Riet goes to Warsaw

Touristy Riet: Holy shit! Look at all these museums! The Chopin Museum, the Museum of Caricature and Cartoon, the National Museum..we have to at least visit them.

Hungry Riet: I haven't eaten since 8 this morning. Fuck you guys.

History Major Riet: One, it's already 4 pm. Two, we're going to the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

Touristy Riet: Come on! You said you wanted to use your time efficiently and see as much as possible. The Uprising is way out of the way. Let's just go here. It's closer.

History Major Riet: NO. You will learn what the combined armies of Germany and the USSR did to this city. Have you ever wondered why all the buildings are less than 65 years old?

Hungry Riet: I SMELL DÖNER KEBAB!

Touristy Riet: But...but there will be anti-nazi cartoons! You like that. And Punch! Don't forget Punch! Come on!

I pass a plaque.

(Plaque: on this spot, the Nazis executed 120 people.)

Warsaw is positively riddled with these memorials. I'm talking literally every street corner. It's s huge city.

History Major Riet: See? Why are you here? You are here to remember.

Tourist Riet: Yeah, death, I know. Blah, blah, poor Poland, blah.

(I pass an inscription in the sidewalk tracing the Warsaw Ghetto wall)

History Major Riet: Look. Look at that. There is NOTHING left. Warsaw was literally a pile of burning rubble before they built these shitty apartment blocks. And do you know why? Because the Soviets SAT THERE and let it happen. We're going to the Uprising Museum.

Hungry Riet: OH GOD IS THAT BORSCHT? IT IS OH GOD

Tourist Riet: You're going to a concentration camp tomorrow. Isn't that enough?

History Major Riet: Look, we went on this goddamn trip to-

This is ill-concealed neo-Nazi graffiti.  It also riddles the city. This picture was taken smack in the middle of the former Warsaw Ghetto. I would have taken more pictures of such things had I not been horrified to stop and snap a photo in front of other people. 

Touristy Riet: …

Hungry Riet: ...

History Major Riet: Let's go.

Hungry Riet: Can we go to the Umschlagplatz afterward?

Touristy Riet: Yes, do that. And get a rock. You're going to carry it to Treblinka.

History Major Riet: I told y-

Touristy Riet: Shut up.

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.  

Morbid Thoughts About Balloons

When you're planning a party, you think, "Hey, party! You know what lends a festive air to every event? BALLOONS!" And you fill up five hundred million of them, after which point your lungs resemble the balloons before you blew them up. Then, hoarse-voiced, you get your party started. You've spent so much effort on the damn things that you're already beginning to resent them. They sit there in a pile on the floor, cheerfully mocking you.

"Whee! Balloons!" Everyone is very glad to see the buoyant spheres. People start playing the universally acknowledged "poke balloon in air" game. Then, as they become increasingly intoxicated, they start tripping on the balloons. This is not what you had planned. Balloons are supposed to provide atmosphere, not the sole focus of the party. Here you are in the corner, trying to discuss the Austrian School of Economics, and everyone is spending all their time gaping at balloons.

Fuck balloons.

Look at them, smugly underfoot. They need to die now. This is your fucking party.

You stomp on one.

BANG.

Everyone looks at you like you've just murdered a kitten.

Thanks to Aaron and Lauren, who put on their best "You've just murdered a kitten!"
faces for the occasion.

You decide that you can't be the douche who goes around stomping on balloons in front of everyone. You'll look unstable. There must be an easier way, an efficient way...

Enough of this shit. "These things are getting in the way, I'm just going to move them, all right?" You gather all the balloons and herd them out the door and a ways away from the house.

Then you go insane.

You jump up and down, bursting several balloons with each leap. The balloons pop like gunshots, but the trees muffle the sound. You show those balloons. The ungrateful bastards. You spend all that time on them and they steal your party. You'll show them.

After the killing spree, you return to the party, looking fresh-faced and cheerful. Everyone has to engage in your conversation now. Ha.

As they leave, no one notices the tiny shreds of rubber that are the remains of your five hundred million balloons.

And yet, weeks after the party, you keep finding partially deflated balloons. They're hideous and squishy. They've taken to hiding in the strangest places. But you can never fully eradicate them.

The balloons will always be there. They've taken your breath and turned it into bitterness, but their sheer tenacity renders them immortal. You have to cut them apart individually with scissors; stomping just doesn't do it anymore. They die at last under your blade with a resigned hiss.

So what, you ask, is the morbid thought?

Balloons are like political prisoners.

THINK ABOUT IT.

Nice Looking Women

As per very insistent request, here is Nice Looking Men, minus the men! 

This is Renate Müller, the original Viktor/Viktoria (1933). In other news, it was 1933. Things were happening. Josef Goebbels went slavering after her like a dog after cheeseburgers because of her facial structure or something. Müller gave in and acted in an incredibly racist film. She then apparently suffered a breakdown and died under extremely suspicious circumstances in 1937 (several Gestapo were seen entering the hotel she was staying at shortly before her death). Things were happening.

Aghhhhh. k.d. lang, can you happen more, please? I am not a fan of the genre you sing, but damn, you and your voice are beautiful. 

Dita von Teese knows what she has. She also knows what many people would like to do to what she has, preferably on the sofa. And the table. And the stairs. And a cigarette-hazy dressing room, a heavy curtain shoved aside to reveal a recently occupied cot, too recently, and the sharp smell of

...sorry, where was I? *turns unscrupulous-movie-director-imagination off*

I don't normally put up the LOOK BOOBS pictures, but a good 40% of her career orbits around them, and they are indeed of a sufficient size to have their own gravitational field. Some of you might appreciate that.

Gladys Bentley is mildly amused at your racist homophobic bullshit. She will sing the ever living hell out of the blues and sleep with whomever she wants and presumably beat up the entire nightclub with her hat and a cocktail stirrer and you can bloody well deal with that. It's 1926. She does what she wants.

I have no idea who this is, but she rocks that suit. You go, mystery woman.

Ella Fitzgerald. What more do you want? 

What's that, you say? 

The only thing better than Ella Fitzgerald is Ella Fitzgerald and a Yiddish song? 

You just might be right, Convenient Suggestion Provider.