September 25 2014 – Poland

Witam z Polski (Hello from Poland).. actually from Gdynia to be more accurate.

First, a few things I left out of yesterday’s note: Warning — if you are coming to Poland, don’t book a “single room” (which in the US would mean one person to the room and maybe a double bed instead of king?). In Poland it means a room big enough for one person and a single bed size. I feel like I’m in an old-fashioned college dorm. Actually the Rozany Gaj is very nice and simple and well located for the conference, but single room meant single size bed. Good thing I’m small. But I must admit I keep thinking if I roll over I’ll be on the floor!

Also — forgot to mention this: Yesterday, one of the speakers from Shenzen China (she was young) said her city had just 25,000 residents (a village) in 1985. Today it has 16 million people and growing fast. Will grow one million per year for foreseeable future at least until its 25th anniversary in 2020. It’s close to Hong Kong. Unreal. The photos make it look like a model — not a real city.

And there won’t be too many photos since it’s a little difficult to photograph while in “the boot” and stay balanced if there isn’t a good sidewalk.

I was up pretty late last night (until about 1 am) dealing with emails and work and calls to the office… and hadn’t had more than about 5 hours sleep in the previous 36 hours… so this morning, I woke up at 5 am and couldn’t fall back asleep. Eventually got up, showered, went down for breakfast, and was about to head to the conference when I realized I was super tired. So I went back to bed for two hours — missed the opening daily remarks — and got to the conference in time for the actual sessions. Kind of like playing hooky!

Figured it would look bad if I just showed up for my own session which was at 2:30.

The papers are really quite interesting and it’s stunning how little the US (or North America in general) is referred to or used as a model for any of the work being presented. So I’m a bit exotic here! And the range of topics is quite wide. Today there were two from Brazil dealing with water in the favelas and also water as a driver of economic development; questions about whether water as a driver is a long-time strategy and the impact on gentrification was a big topic throughout. An interesting presentation on Doha (and their fabricated Disneyland waterways), one from Calcutta, and one from France, and one on Tazmania. It’s global for sure!

Weather has been pretty good, until tonight when it started to rain. I hope that’s not an omen for the remainder of my trip which I will explain in a minute.

Anyway, my presentation began at 2:30. I had been selected as the keynote for the track. There are 6 different tracks, so six keynotes. Apparently the reviewers read all the papers (abstracts at that point, I believe) and first make selections as to which papers will be accepted for presentation. Then they decide which track each paper goes to (which is pretty complicated since no one is writing for a particular track and the track topics are broad — I was in the “policy, community, governance” track ??) and then another group reads the selected papers and decides which paper will be the keynote for each track. I guess it was a bigger deal than I thought. I had been pretty quiet (mostly because I was so tired) all day yesterday and just listened to each paper in my track (glad I went on the second day so I could see how they structured each session). So this afternoon, when I appeared at the correct room they made a big deal about the keynote… Got more time to present, more time for questions, and other speakers who followed me referred to “as the keynote speaker said…” Anyway, there was one funny comment/question at the end of my question period. A Pole asked “Can you come to Poland and become President so that we can have good community engagement and get things done here!” OK.. over and done.. with my part. Tomorrow is the finale and the final closing speech. There’s also a gala dinner tomorrow night but I’m headed out to Rzeszow.

Once I got back to the hotel, I packed and headed to dinner at a restaurant that is rated highly… I had perch.. naturally with potatoes… and some mushrooms. The menu was interesting, especially the translations… but I also learned that the Poles think fish is ok in a vegan diet. The menu noted vegan meals with a little leaf symbol and all of the fish dishes had that icon! It also appears that they like to keep the restaurants brightly lit.. None of that problem of having to use your flashlight app on your iPhone to read the menu! Prices are staggeringly low compared to what we know. This was considered one of the three best restaurants in Gdynia. I had the main course (tonight’s special) – perch with potatoes and mushrooms, two glasses of wine, and a scoop of pear ice cream for dessert.. There was also a little appetizer bar with pickled vegetables, great bread, etc…. The bill was USD $35.

So tomorrow, after the morning sessions, I head to Gdansk Airport and fly to Rzeszow.. in the south. I change planes in Warsaw. (Flying on LOT – Polish Airlines — no jokes please). I’m going to go from Rzeszow to Bukowsko and Lesko in the far south east — very close to Slovakia border — to see the village (which doesn’t really exist anymore) where my grandparents on my father’s side are from. I’ll explain more in a subsequent write-up.. I don’t really know that much about my father’s side of the family so it took a lot to get this much info. Bukowsko is the village name.. they were in a stetl there (or so I believe). And 20 miles away or maybe 20 KM away is a Jewish cemetery which still exists (but I’m sure is in terrible condition). I’ll visit that as well. I’m being accompanied by two faculty from the University of Rzeszow. More about them on Saturday when I meet them.

Time to call it a day..

Dobranoc (good night!)

Fern