In whose Steps: Lovers' Bridge (3)

This is the Bridge of Locks. There's an imitator in Krakow, but the original is apparently in Wroclaw.

Young couples (there are A LOT of them in the student ghetto north of the Oder) will buy a lock if they think they're serious enough, attach it to the bridge, and throw the key in the river. Their love is supposed to last as long as the lock remains on the bridge.

Most people just use ordinary padlocks and carve their names into them...

but others go the extra mile with the foof and the glitter glue.

This one looks like someone made it in metal shop.

Apparently you can buy special locks intended specifically for this purpose. Here is an embarrassingly elaborate one.

If you're cheap as fuck, you can use your bike lock.

And for those of a more realistic mindset...

Dr. Murder Sells a House

Break from Poland! I have massive writers' block about the first day, so I've done the whole second week and can't post a thing :(

This is the story of how my grandparents came by their house on Beaver Island. 

Their previous renter decided that she wanted to live on the Island permanently and so Amai and Atate would have to look elsewhere.

True to their nature, they wandered off down the worst road on Beaver Island on their bikes, which leads to the Eagle Hill neighborhood.

When they biked down a particular steep two-track, they heard a grumpy “'Allo!”

Striding toward them down through the forested dunes was a man wearing goggles and wielding a chainsaw.

While slightly disconcerting, this image would not be altogether surprising if he were not also clad in immaculate toothpaste-green hospital scrubs.

Dr. Murder informed my grandparents, in faintly German-accented English and in no uncertain terms, that they were on private property and had better take their tourist posteriors elsewhere.

“Is there a house for sale in this neighborhood?”

“No. No houses.”

“All right then. Thank you.”

They turned to bike, or rather walk, back up the sizable hill that marks the center of Eagle Bay.

“But!”

Another 180-degree rotation.

“But I am thinking of selling my house.”

“You are?”

“I could show you now, if you would like.”

“Oh, we don't want to bother you any m-”

“Come with me.”

So they did.

This man's name, they learned, was Jurgen Siebacher. He was an anaesthesiologist who had moved to this country some years previously and began to parcel out his bales of money upon retirement. He owned a yacht in Florida among other scattered properties. He lived alone. And he was getting restless again.

His house was kept, as Amai later said, exactly how you would expect a German anaesthesiologist to keep it—blindingly immaculate. He walked in the door, hung his coat on a hanger in the otherwise deserted closet, put each of his boots on a spotless rubber mat, and showed them around his custom-designed hexagonal house.

My grandparents interacted with Jurgen for two days: this one and the day they signed the papers.

The day after that, Jurgen literally walked out of his house with a suitcase and the clothes on his back. He left his peanut butter in the cupboard and his sheets on the beds. He left his shirts on the hangers, his socks in the dresser, and his scrubs in the garage. He left cans of beer, pasta, prodigious amounts of tuna, tools, dishes, soap, everything. He also left an exquisitely prepared and exhaustive set of instructions for the house he had so lovingly designed and then abandoned.

We use the surgical drapes as dish towels. Grandpapa mows the lawn in scrubs and a mask. And no one has seen Jurgen since.

In Whose Steps: Have you found God? (2)

We are set free for the evening to walk to the Rynek (market square) and get dinner. 

It's effing beautiful. 

I stride off silently and boldly in a randomly picked direction, as is my wont, intending to find a place that translates its menu into English and dine alone. Jesse, however, is suddenly walking next to me. I am not sure what to make of this, but am flattered by her company. We end up at a Georgian restaurant full of spicy meat and copious amounts of flatbread. 

Coca-Cola appears to have bought the city. Nearly every chain restaurant has the same Coke promotion going, complete with huge logo signs on the iron fence that marks each establishment's territory. I am most displeased by this. But the food is very good, so I decide to put my rose-colored goggles back on.

We are walking back along Ulica Swidnicka when we encounter a pair of men with pamphlets. This is an incredibly common sight; on practically every street corner someone has been hired to pass out adverts for new apartments, concerts, banks, etc. People normally just flow around them or take a flyer out of kindness when one is thrust in their direction.

However, there were three fatal things I failed to notice about these two:

1. They were smiling, which people never do to strangers on the street.
2. They were wearing short sleeves and ties.
3. There was an unusually large space bubble around them.

We're on a collision course and are already in their sphere of evangelization. It's too late. One of them peels off to us and starts striding alongside us, chattering in Polish. We realize, too late, that our non-knowledge of Polish is actually our worst possible asset as he launches into his English tirade instead. We are walking rather quickly and almost rudely down the street, but he easily keeps pace. Augh! Small talk is even worse when you know there's an agenda. 

I really, desperately want to respond "Thanks, but I've read what the Mormon church thinks of a few minor issues like women and race and, oh, everything." And although Jesse is awesome I don't know her yet so we can't do the whole hold-hands-and-pretend-to-be-dating trick. 

I finally shake him off with “Thank you for talking to us, but we're both very attached to our respective religions.”

Hah. They see me trollin'. We had just been discussing how she was about as Jewish as I am Catholic.  

In Whose Steps: Poland 2011 (1)

On May 7 I began the most intense trip of my life in terms of emotional range. I don't think I've ever felt that happy, nor do I think I've ever been that terrified. The first half was Albion's Holocaust Studies Service Learning Program and the second left me free to wander about Poland, with the only constraints being my suitcase, my wallet, and the great language barrier--I can't speak Polish apart from several polite and apologetic phrases.

I dragged my protesting feet, which would have screamed if they could talk, down every likely alley (and several unlikely alleys) in Wroclaw, Krakow, and Warsaw. It was glorious and frightening and infuriating and lovely. 

Here is the first day.

_______________

Über den Atlantik, Lufthansa Flight 442, 9:00 PM EST

I am lodged in literally the very back of the plane, listening to the attendants pleasantly hissing to each other. The kitchen is in the back, too, something I find confusing. They have to tow the Black Label and cigars all the way through economy class on the way to the bourgeoisie in the front. Agh! We haven't even crossed the Iron Curtain and look what's happening to me. 

Anyway, I am seated next to an old woman of unknown origin who appears to speak only Arabic but hasn't the foggiest how to operate the screen (even when it's in Arabic). She ends up watching hours of Pakistani cricket with no audio (she didn't like the headphones) and later the Green Hornet in Portuguese. Across from her is a well-meaning German with his wife and daughter. He attempts to show her how the screen works through gestures but after a few polite and awkward smiles he gives up, except to turn it off when she finally falls asleep.

Jesse and I are the only Albionites on our connecting flight to Wroclaw. It has propellers. 

The loud group of Wisconsinites behind us finds this very amusing. 

Apparently there is free wine? Fuck yes! I am presented with far too much of a dry red concoction which leaves me rather verbose, as I haven't slept in 24 hours. I regale Jesse with tales of Gulag until she falls asleep, probably so she doesn't have to listen. I am supremely content.