Dumb Cinderella

It's only been a little over a week since I've been back and though I don't long for my granny telling me what to wear, there are already things I miss.  People, obviously.  My niece is growing so fast.  A couple of days before I left, I was reading Cinderella (Kopciuszek in Polish) to her and during the scene where the poor girl loses her slipper, Emilia says, "She shouldn't have worn heels.  She should have worn shoes that lace up."  No shit Cinderella! Note ladies, you wear no heels, you get no prince, and I'm never reading that story to her again.

I miss appropriately sized ice cream so you feel like you're eating dessert and not a meal (the Statue of Liberty flavor).

 

Wild blueberries the color of ink.

 

Waffles with powdered sugar for dessert (to go!).

Smoked cheese, highlander style.

Croatia or Bust

We are about to set out on an 11 hour car journey to the gorgeous Adriatic coast in Croatia.  Our drive will take us through Slovakia, Austria, and a bit of Slovenia.  

Since we're traveling Polski-style, our car is filled with everything from toothpaste to onions to bread & butter.  Food is said to be expensive in Croatia so pantry r us. 

We are staying at a campgroung near the city of Sibenik.  

Author: User:Tieum512 via Wikimedia Commons

No tents, but campers of some sort equipped with everything but food.  

http://www.chorwacja.croatia4u.org/

Babcia Knows Best

My grandma (babcia) and I have always been close.  She spent much of my life raising my younger sister and me.  While I love the woman dearly, she has always had an overwhelming personality.  Over the years, that personality was tempered by the many tasks she performed in her jobs as a seamstress (she worked from home), housewife, mother, and grandmother.  Frankly, I think she's indestructible if not, in fact, immortal.  

GM with one of her two great-grandaughters.

But as my grandmother's 85th birthday nears, she is no longer able to perform her many personality-tempering roles and tasks.  She is still able to talk, however, and spends much of her day correcting, editing, chastizing, warning, reprimanding, suggesting, advising, and generally telling the world what is wrong with it.  She hasn't seen me in a year and a half and is now doggedly making up for lost time.  I've been back for barely three days and have learned many a valuable lesson already:

Butter Emergency: 

GM: We're out of butter.  Go to the store to buy butter NOW.  

PD:  Can I first have coffee, change out of my pajamas and wash my hair?  

GM:  You don't need to wash your hair.  

PD:  I do, my scalp itches.  

GM:  Scratch it and go.

PD remains calm:  We obviously have different priorities.

Jet Lag: 

GM:  Why do you sleep so late?  Get up.  

PD:  I'm jet lagged grandma, and need to get used to the time.  

GM:  Stop talking nonsense.

PD explains: Jet lag means that with the time difference and all, I... ahh, forget it. 

Hair: 

GM:  Why are your bangs so short?  They're too short.  I don't like it.  

PD:  I like 'em grandma.  They're short on purpose.  

GM:  You don't know what looks good.

PD admits defeat:  Clearly.

Clothes: 

GM: You're wearing that?  Don't wear it.  

PD:  I like it, grandma.  It's comfortable.  

GM:  It doesn't look good on you.  Change.

PD draws the line:  No.

Weight: 

GM: You need to lose weight.  

PD:  You know how it is, grandma, sometimes I gain weight and sometimes I lose weight.

GM:  When have you ever lost any weight? 

PD goes on an offensive: How long have you been experiencing memory loss?

Moral:

GM:  Why are you so lazy?  No wonder you've never had kids.  You can't be lazy and have kids.  God obviously knew this and that's why you have no children.  Stop being lazy.

PD loses it:  Jesus, grandma, really?!  Get a grip!

I'm here for 30 more days... 

Japanese Poles

Back from Poletown, making preparations for my annual journey to the motherland.  This time, my visit is a bit belated as over last Christmas I opted for a trip to Japan.  A Pole in Japan is not as strange as it sounds.  Besides, Eastern Europeans and Asians share a gene pool reinforced by centuries of mutual conquests.  

I loved everything, and I mean everything, about Tokyo and the surrounding area (except for little white fish served cold.  I thought they were crunchy little noodles and took a mouthful. Surprise!). 

Soon after my arrival in Tokyo, I discovered a Polish-Japanese connection.  Ayako found a website for a bed and breakfast not far from my hometown.  It’s called Villa Akiko and run by Akiko Miwa, a Japanese woman who has made Poland her home: http://www.akiko.pl/index.html

Akiko built the hotel from the ground up, which wasn’t easy since there were no roads leading up to the land she purchased.  She speaks fluent Polish (she didn’t know it when she arrived in 1989) and gets along with górale (or highlanders, a particular ethnic group of which I count myself a member) who reside in the area.  The górale are a famously difficult and stubborn people, but apparently what Pani Akiko wants, Pani Akiko gets, and the górale of the surrounding villages adore her.  She’s involved in the life of the nearby village, Harklowa, and has founded an environmental organization in the area.

Polish National Geographic published an interview with Pani Akiko, not because she’s a Japanese woman living in Poland (there are others), but because she lives in the mountainous middle of nowhere among the górale: http://www.national-geographic.pl/artykuly/pokaz/mam-dusze-mezczyzny/.  She’s my new hero.  I hope to visit Villa Akiko when I’m in Poland.

One of my favorite adventures in Japan involved a trip to the mountains to soak in an onsen, traditional Japanese baths.  Ayako took me to Nikko, home of the famous Tokugawa Ieyasu shrine.  

   

We stayed at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn.

 
The Nikko style tofu dinner and breakfast there were incredible. 

Specific procedures must be followed at the onsen.  For Westerners like me, the ryokan provides a handy dandy guide complete with pictures.

After a week in Tokyo, Ayako was sick and tired of my questions.  Admittedly, some were just downright stupid but, in my defense, there is a fourteen-hour time difference between St. Louis and Tokyo.  Jet lag was a mammoth!  She flung the guide in my general direction and told me to memorize it.  Except for one mistake, all went well.  I scrubbed and rinsed in the correct order and manner and soaked to my heart’s delight.  The one error, however, came at a great cost.  Ayako told me that I could never be “a Japanese lady” all because once we put on the yukata and haori the ryokan provided, I immediately took off my undergarments.  This was apparently a grave error as it is inadvisable to walk downstairs and across the outside bridge leading to the onsen wearing only the yukata and haori, both of which tie at the waist.  

A highly impractical proposition, if you ask me, since the baths are gender specific, and all wear birthday suits anyway. 

While in Tokyo, I discovered just how much I enjoy taking photos.  Though I only have what Poles refer to as an “idiot cam,” some of the photos came out well enough to be framed.  This is one of my favorites.  I took it at Edo Wonderland (A Tokugawa era theme park outside of Tokyo):

During my time in Chicago, I snuck a little Japanese time away from Poletown and took Ewa and her adorable daughter Gaia to Rolls N’ Bowls, a tiny and really good restaurant in Lincoln Square.

 
I felt it necessary, however, to finish my Poletown adventure with a Polish meal.