Outliers in Poland, Week 1

Last Monday, the Faroutliers arrived in Warsaw. We flew United Airlines on the first legs from BWI to ORD (!) to FRA(nkfort), then I flew the last leg to WA(rsa)W on Poland’s Lot airways while my wife arrived on a later United flight.  My Lot plane was a long, narrow Embraer, which perhaps didn’t have enough room for my second large checked bag of winter clothes and other things we wouldn’t need until we find a place to rent. I filed a claim at Lot’s lost baggage office and they delivered the bag to our hotel a day later.

We were lodged at the fancy Presidential Hotel in the center of the city, across the street from Warszawa Centralna train station, with a good view of the Stalinist-era Palace of Culture and Science. After a day of rest to mitigate severe jetlag, my wife went off to attend orientations for her yearlong teaching position, and I took a long walk down to the Wistula River, taking more photos of Polish signage than of the river itself.

Among the most frequent words on airport signage were Zakaz (Verboten, Prohibited, 禁止) and Uwaga (Achtung, Attention, 注意). After months of Polish self-study, I could recognize many words, but cannot converse easily at all yet. I started with Duolingo, but its lack of any grammatical explanations left me frustrated, especially, for instance, given the expanded role of the genitive case to cover not just partitive (like French du vin), but negative and irrealis nouns, as well (like things you don’t have, or that you need or want). I turned to Youtube, which has many, many Polish lessons on various topics. Among the clearest grammatical explanations for English speakers I found are those at Learn Polish with Monika.

On our last free day in Warsaw, we walked to and then through the very impressive POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, next to which is a monument and square dedicated to Willy Brandt, respectively labeled Pomnik Willy'ego Brandta and Skwer Willy'ego Brandta. We walked back along aleja Jana Pawła II (John Paul II Avenue, a bit like Warsaw’s Fifth Avenue, it seemed). I haven’t yet found out what that avenue was called before it was renamed for the Pope.

Our last evening in Warsaw we found ourselves next to a table with a young Romanian-speaking couple who were enjoying a multicourse meal. I couldn’t resist interrupting them between courses, and we had a long, pleasant conversation in Romanian and English. Our Romania stories echoed those their parents and grandparents had told them about the old days.