What's So Fascinating About Demolition?

The world over you can be guaranteed of a few things.

1. Any department store playing loud and tinny pop music does not sell good quality, reputable couture,
2. Public transport ticket inspectors in any country are douche bags, and
3. Look up in the sky long enough and before too long passers by will follow suit.

Walking along Aleja Jana Pawal II, a street in Warsaw named after Pope John Paul II, quite near one of my favourite pieces of graffiti I noticed about 8 people transfixed on something skyward.  Most of them were men, a couple of them wearing high-visibility vests, hard hats and steel capped boots.  A cyclist in Lycra had abandoned his latte, unlatched his cleats and dismounted his bike to see what all the fuss was about.  Each one of them were looking up at the sky shielding their eyes with their hand and squinting in the sun.  "What are they staring at?" I wondered and turned my head in the same direction resting my gaze upon the noisy construction site that had captured their attention.

Peering upwards I could now see that it was actually a deconstruction site.  A giant hydraulic claw was being manipulated by a little man in a big machine as the 8 stories were being reduced to dust and rubble piece by piece.  For reasons I can not pin point, it was mesmerizing.

Watching this demolition in progress and the over-sized teeth munching away like a hungry monster at the concrete and steel, I considered the life of the building.  I imagined it once housed many office workers, forced to pack their calculators, computers, pens and post-it notes into boxes and move to other locations as they were told the building was being sold and torn down to make way for a new development.  I considered the similarities between the way the building was put together and was now being pulled apart, except in reverse order.  Furniture, fixtures, lights, carpets, windows were now all gone and soon too would the concrete and the metal structure that held it together.

Many people ask me why I came to Poland.  The answer they are looking for is not 'to teach English'.  What they are really asking is of all the worldly destinations why would I specifically choose Poland?  The Poles ask because although they seem quite a patriotic bunch they also don't seem to understand why someone would leave Australia and travel so far away.  Partially because I suspect they don't believe there is anything here worth coming for.  It's not a viewpoint that I agree with frankly I see quite a bit of potential here in Poland.

Speaking with a British national last week who runs a small English language school in Warsaw he revealed he arrived twenty years ago, literally just after the fall of communism.  I can only imagine the transformations that he has witnessed and in his own words, "the place has completely changed... completely changed."  Newspapers were once-a-fortnight treat as they were too expensive and his first teaching assignment paid $4,000,000 zl per month under the old monetary system.  The new system introduced in 1995 truncated the last 4 zeros.  Apparently he had no way of knowing if that money was decent or not and eventually he found out through a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend that the money was ok.  One could live on it but one would not be able to accumulate savings nor wealth.

Today it's a completely different Poland.  For example I arrived three weeks ago without knowing a single word of Polish.  With iPhone in hand and a Polish sim card I quickly and freely became familiar with my new surroundings.  The standard of living here is quite good.  It's not perfect but, no place is perfect and that's a good thing!  It means there is room for improvement.  Development and opportunities are abound especially in a bustling city like Warsaw where a young population are eager to embrace change and make a better life for themselves, all but unaware of the previous system.  What I see when I look at the demolition of this building is the potential that lies therein as old makes way for new.  As I imagine and wonder with wide eyes what the mysterious 'new' will indeed look like, I suspect that too is what everyone else is wondering and anticipating.

Nail Polish Cake

Last November I embarked on what I described as an eating tour of Viet Nam.  Crunchy green vegetables, a selection of fresh fruits and a thick coconut pancake dripping in some sort of sweet sugary syrup were some of the highlights.  Lucky for my waistline I did not cross paths with many patisseries.  Poland on the other hand has some of the tastiest treats and baked goods known to mankind.  In fact, the very first Polish word I learned was 'lody' or, 'ice cream' and since my arrival in Warsaw three weeks ago I have been eagerly sampling the local fare. 

On one particular street stands two 'lody and ciasta' shops side-by-side.  Ciasta, as I understand is a generic word for sweet pastries and cakes.  So far I have tried a meringue about the size of your palm, split horizontally in two pieces smeared with lightly whipped chocolate mousse, a rolled up biscuit pastry similar to but not the same as cannelloni filled with a sweet blueberry cream cheese and something like a vanilla custard slice however with a lighter, airy cheesecake filling. 

Those who know me well understand my weakness for sweet food.  I can never, ever understand why someone could say 'oh I forget to eat' or can leave chocolate in the fridge for weeks, months or even hours.  In my house, chocolate doesn't keep long enough to make it to the fridge.  That's why I had to give it up several months ago, such was my addiction.  Throughout the years I have always made room for dessert and I have always finished it.  That is, until I met nail polish cake.

Nail polish cake was sitting in the display cabinet at one of my two favourite lody and ciasta shops.  I was innocently walking past on the way to catch the bus home.  I had successfully ignored the first shop and made it half-way past the second when curiosity got the better of me.  I looked in the window not once but twice, doing a double take.  "Ooooh, maybe I'll just take a peek inside" I reasoned with myself.  It's the old "oh go on just have one" Tim Tam trick.  One what?  One packet? 

I entered the little shop and the bell above the door jingled as I greeted the shopkeeper with a cheery 'dzien dobry' and deposited my dripping umbrella in the umbrella stand.  Lined up in the display cabinet were all the usual suspects.  Caramel mud cake, strawberry cheesecake, chocolate croissants.  Then my eyes rested on karpatka, a pastry full of sweet vanilla cream.  Cue "You're the one that I want" by John Travolta and our Olivia on high rotation in my head.  Just as quickly though was the voice of reason that convinced me perhaps it was too large to be eating late in the afternoon potentially spoiling any appetite for dinner, so I re-considered my decision, resting my eyes on a ball of chocolate cake dusted with shredded coconut.  It seemed substantial enough to satisfy the sweet craving but not so large to put me off dinner.

Exchanging coins and polite smiles I made my way with my new purchase to one of only three tables in the little cafe secretly quite pleased with myself and the sweet goodness I was about to indulge in.  Setting my bags down and getting comfortable in my seat, I picked up the fork and broke off a piece of the cake ball.  It reminded me of something I used to purchase every weekend at the local bakery owned by a friendly Vietnamese family back home in Corinda, which I used to call "cake on a stick'.  Officially cake on a stick didn't have a name.  It just sat in the glass cabinet with a $1.50 price tag, but it was a mud cake mixture shaped into a ball a little bit bigger than a golf ball, baked and then sat upside down with a stick jutting out of it.  The idea was that you eat the cake similar to how you eat an ice cream, by holding the stick and taking bites. 

My first mouthful of Polish cake-on-a-stick-without-the-stick was an overwhelming sense that someone had gone a wee bit overboard with the rum essence.  Woah mama.  I persisted through a 2nd and third mouthful thinking perhaps I would acquire a taste and come to appreciate cake on a stick mach II.  Fourth mouthful and I am trying to distinguish what that taste is.  It's not good.  It's beyond being rum essence trigger-happy.  It tastes like the smell of nail polish and the fifth mouthful confirms it.  Nail polish cake.  I can't go on with nail polish cake but the shopkeeper is standing behind the counter and she would surely notice if I upped and left half of it behind.  I feel that would be insulting, rude even so I stumble through another morsel.  A customer enters the shop and then another and I toy with the idea of running.  This is my chance to break free.  While shopkeeper is distracted with the two newcomers I hurriedly but quietly gather my belongings, picking up my umbrella from the umbrella creche and dash out the door, leaving nail polish cake behind.  I don't give it a second glance through the window as I pass by.  I just put my head down and make my way to the bus.

In a first world problem kind of way, there is nothing worse than looking forward to a meal only to be left feeling dissatisfied, post consumption.  What a disappointment nail polish cake turned out to be.  What would its distant cousin, cake on a stick in Corinda think?

Avoiding your first choice because you don't want to spoil your appetite later is sending a message to the universe saying "I don't want to have this good thing right now because later on I might want something else so I'm going to have this ordinary, this not-exactly-what-I-want thing, this second choice, even though the best thing is on offer."   If there is no 'later' then nail polish cake is your last meal.  Do you want to die knowing that you passed up perfectly good and delicious karpatka for nail polish cake?  Foodies everywhere are shaking their heads.

In spite of the negative experience, nail polish cake lived briefly to serve its purpose and to teach a lesson.  The lesson is that if you take second choice chances are, you will be disappointed and for that I am glad I crossed paths with this particular patisserie, and, nail polish cake.

The week just gone started with a job interview in a little town 200kms south of Warsaw namely, Tarnobrzeg, population 49,419.  I left home at 7:30am to catch a metro bus to Dworzec Zachodni.  'Dworzec' is Polish for 'station' and this is where I was to catch the bus for a 4 hour journey to Tarnobrzeg.

The local bus stop is a 2 minute walk from home and I caught the 7:40am bound for Dworzec Zachodni.  The first few stops went smoothly, however 5 minutes into the normally 35 minute trip, I did not count on congested peak-hour traffic.  I checked the list of bus stops which I had written down on a scrap bit of paper earlier that morning, one method I use to help me navigate Poland on an unfamiliar bus or tram route.  We'd only moved 2 of the 14 stops!  Turning onto a major freeway was an ordeal and bumper-to-bumper all the way to Dworzec Zachodni, arriving 45 minutes later at 8:25am.  The bus to Tarnobrzeg was due to leave at 8:30am.  I had the feeling that Polish bus drivers would be unforgiving of any late comers.  Add to the equation not having been to this particular location before and not knowing where exactly to catch this other bus from.

I dismounted the metro bus with 4 minutes 59 seconds to spare.  The lady who hopped off the bus in front of me started running, so I did too.  I wasn't sure where I was running but my feeling was to follow this lady, so I did.

We ran down a flight of stairs, turning right, down another set of stairs and through an underpass, dodging a generous smattering of morning commuters and travelers left and right.  Passing little kiosks that sell newspapers and tobacco, a bakery and a ticket window office I was still following her up a flight of stairs.  Now we were on the other side of the underpass.  At the top of the stairs the day light revealed a train platform.  With not a moment to lose, I quickly turned and ran down the stairs again, turning left toward the direction from which I ran, leaving the Running Lady on her own.  About half way back, I darted up the first set of stairs on my left.  Thank Mother Nature I had spent countless hours back home training at the gym before I left.  I was running with ease.  The top of the stairs, a dirt footpath and half a dozen buses.

I dashed from bus to bus, trying to recognise any signage.  Nothing.  No distinguishable writing eluding to the destination of the first few buses so without thinking I bounded onto the first bus, shoved my printed ticket into the face of the driver and asked 'yes?'  The bus driver studied the ticket, ran his hand over his beard, breathed in and out loudly through over-grown nostril hair, as only the older generation can do and shook his head without looking at me.

The next bus driver was a little more helpful, pointing behind him and muttering something in Polish I could not understand and let's face it, if anyone says anything in Polish to me other than the following words: yes, no, please, thank you, good, apartment, window or sweet pastry item then I am screwed.

Third bus 8:29am.  Paper ticket in bus driver's face.  He took it, looked at it, then scrutinised his clip board with squinted eyes.  Down the list I could see my name.  I pointed to it.  He crossed it off and I sighed with relief as though I had  killed the last zombie of a 48-hour zombie killing spree in a zombie apocalypse with only me and one other survivor, played by Bear Grills.

I collapsed into my bus seat and got comfy with my phone-cum-mp3 player and earphones and 5 minutes later the bus was pulling out of Dworzec Zachodni with only 6 other passengers on board.  I settled in for what would hopefully be a smooth and pleasant trip through the Polish countryside, staring longingly out the window at apple trees, quaint farm cottages made of dark brown almost black wood or red brick with white windows, plump brown cows, plush green rolling hills and the occasional farmer and his wife plowing the Polish fields while I lay back in the red velour seat.

Earlier in the morning and the previous day I had experienced what I like to diplomatically describe as 'a funny tummy'.  I can only put it down to eating some of mama's fruit compote drink - deliciously fruity but with copious amounts of fruity fibre - and home made pickled gherkins, the best I've ever tasted in my limited pickled gherkin tasting career.  Not twenty minutes into the trip I started to stir.  Looking behind me, I get out of my seat to head to the toilet but stop dead in my tracks.  There is no toilet on this bus!  I look around, above me in the luggage racks, under the seat and to the front of the bus.  I'm not sure if I'm expecting to see a WC in any of these locations but good sense has gone out the window.  What kind of a bus doesn't have a toilet on a FOUR HOUR TRIP!?!

I spend the next three hours barely noticing the scenery through the bus window as my body goes through waves of agony.  The pain passes and I am ok once more but then before too long I am fighting again, just like in the zombie apocalypse when you think the worst has passed and you've massacred the last zombie, suddenly from nowhere there's another zombie.  And another and another!  "Brraaaiiiiins!"

I pray I will be ok.  I text a friend, requesting that he too pray to Allah for my bowel's safe-keeping and that I survive this trip without shitting myself.  Literally, seriously.  I wonder if I should stop the bus, ask the bus driver for 'toaleta?'  Surely he would not mind.  It would be in the best interests of everyone.  But the pain subsides again and I feel that for now, I am ok.  The zombies are under control.

Before too long it becomes unbearable and just as I decide I will attempt to ask the bus driver to stop at the nearest toilet, the bus pulls into a service station and a passenger boards the bus.  Thinking we are stopping for refreshments, I am walking up to the driver as he starts to close the door and pull away.  "Noo!"  I say, "Toaleta?"
"Toaleta?" replies the driver.
"Toaleta!" I say.
The bus driver says something like "Przsyz nwdzczysczy czyczy następny piec minuta sprzdż" and I recognise this word, 'minuta'.  It's a no brainer.  It means 'minute'.  I hold up my hand with five fingers spread and ask "in five minutes?"  He replies, nodding his head "Przsyz nwdzczysczy czyczy następny piec minuta sprzdż".  

Sure enough my dependable bus driver pulls into a service station five minutes later.  I'm the first off the bus.  I was off the bus before the door had opened.  I opened the window above my seat and crawled out like some sort of contortionist with the worst case of Delhi belly known this side of the Kashmiri border.  Lucky for me I made it in time.  Unlucky for the other 6 ladies on the bus who were lined up after me to use the toaleta.  I read somewhere, jokingly that if you, quote "hadn't shit yourself somewhere publicly whilst travelling then you really hadn't travelled".  If that is the case then I'd much prefer to remain un-indoctrinated in the comfort of my home and never leave the house again.  Ever.

Alighting the bus once more the time is 11:45am and we're due to arrive in Tarnobrzeg at 12:20pm.  At last I can recline in the red velour and smile at the beautifully sunny day outside and the countryside as we make our way closer to my destination.  Superbly manicured farms and green rolling hills set to the backdrop of mountains in the distance.  You can hear the peace and quiet and feel the slower paced life.  We pass through a small village before arriving at Tarnobrzeg, where I'm greeted by the Director (and owner) of the school, Artur. 

The township of Tarnobrzeg is small but large enough and I'd say well-serviced.  The streets are mostly made with cobble stones.  Stepping out of the car and walking toward the school I can surely feel the slower pace of life in this country town.  Artur and I chat over tea for an hour and a half and he shows me the one-bedroom apartment that comes as a package deal with the teaching position.  The flat is cosy, actually bigger by comparison to most flats I've seen in Warsaw and is fully equipped with everything that a travelling teacher might need and want.  Some pictures on the wall, retro brown and orange furniture, a daggy avocado green lampshade that belongs in a hipster lounge bar in St.Kilda, Melbourne and naturally, central heating.  I say to Artur it's hard to imagine that on a glorious day like today with full sun and a temperature of 24 that a place like this gets so cold in winter.  He tells me it snowed early last year, in October. 

Driving back to the bus stop now for my return trip to Warsaw, Artur asks me if I was offered the teaching position in Tarnobrzeg would I accept.  In a round-about way I tell him I would seriously consider it and more than likely agree to take the role.

Before boarding the bus, I thanked Artur for the lift.  He shook my hand firmly saying it wasn't very often that teachers made the special effort to travel to Tarnobrzeg for an interview.  I felt pleased that I had.

Later the next night I check my emails and there's one from Artur.  He was offering me the teaching position and looking forward to a positive reply.   With a pros and cons list balanced in favour of accepting I emailed Artur the positive reply he was anticipating.  Tomorrow I book a one-way, destination Tarnobrzeg, population 49,420 and a genuine and humble desire to share the gift that is the English language.

Gutting Your Instinct

Poland - Week one - Gutting Your Instincts


Here's a bit of a summary of the going-ons in Poland.  An account of some of the more significant (or is that insignificant?) happenings.

At noon on Monday I met with Karol, a young man who placed an advertisement for a writer which I responded to back home before I left for Poland.  He spoke very good English and it was the longest conversation I've had since arriving in Warsaw.  Turns out the job is writing for a business magazine writing articles about trade fairs, events and conventions for various industries and it's something I can do from home.  

Home.

Something I need to find is a more permanent place to live.  At the weekend I created an advertisement on Polish gumtree and by Sunday afternoon about 6 people had already responded.  One such respondent was Julia.  Julia is a young student with a rural, Polish upbringing moving to Warsaw to live and study.  She had found an apartment to rent which she was to move in to and we made arrangements to meet.  I greeted Julia and her parents at the newest up-market shopping centre called Arkadia in Warsaw and they kindly drove us a short distance to the apartment.  

Earlier that day when I was thinking about getting in a car with people I haven't met previously in a country where I am travelling alone, I wondered if it was the right thing to do.  I resolved within myself that should anything feel not quite right then I would simply trust my gut instinct and leave the situation.  Simple.  I knew I would know what kind of people they are once we met.  There is a lot to be said about first impressions.  Frankly my first impressions were they seemed a lovely, humble, respectable middle-class family.

Karol too seemed like an honest and genuine person and went out of his way on his lunch break to help me open a bank account in Poland.   

It's true what they say about Polish people.  They are helpful and welcoming.

Tuesday I visited another flat, sharing with 2 others.  The place was a little shabby.  Shabby I can handle, unclean I can not.  Whilst I was visiting this particular flat I overheard "The Final Countdown" on the radio in the background.  Last year towards Christmas time this was an anthem I sang around the office as we moved toward winding up the project we'd been working on.   I printed off the lyrics, palming them off as a Christmas carol and left copies on my colleagues' desks.  In the week before Christmas we were all quite relieved to see the back of that project and as we played and sang 'it's the final count down!' over and over it became more of a 'glad this is over, can't wait to get out of here' theme.  When I heard that song being played in this flat, well, the dreaded memories of desperately waiting to finish that project came back to me.  I took it as a sign to not accept the flat.  

Wednesday a job interview plus an invitation to another interview with a different school in a little town south of Warsaw.

Thursday, a bus ticket to Tarnobrzeg for the interview on Monday and an overwhelmed feeling at the mountain of bureaucracy and paper work in Polish that awaits me in order to get a work permit.  
 - Will the school help me?  
 - Will my landlord help me?  
 - How can I deal with this bureaucracy without knowing any Polish?  The uncertainty of it is tiresome at times if you think about it.  The lesson here is don't think about it and it's not a problem!   

Also on Thursday, lunch with a cool chick from Brisbane, who coincidentally arrived and posted on her Facebook something about Warsaw at exactly the same time as I did.  We are both vegetarians and she showed me a few cool cafes, vegetarian restaurants and as we strolled around we stumbled upon an organic health food shop.  Thanks to DMac for introducing us, who I believe is off on his own European hand-gliding adventure soon.  I also saw the changing of the guards at The Tomb of The Unknown Soldier.  That was somewhat special.

Friday, dropped my CV off at another English school, photocopied my certificates, qualifications and reference letter and printed my bus ticket for Monday.  I also mistakenly bought a 2x pack of paper towels thinking it was toilet paper, such is the language barrier.  It was placed next to tissues and other items associated with a toilet so I made an assumption.  Nevertheless it is quite soft and frankly I don't think my bum will notice the difference.

One of the better pieces of advice I was given specifically regarding travel is "trust your gut feeling".  This is sound advice to live by regardless of where one might be however when you are in unfamiliar territory sometimes it's the only thing that can provide guidance. This week I thrust myself well and truly out of the comfort zone into the unknown.  Albeit with an iPhone, an internet connection and Google Translate but regardless of that, I believe that common sense and tuning in to one's own feeling of what is right can guide anyone into the right circumstance or situation when you know what it is you want.  This morning I wanted toilet paper.  In retrospect it's not exactly what I was looking for but it's soft and strong and does the same job!