Bar mleczny etc (milk bars, herring and donuts part 2)

It stopped snowing, but it stayed cold. The last time we endured an April snow was in Minneapolis over 25 years ago.

But we were refreshed and warmed by fish and doughnuts and set off for the Polin Museum.  Along the way, a brisk Flanieren through one of Warsaw's many, many gardens (often post-palatial).

The imposing exterior of the Polin Museum.

The exhibits cover a thousand-plus years of Jewish life in Poland.  As with the Muzeum Farmacji, there were exhibits that your humble co-authors nerded out over (garlic for health! an amulet! ha-Kohen!), but the overall effect was sort of disjointed.  Probably because the museum directors felt obligated to explain everything.  The main exhibits are arranged chronologically, from 900 - present, and we ducked out in 1939.  It was just too much.  Note for Mur: the Frankists were given a fair anount of real eatate, and yes, they have Olga T's books in all the bookshops. A dopey aside: here is medieval Warsaw and its Jewish quarter, which is exactly where we are staying (the blue part).

We went down to the Łazienki gardens and parks, where we had planned to go tomorrow, but it was late, much was closed, and it was still cold!  So we went to the famous Warsaw institution, the milk bar (bar mleczny), which I always thought was a Communist-era worker's canteen (I recall eating in one in Prague, another freezing evening a billion years ago), but it turns out they date back to the 1890s and probably (it occurred to us) inspired the dairy restaurants of the East Coast.

This one ("Prasowy") dates back to 1954 (it has been refurbished, although we walked past a couple yesterday which were not). 

Imagine an Ikea restaurant aesthetic, but stripped of consumption and commerce, frequented by everyday people in the neighborhood (and their dogs--the dogs of Warsaw are another "tail"), and meatballs replaced with pierogis, latkes, and hearty, delicious beet and cabbage soups.  And a complimentary glass of kompot!

Milk Bars, herring and donuts part 1

today was the first non-jetlag day finally. so we got up early-ish and hit as many museums as we could get to. first on the list was the pharmacy museum and it didn't disappoint. everything we talked about in our first book and the forthcoming book is there and lots more too: bahnkes, feldshers, herbs galore, Paracelsus, to name a few highlights. I took too many pictures to put them all in so here are just a couple highlights. Poppy:

special glass bottles. i took this one for Jiemei because she collects this kind of glass that glows:

Calamus root, probably a tincture:

while we were in the cozy pharmacy museum it began to snow, not in flakes but large blobs. eventually we got to an old fashioned bakery cafe called Blikl that is famous for its rose jam filled donuts. I ate it too quickly to take a pic but here is a view of some snow

today was another perfect day for a cup of "winter tea" that is served everywhere and a lot like an ancient eastern european drink called "sbiten" that we wrote about in our new book. Every restaurant and cafe has their own herbal variation but they all serve it with raspberry syrup, a medicinal that was extremely popular in the shtetls - below my cup is a bottle of this cold and flu remedy sporting its latin name Rubus idaeus in the pharmacy museum:

we had other lunch dishes at Blikl as well but by the time i remembered to take pictures of them they were half eaten. i had a smoked salmon salad with grapefruit and tomato and A had some kind of matyes herring that included potatoes, mushrooms and a mustard dressing. we were the only americans in there, just us amongst lots of gossiping retirees.

i have to stop here. we kind of had a rude awakening that we have to leave Warsaw tomorrow not saturday and so had to rearrange our travel plans and mental preparations... it's going to be snowing here and in lithuania and very cold. we're taking a bus first thing for eight hours to vilne... i'll try to finish up today's whirlwind post while en route so stay tuned!

some clues about part 2:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_mleczny

https://www.lazienki-krolewskie.pl/pl

today is still wednesday

omg today was a day of necessary errands. we had to figure out the phone situation which is insanely complicated until you find a phone store and they help you get a sim card and then it miraculously works and you can function again in the reality of 2025. who knows what happens when you cross a border or your data decides it's done or your phone gets confused or i get confused... anyways we now have a phone and can maybe figure out a few things you used to be able to figure out with a paper map and some pages ripped from a lonely planet or a rough guide. 

this first picture is of the pharmacy museum literally down the street from this apartment. today was the first day i saw it was open and what do you know, the banner is in the Hebrew alphabet with some yiddish. we're finally going to it and a few other museums tomorrow, thursday, because A figured out all museums are free tomorrow, so that's good timing. Also, it's pretty exciting this museum has a yiddish history because it affirms a certain aspect of our research which is very exciting.

after heading into the center of town to do the phone thing, attempt to buy tickets to Vilnius, eat a decent lunch and explore the subway (yes this third world country has busses, trains (local and long distance), trolleys and a subway - all of which are immaculate and run regularly every few minutes like clockwork), we headed back across the river underground this time, to go to a chocolate factory we had passed by yesterday and were intrigued by the wafting aroma. we sat in the cafe and had their signature hot cocoa which was as thick as pudding.

it began to get cold and rain was threatening so we headed back to the other side of the river. on the way we passed this building that managed to survive the war but was riddled with bullet holes.

we finally ferreted out this pedestrian bridge that crosses the vistula. it must be fairly new because it doesn't appear on any of the maps we brought with us from the apartment:

A translated this grafitti that basically says voting is bullshit and similar about empire

walking under the street to get back to the old city:

on the way back to this apartment, another view of the park you can walk through with pretty views of the neighborhood

and around the corner and up the stairs back to the main square where the castle is situated

and of course dinner 

and a complimentary home made limoncello that was superb :)

yesterday

sorry i was a little exhausted after walking all over the city yesterday so neglected the blog until this evening. above is the courtyard entrance view of the apartment we are staying in. it's very quiet back there and this morning when we left a very portly black and white cat greeted us as we exited the gates.

yesterday's walk took us across the vistula river across a busy bridge. once across we descended some steps into this park that runs along the river. Way back there is a statue of a giraffe that signifies the city's zoo, although we didn't go there. Instead A wanted you see this part of town where the documenary The Balcony  (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Balcony_Movie ) was filmed, so we headed over there. Also my cousin Jonathan suggested we visit a very lively and lovely street in this section called Francuska. On the way, there was another park with a soccer game going on and I noticed for the first time how freely nettles grows here. It is just now coming up almost everywhere you can walk. Also spotted were dead nettles, lots of dandelions,  I think we passed some chickweed and a number of other familiar herbs I can't recall at the moment. Noticeably absent are the springtime plantain and cleavers.

below is a pic of the apartment A thought was from the film but on closer inspection we realized it's not the correct apartment however geographically close we probably were

on the way back to our place i saw this ridiculous squirrel thing...as everyone knows how I feel about these rodents I thought I'd mention that they are lovingly depicted everywhere but so far I have not seen an actual squirrel. What's up with that?

Last night we ate dinner at a georgian restaurant literally across the alley from this apartment. the

food was so good. below is georgian bread that's half way between a cracker and a baguette, some toasted eggplant slices nestling a walnut paste, and a tomato salad with a walnut dressing. Under that is a crispy kind of crepe with smoked salmon on top, indescribably delicious:)

a view of the georgian restaurant from our apartment after we managed to bumble our way back up the stairs.

oh, here's a view of the hallway to this apartment building when you enter from the street

 

planes, trains and autobuses

a view of Warsaw after taking not one but two trains from 30th Street Station (see previous post) arriving at Newark Airport at least three hours early. Next stop was Munich where our flight was switched, adding a four hour layover but - get this - they have free bed-like loungers in a dimly lit quiet part of the airport where you can simultaneously charge your devices...when we first discovered this service the first thing we both thought was: that's gotta be expensive (based on a $25/hr thing in the charlotte airport) but no...it's all FREE in the German airport. Decency, what a concept.

a short and scenic bus ride, complete with dogs and other assorted passengers got us to the old city where we eventually stumbled upon our rental and then proceeded to bumble through the screenshots I took of the directions to unlock the door, etc. I say screenshots because ATT doesn't offer an international plan so we had to lurch from wifi spot to wifi spot to figure out all the particulars that I'd received earlier by email about the rental...luckily there are sporadic city "hot spots"for hapless (and bumbling and luddite) travelers like us...again, municipal decency and several very friendly and kind people helped us find our way despite our lack of google maps. this is one entrance to the building.

the stairwell

no. 4

it's sunny and cheerful in here...

...with a view of the cobbled stone street

heading to dinner but first a quick stroll past the castle andmain square. it's freezing here, btw.

omg this food was amazing and perfect for the weather: a traditional fermented rye bread soup that we have only just read about but now have experienced. also a hungarian goulash soup that was brought to me by mistake (i had asked for mushroom soup) but i decided to just eat it anyways and i am so glad i did!

Philadelphia in a few photos

Blogging is not as easy as it used to be, so apologies in advance for this inaugural post. The above photo is the view from our friend Debra's 18th floor apartment today with normal Phila weather. The closer building with the pillars is the back of 30th Street station where you can get trains to all points, including the airport which is only a few stops away. The bottom photo is the grand interior that also still has an ancient luggage carousel - the ancestor of airport baggage areas - with beautiful brass embellishments, long abandoned but still standing along a wall in a lonely dark hallway. A kind of time travel, like so much of this place where I was born but am now a tourist.

from a park bench in Rittenhouse Square.

the old Automat building

more info here: https://allthatsinteresting.com/automat

another park bench view from Rittenhouse with wacky juxtapositions of archtectural eras

an entrance to Washington Square near my grandparents' apartment at the Hopkinson House and around the corner from their watch shop

30th Street Station