Outside of Krakow

Pacman 2.0 doesn’t run from ghosts, he makes them. (Warsaw)

Apartment building tower of babel? Spotted in Czestochowa

Snapped from a train outside Katowice.

Krakow

I assume this depicts the illuminati rapture

Wascally Wabbit

This guy was everywhere. I think I saw at least six of them.

I can’t look at the guy in this without thinking Michael Cera

Near the contemporary museum. This is a tunnel where cutouts in the ceiling are used to project Auschwitz

The streetlight at night hits from the opposite side, flipping the letters

The Romani people seem to be the current pariahs of Europe. I don’t claim to know what this means in that context, but hey, font joke.

I especially like the doubledeer. Reminds me of the teleporter bit from the Simpsons (and follow-on gag).

???

Photographs showing the lego concentration camp set.

Unfolded boxes for the lego concentration camp sets.

The holocaust is such a hard thing to understand on a personal level; the scale is just too big.  Different approaches can help make the problem relatable for different people.  The combination of mass produced children’s toys and assembly-line genocide was surprisingly powerful to me.

We checked out Fortuna Brewery’s Komes Baltic Porter at our meat-filled bash on a Polish farm.  It was the highest rated thing we could find in the Polish grocery store.

Why hello table full of alcohol.

My tasting notes are… scattered.  You may see the table full of beers behind the Komes Porter Bałtycki. Or perhaps the straw poking out from one of the Gold Rushes I was making for our hosts. You may even see a bottle of jäger prowling in the background. No I’m not that kind of lush; there were 8 other people there. Most of them Polish.  And honestly I’m pretty sure I didn’t touch the master of hunters. But there was enough else going on and it was long enough ago that it’s fair to say I am an unreliable witness.

Here are the things I remember:

• Lots of dark roasted malt flavor. I’m usually not a fan of especially malty beers, but I did like this guy.
• Rich dark fruits and chocolate.
• Not overly sweet or cloying. This surprised me; usually high ABV dark beers are borderline syrup.
• Well hidden alcohol (9%, but you’d never know it).

It’s not a style of tried much before, but I thought it was a really well put-together beer. I would buy it again, and it’s worth checking out if you have the chance. Bring some friends. Or a sleeping bag.

Water Bus – Budapest

I could have used one of these on my last trip when the bridges were washed out from the floods

Pretty sure a strong wind would blow this thing on its side. It looks amazing though.

Stern Beer – Krakow

Harsh, but fair

This name cracks me up.  Tiara doesn’t find it funny. We leave it to you, readers.

Gummy Walker – St Paul De Vence

It came from a mediocre bistro!

These gummies came with the bill at a thoroughly unremarkable restaurant. From humble beginnings come great things…

Bootleg Cars Display – Czestochowa

For some reason the strip mall in Czestochowa had a bunch of cars that had been chopped up and made to look like Cars. The steering wheel in this one is actually hooked up. Impressive chop jobs.

Cairn – Trail around Vence

This cairn has no fewer than 13 carefully balanced rocks!

Fun fact, Tiara and I have taken dog surveys (highly scientific!) that say we should own a Cairn Terrier.

Bathroom Sign at Hanage Restaurant – Berlin

This speaks for itself.

I have an acquaintance who admitted to me of using western toilets in a squat toilet manner (figure 4). So it is possible Hanage has had these other problems as well.

These Pretzels are Making Me Thirsty – Copenhagen Airport

Apparently we couldn’t wait long enough to take a picture before ripping into these thirst-inducing treats

Tiara and I have been slowly rewatching Seinfeld on this trip after hours. Obviously, we had to own this bag of These Pretzels are Making Me Thirsty.

Pirate Wine Glass at La Cantine Restaurant – Paris

Yo ho, ho, and a bottle of Rosé

We had a really great set lunch at this place, and I fully intended to write about it. The skeleton chef wine glass will have to suffice.

I have no idea at Jardin d’Acclimitation – Paris

In the future, we will all be cows.

Okay, so I looked it up, and apparently transhumance is a real word:

the action or practice of moving livestock from one grazing ground to another in a seasonal cycle, typically to lowlands in winter and highlands in summer.

But I’m still going to picture a parade of variegated transhuman cow-people roaming the astroturf.

Bison grass vodka not included.

Krakow is a very charming city that has been widely discovered, and we found it to be really crowded during high summer.  Our favorite spots were a little outside the normal tourist route, such as this Jewish cemetery which seemed to go on forever and was really lush and serene:

We also visited the Schindler Museum, which was right around the corner from our apartment so we could get there when it opened.  This museum is located in Schindler’s enamel factory, and is much more about the story of Krakow during the Holocaust than about Schindler himself.  The exhibits use lots of multimedia to try to set the scene and create a more interactive experience.  I think they did a good job, and it is really interesting to focus on the impact of the war in just one city.

Polish military propaganda. It’s unsettling how great graphic design and war often go together.

The Jewish side of my family is not from Poland and we don’t know enough to know for sure which concentration camps they were sent to, but being in Krakow felt like an opportunity to explore how their lives might have been.  It felt important to me to go to Auschwitz, and Ian was really kind to go with me even though he had already been before.  I don’t have a lot to say about our visit to Auschwitz, and I really didn’t feel a need to take pictures while there.  It was very strange to see what a tourist attraction it has become and to watch people pose for photos, smiling, on the train tracks in Birkenau.  I think it’s so good for people to visit and know the history and the tourism seems weird at the same time.  I’m not sure what the solution is.  I did take just one photo, in Birkenau.  There is no way to capture how vast it is.  They estimate that 1.5 million people were killed here.

Coming home and reading Maus helped personalize the visit for me.  I think the combination of seeing the scale of the camps and then learning individual stories really brings it home and I won’t forget what it felt like to stand in that field.

John and Agnieszka met us at the train station and we stopped at a giant supermarket on the way home to stock up on food and drinks.  Naturally, when we arrived at the house we were fed instantly:

Meat (Beef? I’m not actually sure) in a delightful creamy sauce, Greek salad, a homemade cherry juice, and of course, dumplings.

Later on, we took a nice walk through the woods to the river, where we played with Agnieszka’s niece and nephew.

River geese

In the evening, Ian made a batch of cocktails with some Four Roses bourbon we brought from Warsaw along with lemon juice and hyperlocal honey from the family’s apiary.  We visited Agnieszka’s rabbits and watched her mom prepare pieczonki, which is a big pot of sausage, potatoes, beets, bacon, and carrots cooked in a cast iron pot over a fire.

I like this guy eating off another’s head.

Dinner was a total sausage fest.

Ian’s cocktails were a big hit, as was the amazing dinner, and we stayed up late talking and hanging out around the fire.

We made the mistake of mentioning that we liked zurek so of course Agnieszka’s mom whipped some up for breakfast the next morning.  Then we went for a walk and lazed around until lunchtime:

Well, that and a stuffed cabbage.

Then it was back to the train station and off to Krakow for us.  And, soon, it will be off to Austin for John and Agnieszka, who are moving there for grad school.  Hopefully we’ll get to meet up again in the states.  We had a really great visit and will remember how special it was to see another side of Poland.

Chanterelles are in season in Poland right now and they are so cheap and delicious.

I successfully confused another waitress the following day when I ordered pho when it was 98° outside.  This time, she simply said, “Soup?”

A lot better than I expected

You’ve already seen zurek, but here’s another example from our visit to the Polish countryside (blog post forthcoming):

Breakfast soup

And finally, I continue to eat soup here in Budapest (shh…let’s pretend we’re still in Poland).  Here’s some fruit soup I ordered last night:

Tastes just like blueberry yogurt

1. Parks.  Warsaw has TONS of beautiful parks.  The most beautiful and spectacular is Łazienki Park, which might just be the best park ever.  Observe:

Waffles in the park!

Free range peacocks

2. Warsaw understands how we feel about love locks.

3. The statues know it’s too hot out.

4. Free berries!

5. So. Much. Good. Food

Zurek (sour rye flour soup). Up there with matzo ball for most comforting soup ever.

This restaurant extolled the health benefits of pierogi. Not sure I’m buying that, but they were delicious.

Cake made of layers of meringue!