No control

I have officially been grounded by a little volcano called Eyjafjallajokull (and I thought Finnish was hard to pronounce!) so my trip to Stockholm was cancelled this weekend. Given what the experts say happens when this type of volcanic ash gets into airplane engines, I was ok with waiting a bit to explore Stockholm! Lucky for me, my trip was derailed while I was still at home. Many people are stranded at airports which are closed for an as of yet undetermined amount of time. My friend Justin who met me in Copenhagen last weekend got stuck in London, a client called me yesterday and is stuck in India, and another American consultant and friend of mine who was supposed to start on my case on Monday is now stuck in the US without any safe way to get to Europe. Worse is that none of these people have a reliable idea of when he or she might be able to get in or get out. Amazing to think that despite all of our technological advances a relatively minor eruption of a volcano in an oft-forgotten Nordic island country can bring millions of people across multiple continents to their knees! Just when we think we have everything under control we get reminded with authority that we are not actually in charge.

I did have the opportunity to check out another Scandinavian city though before the volcano erupted and spent last weekend in Copenhagen. I had been to Denmark before years ago but had not been able to visit its famously vibrant capital city. My friend Justin was in London for his case so he met me for the weekend for a touristy introduction to Copenhagen.

The first thing I realized when I got off the plane was how amazingly difficult the Finnish language is compared to a Germanic language. I don’t know a word of Danish but I felt so much more at ease navigating the different Danish signs than I do in Finland because there is actually a chance that a Danish word will look similar to is English counterpart. This isn’t always the case, and probably isn’t the case the majority of the time, but having the chance at all made me feel like I somehow knew the language a bit! A friend of mine in Finland told me that I should forget about learning Finnish (which, to be honest, I hadn’t really intended to do because I had heard it would be nearly impossible!) and learn Swedish instead because it is the second language in Finland and is also a Germanic language so would be much easier for an English speaker to learn. I was so encouraged after Denmark, I am actually considering it!

There are several very famous sights in Copenhagen and maybe the most famous of them all is the classic, old-style amusement park called Tivoli. A trip to Tivoli Gardens is touted as being like a step back in time with its wooden roller-coasters, beautiful park setting, largely non-commercial vendors, and classic old-timey feel. Justin and I had read about it in our guide books and made a point to head here first on Saturday to make sure we had enough time to explore and enjoy. We got to the park entrance but we very confused because no one was around. We had followed the map and should have been standing right outside the gates. Where were we and how could we have missed an amusement park of all things? We continued walking until we got to an iron fence (wrapped with barbed wire at the top – kind of takes away from the cotton candy amusement park feel!) and through it, we saw Tivoli….and a small army of maintenance men, gardeners, mechanics, etc. It was April 10th and Tivoli opened for the summer on April 15th – we had missed it by only five days! Ugh! I have learned by now that there is a major difference throughout Europe between winter and summer hours but I still don’t expect it to go from (literally) 0 to 60 in a day. We were disappointed but laughed it off and went on to the next sights on our list.

Another extremely famous sight in Copenhagen is the Little Mermaid statue, called Den Lille Havfrue in Danish. The Little Mermaid is especially famous because it is supposedly so underwhelming and, at least in our guidebooks, was called “forlorn,” “overrated,” and “unjustly famed.” Some friends at work had told me the same but they said it was also a must-see for Copenhagen, if just a funny must-see. We had just gained a lot of time through our missing of Tivoli’s 2010 opening so began walking in the direction of Den Lille Havfrue which was on the other side of the city.

It was absolutely gorgeous weather – beautiful blue skies and sun, if still a bit chilly – and I was enjoying being in another interesting city and having good American company to boot! We took our time on the way to the mermaid and cruised by Christiania, a commune in the middle of the city founded by hippies and political activities in the 1970s. While there have been constant conflicts between the “citizens” of Christiania and the Danish police over the years, they seem to have reached an unofficial truce to look the other way – the commune does what it wants but keeps their illegal activities at a “reasonable” level and the local police seem to leave them alone as long as they keep things confined within Christiania’s borders. Several years ago hard drugs made their way into the commune and the people there actually fought against this infiltration and pushed these drug dealers out of Christiania. They are still selling and doing illegal drugs in the commune (marijuana is illegal in Denmark) but the local population self polices the types of drugs and people allowed to remain on the premises. The commune area is open to the public and is a very popular tourist destination. To be honest, it just looks like a shabby military barracks with dirty hippies standing around smoking (and selling as well, but that is a bit more shielded).

I was taking a picture when a guy from the commune ran up to me and started babbling about it being illegal to take pictures in the commune because they could be published somewhere and get people from the commune in trouble. (I, of course, didn’t know there was anything wrong with taking pictures there but did see a couple “no pictures” signs up around the commune after this incident.) He demanded that he see the pictures I had taken to make sure they were ok and approached me rather aggressively, standing very much in my personal space. I was irritated (I get very annoyed when I feel like someone is encroaching upon my privacy rights….even if I left them in the US!) but so surprised that I showed him the three very benign pictures I had taken…but not without saying, “I don’t think it is illegal to take pictures in here and you really don’t need to worry about someone getting a hold of these and publishing them. They are my personal pictures and you don’t have a right to see them.” That didn’t go over too well with him so well and now he was mad and started talking about how he had to protect the commune, blah, blah, blah. He backed off when he realized I wasn’t taking mug shots of the local dealers but I was a bit taken aback by the whole incident. One thing I have noticed in the Nordics is how egalitarian the culture is with respect to gender. This is great on a lot of different levels but one thing I don’t like about it is that men will speak to women much more aggressively and, I think, disrespectfully than they would generally do in the US, for example. I am all for equality between men and women but get some manners, hippie boy, and don’t stand so close to me while you’re at it! (Justin thought the guy was going to swipe my camera which, to hippie boy’s credit, he did not.)

After Christiania, we got back on track to see the mermaid and, on the way, passed by a really pretty and unique church with a spiral tower. We were so impressed with the gold spiral steeple that we decided to check it out and see if we could climb to the top. Turns out we had stumbled into another very famous sight, Vor Frelsers Kirke, Our Savior’s Church, and the climb to the top of the steeple offered some of the best views of the city. The climb up was a lot longer than I had estimated from the ground, maybe 14-15 flights, and often quite cramped and crowded on steep steps but the views were amazing and climbing up and around the spiral steeple was pretty cool too since we were actually on the outside of the steeple for the last few flights. We climbed until the spiral came to a stop at the top at which point I looked down and realized we were much higher than I had anticipated (and I am not a fan of heights) and it had also gotten progressively colder and windier which was actually quite an uncomfortable feeling! I don’t really like strong wind when I’m on the outside of building on a small staircase 15 flights up! We snapped a few pictures of the city which really was gorgeous from that view and then I high-tailed it back down. No need to stand in that wind for too long! There was a girl at the top who was clearly very scared of heights and had been ok going up but was practically paralyzed coming back down because she now had to actually look down and see how far she was from solid ground. Poor thing! I was thinking, “I’ve been there too, honey! Move fast and leave the boyfriend up there if he wants to stay – he will forgive you later!”

We kept going on our mission to see the Little Mermaid and still had quite a ways to walk (we had taken a very indirect route on our way to Tivoli, Christiania, and Vor Frelsers Kirke). It was also seemingly getting colder and colder. Granted, it was still probably twenty degrees warmer than Helsinki but it was very windy and cold, particularly on the water. The sun had been bright and the wind nonexistent when we had set out that morning so Justin had not brought his coat…and was paying dearly for it now. We walked and walked, the wind got stronger and the clouds covered the sun so it was now quite cold. I felt badly that we were going to such great lengths to see a “forlorn” and “overrated” tourist sight but Justin was a great sport and went along with it because he knew I wanted to see the Little Mermaid. We laughed and said, “Watch, she probably won’t be there or something after all of this. It will be another Tivoli. Ha!”

We finally got to the point on the map where she supposedly was and, well, we just couldn’t find her. I knew that she was supposed to be small and underwhelming but was she really that small? So small we couldn’t find her? This was getting downright embarrassing. We looked at the map again. Yep, we’re where we should be. Nope, no mermaid. There was a little tourist shop there selling coffee and hot chocolate and I looked at Justin and said, “Well, we have to ask. We can’t have come here to not even find her.” We didn’t really have another choice but to look like idiots so I asked the woman at the shop, “Hi! Where is the Little Mermaid? We can’t seem to find her.” The woman replied, “She’s in China. It’s sooo stupid.” I just looked at her for a second and blinked. I have a hard time reading Finns because they don’t show much facial expression and was wondering if Danes were the same…was she being serious or just a smart ass? I said, “China?” She said, “Yes, she’s on tour in China.” I looked at Justin, who was a popsicle at this point, and we just laughed. You have got to be kidding me. I made him take a picture with me and a pint-sized tchotchke of the statue. It was so pathetic.

Given the fact that Justin had now been freezing for hours and we had just made the longish trek to see the sad Little Mermaid who happened to be out of the country on tour, we booked it back to the central part of the city and, I think, sat down at the very first restaurant we found. I had noticed earlier that there were a lot of good looking people around but when I actually sat down and had a chance to people watch, I was able to see not only how many were good looking but how extremely good looking they all were! The women were beautiful and smiley. The men were beautiful but also somehow rugged looking (Viking blood?). It was really quite striking and impressive. I haven’t been to Norway yet but I hope to find the same thing there or I will want to trade gene pools!

On Sunday, we had plans to tour a local castle and then meet up with a Finnish friend of mine, Mirka, who had just transferred from Helsinki to the Copenhagen office. Justin and I started out at Rosenborg Slot, a 17th century castle in the middle of the city, to tour the castle itself, the very pretty grounds, and to see the royal treasury. The castle itself is very classic baroque style and, as such, was decorated with sculptures, statues, tapestries, wood paneling, paintings, gold gilded everything, to within an inch of its life. The amount of stuff covering the walls, ceilings, and floors in that place was really unbelievable. The items in the treasury were the same…jewelry boxes literally covered in layers of beads, tiny sculptures, jewels, precious metals, you name it. It was really kind of cool to see the king’s old riding outfit, including the matching one for his horse, which was elaborately hand sown and intricately beaded. My favorite part of the visit though was touring the grounds and, more specifically, the huge field of white and purple flowers which were just beginning to bloom. I am a sucker for spring at this point, for what should be obvious reasons, and I just go crazy for flowers. I can only imagine what the castle grounds, and Copenhagen overall, looks like in June!

I was so excited that we were able to meet up with Mirka for lunch and she, having just moved herself, hadn’t yet explored her new city herself so was happy to join the American tourists. We stopped for a classic Danish lunch of smørrebrød, the literal translation for which is “buttered bread,” and I have to say I wasn’t expecting much. I mean, how can “buttered bread” be a country’s most famed national dish? Turns out I was to be very pleasantly surprised. Smørrebrød are actually small open-faced sandwiches which consist of a slice of (buttered) bread piled high with all sorts of “fillings” from smoked salmon with dill sauce to chicken curry salad to roast beef and horseradish to pickled herring. You typically order a few of these smørrebrød for a meal and so can sample many very different flavors at a single sitting. We sat outside in a particularly pretty part of town and enjoyed our smørrebrød with wine and beer in the sun. It was really great to enjoy the day and the city with friends and was a nice break from the tourist sights. (And another chance to look at all the very pretty Danes!) I was thinking at lunch about how relaxing the weekend had been and then realized it was probably because I had supervision for this trip so couldn’t get myself into the trouble I usually do when alone! (Maybe I should invest in a babysitter?)

We spent the afternoon checking out the Amalienborg Palace, the current home of the royal family (since 1794) and walking through the “Marble Church” (Frederikskirken) which was structurally impressive and really very beautiful before we each had to catch our flights back to Helsinki and London. As always, the weekend was much too short and I have decided that I will definitely go back to Copenhagen while I’m living in the Nordics (assuming they allow us to fly again sometime this year!). Cross your fingers for me that the wind starts blowing and the flights get back up and running…I’m supposed to be in Monte Carlo this Friday!

Tell the Pope I said hello (and Happy Easter!)

Krakow is an undeniably beautiful city. It is Europe’s largest medieval square one minute, a fairytale castle the next, gargoyles around every corner, and beautiful churches and crosses literally on every corner. I decided to go to Krakow for Easter for two reasons, 1) I had heard you really need more than a weekend to truly explore and appreciate this place and I had Good Friday and the Monday after Easter off (a colleague in the Helsinki office said, “Yeah, we know you Americans like to work every day except Christmas and 4th of July when you wave the flag and sing about the red, white, and blue but we celebrate Easter in Europe!” Not entirely correct but I can understand where he’s coming from…what a great reputation we Americans have!), and 2) Easter is a bigger holiday than Christmas in Poland which is predominantly and very devoutly Catholic and I thought it would be fun to spend the holiday in a place that really celebrated it. I was not disappointed.

Before I could celebrate Easter, however, I had to visit another must-see, or maybe more appropriately a “must-remember,“ the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz which is the German name for Oświęcim, the Polish city outside of which the camp was founded. Oświęcim is 75 km outside of Krakow so was one of my priorities for my visit. I knew it was going to be a hard day and had been dreading it a bit since booking the trip to Krakow, but I thought it a really important site to see and acknowledge. Appropriately, I set out for Auschwitz on the gloomiest of gloomy days – cold, rainy, subsequently damp and bone-chilling cold. The 1.5 hr bus ride out of Krakow was a depressing one. We drove past innumerable farms which all looked depressed and degraded. Maybe it was the weather and the fact that it was early spring but everything looked gray, sad, and poor with dilapidated houses and barns with old, rusty equipment lying around. I have the feeling that had it been early June, sunny, and had I just been driving through the country instead of on my way to the site of 1.1 million murders, things would have looked a bit prettier and brighter. I had gone to a Gestapo museum in Cologne though several weeks ago and had been depressed for several days afterward so was really fearful of what this trip would bring.

I arrived at Auschwitz to see long stretches of intimidating barbed wire fences, and they were intimidating before I found out they had been electrified (although, obviously, not anymore). The tour began with a 20 minute movie detailing the atrocities of the camp, including the human experiments performed on many adults and on children. I was already feeling sick when we began the walking tour of the camp which started under the very famous "Arbeit macht frei" (translated from German, “Work makes you free”) sign at the entrance of the camp. The museum is extraordinarily well-done and the tour was just as good. We began with the history of the camp and how it came to be a concentration camp. It was chosen by the Germans because of its very central and well-connected (with respect to the railroad) location. It had previously been a Polish military barracks so also had the appropriate layout and buildings for housing thousands of people. At this point, the estimated death toll at Auschwitz I (there is another Auschwitz II – Birkenau very close to Auschwitz I, and another Auschwitz III) is about 1.5 million people, 1.1 million of which were Jews. The death toll estimates at this camp range from 1 to 4 million depending on the source and, because most records were destroyed as the Germans retreated right before the camp’s liberation in 1945, no one knows the actual numbers. Regardless, it is a huge, unforgiveable number.

The choice of Auschwitz speaks for itself as you look at a map of clear railway connections and subsequent paths of prisoners, some having been sent all the way from Norway and Greece. The trip from Greece was a 10 day journey in a railcar with no stops, no opening of the car, and no food besides what the people had brought with them. These people had no idea where they were going so couldn’t prepare and I can only imagine what the living conditions were like in a closed rail car after 10 days. Horribly, this was only the beginning of their pain. The tour guide walked us through the selection process whereby families were first ripped apart, more often than not never to see one another again, with men in one group and women and children in the other. Next, the young and able were then separated from each group from the weak, old, and very young who were immediately executed as they were of no “working” value. Regardless, whether you went to the camp or immediately to the gas chamber, you were stripped of all your belongings, had your head shaved, and corralled into the designated line. One of the most disturbing exhibits was a room full of human hair…when the camp was liberated they found 7 tons of human hair on site which was only what was left at that time. The Germans had sold the prisoners’ hair during the war to the textiles industry to be used in blankets. Everything possible that could be taken from these people was taken. We began with the room of hair which was sickening by itself and then moved to other rooms containing thousands of toothbrushes, suitcases, combs, a room with 40,000 shoes (which still, at one pair per person, represents less than 5% of the number of people killed), clothing, shaving brushes, and finally baby shoes and baby clothes. These personal effects were overwhelming and yet still represented just a drop in the bucket of what happened at this place.

We saw the block which housed the punishment cells – mostly starvation cells and 90cm x 90cm holding cells in which four prisoners were kept overnight after 12 hour workdays, and into which they had to crawl through a small opening at floor level and then stand all night with three other cellmates as punishment for some “crime” (and example would be sharing bread with another prisoner) committed. The execution yard was outside where certain prisoners were shot execution style or, after having their hands tied behind their backs, hung by the wrists (behind them) for several hours after which they no longer had use of their hands (and then, of course, were sent to the gas chamber because they were no longer “useful.”)

We saw a model of the gas chambers and learned about the mass executions and then the burning of the bodies. None of the murders put the Nazis face to face with their victims – after the prisoners were forced into the gas chambers, the Nazis dropped the Zyklon B pellets (which then reacted with the oxygen in the air to become a gas) into the chamber from holes in the ceiling and then closed them off and waited…it usually took 20 minutes for everyone in the room to die. After the prescribed amount of waiting time, the Nazis opened the vents to allow the room to air out and then other prisoners were given the horrible task of removing all the dead bodies and taking them to the incinerator. The murder of 700 people might take 20 minutes but the burning of their bodies took the next few days as the furnaces had to be loaded with the corpses one by one.

Some of the most disturbing exhibits were the pictures of survivors taken four months after liberation. The pictures of these women and children, who no longer even looked human because of such extreme starvation and resulting atrophy, are now seared into my mind along with all (both adults and children) who were subjects of live medical experiments. It is incomprehensible to me that someone could think of doing such things to people, let alone actually carry them out. The fact that it was done on such a large scale with so many people involved, whether active or complicit supporters, is nothing less than revolting.

I apologize for the gruesome details but there is really no other way to tell it and, I think, it’s important to tell it. We are now at the point in time where those who were there to see it, to experience it, to tell firsthand what World War II meant to the world, to remember those tortured and murdered by it, are now dying off. There have been recent and, seemingly, increasing reports of those denying that the atrocities at Auschwitz and other concentration camps like it ever happened. We know this isn’t true and whether you credit Churchill or Santayana with the quote, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” the message still holds true. There were 3 million Jews in Poland before WWII and there are now around 10,000. We have seen “ethnic cleansing” all around the world, we see ethnic cleansing all around the world, from “developed countries” in Europe in WWII to, more recently, Cambodia, North Korea, Croatia, Rwanda, China, the Middle East, Darfur…unfortunately, the list could go on. I personally believe that in matters like this we can not allow “to each their own” to become the excuse, the reason behind complacency. I do not claim to have a solution to these problems but I do believe these are global-, not country- or region-specific, problems and they need to be considered and addressed as such. We as a global community just cannot allow things like this to happen, let alone happen again and again.



Tough transition here but my trip, and Krakow itself, was not all about the horrible things described above. It is actually quite miraculous given Krakow’s proximity to Auschwitz and Birkenau that the city was left unscathed from the effects of WWII (Birkenau was created as a work camp for a rubber-producing facility to make tires for German war aircraft so was considered a military target and bombed by the Americans; Auschwitz was never a military target and, as such, was never bombed). The city is truly a treasure and an incredible place to visit, particularly on Easter. As mentioned, the main square in Krakow called Rynek Główny (“grand market” or “market square” – not entirely sure which!) is one of the largest medieval squares in Europe (some claim it is the largest) and is really beautiful and unique. As I also mentioned earlier, I was lucky enough to visit the city during Easter which was a very special cultural experience.

After spending the day at Auschwitz on Friday, I decided to go to one of the Michelin star Polish restaurants in town. I had cut the timing a bit close and did not yet know my way around the city so I had my map in hand and was walking fast, really fast. I was walking so fast and was so preoccupied with making my dinner reservation that I didn’t notice that I had walked right into the middle of the Good Friday Easter vigil until I was smack dab in the middle of it. Everyone was standing outside a church holding flowers and colored lamps, staring up at a second story window. I suddenly realized I had walked into the middle of something and looked up to see what everyone was staring at…and wouldn’t you know it, there was the Pope standing in the window and waving at the crowd. Holy crap! I mean, crap! I mean, Holy Pope! I stopped in my tracks feeling extraordinarily self conscious and rude (and afraid I’d show up on some BBC news clip as the clueless, obnoxious American who crashed the Pope’s Good Friday vigil) and looked around to see if anyone was about ready to deck me for barging in on the Pope. I looked up again and realized that the waving “Pope” was just a painting of Pope John Paul II which covered one of the windows, painted to make it look like he was standing in the window and waving…I let out a huge sigh of relief, thank goodness! But, then again, why is everyone staring up at a painting of a waving Pope like he’s really there? I quietly backed my way out of the crowd and went another direction. (I learned throughout my four days in Poland just how proud the country is of Pope John Paul II, who was Polish and went to university in Krakow. There are statues of him and monuments to him everywhere!)

Dinner turned out to be excellent and I ate like a pig for $20. I had “Ruskie” (Russian-style) pirogies which are steamed dough dumplings filled with potatoes and cottage cheese finished off with a quick sauté to brown them a bit. They were very simple but actually very good and are a Polish specialty. Poland is also known for its many beet dishes and a side on the menu was translated as “fried beetroot.” I really love beets so figured I would try this out and get some veggies to boot (dough dumplings filled with potatoes and cheese does not a well-balanced diet make!). When my waiter brought it to the table I started to reconsider my choice…the beets had been grated and then cooked or “fried” into what looked like a big pile of beet mush. Yech. I decided I should try it anyway and, despite the fact that it really didn’t look at all appetizing, it was actually quite good. Besides the fact that I was eating dinner and drinking wine alone, it was a very successful introduction to Polish cuisine. Little did I know that I would be eating pirogies for the next 3 days!

I had initially planned to go to the Wieliczka Salt Mines (more on that later) on Saturday as everything was shut down on Easter and most everything was also shut on the Monday after. I had a guidebook with instructions for how to get there, with the appropriate city bus, minibus, and train schedules included. I decided to take the bus so set off in the morning for the Krakow bus station. The buses supposedly (according to all my information) left for Wieliczka every 20 minutes so I could basically leave whenever. I went to the window to buy my ticket (for 3 Polish zloty, or about one US dollar) and the woman at the counter told me in half English half Polish that no, no, there was no bus anymore to Wieliczka but that there was a minibus every 30 minutes outside the galleria at the intersection of something and something. She shooed me away and I pulled out the map to try to figure out where I was supposed to go. I found what I thought was the right intersection and started hustling – I wasn’t too far away but it was 10 minutes to the hour so I would have to wait another 30 minutes if I missed this one. I got to the right intersection and there was a tram line, city buses, minibuses, basically all possible modes of transportation but no signs on the street indicating specific stops and no signs on any of the vehicles which might indicate where they were going. I saw a driver sitting in his minibus so I asked him (well, more accurately, I pointed to the salt mine section in my guidebook) where the bus was to Wieliczka. He didn’t speak any English but jumped out of his bus and waved for me to follow him. He walked with me for two blocks to where he thought it was, got redirected by some other drivers, and waved me to follow him again. We arrived at another minibus driver hangout and the drivers there confirmed I was in the right spot (not anywhere close to where the bus stop lady had told me to go). My driver buddy then pointed to the time of the next bus coming at 12:20 on the schedule. Turns out the minibuses were only running about every 3 hours so I had lucked out as it was just about noon at that point. I sat on the curb and waited…but at 12:20, 12:25, 12:30, 12:35, no minibus appeared. I asked the man who was supposedly manning the stop, and who spoke a bit of English, when the Wieliczka bus was coming, wasn’t it supposed to be there at 12:20? He looked at the schedule and pointed to another column which showed that the next bus wasn’t coming until 3pm. The first driver read from the return schedule instead of the departing schedule. Ugh. The salt mine was closing early at 2pm for Easter celebrations so I had just wasted 2 hours and now wouldn’t be able to get to the mine before it closed.

I chocked it up to typical travel trials and tribulations – I am betting the guidebook was referencing a summer schedule or something – and decided to head back to the main square to see what I could see there instead. This turned out to be a very serendipitous turn of events as I arrived at the square just before the blessing of the Easter baskets at St. Mary’s Basilica, the very famous and beautiful cathedral in Rynek Główny. Everyone in the city turned up with their Easter baskets filled with breads, sausages, colored eggs, tomatoes, and a few chocolates, candies, and cookies thrown in for good measure. The weather was beautiful and all ages were out with their Easter baskets, crowding around the cathedral for the blessing. I have no idea what was said as it was all in Polish but, I assume, at the time of the blessing everyone on the square lifted their baskets up to be blessed by the presiding bishop. The pictures I took are priceless! In the middle of the square there was a little street fair in which you could buy baskets, all the requisite fillings, and doilies to cover your goodies. I didn’t see this until after the blessing was over or I would have made one for myself! It was a really cool tradition to see and be a part of…my only concern was that I was the weird tourist taking pictures of other people’s children! The little kids dressed up for Easter with their baskets were too irresistible so I felt it was worth the risk. I spent most of that afternoon in the square walking around taking pictures, trying Polish snacks, and checking out the arts and crafts. It was a really fun way to celebrate the Easter holiday (even if on the periphery!).

I spent the rest of the day exploring the grounds of the fairytale-ish Castle Wawel. This castle sits on a hill overlooking the city and is amazingly well preserved and, miraculously, survived WWII without a scratch (as did the rest of Krakow). It has the classic castle walls surrounding it (the once upon a time moat has now been turned into city green space) and legend has it that a dragon lives underneath it in a cave and protects the Castle. Can’t get much more medieval than that! The Castle cathedral is also pretty amazing and has been the location of the coronation of most of Poland’s monarchs who, incidentally, are also nearly all entombed inside the cathedral. Pope John Paul II actually said his first mass as a priest in the Crypt of St. Leonard’s underneath the Wawel Cathedral where most of the tombs are kept.

I had intended to go to an English mass on Easter Sunday at one of the small chapels in the city for Easter but because of a mix-up with daylight savings time (I had changed the time on my cell phone when I landed in Poland and picked the right time zone but happened to choose a country setting which doesn’t recognize daylight savings so I was an hour behind), I arrived for mass just as it was ending. UGH. I had so been looking forward to Easter mass! This too turned out to be very serendipitous because I decided I would just suck it up and go to a Polish mass at St. Mary’s Basilica that evening. St. Mary’s was definitely the place to be for Easter mass and it was a cool cultural experience to go to mass with the Poles (and I got a lot of good praying done since I didn’t know what was being said!).

After church I had planned to go to dinner somewhere in the square but because it was Easter most of the restaurants were closed (at least the Polish ones I was interested in going to) and since it hadn’t been much fun to do a sit down dinner alone a couple nights before, I decided to just hang out in the square and eat fair food again. It was easy, good, and there were lots of fun people watching opportunities. I was having a great time (having just found the hot spiced wine vendor) walking around checking out the handmade ceramics, hand-painted Easter eggs, and other Polish Easter trinkets when I noticed that everywhere I went this one man would show up. Now, the fair wasn’t very big and I thought it could very well be a coincidence – no need to get paranoid, right? I brushed it off and kept walking around, bought some hand-painted ceramic salt and pepper shakers and decided to head back to the hotel and call it a night. I started on my way out of the square and, being a little paranoid, turned as I started down a side street just to make sure that the same guy wasn’t following me. To my unpleasant surprise, he was following me and was tracking not far behind. I got a little freaked out and walked quickly back into the square where there were lots of people around.

Just what I needed! I was less than a kilometer from my hotel and now I’d probably have to call a cab or something so I wouldn’t be by myself. I stopped and looked straight at him. I wanted him to know that I saw him and that I knew he was following me. Leave me alone, creep! It is EASTER for goodness’ sake! I stood there for a minute to figure out what to do…call a cab? Walk with a group? Run down a side street so I’d lose him? All of a sudden he was right there in front of me and jabbering away in Polish. I backed away and said, “I’m sorry, I only speak English.” He said, “Sorry, sorry. Coffee?” He pointed at me, “Ty?” he pointed at himself, “Ja?” he pointed to a café, “Coffee?” Are you kidding me? This guy wants a date?! I was so relieved I started laughing. “Sorry.” I lifted my hands up and shrugged. “No Polish.” He continued, “Ty?” pointing at me, “Ja?” pointing at himself, and then he walked his fingers along his arm and pointed at the café, “Coffee?” Now I knew this guy was harmless so I laughed again and said, “I don’t understand.” Why not play dumb in this case? “No Polish.” He tried a couple more times and then grabbed my arm (not scary grabbed) and said, “Come! Come!” He led me over to an outdoor café about 50 meters away, invited me to sit down, and then proceeded to try to talk to me for 30 minutes without a common language. I don’t know why in the world I sat down but I felt bad being rude and this guy didn’t understand, “I have to go.” “No, thank you.” “No coffee.” Looking back I shouldn’t have cared if he understood me and should have just walked, but I just kept thinking I could do it nicely.

So now I was having a drink with some guy who speaks no English and I speak, obviously, no Polish. I should also mention that he was probably 55, balding, and missing several teeth. Unbelievable. He would have been easier to brush off if he hadn’t been so sad already! He ordered drinks from the waitress, found out she spoke English, and had her translate the following message, “He wants me to tell you that he has retired from work so is no longer working in Krakow. He just lives in Krakow now.” Really? That’s the one sentence he chose to have her translate? Me and some random Polish retiree, who would have guessed?

I was very uncomfortable and the “conversation” was extraordinarily painful but he just wouldn’t let me leave. He said, “British? London?” I said, “No, USA.” He looked at me puzzled at first and then his eyes got wide, “AMERICAN? OOOOOHHHHHHH.” Not sure what that was about but ok. Then, “Husband?” Stupidly, I said, “No, no husband.” He said, “No?!” I said, “Nope.” He shook is head like he didn’t understand and then made a sad face. Yes, it’s very sad and you don’t know the half of it, buddy! He then started the me – you (ja – ty) pointing business again, this time with “husband” and “married” thrown in a few times while performing charades describing a wedding ring. I’m not sure if he was proposing or what but I was becoming increasingly more annoyed and upset. I said, “Thank you but I have to go.” He pointed to his wrist like a watch and, I think asked the equivalent of, “When do you have to go?” Or maybe that’s what I wanted him to ask because I said, “I have to go NOW.” He put up his hands and started counting up, “Jeden,” one finger up, “dwa,” two fingers up, “ trzy,” three fingers, “ cztery,” four. It was 9pm. I said as I counted up on my hands, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine. Now nine. Go NOW.” He said, “Sex? Six? Sex.” He laughed. Ok, not so funny anymore. I said again, “I go now.” He started pleading with me in Polish to stay and have another drink. I told him no, no, no. I told the waitress no. She looked tortured and said, “If he orders it I have to bring it…but you don’t have to drink it.” This was just getting worse. He took out his phone and showed me pictures of his dogs, and then asked for my number. I said, “No number. No phone. No Polish.” He asked with numbers when I was leaving for the US (this took about 5 minutes to understand) and I said, “Tomorrow.” He said, “Nooooo!” He pointed to himself, “Ja?” then put his arms out and made a plane noise, pointed to me and said, “Ty? USA.” No. NO. NO! I had had enough and there was no nice way to get out of this one. What a naïve idiot I was! I was so afraid he was going to rob me that I had underestimated how bad the alternative could be! I said, “I don’t understand. No Polish. I go NOW. Thank you. Goodbye.” I got up, kept my eyes on the waitress to make sure she knew to hold on to the bill and then hauled tail out of there. I knew my way home but I didn’t want to take any chances so started taking smaller roads and making multiple turns as I walked quickly, glancing back every few seconds or so.

Next thing I knew, I had no idea where I was. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! I knew I wasn’t far off but I still didn’t know where I was and I was already freaked out. Yes, I did have a map and, yes, I did have my phone but who am I going to call in Krakow? I walked a bit further looking for some landmarks (the river, the Castle) but the buildings were too tall to allow me to see anything else. I asked a guy on the street for directions but he didn’t speak English and when I said, “Do you know the Sheraton?” He scratched is head, pointed and said, “Left.” Thankfully, the direction he was pointing was left so I figured I’d walk that way. I walked another couple blocks and then found where I was on the map. Thank you, God! I was so relieved. I was, as I had thought, quite close to the hotel but just on some side streets in an area I hadn’t been before. I have to say though, this getting lost thing is really getting old. I have never been so happy to see a Sheraton in my life! I am also pretty sure that encounter slapped the "being friendly to strangers" out of me for a while.

After a fitful night’s sleep, probably caused by the weirdo on the square but manifested as nightmares about work, I woke up early this morning to make my way to the salt mines before I had to fly home. I had read up on the mines and tour before, as I had planned to go a couple days prior, and knew it cost 60 zloty (~$20) at the mine. The bus ride was about 3 zloty but, as I had experienced a few days before, the bus reliability was somewhat lacking and the Monday after Easter is still a holiday in Poland meaning the buses are likely to be even less reliable. I asked at the front desk about this the night before and was told that I could go straight from the hotel with a tour group for 125 zloty. I said, “But the tour only costs 60 zloty at the mine. Can’t I just take a bus?” The woman at the desk looked skeptical (I get the impression that most of the American tourists at the Sheraton are not interested in taking the Krakow bus) but looked up the schedule and told me the bus stop was literally just around the block. Perfect! This was better than I expected!

I checked out and headed immediately to the bus stop. I reconfirmed the location of the bus stop with the woman at the desk (same one I had talked to before) before I set out and she had circled the “area” on the map with her pen, on the other side of the block. No problem. I went exactly where she had pointed, and checked every sign on the street (on both sides), but while bus 304 was supposed to come at 8:55am (and she had printed off the schedule for me so the time was legit) there was no bus 304 to be found. There was actually no bus of any number to be found. I waited until 9:10am before I dragged my stuff back around the block. I walked in and said, “The bus never came.” She said, "I’m so sorry! I checked the schedule!” At this point the tour bus was already outside and ready to go but a $20 upcharge wasn’t worth missing the mine (although definitely worth me hauling my buns and bags around the block!) so I asked her if I could join late. She did some mad scrambling and was able to hold the bus before it took off so that I could join. Ironically, it was during this mad scramble that I realized I had left my iPod in my room…worth much more than the $20 I would have saved if bus 304 had shown up! Somebody is definitely watching out for me! Finally, after couple days and about 6 buses worth of trying, I was on my way to the Wieliczka salt mine.

The Wieliczka salt mine is on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites and has been on the list since 1978 (I believe it was actually on the first UNESCO list of only 12 sites in the world – there are now nearly 700). Excavation of the mine began in the 13th century and continued until 1996 when mining activities were finally stopped. There are around 300 km of mined passageways through the rock salt deposit and it has now become a museum as well as a venue for showing art and history carved into the salt. We went around 130 meters below the surface during the tour which only took us to level 2 of 9 in the mine. It is really unbelievable to think that people were using pix axes to chip out rock salt at 300 meters below the surface hundreds of years ago! Methane is released as rock salt is excavated so one of the most dangerous jobs was to be the methane burner. These guys would go to the depths of newly excavated passageways with a torch to “burn off” (i.e. “explode”) the methane gas. There is no wonder that there are so many chapels and shrines built into the mine – those guys are all lucky to have made it out alive every day (although many, particularly the burners, did not). The carvings and salt chapel (used each Sunday for mass and for many weddings each year) are pretty amazing and definitely extremely unique. It was well worth the pain of getting there!

After thoroughly enjoying the charms of Krakow (I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a good trip!), I’m now back in Helsinki and was not pleased to see the ground covered in snow when I landed. I was spoiled by Krakow’s gorgeous weather and flowers (FLOWERS! I had forgotten about FLOWERS!) and it got my hopes up for spring in Finland. Vappu, or May Day (1st of May and a huge party and holiday in Finland), is fast-approaching though and, come hell or high-water (or, gulp, snow!) I am celebrating spring here soon! I will, of course, keep you posted!

Lastly…Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! Thirty-five years is pretty amazing! Love you both.

Trust your gut

A Finn at my current client asked me the other day after I had finished interviewing him, “You have quite a strong American accent – is there a reason for that? Have you lived there before?” Ha! Yes, pretty good reason for the strong accent! I can understand people assuming I am Finnish when they see me on the street given the relative rarity (at least in my opinion) of expats in Helsinki but I never thought I could get mistaken for a Finn after having opened my mouth! I told a friend at work the story and he said, “Well, he could have actually thought you were Finnish or, more likely, he could have known you were American and thought it more polite to ask you about it by pretending to assume you were Finnish with an American accent.” I thought Finns were supposed to be direct? These people are confusing.

So, after three months in Helsinki I have run into only one American who, predictably, was working for Nokia and in town for some meetings at Nokia’s headquarters. I then flew to Budapest last weekend and there were Americans everywhere…in the shuttle from the airport, in the hotel, all over the city. Everywhere I turned there was someone speaking American English and I realized what a change this was! As my friend Ken said, “What did you expect? NOBODY goes to Helsinki in the winter!” Fair. However, things are looking up as after three months the temperature has finally eeked its way over freezing and thus has begun the big thaw. It’s probably been two weeks at this point with intermittent snowfall and daily temperatures around 33°F (I told you it just “eeked” over freezing!) but I was actually able to walk to the gym and work the other day, on March 31st, without my snow boots for the first time since I arrived. Thank goodness! It sounds a little bizarre but I felt free! I’m so sick of carrying three pairs of shoes with me every day that I could just about scream. Maybe this is punishment for bringing so many shoes with me in the first place?

I arrived in Budapest around 10pm on Friday night and made my way to the minibus shuttles to the hotels. I was instructed to make my way over to a waiting area until the bus driver called me by hotel name. I was pretty tired after some very long work days and was thankfully surprised to see that there were actually some free seats available in the area. (I swear there are never seats available anywhere when you’re traveling in Europe – I can’t tell you how many floors I have camped out on in the last few months!). Turns out I should have been a bit more suspicious. I plopped down in one of the chairs only to find that the three seats on this particular bench were not fastened to the legs so I nearly fell through to the floor and flipped the whole bench up and over top of me. I somehow managed to get myself and the bench together before everything fell apart while everyone around me, those on the good benches and those standing because they knew about “bad” bench, just glanced over disinterestedly and yawned. Traveling in Europe can be great because there is a lot less red tap e and restrictions than in the US but less controls overall mean that the little things can fall through the cracks. I mean, get me a screwdriver and I will fix the bench! The last thing I need is to crack my head open on an airport floor and spend my weekend in a hospital in Budapest (although it might make for an interesting blog…).

I got called by my hotel name, jumped in the shuttle, and another American girl on the bus said, “Are you American?” and before I could get out a “Yes” she was talking my ear off. I am so out of practice with American friendliness since no strangers speak to you in Finland that I was almost taken aback! She was in Budapest from St. Louis for a long weekend to visit her boyfriend who was working there for a couple weeks. The poor girl had been traveling for about 20 hours having missed a connection in Frankfurt, etc, just to spend three days in Budapest before she would have to turn around and do it again. I always feel very lucky to have this year abroad but experiences like hers remind me how thankful I really should be! It was nice to talk to another American for a bit too and made me miss having friends, let alone English speakers, around. People have been extremely friendly and helpful everywhere I have been but the language barrier is often really restrictive which can make it a bit lonely!

Unfortunately, I got to the hotel only to find that I had gotten an email at midnight from my boss telling me for the first time that we had a client deadline on Sunday evening (who agrees to that?!) and she would need some weekend work. I was already so tired from the previous very long week(s), and now stressed out about the weekend deadline when I would not arrive back into Helsinki until 11pm on Sunday night, that I just did not have the energy to go out in a new city to find food (I still had not eaten dinner) at midnight. I ate peanuts from the minibar and about six pieces of fruit from the fruit basket in my room for dinner and started cranking. I did not want this to ruin my weekend any more than necessary so ended up staying up until 3am on Saturday morning to finish the work. Ugh. The worst part was that my friend Ken was in Copenhagen for business the week before and had flown into Budapest to meet me for a couple days of sightseeing so this meant I had to bail on him Friday night. Major bummer! Ken was a good sport though and I met up with him in the morning to explore what is supposedly one of the more beautiful cities in Europe.

I had checked the weather before leaving and there was a 90% chance of rain for both Saturday and Sunday – not the weather one would hope for but it is spring, afterall, and almost anywhere has better weather than Helsinki so my bar is pretty low. I was very pleasantly (ecstatically!) surprised when the weather turned out to be beautiful. It was probably in the 50s or low 60s Fahrenheit and gorgeous sun. I had short sleeves on and I can guarantee you that my arms haven’t seen the light of day since San Francisco. Literally – first there wasn’t any light of day and now that there’s light it is still too cold to expose your skin to it! I thought I was doing ok without the sun but after having it for a couple days I think I am vitamin D deficient in Finland. Spring cannot come fast enough!

On my way in from the airport the night before I had initially been disappointed because Budapest looked just like another city…until we got to the city center and the old part of town. I recognized then that Budapest really was as beautiful as I had heard and this was confirmed over and over again during the rest of the weekend. Ken and I walked all over old town and saw the gigantic Royal Palace (at the time I was reading the book "The Help" about black housekeepers in the South in the 50’s and all I could think about when I saw the Palace was how hard it would be to keep a place that big clean! Yikes!), the gorgeous Parliament building, the old town on the hill with its cobblestone streets and quaint, multicolored buildings, and walked beneath the famous lions on guard over the Széchenyi Chain Bridge (who watched us cross from Pest to Buda). The center of Budapest was a pretty mix of old and new with many of the historic buildings renovated to both maintain their unique architectural styles as well as to safely accommodate modern businesses in the city. Around nearly every corner was yet another pretty pedestrian street with more lovely and impressive buildings. The many cafes were already beginning their transitions from winter’s closed door, inside seating to open air tables outside. We had lunch out on the cobblestones under an umbrella and it was truly a treat after being relegated to layers, boots, and closed doors for so long!

After traipsing all over the old city we found a little Hungarian food festival in downtown and got to check out some local crafts and special Hungarian food. There were lots of candies, sugared and chocolated nuts, pastries, goulash, and sausage – you name it and it was there. Everyone was walking around with tall pastry cylinders rolled in sugar so we shared one of those (although “sharing” means I ate about 80% of it!). You can see one in my pictures but they wrap thin pastry dough around what looks like a large, slightly tapered rolling pin and then brown it over coals, turning it to make sure it is evenly cooked. Once the dough is brown, the cylinder gets rolled in your choice of sugar, cinnamon, cocoa, or walnuts and pushed off the top of the rolling pin. It was actually a great and not too sweet treat (nothing is as sweet here as in the US). The next Hungarian specialty I was not very interested in trying and not a fan of after trying….rooster testicle stew. Ken and I turned the corner from the very lovely pastries dunked in sugar to see a big sign advertising (in English, so there was no confusion), “Rooster testicle stew.” Yech! We laughed, took some pictures, and, because the testicles were so large, Ken asked the man stirring the vat of them, “What kind of roosters do you use?” The answer, of course, “These are Turkish roosters.” Riiigghhht. I am usually up for trying about anything but was happy to make my way past this cultural experience when Ken asked if we could have a sample. The cook happily obliged and I felt a bit stuck but who knows, maybe they would be good?

Wrong. There is a reason why experts say you should trust your intuition. When you get a bad feeling about something or someone, you’re usually right. I ate half of a rooster testicle and it was the texture that got me – solid but almost creamy and a BAD aftertaste. Gross! I had to buy a Coke Zero to get that taste out of my mouth and I was a little traumatized for the rest of the afternoon (“No more Hungarian ‘delicacies’ for me, thanks!”). Now, I do believe that if you are going to kill an animal to eat it that you should try not to waste it. However, and this is a big however, you really do not have to eat everything. That thing was nasty.

I had chosen to go to Budapest for this particular weekend because the Budapest Spring Festival was being held at this time so there were many opera, theater, dance, and music performances every night for 2-3 weeks in the city. I thought it would be fun to go to a Hungarian opera while there so got tickets for the Hungarian version of a performance called Rossini. The performance was given in Hungarian and the background information I had was literally about three sentences from the website so it was definitely an experience to try to figure out what was going on! At intermission we ran into a group of Brits who were just as confused as we were (which actually made me feel a bit better)! I love going to shows like this but, I can tell you, after 3-4 hours of trying to figure out a story told in Hungarian song I was ready to go! It can be exhausting to follow along when you don’t understand a word! Also, unintentionally, I had happened to pick a very feminist-focused performance – at one point the women were systematically knocking out the men while wearing pink boxing gloves – in which a group of French women band together when their husbands leave for the War (not sure which war) and become a gang of sexually-liberated feministas who are then preyed upon by another group of men posing as monks to avoid fighting in the war. The leader of the pack of feministas is pursued by the head monk of the fake male monks, in addition to his loyal right-hand man. She ultimately turns down the leader of the men in favor of the right-hand man…who we find out in the last scene turns out himself to be a woman. Oy. Ken said he felt emasculated after that show. Sorry, Ken! (Disclaimer: None of the above was even remotely referred to in the three English sentence synopsis!) After the rooster testicle incident we had Italian for dinner which was such a treat after having fish and rye bread in Finland for many weeks. I have never been so happy to see a pizza and drink good wine!

Ken had to get back to New York the next day so I was on my own for Sunday. I took a 6 mile run along the Danube and around Margit Island in the middle of the river. (Shockingly, I didn’t even get slightly lost…landmarks like rivers really help keep you on track!) I really love doing runs in new cities – it is often the only time I do not feel like a cheesy tourist! The weather was, again, gorgeous and being able to run outside instead of on a treadmill is such a gift at this point that I was a very happy girl. I walked around to take a few more pictures and ended up stopping in at the “California Coffee Company” for a latte with sugar-free vanilla. Sugar-free anything is not easy to find in Europe, and nearly impossible to find in Finland, so I am ecstatic when I find it. The run plus my special coffee made my day! I also went back to the food festival, held my two index fingers out in a cross at the rooster testicle booth as I walked by, and got a pastry filled with cherries called a “meggy” at another booth. Very cute name and a much better call than the previous day’s “snack!”

I am now in Krakow, Poland for Easter but that is another blog still to be written about another amazing city. For now, Hyvää Pääsiäistä! (Happy Easter!)