Krakow Part 2, Łódź, and Warsaw (again)

After 19 hours of flying and hanging out in airports, I'm back in San Diego (and, after a day and a half, more or less over the jet lag)...still in the process of adjusting back to while trying to be moderately productive. Now to work on going back through all my notes and pictures and figuring out what I can come up with in terms of useful things for a fieldwork proposal.
I've been ridiculously busy (or possibly just lazy), and therefore haven't written on here in a while, so here's a (not-so) brief recap of my last week and a half in Poland. The second half of class went pretty well. I continued working on Polish grammar (although I'm still by no means fluent, especially when I'm speaking and can't think of the proper word endings on the spot, I think I understand it a little better now!) Now that I'm back home and no longer surrounded by native Polish speakers, it'll be somewhat more difficult to get speaking and reading practice, so I need to be disciplined about keeping up with studying. Our guide for some of the sightseeing tours around Krakow, an American guy living there who taught himself Polish while and before moving there, suggested reading some of the Polish newspapers online as a good way of getting language practice. I also picked up a few books (Polish-language graphic novels at Centrum Komiksu in Warsaw, and English-Polish bilingual poetry books published by Wydawnictwo Literackie) that will help me practice, as well as a few CDs of Polish bands. Yay for "fun reading" that also counts as research. In any case, though, I think I'll definitely need to take a few more language classes either before or when I actually get there for my fieldwork.
Other than that, during my second week in Krakow, I visited the Ethnographic Museum (Muzeum Etnograficzne). The slogan posted above the front door (in English and Polish) is "My Museum - A Museum About Me," which seems to reflect the museum's focus on the ethnography of Poland specifically (at least as far as I could tell from the exhibits that were up when I visited). The first floor had rooms for visitors to walk through and model buildings, representing typical houses and rooms from the late 19th and early 20th century in Krakow and the Podhale region. (There was also an exhibit called "Islam Orientation Ornament," featuring Islamic art from the Middle East and Africa, which required an additional ticket - given that I got there about 45 minutes before closing, I unfortunately didn't have time to check this one out.) In addition to houses, they had exhibitions of a fulling mill, a school, a potter's oven, and an oil mill. The rooms were either labeled "reconstruction" or "arrangement," but I wasn't sure if this implied anything about whether the objects were original or not, or whether this just referred to how the curators had arranged the objects. The second floor had an exhibit on life in rural Poland, with an extensive collection of objects ranging from newspapers to children's toys to kitchen utensils; it also, like the Warsaw ethnographic museum, included a section on annual rituals in Poland. I talked with a few of the tour guides, who told me that I had been the only English-speaking visitor there all day (although apparently they get French tourists fairly often). On the museum's top floor, there was an "object study" featuring chests from different Polish regions and different time periods, with information (in the form of a Polish/English bilingual brochure) about where they came from and what they were used for (mostly, in the case of the ones displayed, for dowries).
Later in the week, we took a tour of Nowa Huta (the "New Steelworks"), a district of Krakow that was originally planned as an ideal socialist city. It's well known as one of the most famous examples of socialist realist architecture, and during the 1980s, it became an important place for demonstrations and protests by the Solidarity movement. Near there is the Wanda Mound (Kopiec Wandy), which according to legend is the burial place of an 8th-century Polish princess. (Evidently this has never been verified by archaeologists.)
There's also an interesting public-art project going on in Krakow called Chopin in the City. The composer Frédéric Chopin is an important cultural/national figure in Poland (the airport in Warsaw is even named after him!) The project, according to the Web site, places public-art projects around the city (for instance, a walk-in dome made up of speakers playing Chopin's music, set up outside the Galeria Krakowska mall) to use "non-standard actions and modern technologies" to bring Chopin's music into public spaces in new ways. Pretty cool.
I left Krakow on Saturday and spent a few days in Łódź, which is between Krakow and Warsaw, and is basically a former industrial city in the process of re-inventing itself as a cultural and technological center. It's known as a center of Polish cinematography, with a famous film school and cinematography museum. Łódź also has the Manufaktura, a former factory complex that has been converted into a shopping and entertainment center with stores, restaurants, bars, clubs, a movie theater, a science museum, and even outdoor volleyball and bungee jumping. It's also an interesting place culturally speaking - they have the Festival of the Dialogue of Four Cultures, which showcases the town's multi-cultural history (of Polish, Jewish, German, and Russian residents). (Unfortunately, the festival wasn't taking place while I was there.)
The hostel I stayed in, Flamingo Hostel, was really nice - it had only been open for about a year, and so everything was fairly new (and apparently, not many people know it exists - I only had one roommate in a 6-person room for all three nights!) However, it appeared to be actively under construction while I was staying there. The first night, I attempted to take a shower in our bathroom, which featured a bathtub with a shower head and no curtain. When I woke up the next day, we had a shower curtain and a holder for the shower head, which was definitely not there the night before. Weird.
For my last night in Poland, I headed back to Warsaw and once again stayed at the Oki Doki Hostel, where I had been for my first few days there. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone planning to visit Warsaw - both the guests and the staff are very helpful and friendly, and they have tons of maps, brochures, etc. with suggestions of things to do around Warsaw. I headed out to the Stare Miasto (Old Town), then promptly got caught in a rainstorm and spent an hour or so hiding from the weather in a nearby Pizza Hut (the ever-so-traditionally-Polish dining establishment). After walking around Warsaw and Stare Miasto for a bit, I headed back to the hostel, where I attempted (with moderate success, I think) to speak Polish with some of the other people working/staying there. My flight was at 7 a.m. (again, for future reference, not the most pleasant time to be at the airport, but probably significantly cheaper than scheduling it later)...so I had to wake up at 4 a.m. and head to the airport. After 19 hours altogether of flights and layovers (first from Warsaw to Brussels, then from Brussels to Atlanta [during which my suitcase somehow lost its retractable handle in transit], then finally from Atlanta to San Diego), I finally got back home.
All in all, a great (and hopefully productive) trip. I picked up a ton of notes, photos, brochures, etc. that will hopefully help me write this dissertation proposal...so far I've got a few vague ideas about technology, memory, and the mapping of public space, tourism and the publicizing of culture and history/memory, and the relationships between public and private, and individual and collective, memory. Now to actually sit down and start writing...

More Museums, Language Classes, and Further Excitement

I'm now in Kraków! Just took my language placement test (apparently I'm level 1B, which is roughly advanced beginner). I got here yesterday afternoon after taking the train from Warsaw, which took about three hours. It was pretty crowded, and so I had to sit on my suitcase in the little entrance area between train cars. (Also, when we passed through a storm, we got rained on inside the train. Excitement. There was a nice view of the countryside and some little villages from the windows, though.) There were some interesting people sitting near me, though - some students from Poland and some travelers from England - who I talked to on the way here.
I took the taxi to my host family's house - they live a bit outside of the main city, but the tram which goes directly into downtown (for only 2.5 zloty, or about $1, each way) is only a block away. I actually managed to hold a conversation with them in Polish! (Well, rather ungrammatically and with lots of hand gestures on my part, but still, I was quite proud of this.) Later, I went into town and found a Coffee Heaven (essentially the Polish version of Starbucks, and just as ubiquitous here. Considering that it's air-conditioned and has free Wi-Fi, the name has proven rather appropriate.) I Skyped my parents to let them know I'd gotten here OK, then figured out tram directions from where I'm staying to the language school with the help of a Polish guy who lives in San Francisco, but happened to be visiting Kraków. After leaving the cafe, I got a first-hand experience of the infamous Central/Eastern European weather...got caught in a downpour without an umbrella. :/ (Luckily, I managed to find a store selling them on the way to the tram stop.) At least it's cooled off a bit now...it's been really hot and humid the past few days, and carrying most of my stuff with me while walking around the city hasn't helped. (Since the hostel had been switching my room each night, I figured it was easier to just take anything I might need throughout the day - laptop, books, etc. - with me instead of going into and out of the cloakroom until I could check back in.)
Before heading here from Warsaw, I also had a chance to see quite a few other interesting things on Friday. I visited the State Ethnographic Museum (Państwowe Muzeum Etnograficzne). The first floor had an exhibit on the history of the museum itself, how it got its collections, etc. They have objects from anthropological field expeditions all over the world, but Polish anthropology also seems to include a lot of fieldwork within Poland as well, particularly on rural areas and folk art/craft. There's a gallery devoted to "folk art," which seems to designate non-professional artists and includes both contemporary and historical works. There's also one with artifacts showing traditional handicraft (which they define as manufacture for household use). On the top floor, there's an exhibit on traditional Polish annual rituals for holidays and seasons.
I spent about three hours in the museum, then headed out to the main street, where EuroPride was happening. This was the first year it was being held in a Central/Eastern European country. It was pretty heavily policed - there were officers standing in the street and we weren't allowed to cross until the parade had passed by - and there were a few counter-protesters here and there, but seemed overall to be fairly peaceful, at least from where I was standing. Here's a BBC News link to a recap of the event: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10670489
I also visited the Warsaw Rising Museum. It's fairly new and apparently has been pretty well received in comparison to many other museums in the area for its use of interactive exhibits and multimedia. Because of this, I figured it might be informative fieldwork-wise to see it. There are three floors, arranged chronologically as you walk upstairs from the events leading up to the Warsaw Uprising to the event itself. The museum's floors and walls are designed as if you're actually walking through the city in 1944, and there are different kinds of displays - historical objects in cases, information on the walls to read, and handouts for visitors to pick up (most interestingly, little calendar pages that have each date and what happened then in 1944). There's also a big screen showing films shot by people involved in the Warsaw Uprising in the center of the museum, which you can see as you walk around on the different floors.
After leaving the museum, I managed to get lost looking for the bus. There are no centralized transport schedules, at least that I could find, so I basically got around by asking people which bus to take to the central train station/Palace of Science and Culture. I was hoping to also see the Poster Museum, but it closed at 6, and by the time I figured out which bus to take, it was 5:30. I headed back to the city center, did some shopping in the areas nearby (the Empik media store is pretty cool - didn't buy anything there, although I did conclude from the displays that people in Poland are just as inexplicably obsessed with Twilight as are people in the States), and then back to the hostel, where I hung out in the cafe/bar with some of the other people staying there.
I'm currently in a cafe about a block from the language school. I have discovered that Facebook evidently gets very confused when you go to another country and try to log in...first they asked me to verify my account, then they tried to send me a text message with a confirmation code (absurdly high international roaming charges aside, my phone doesn't get service here anyway). It did eventually let me log on, though. Good to know for future reference. Free Wi-Fi seems to be pretty readily available, though, so if nothing else I can keep posting on here.
My first language class starts in 20 minutes. Off to go learn about Polish pronunciation!

Warsaw, Day 2 (7/16/10)

Got up much later than I wanted to, and then had to switch rooms (and carry all my stuff around in a backpack all day!), so I didn't end up leaving the hostel until about 11:30. One of the archivists from the KARTA Center e-mailed me back that I could meet with her this afternoon, so I had some time before that. I explored some of the area near the hostel – there are some bookstores on the street on the other side of us (Marszalkowska is on one side of the block where I'm staying, and it seems to be one of the fairly major streets in this area. Facing the doors where we leave the hostel is a park, and on the other side of the building is Kredytowa street, where the bookstores are). I bought some Polish-language newspapers (not sure how much of them I'll actually be able to read, but I'll try!) and some language learning books. I stopped by the Muzeum Etnograficzne (Ethnographic Museum) and found out that admission is actually free tomorrow, so I think I'll come back then. :) I did end up walking around the bookshop and buying a catalogue put out by the museum, called “Etnografia Nowa” (New Ethnography) - it's mostly in Polish but there is some English content, and it describes the ethnographic museum, what it means, how it is changing, and whether it is still relevant. Quite useful for my research interests.
After navigating the Metro (not too hard, since there's only one line going north and south), I headed to the KARTA center. On my way there, I found a comic book store where I got some graphic novels in Polish, by Polish authors. I wonder if any of them will be attending Comic-Con in San Diego this year? I'll still be out of the country for that.
After that I met with the KARTA archivist and talked with her for about an hour and a half, and got to tour the building and the archives. Their entire collection is open to the public, except in July when they're closed (although people are still working there, hence the reason I was able to visit and meet with them). KARTA is an organization that collects and archives historical documents, especially those having to do with the repression of people under state socialism as well as the opposition to it (particularly in the form of the Solidarity movement). It started as a sort of underground journal publishing analyses of life under repressive conditions as well as art, poetry, etc. in the early '80s when publishing certain types of political material was still illegal. (The journal itself is still publishing, although obviously looks much different by this point.) They focus a lot on preserving and documenting individual histories and memories in particular, as opposed to official narratives of history. I was amazed at how a collection of documents and information that I imagine must have been incredibly difficult to collect and maintain, and that had to be distributed among individuals rather than having a centralized location, has now come to be archived and organized in one location. It must have taken an incredible amount of effort on the part of the people who had kept the documents in the first place, as well as the people who put the central archive together and are currently working on it. That, and the fact that people took such care to preserve these documents is now providing an incomparable collection of primary sources for Polish history...preserving, and continuing to add to, documentation of histories that might have otherwise been forgotten, but that are now able to take material and textual form and be heard by the public. That said, I was also surprised by the building itself. The KARTA center is this unassuming little office on a street full of apartments and across from a park; the only indication it's even there from the outside is a sign on the wall outside the door.
On a completely unrelated note, my camera seems to be officially broken. It figures. I took some videos with my iPod and bought two disposable cameras, and I'm also going to try and use my phone camera (Verizon doesn't get reception here anyway, so there's no chance of someone texting me and me ending up with a $1000 phone bill...I hope.)

Warsaw, Day 1 (1/2)

I'm in Warsaw! Actually got here yesterday afternoon, but have been too busy to post anything. I checked into my hostel around 4 p.m. Turns out there was a mix-up with my reservation and they thought I hadn't confirmed, but luckily they had rooms open, so I'll still be at the same place for all three days. (Different rooms, though.)
After getting settled in my room, I headed out for a walk around the surrounding area...having no idea what was really around this particular area, but just to check things out. I ended up visiting the Palace of Culture and Science (Pałac Kultury i Nauki, or PKiN, in Polish). It's the tallest building in Poland, with 52 floors, and it was built in 1955 as a gift from the (then) Soviet Union to Poland. It apparently is, or at least was, somewhat controversial due to both the associations with the Soviet Union and its aesthetic appearance - according to my guidebook, it has the nickname "The Wedding Cake" because of its multi-layered look. I don't necessarily know if that's the first association I'd make - my first impression was of some sort of clock tower - but judge for yourself.
After paying the 15zł (around $4.72) admission, I went up to the 30th floor, where there's an observation deck from which you can see pretty much all of Warsaw. I got some great views of the city (and, perhaps most prominently, the advertising around the city center), which I'll post as soon as my camera starts working correctly. I think I may have to venture into one of the electronics stores here and buy a new SD card, since mine seems to be corrupted. There was also an exhibition on art, science, and the environment going on - some of the things featured were digitally altered photos of landmarks having been overtaken by nature (think that History Channel show "Life After People") and photos of families around the world with the different types of food they ate in a week. Interestingly enough, I saw some similarly-themed exhibits around San Diego a few months ago, at the Calit2 gallery on campus. Most of the rest of the building, other than the observation deck and cafe (on the same floor) and the exhibit on the first floor (some of which was also displayed around the observation deck area), seems to be either theaters or offices.
There seemed to be a fair amount of people still there for it being almost closing time (I got there at 7 p.m.), both tourists and people from here. There's also a little park around the Palace, which I walked through a bit before heading back to my hostel.
Anyway, off to go explore the city some more and hopefully get this camera working...