a day of parks

or the haphazard pursuit of parks. i approach this post with a long string of sighs. why, you ask? because i was on another rant after several setbacks that were not only avoidable but so unnecessary. let me regale you with my tales of...wonder...

we started out by getting a little breakfast at a chain (but cute) cafe called Lakonic (i think) and i noticed it also has an old photo of that same arcade:

here's the rest of the interior with a bringing us some coffees:

next we walked through that great park up on the hill hidden behind all the apartment buildings. that silvery thing is a huge slide like a flume that n would love:

from up on another hill could be seen a round house, almost like the one in chestnut park but this one was an actual cafe (not a neglected random structure that is sometimes a nursery class, sometimes a taiko drumming location, an occasional polling site, or the houser of a disgustingly flithy often out-of-order constantly vandalized toilet. and on rainy days, unhomed people sometimes shelter under the disintegrating awning). no this round house even has round steps and offers happy things like ice cream and teas that can be eaten or sipped at tables arranged around the building or taken a few steps to enjoy on a park bench (with its own trash receptacle faithfully awaiting any discarded wrappers) or upon vast meadowy lawns sprawling as far as the eye can see...

heres a sign advertising the local wildlife and i swear i have not seen a single squirrel. they must keep to themselves or they are invisible because not one has harassed us since we deplaned. ok i did see one in poznan, but just one. it scampered past us at the rozarium and only after i remarked on the dearth of squirrels as if to let me know they do have a presence in this country, albeit a shy one, as squirrels really ought to be:

here's another one of the round house and its round steps:

next we decided to promenade along the river to see what all the fuss was about. we were just getting into it when we were abruptly stopped by some construction that hasn't been clearly marked so had to retrace steps and ascend back to street level but here's are a couple of not very good examples of that walkway:

the next item on the agenda was to go out to a further point by way of tram but the transit maps are difficult to navigate. the website is impossible to blow up to a size that's readable and the posted ones at the tram stops are equally miniscule, posted very high up in the walls of the kiosks and behind smeared glass rendering them virtually useless. in fact an older man, with a cane no less, went to look at the map after A unsuccessfully scrutinized it and you will not believe what he was using to read it: a magnifying glass that he brought with him!!!

the mildly bad result was we got on the wrong tram and ended up circling the city center. so we hopped off where we had gotten on and tried another one, this time heading to the botanical garden. one bright spot was i could charge my phone as we went along, what a concept. who ever heard of such a thing?! only a place with parks, benches and umbrellaed trash receptacles would think of something so outlandish:

oh yeah, they don't do roundup here. or mowing. or weed whacking. or edging (and possibly not even leaf blowing?!) the result isnt outrageous botanical chaos...no its more of a lush meadow effect. imagine that:

the botanical gardens were nice enough but by the time we were allowed entry i was seething and couldn't enjoy them very much so we didn't stay very long. to make a long story short, the entry apparatus was fully automated and so badly planned (aside from the fact that it didnt involve actual human ticket takers, etc) and extremely cumbersome with long lines and confusing instructions (even for the natives). i was hoping to start out at the cafe but it was also festooned with long lines, as were the bathrooms, all of them, which had run out of paper...i guess it (the little indignities) all began to accumulate and i kept comparing this experience to the botanical gardens in poznan and i just kind of lost it. so we sat on a bench and watched everyone wander about aimlessly through all the little carefully manicured nooks and crannies:

i took a couple pics of plants on our way out like this little corner of hostas for s and j:

especially this one:

A found a hidden little family cafe a few stops out of town and away from the botanical garden, where incidentally, the most interesting plants were the weeds just outside the turnstiles and along the sidewalk on the way back to the trams... anyways here's the food we ate -- a roasted cauliflower with an egg with hollandaise sauce and a potato kugel-like layered rectangle. the other dish was a pasta with intense mushroom sauce tinged with a truffle essence... and an apple cakish dessert with vanilla ice cream because this place is called uner the apple tree:

we checked out this huge park behind the restaurant where countless families with little kids and dogs galore were frolicking away. we sat on a bench in the sun and talked to r until it started to get cold and then headed back into town:

here's another view of how the green spaces here are "maintained":

and another ludicrous jack:

we stopped at the literary cafe, book-book, for a cup of tea (with bourbon), a glass of wine and a dish of four different spreads for a snack before going back to the apartment. a found a tram that literally took us door to door (i don't know how he figured that out it was like a magic trick) and here i am now blogging all of my kvetching to you :) oh yes, even this last tram had an outlet that i couldn't help sampling:

this ridiculous app

 

here is my reply to your comments, d and m. take that, blogger!

untitled

UPDATE: here's an older photo of that market:

due to a lack of locale understanding this post will remain untitled. A pulled a muscle in his back and my toes are fed up with aimless walking, an activity i have previously characterized as meandering. it's just that this particular place is difficult to pin down. it has a certain tourist reputation to uphold and if you aren't into what it's known for, complications arise, especially if you didn't expect to be confronted with these specific limitations... i'm being vague but what i mean is this town has specific attractions associated with it and if you weren't expecting to be limited to those, you (meaning me) might get confused about what to do here exactly. 

above is the main square in the old town. you can see it's no where near as charming as poznan and in fact it is huge and imposing and left me cold. there's also this arcade with vaulted ceilings that houses tons of stalls selling all the trinkets that may or may not be made here. amber is the most popular local attraction because this region is known for being a historical source. A discovered the most interesting thing in that building were above all the stalls and painted on the high walls: insignias from the local municipalities and the guilds associated with them. i took a picture of poznan's and another town whose name i'm familiar with but can't pronounce.

prior to visiting the main market square, we had stopped to get breakfast at what we assumed would be a touristy bagel chain. below is the interior or Bagel Mama that has really good bagels and coffees and seems to be run by an american guy.

after all this sightseeing (we also stopped at the new old town flea that was very crowded and the best stall had lots of old photos and postcards) my toes and A's back insisted we convalesce. on our way to do so we passed this bridal store with the most wacky wedding get up i've ever seen:

we stopped at this literature cafe, an island of tranquility amidst the hubbub of the old town buzz. of course in my desperation to relax i forgot to take photos of the salad, cake and coffee we devoured.

after all that excitement i just had to decompress so we crossed back to "our" side of the river and stopped at the apartment...i was going to blog but ended up texting n and r (hi!). we then set out to get dinner but on the way wanted to check out a park closeby that's tucked away behind all the domiciles on a little hill.

here's the main entrance. i think we snuck in through one if the secret side paths.

after a light dinner of bun chay and pho we took a short detour before buying some groceries (cookies and pretzels and chocolate and an interesting herbal shampoo) at the local "Lewiatan" and now I'm going to brush my teeth etc. As for tomorrow...we will possibky ride the streetcars and check out the botanical garden...in the meantime, here's a couple views of this side of the vistula by night:

oh, here's a little video of this apartment that has the nicest design and furnishings that are what ikea can only aspire to:

blogging into the void

hello out there! as you can see it rained today, all day. and it may still be raining right now for all i know. nevertheless (a favorite compound word of mine these days it seems, along with moreover which i hardly get to use but nonetheless...) we walked all day in it. and yes that's a fish. it's part of a playground closer to this apartment. 

to be honest, Poznań is an extremely difficult act to follow, and as cute as that fish is and as interesting as the places we visited today are, this city does not even come close to Poznań's amazingness. i know that sounds weird but it's true so I just don't understand what all the fuss is about this town. Maybe that just proves my bumpkinness or my inability to enjoy the finer things in life...we did wander into some fascinating things though. 

the old town was very bustling, mostly with tourist groups. a and i ducked into a little cozy cafe to grab a bite before checking out a couple of museums. this was a kind of "milk cafe" like the one in Warsaw but older. the food was very good, so good i forgot to take pictures plus it was very dark in there:

next we went in search of the only kaltine in all of Poland. i think there's another one in Kaunas (Lithuania) but we didn't have enough time to go there. if you don't know what a kaltine is you will have to wait until we get home to ask me. i hesitate to put the photo on here so you will just have to have a little patience. sadly the people running the tiny museum couldn't answer my few questions: did they know how the kaltine was removed? was it done by folk medicine or conventional? etc. they did know it had been a woman's and they knew a little bit about the folk beliefs surrounding it but nothing else, so that was a little disappointing. there were a couple of disturbing things in that museum that i won't mention here but honestly, they really should treat the subject with more decency.

this is a first edition of symon syrenius's herbal. he is referenced constantly by sophie knab, our english language source for polish herbalism:

next stop, the ethnographic museum. this was super overwhelming. here's a video of a school room that a confirmed with the docent was probably a lot like the one my grandmother would have gone to, complete with two portraits of the first president of Poland at the front of the classroom, a traditional stove, decoratuve cut paper curtains and so much more:

this museum had so many interesting exhibits. i'll just add a couple photos i took. the cut paper window coverings:

bahnkis (glass cups for cupping):

berry pickers... my mom told me her parents used to go into the forest to pick berries. she didn't tell me what kind of berries, so i'm guessing there were many to choose from:

a special implement for collecting bilberries which are European blueberries:

marth, look at that second to last blanket and tell me if that isn't the same pattern as your blanket?!

there was just too much stuff in that place to take it all in... all kinds of displays on baskets, weaving, block printing that looked so much like the kind done in india and it may have been brought to poland from there but there was no explanation just these displays:

we were in there for almost three hours and afterwards were exhausted so we walked back over the river and found a restaurant called "goose" not realizing until we sat down that all they served there is goose, well almost every dish. i wasnt going to tell you but we ordered their sample appetizer that had mostly goose dishes on bread. i didn't take a picture because well because i want going to tell you. it was interesting but i don't know that i would eat goose again to be honest. i did take a picture of our main dishes which were much less carnivorous. a placki (?) or potato pancake with a mushroom sauce and also these totally not sweet blueberry dumplings with sour cream:

i told our waiter we had never eaten goose before and he said it's not commonly eaten in Poland anymore, just on holidays and special occasions

i forgot to mention a couple of very important things. the first is that this may be a place that embraces one of my favorite advertising devices: boxen! these were noted almost as soon as we first crossed the river into the old town while we were trying to find a sheltered spot to consult my phone:

also extremely remarkable is that just about every bench has its personal trash receptacle. these ones even have their own umbrella-like structures attached to prevent detritus from becoming sodden. in the fish playground park we stopped counting trashcans (and benches) at a dozen. what the hector, Davis, CA, City Council?!

looking in one direction:

and the opposite direction. benches with umbrellaed trash receptacles as far as the eye can see: