warsaw mural

VISIT WARSAW!

VISIT WARSAW!
click on image

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
JERZY JANOWICZ, click above

EURO 2012

EURO 2012
kuba blaszczykowski, euro's best moments

National Stadium in Warsaw

National Stadium in Warsaw

NOBEL POETRY LAUREATE W.SZYMBORSKA DIES

NOBEL POETRY LAUREATE W.SZYMBORSKA DIES
click on

CHRISTMAS IN WARSAW

CHRISTMAS IN WARSAW
warsaw / by the royal castle

warsaw 2011

christmas market

IZU UGONOH

IZU UGONOH
Polish born professional kickboxer, click on

POLAND ELECTIONS 2011: Prime Minister Donald Tusk Takes Home Victory

POLAND ELECTIONS 2011: Prime Minister Donald Tusk Takes Home Victory
click on for info

POLAND / MOVE YOUR IMAGINATION

POLAND / MOVE YOUR IMAGINATION
click for video

Poznan Film & Music Festival

Poznan Film & Music Festival
click for more

POLAND AT ITB BERLIN 2011

POLAND AT ITB BERLIN 2011
watch trailer, click

RESTAURANTS

RESTAURANTS
rozbrat20, click...

at the chefs' polish cuisine, click..

COPERNICUS SCIENCE CENTER

COPERNICUS SCIENCE CENTER
IS OPEN NOW...

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
click on to see the project

ANIMATED HISTORY OF POLAND

ANIMATED HISTORY OF POLAND
1000 YEARS IN 8 MINUTES...click on

WARSAW in 1935

WARSAW in 1935
click for more pics

WARSAW IS SAD WITHOUT YOU!

WARSAW IS SAD WITHOUT YOU!
watch video

THE NATIONAL STADIUM, WARSAW

THE NATIONAL STADIUM, WARSAW
click on the picture above


CHOPIN BALLET...

CHOPIN BALLET...
playing now...click on...

EXPO 2010 Shanghai

EXPO 2010 Shanghai

Polish Pavilion, click on

2010 YEAR OF CHOPIN...

2010 YEAR OF CHOPIN...
click for more...

MARCIN WYROSTEK

MARCIN WYROSTEK
I have talent / click on image

SEVEN GATES OF JERUSALEM, PENDERECKI & BAGINSKI

SEVEN GATES OF JERUSALEM, PENDERECKI & BAGINSKI
click for video
Recorded during a concert at the Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera in Warsaw. This was a gala performance of Seven Gates of Jerusalem marking Penderecki's 75th birthday, conducted by the composer himself.
The setting for the concert was provided by specially designed computer animations by Tomasz Baginski projected onto a large screen.

TOMEK BAGINSKI

TOMEK BAGINSKI
his newest film, click

krzysztof kieslowski's headstone

SAPAYA....

SAPAYA....

...taste of Vietnam in Warsaw...

...taste of Vietnam in Warsaw...
click on

ROMAN POLANSKI

ROMAN POLANSKI
click on

70th ANNIVERSARY OF WWII

70th ANNIVERSARY OF WWII
click on pic

WARSAW UPRISING'44 anniversary, 65th

WARSAW UPRISING'44 anniversary, 65th
click on, "Go, passer-by, and tell the world That we perished in the cause, Faithful to our orders."

ANNA MARIA JOPEK

ANNA MARIA JOPEK
click to watch video " sypka warszawa"

NEW EP PRESIDENT jerzy buzek

NEW EP PRESIDENT jerzy buzek
click on

OLD TOWN JAZZ

OLD TOWN JAZZ
click on

CHOPIN CONCERTS AT ROYAL LAZIENKI PARK 50th anniversary

CHOPIN CONCERTS AT ROYAL LAZIENKI PARK 50th anniversary
1959-2009 (click on)

FREEDOM WAS BORN IN POLAND, JUNE 4th 1989

FREEDOM WAS BORN IN POLAND, JUNE 4th 1989
click on

jack, jane and stevie (wonder) all supported solidarnosc...

20th ANNIVERSARY OF THE FALL OF COMMUNISM (JUNE 4th 1989)


The elections that broke communist power in Poland in 1989 also triggered political revolution across east-central Europe.

The political upheaval that began in Poland continued in Hungary, and then led to a surge of mostly peaceful revolutions in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. Romania was the only Eastern-bloc country to overthrow its communist regime violently and execute its head of state.

The Revolutions of 1989 greatly altered the in the world and marked (together with the subsequent balance of power and collapse of the Soviet Union) the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the Post Cold War era.




campaign poster

DR. MARIA SIEMIONOW

DR. MARIA SIEMIONOW
click on

Maria Siemionow is a renowned Polish surgeon (Poznan Medical Academy, receiving her PhD in microsurgery there) at the Cleveland Clinic. She gained public notice in December, 2008, when she led a team of six surgeons in a 22-hour surgery, performing the first face transplant in the United States on patient Connie Culp.[1] She is currently Director of Plastic Surgery Research and Head of Microsurgery Training at the Cleveland Clinic. She is also Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.

MARIUSZ KWIECIEN POLISH BARITONE

MARIUSZ KWIECIEN POLISH BARITONE
he is regular at metropolitan opera

POLISH PIANIST'S PROTEST

POLISH PIANIST'S PROTEST
click on

Fourth Anniversary of the Death of John Paul II

Fourth Anniversary of the Death of John Paul II
click on

4 years ago...

October 1978...

"May Jesus Christ be praised! Dearest brothers and sisters, we are still grieved after the death of our most beloved Pope John Paul I. and now the most eminent cardinals have called a new bishop of Rome. They have called him from a distant country, distant but always close through the communion in the Christian faith and tradition…"
"I do not know if I can explain myself well in you – in our Italian language. If I make a mistake you will correct me. And so I present myself to you all to confess our common faith, our hope, our confidence in the Mother of Christ and of the Church, and also to start anew this road of history and of the Church, with the help of God and with the help of men."

MELKART BALL

MELKART BALL
click on

HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY!

HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY!
march 8th, international

7th SLED DOG RACE

7th SLED DOG RACE
3/1/ 2009, lutowiska, 120km, click for more pics

NOTHING TWICE...

"Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice..." ( W. Szymborska, Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner)

WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA
click on picture to continue...

do you know?

"Stohrer is the oldest continually operating pastry shop in Paris. It was started by Nicolas Stohrer, a Polish pastry chef who came to France with Marie Leszczynska, the daughter of King Stanislas of Poland, when she married King Louis XV of France in 1725. In 1730, Stohrer opened up his own shop in the very location where it stands today. He is credited with inventing the Rum Baba."

blikle pastry shop in warsaw

foster building


pics by cousin lukasz

2010 / YEAR OF CHOPIN

2010 / YEAR OF CHOPIN

the greatest polish composer

The big year in Warsaw is going to be 2010, the 200th anniversary of composer Fryderyk Chopin's birth. FRYDERYK FRANCISZEK CHOPIN was born in Zelazowa Wola, in the Duchy of Warsaw. In November 1830, at the age of twenty, he went abroad; following the suppression of the Polish November Uprising of 1830–1831, he became one of many expatriates of the Polish "Great Emigration."
He died in Paris (burial site: the Pere Lachaise Cemetery.) Although his heart is in Poland, brought by his sister Ludwika, at Chopin’s own request and in testament to the musician’s unwavering loyalty to his homeland, where it was placed inside a pillar of the Holy Cross Church at Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street...

Polish Handmade Shoes
Why Polish shoes? At the turn of the century, a gentleman would buy his suits in London, his dresses in Paris (for lady friends, one presumes) and his boots in Poland. The shoemaking tradition survives in a few specialist shops in the centre of Warsaw.
http://www.grailtrail.ndo.co.uk/Grails/shoe.html
http://www.kielman.pl/en/historia/

wilanow park

BODY LANGUAGE...

"It is not only in terms of volume that Poles are outwardly expressive. There is a joke that the best way to make a Spaniard stop talking is to tie up his hands, and while the same tactic may not mute a Pole, it would certainly cause a speech impediment (...) Poles will often lean forward in their chair, or even stand up, in order to add weight to a specific point they are trying to make."

From "Customs & Etiquette"

Sunday, February 1, 2009

AT HOME IN AMERICA

click to enlarge Polish men's duty: Taking turns washing dishes in the rain...




AT HOME IN AMERICA (2003?)

As a kid I was obsessed with "Ameryka" magazine that my grandfather collected in Poland. He regularly purchased "Amerykas" in Ruch kiosks, which were located on every corner. It was a collection of tens of glossy books that, as I recall, represented the years 60-67. He had it covered and binded by year. Each book was way too heavy for a kid to carry; I was able to keep only one at the time on my lap. My cousin, who joined me in reading, got bored quickly, me? never! There were stories and pictures all from America. I knew how people lived, I knew what they ate, I knew how they looked and I knew how they dressed. We had glass milk bottles, Americans had milk in carton boxes, I thought it was so cool!
Juice boxes, plastic containers, disposable diapers, plastic cups, all that stuff that causes our planet to rot and doesn’t dissolve in the soil for some 500 years. While in Poland, fish was still wrapped in old newspaper and if you did not bring your own (reusable) bag you couldn’t carry your groceries. Americans drank coca- cola. My shopping trips with mom always ended with a stop at the coffee shop. That’s when I had my coca- cola. It was some kind of treat, for not bothering her at the store.
I remember a picture of a young couple on their farm somewhere in Montana or Idaho posing with their young son. They were captured standing in a front of a cloth line where all their Levis’jeans were hanging; At least a dozen, in different sizes. My thoughts were mixed from "don’t they wear anything else in America" to "original Levis’ jeans are expensive, they must be rich." Of course I was thinking in Polish categories.
There were pictures from some small town on the US-Canadian border. The borderline went exactly across the room attached to the bar. There was some gambling going on, but since it was on Canadian side it was all-legal. The borderline also went across someone’s backyard. And there was this cloth line... Someone could claim that his or her cloth line is the longest in the world, and stretches all the way from US to Canada. Imagine this, you wash your undies in the US and you dry them in the neighboring country. Amazing...
While reading "Amerykas" I discovered Ella Fitzgerald. I loved pictures of Louis Armstrong blowing his trumpet as if his face was made out of rubber and pictures of floats from Pasadena's Rose Parade. I remember behind the scenes pictures from "Whatever happened to baby Jane" with Betty Davies and Joan Crawford. And others from "To kill a Mockingbird." I knew all about them and I was probably one of few kids in Poland who knew who Sidney Pointer was. I could look at those pages for hours.

Most of all, I loved designs by Frank Lloyd Wright. There were similar houses by less known architects, meant for regular people, but I loved his work, that modern block design, with windows that covered a whole wall. Houses that were set on an edge of rocky mountain, houses in which I imagine regular people in America lived; houses that the average American could afford.
On my arrival, I did not expect American houses to look like mansion from the "Dallas" or "Dynasty" series. I expected them to look like smaller versions of Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs. So I cried for the first two weeks after arrival. We just moved from Germany where the living standards in 1986 were pretty high.
And in a small New England town nobody seemed to own the house like Frank Lloyd Wright’s. The apartment was huge. There were 5 windows in our bedroom; all covered with plastic, of which I’m sure Frank would not approve. A church lady showed up to show us HOW TO USE THE GAS STOVE. You know, those primitive Poles must have cooked over the bonfire. Slowly I learned to accept our new living standards.
I enjoyed the look of confusion on people’s faces as I contradicted almost every myth about my native country. But I could lie and have peace of mind or be truthful, accept looks of disbelief and have people keeping distance as If I was... some character.
I bombed them with revelations, like.. In supposedly a strictly Catholic country, I was THE ONLY CHILD of divorced parents, and I wasn’t baptized until I was 5. Only because, one day my grandparents decided to baptize all 5 (at the same time) grandchildren together. I had a blue dress on and white knee socks. Someone brought white pigeons and we set them free. Most of my friends were only children or had only one sibling. In the future, I pictured myself with three children, my rebellious side was telling me to rise above the average, typical 2 plus 1 family. And in my grade 1/3 of the students came form divorced families. My mom remarried; my mother in law remarried twice. Her two ex-husbands are not dead; they are very much alive. And she is the most devoted Catholic of them all.
Poland’s population is slipping due to the low birth rate. As typical for Western European countries, Polish women also chose careers over childbearing. It’s not like they were tied up in the kitchen all those years, quite opposite. In Poland women doctors and judges always outnumbered men. And the professions where men actually BEAT women were hairdressers and chefs. But it is only so because they had women teachers.
Next bomb was, the Polish winters were less severe than New England’s. What in Poland we called " the winter of the century," in New England I have a chance to experience every year. And the Polar bears were locked up in a zoo, rarely walking the streets of Warsaw. In last years Poles are experiencing snowless winters. Although occasionally
they may have a huge snowstorm in November, but then warm weather can bring tulips in my mom’s garden in February.
Cabbage and pierogi are great but, roasted chicken with young potatoes and dill and mizeria a.k.a. cucumber salad, I thought were traditional Polish foods, because that’s what we ate the most. For some strange reason, on my local radio station, un-appreciated cabbage always makes the list of most disgusting foods. To stereotype Poles as fat and cabbage eaters does not make sense. Nobody ever got fat on cabbage, although I heard of cabbage soup diet, go figure.

I do not expect to see "Polska" magazine in every kiosk in US but then think about it, Poles had "Amerykas" in kiosks under communism. What can we say about access to such info on Poland by millions of Americans? . With a monopoly on everything from movies, information to prescription drugs, with the shrinking number of growing corporations that are uncontrollable and unaccountable, I feel more and more at home as if I were in Communist Poland.
Levis just closed its last factory; no more US made originals. With big corporations running the country, with a few cocky politicians we are bullying the rest of the world and the word "diplomacy" is long lost from our vocabulary.

The other day at the bookstore I got my house coffee with free refills. Moments later I shuffled to the counter and since there were two people working there I asked the one close to the coffee machine if I can have a refill. He looked at me and said, " you have to stand in the line first." But I paid for it already and I just want a refill (and he is standing next to the machine). Nope. I looked at the long line of customers waiting for their coffees and cheesecakes. I landed here 17 years ago, but somehow at that moment I jet backed to the time when I left Poland that was still under communist rule. That incident reassured me, that people everywhere are the same, no difference. It’s the times; the circumstances caused by governments can change people’s attitudes. Under communism the customer was necessarily evil and the shopkeeper was the god.

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