking out, reasonably healthy and strong though with shaved heads, and the date of death was without exception within a few months. Below is a picture of the first camp, where I'm pointing, and above is the second camp. The dotted lines mark the two camps. You can see that the second one dwarfs the first.


It becomes clear that sadism played a huge role in what the Nazis were about; it was so wildly unnecessary to kill people in this way. The work they got out of them can't have been worth anything at all. The mental torture, the humilations, the conditions of harsh winter with no warm clothing, the horrific prisons within the camps. The gas chambers started at Auschwitz, but they quickly needed to be able to get rid of bodies faster, hence the building of Birkenau. At one point they were gassing 20,000 people a day.




























Heading to Zakopane, the alps of Poland


We headed south to Zakopane, the very southern-most tip of Poland, where there are mountains. On the way we saw many signs like these, braying Blach! We got so far as to figure out that the word blach has something to do with roofing tiles.

On the way to Zakopane, I thought it would be fun to pop over the border and have lunch in Slovakia. The border post was completely abandoned. Slovakia looked pretty much the same as Poland.










Zakopane

Zakopane has beautiful mountains and a special kind of architecture. The houses are made of wood and there are gingerbread details. Horse-drawn carriages are a normal sight, although I think it's increased by tourism. Zakopane was full of tourists, although it is primarily a ski town. This time of year people are there for hiking.



























Farming was noticably different from England and the US. Most of the field work seems to be done by hand, and hay is cut both by hand and tractor, and stacked by hand onto these sort of trees, for lack of a better word. We saw people hoeing crops in small family groups, and even saw farmers using horse-drawn wagons. This is not like England at all, where farming is very up-to-date.


















This is the beautiful view of the mountains in Zakopane, heading north to Krackow. We have a mad dash to return the car and make the train back to Warsaw. It's so close that we have to leap over train tracks and as we run up to the train it's pulling away, and I push the green button and it stops. Phew.

On the way back, in Koln again, leaving the luggage for another layover. They have ingenious devices for storing luggage. You stuff your bags into a box shape, put in your money, and a ticket spits out. Your luggage then goes to some ethereal zone, not in the locker (which is very small) and then when you put your ticket back in, you hear a thunk and there's your luggage, precisely as you had stacked it, including the plastic bag of cheeses that was tumbled on top. Very amazing.

Our train journey was a very different way to get to Poland. I'm not sure exactly what we gained, but it was very interesting to see what is between here and there, and to experience to some extent the cultures and languages as you go through them, rather than skipping them when you fly. I really want to get back to Eastern Europe. We were told that Croatia is perfectly fascinating, full of Roman ruins. So we shall see.