I haven’t written lately. In my defense, I’ve had far more “wheel time” than computer time in the last weeks. Now that spring seems both to have arrived and been replaced by summer, I’ve done the traveling I had considered longingly during the winter.
I spent the last weekend of April in Gdansk, in the north of Poland. Getting there required an overnight journey—shortened enjoyably with beer, and lengthened consequently with numerous bathroom stops—in a van propelled solely with contraband Ukrainian gasoline.
My first sighting of the Baltic! I vowed to swim in it, but woke up with a nasty cold, and subsequently weaseled my way out. I guess I’ve spent too much time looking at maps—I had somehow imagined that we could see to Sweden. And everyone says Europe is small!
Gdansk is remarkably beautiful. I suppose I felt more at home there than in Warsaw or Krakow because all of the signage is in German—and perhaps because Gdansk was a free City in the past, it reminds me of German cities. It also seemed un-Polish, and quite international. And of course the waiters serving gloriously real cappuccinos spoke halting English.
I spent the last weekend of April in Gdansk, in the north of Poland. Getting there required an overnight journey—shortened enjoyably with beer, and lengthened consequently with numerous bathroom stops—in a van propelled solely with contraband Ukrainian gasoline.
My first sighting of the Baltic! I vowed to swim in it, but woke up with a nasty cold, and subsequently weaseled my way out. I guess I’ve spent too much time looking at maps—I had somehow imagined that we could see to Sweden. And everyone says Europe is small!
Gdansk is remarkably beautiful. I suppose I felt more at home there than in Warsaw or Krakow because all of the signage is in German—and perhaps because Gdansk was a free City in the past, it reminds me of German cities. It also seemed un-Polish, and quite international. And of course the waiters serving gloriously real cappuccinos spoke halting English.
I wandered into a church Sunday morning during service, and had the incredible pleasure of looking at one of my favorite works of art—a stunning Northern Renaissance altarpiece—in its original setting, while listening to a choir. It’s enough to convince me that there’s room for me in secular Catholicism. The photograph doesn’t do the altarpiece justice. 
Students protesting a phosphorus plant, in the city center
Clearly, I'm not the only person whose French has degraded
Malbork Castle, founded by an order of Teutonic Knights
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