Gdynia to Gdansk to Rzeszow, via Warsaw — September 26, 2014

Since my Polish doesn’t seem to be kicking in.. I’ll just start with — Greetings from Poland

It’s Friday night and I am in Rzeszow (pronounced — Jeshjoo — Who’d know?). I realized I was pronouncing it incorrectly since what I had read indicated that the university here was quite new and growing, but when I said that to someone at the conference (after I pronounced it Reshow) he must have thought I was talking about a different city and university because he said “Oh no.. that university is several hundred years old.”

Anyway, for a day that was supposed to be very simple and mostly travel it turned out to be quite a day!

I packed more than I needed since the weather was so unpredictable (based on weather.com before I left).. and my shoe situation (needing to have only right shoes, since the left is in the boot and needing to balance the boot with the right size heel… ) and then I picked up some books at the conference.. and the conference proceedings weigh a ton.. so I decided it would be good to ship back a box with heavy things (mostly the books, but padded with some clothes I clearly didn’t need). I’ve shipped things back from all over the world on various travels.. even from Kathmandu and South Africa and all over Latin America.. thus I figured it would be easy in Poland. I talked with the hotel reception desk several times and it seemed to be a very complicated process (or so they thought).. But I persevered and last night I thought it was all arranged. But this morning when I came down to reception they said I had to fill out all sorts of papers and that it had to go by DHL (who wouldn’t take a credit card and said I had to be present to transfer the box to them) and it went on and on.

I decided to head to the final conference session and figure it out when I got back to pick up my bags before going to the airport. In the meantime, the reception desk called DHL again and printed out the forms and then said I needed to talk to DHL, which was complicated since the first two phone people didn’t speak English and as you know my Polish is not quite up to par! Finally an English speaking person came on and the reception desk gave me the forms. But the forms were all in Polish. Just as I was beginning to show — just a bit — of frustration, a guy showed up at the reception area, who acted like he knew me — Tomasz — who asked if he could help. Turns out he is an architect interested in city planning and he was volunteering at the conference. He was in the lobby at that moment because he was gathering all the conference goers together to get on the bus to go to the conference center (The conference has buses that go back and forth most of the day between the various hotels and the center.)

He talked with the reception and with DHL (in Polish) and then said — “Forget it.. We can find a better and cheaper way to do this — with the Post Office.” I had asked that of the reception desk yesterday but they made that seem like it was impossible. Anyway, Tomasz took the box and we went on the bus to the conference.. He sweet talked (he’s quite a charmer) the conference desk to hold the box while I went to the final session (to hear Alex Krieger from Harvard give a very good talk on waterfront development challenges and opportunities).. and then I went to the lobby to meet up with Tomasz. He was on the phone with his mother who was going to go to the post office to get a number and stay in line so that when we got there we wouldn’t have to wait!! I was a bit embarrassed but Tomasz said it was no problem .. his mother goes to the post office all the time and she knows “the ladies” there. And that whenever Tomasz travels he sends picture postcards to “the ladies” in the post office so they know him and his mother.

OK.. off we go in a taxi to the post office and to meet his mom. Lots of negotiating seemed to go on, but the cost of shipping the package dropped by 80%! Indeed DHL was going to charge the equivalent of $180.00 (which seemed awful, but I was actually desperate as the bag was too heavy for me with that stuff in it. So now it cost only $20 or something and it is coming to the US at the same time as DHL would have delivered it. Well, that is if you really believe it will make it to the US at all. I had valued the box at $500, but the post office lady told Tomasz I should put “no value” because if it said $500 USD it would seem very valuable and good chance it wouldn’t make it to the states. Someone would steal it. I’m not guaranteeing anything.

Then Tomasz decided that there was enough time to give me a little tour of Gdynia. I actually had seen very little as by the time the conference ended each day it was dark. So we did a driving tour, after we went to get his car.

By the way, it turns out that Tomasz is the one who asked the question at my talk about my coming to Poland to become the President of the country to get things moving in the right direction! So he followed this up by telling me that everyone in his row (I assume all Poles) were “wowed” (his word) about the process I explained in the talk. He said they couldn’t believe it was done.. wanted all sorts of information. Tomasz did his schooling in Australia so his English is obviously excellent. He started out as a jeweler, had a business making original jewelry (silver and gold), went to Australia and then had to come back to Poland because his father was dying.. then returned to Australia to go to architecture school.. and eventually returned in the past few years. Anyway, he’s very fixated on the Gdynia waterfront and what he sees as terrible decisions on the part of officials. (I think he’s right, but it’s obvious that economics is driving decision-making and that private investment can do whatever it wants in Poland).. We had an interesting talk about these “very very rich people” in Poland that he talked about — who they are and how since the fall of Communism they amassed this money. Tomasz’s answer which is a lot like the information we got from our friends in Czech Republic many years ago is that the former Communist leaders were able to get themselves into high positions, to make lots of money, and to hold on to assets..

As a result there is a bit of a backlash against heroes like Lech Walesa, who many Poles feel turned on them.. knowing full well that while it all looked like the fall of Communism, in reality those people still have great power in the new capitalist system. Apparently Poland is more extreme than the other former eastern bloc countries.

So then I went to the Gdansk Airport, but my plane was about an hour late, meaning I would miss my connection to Rzeszow.. Wasn’t sure what I would do, but figured it was best to just proceed as planned. The LOT flight to Warsaw from Gdansk was fine (once we boarded), but there were stairs to walk and I had my carry-on bag with computer which was sort of heavy.. When we arrived in Rzeszow more stairs.. If there were lifts, I couldn’t find them and language is more difficult than I expected. While I was in a sea of English at the conference despite participants from more than 30 countries, on the streets of Poland most people do not know English. It’s interesting since English is very common now in other eastern European countries. Even the airlines people were hesitant in English. And few taxi drivers spoke any English. I think it probably also reflects the fact that they don’t get as many American or British tourists as other countries.

The flight from Warsaw was fortunately late as well, so I made the connection.. and went on a small turbo prop from Warsaw to Rzeszow.. kind of like flying from San Francisco to Fresno. Arrived in Rzeszow — more stairs.. (not easy with my foot in that damn boot). Checked into the Bristol Hotel.. a large old hotel on the town square. The hotel has a casino in the basement. I needed to get cash and they said there was a bank machine on the lower floor.. Suddenly there I was in the Vegas of Rzeszow.. small mostly slot machines.. I think I’ll skip it.

Went for Italian food at DaVinci’s… Perhaps Leonardo is turning in his grave. My advice would be not to come to Poland for the cuisine. Their national foods are starchy and very high carb… the international stuff are attempts, but somehow they just use too many ingredients.. like at DaVinci the lasagna had meat and salami (but I think they meant sausage) and all sorts of additional ingredients beyond typical lasagna. (I didn’t order that).. Again, prices are very low.. I had a salmon tartare (lox) appetizer that had more lox than you’d serve to three people; pasta (supposedly with an arabiata sauce, but not quite as it was pretty bland and lots of onions.. that’s another thing.. they love onions.. they put them on everything); a very very large beer that I couldn’t come close to finishing; and a bottle of sparkling water… The bill was about $18.00… By the way, I had beer because when I asked about wine.. by the glass.. he said there were two red wines.. one was sweet and the other was sweeter.. Beer sounded really good.

Given the prices.. Maybe retirement in Poland? (just forget about gourmet foods). Tomorrow it’s my day to find my roots… More then –

Best –

Fern