What Will You Say When Your Child Asks: Why Didn't You...

(the third one, "what will you say when your father-in-law asks:", won't load on the English version, but it's here)

Wisława Szymborska, my favorite poet, died today at the age of 88. They cite in full the poem about the cat whose owner has died, which is one of my favorites ( Read more... )

well, it's the first snow of the winter for me tonight, and maybe the first one for Warsaw this season. It's coming down steadily, but not sticking. Let's hope the roads and airports are okay for my departure early tomorrow morning ( Read more... )

In Warsaw, GoogleMaps doesn't have Streetview. I don't know if it was banned because of privacy concerns (Europe has had a much stronger reaction to this service than the US), or that Google just hasn't gotten around to it ( Read more... )

Greetings from Poland. After not getting much sleep for the third night in a row, I got to the airport before dawn this morning. I got into Warsaw 1pm, which let me drop off my birth certificate to get a notarized translation, take a quick nap and then go have lunch with my cousin Jasiu at a sushi restaurant. I like his new apartment, especially ( Read more... )

Anyone interested in some hot Polish kock? Now don't all fight...

I met up with Christian at his university at 5:30 yesterday evening to join him and some grad students for a happy hour at a nearby brasserie. The group was all new people for me and included two Polish girls, who were very very surprised to hear someone else speak Polish. I spoke to them for most of the two hours we were there ( Read more... )

Tonight, the Institut Lumière was having its culminating night from its monthlong retrospective of legendary Polish director Andrzej Wajda: a screening of his recent film Katyń, about the Katyń Massacre, preceded by a speech and Q&A session with Wajda himself! I couldn't believe it when I saw it in the program and so Christian and I bought tickets ( Read more... )

The President of Poland just died in Russia, when his official plane crashed amid heavy fog. According to Polish sources, 88 people were on the plane, none survived, and they included several high members of the Polish government. The irony is that they were going to a site in Western Russia to commemmorate the Katyń Massacre of Polish POWs ( ( Read more... )

War with Poland!!!