Trip to Toruń -- special extended edition

Dear Barry,

Of the four of us in Poland, 3 started out as physics majors. I am the only one who still is. I find that there are an awful lot of math vs physics scuffles. Physics came out ahead today as we visited Toruń, home of Copernicus.

Each picture below is made small because I have a lot of them and nobody likes scrolling. They are linked to versions sized as what I have posted in the past. It's unclear to me why there is this huge gap, but I promise the rest of this post does exist.

	Today we spent the day in Toruń. We left Łódź bu train before 8 in the morning, arriving around lunchtime.
	Arrival at the Old Town. You probably knew that. Because there is English on this sign! Toruń is a tourist sort of place, so even though it is not as large as Łódź there are enormously more resources for non-Polish speakers.
	Yay bilingualism!
	We are careful not to be tourists in Łódź. It would just not be appropriate given the city and the length and nature of our stay. However, we really being in Toruń as a free pass to be touristy and snap a million pictures. I figure that it may be obnoxious, but the locals will get us back by jacking up the restaurant prices.
	And besides, we were by far not the only tourists.
	Also, did I mention that Copernicus was born here?
	Here in Toruń, I mean. Did I mention that Copernicus was born in Toruń? . . . Copernicus Toruń Copernicus Toruń Copernicus Toruń.
	Interestingly, this was not the only Tupac-themed graffiti that we encountered. There were several (stylistically distinct) instances.
	One thing I love about Europe that America cannot duplicate is the architecture. Buildings, who knows how old, just sit around like it's no big deal.
	They are used for a variety of purposes, just like new buildings.
	Some of them are very large. This in particular is a face of the church of St. John the Baptist. This church was created (though much of the structure was built in following centuries) before 1250. We were able to peek inside, but not take pictures.
	Within the walls surrounding the church, there was a statue of our friend JPII. I guess being the first Polish pope really gets you popular in Poland; we see him pretty often.
	We enjoyed most that he is a statue holding a statue. Holding a statue.
	We also encountered a lot of knights, dragons and angels sitting on the fronts of buildings. This was not the best example, but narrow streets made it very difficult to get a a picture of most of them.
	We had lunch. Pierogi and beer (very Polish). Mine were full of sausage, which was good, and juniper berries, which... were memorable. At the time I write this, it has been at least 9 hours since I ate them, and I am not yet hungry.
	We visited the ruins of a Teutonic castle. It was conquered by an uprising of the townspeople of Toruń in the 1400s. Among his many involvements, I guess Copernicus was involved in fighting against the Teutonic order. In his house is a document written by NC, asking for reinforcements against them.
	A lot of the castle was not in ruins, as much was reused as part of the city. The old and the new are really just blended right together here. Cars drive through ancient arches like this in several places, and the wall stretches around most of the Old Town.
	Copernicus Museum! We were not allowed to take pictures inside (and honestly there wasn't much to take pictures of). I was not really that impressed with this museum. However, even though he has a lame museum I think Copernicus is probably still worthwhile.
	While recovering from pierogi and all of the steps in the Copernicus Museum, we sat on benches and watched pigeons. It was actually pretty entertaining; it must be mating season. The male pigeons (we assume) all had their feathers ruffled up. He would walk at a female pigeon "hey honey, let's propagate the species." She would walk, or sometimes fly, away from him "fat chance jerkface." Within seconds, he would start walking at the next nearest female. This was repeated until all females left. Then the bunch of males just sat around behind our bench and practiced puffing out their feathers, thinking "tomorrow that lady-pigeon will not be able to resist my poofy charms."
	This is a plaque in Polish. We didn't actually read it, or recognize or look up any of the words in it. We didn't even check if there was an English translation of the whole thing nearby. Why not? Because we could feel what this place was.
	And what it still is: a gladiator pit. You can even see the figure in black fleeing as three new warriors, each a godless killing machine, enter on the right.
	On our way out we stopped at a park with some flower arrangements.
	Finally, we headed back to Łódź. The train ride took us once again through some beautiful countryside. Notice Thomas, as he crushes his opponent's tanks.

Hope you enjoyed this trip. I sure did.


---

Here are some new, large pictures. They are up now that I got PhotoStitch to work. As you might expect from a photo built from others, it is larger than one alone. Click knowing this.

Some buildings are very tall. This is the boring end of a really old church. The exciting end had a very high money wedding. There was a stretch SUV limo out back. In Poland it is rare to even see what in the US would be a regular sized car.

This one didn't turn out particularly well. It's a goofy angle of St. John's church. You can see the scaffolding they use to restore it. Interesting fact: in one of the pictures used to make this one, Philip was knocking on the door. I don't know where he went.

Just another ancient gate popping up out of the road.

From the razor wire and barred windows, we guessed that the building on the left is a prison. Across the street you will find Copernicus University. It was almost enough to reduce Nathan to tears.

A pretty nice view. We enjoy this as we try to figure out how to get around the concert barely visible to the right.

I don't know how anyone can get drunk on beer.

I had only one. There wasn't that much alcohol in it, but half a liter is a lot of fluid.

Dear Alec,

We did a veggie fry-up for dinner tonight. We put it on potatoes, which is a nice change from the pasta we have eaten nearly every night so far. It turned out looking pretty good, which is why I was inclined to post it here.

I don't like bell peppers. However, I cook them every night because they make food look better and are probably healthy. By the end of the summer I hope to appreciate them.

---

We meant to go to the Biblioteka Pub (biblioteka means library) tonight, which is supposedly a hip hangout for students in Łódź. However, there was a soccer match, so it was packed. We ended up at a beer garden, which was fine considering the nice weather. However, my goal of meeting Polish people was not helped.

And I'm facing bad news with regards to the dance festival. The only free spaces that I am qualified for fall during meetings with professors. Tomorrow I am going to the jazz club for "Dance With Chuck" (see poster in this post). I'm optimistic about the sort of shin-dig it will be.

Wine Wednesday II

Dear Hungry Reader,

Tonight was the second instance of Wine Wednesday. We had pasta again. Last week we had a red, which dominated the food. This week we got "White Semi-Sweet" (that's the title and the description). I'm ongoingly sad that they don't really drink wine here. The options, as far as wine went, at the wine and beer shop were "White Sweet," "White Semi-Sweet," champagne... and the shop owner's recommendation, beer.

Ironically, we put some sausage in the sauce this week so a red would probably have been more appropriate.

Unrelatedly, my 21^st birthday is coming up. Of the four of us on the trip, three have birthdays while we are here. Nathan doesn't, but we allow this because he is a year behind us.


I don't even know if we needed the spaghetti sauce to hold this all together. Apparently, frying carrots and onions smell amazing.


That's right. Work that camera. It loves you, blurry Nathan.


The flavors didn't really mix right, but it sure is pretty. When I return it will be strange to eat in the caf. I will be used to, between myself and Nathan, cooking for 4 every night.

---

Found a dance festival next week. I am investigating the possibility of attending without Polish literacy.

If you ever have an urge to make pierogi

don't. At least don't make the frozen supermarket kind.

Dear Katie,

You may think "the pierogi at the restaurant were so good!" And you may remember having seen them at the supermarket. Don't be fooled.

We wanted to have a break from spaghetti stir fry, which we eat a lot. And we ate at a pierogi restaurant a while ago with our Polish acquaintances. It was very tasty. So tonight at the supermarket we decided to mix it up. We got some meat pierogi, some potato croquettes and some strawberry pierogi for dessert. All of them required extensive boiling, which was fine.

The meat pierogi went alright. We boiled them, then pushed them around in a frying pan while the dessert ones cooked. They fell apart a bit but I was not unhappy to put them in my body.

The strawberry ones were tolerable. Worse than the picture, of course, but in hindsight I'm not worried that the supermarket ladies were laughing to themselves when we bought them.

The potato croquettes were not good. The fact that almost saved them was that we oversalted them. Even so, the taste they had was mostly like the smell of play-doh. They looked like we had boiled a bunch of those tubular packing peanuts. Like slimy rubbery play-doh packing peanuts.

The pan we used to boil the potato croquettes wasn't really as big as it should have been. The water soaked up so much starch that it was about the consistency of sour cream when we poured it out.

Other than that, today was pretty good.

Pretty Boring Weekend

Dear Informed Reader,

The news surrounding the presidential campaigns back there are really not that exciting. I have been reading about them pretty religiously, but it really doesn't seem like much is happening.

This weekend, also, not much happened. I have been able to sleep in, which is nice. We opted not to travel this weekend. Next weekend we may make it to Warsaw, Gdansk or somewhere on the northern coast of Poland.

Our Polish friends who intended to take us clubbing disappeared for a while. They have a few exams this week. After those, I'm hoping to spend some time with them again. I went on a bit of a hike tonight and scoped out some evening destinations. However, the other guys were not with me. None of these places looked inviting enough that I was inclined to sit down on my own and hope that the people around me spoke English.

In Hungary, everyone on the trip was all about going out to bars and clubs. I was a wet blanket most of the time. Here it is the opposite. It's not even a problem that these guys don't drink (as I don't really either), but that they are OK just sitting around the dorm every night.

We don't even know our neighbors across the hall. This part is tricky because they are in finals right now. In the next few weeks most of our dorm-mates will move out.

It is my intention to work on solving these problems. I cannot for eight weeks interact with fewer than that many people.

---

Our classes here are getting trickier. I did our assigned reading for the weekend. The first half I had to slog through twice. The second half has not stayed with me at all yet. The chapters in Oxtoby take the better part of an hour to get to... and they're only three to five pages long. I look forward to lectures, since typically that is how I absorb information.

I am almost done with a new draft of my paper for SPT. This is a project I've been working on since my algorithms class first semester.

I've started looking at grad schools. Good grief. This will be an ongoing project... so far I have only the most elementary of research done.

Luckily, the kebab man had just graduated with a degree in English.

Dear Patriotic Reader,

Thomas thinks he's a better American because he doesn't jaywalk.


That's right, Chuck Norris. I don't think he will actually be there. Interestingly, this is the same jazz club that I have been meaning to make it to. We went there tonight, but didn't stick around because we were hungry and they didn't serve food.


This house is probably haunted.


Break dancing on Piotrkowska street. To James Brown.

Bonus Post

Dear Hannah,

This picture made me think of you. Not because I associate you with gang-related defacement of private property, but because it has the word hooligans on it.


Wine Wednesday! Here are some pictures of it. The wine didn't really go with the meal, but we have plenty of time to work out such kinks.


Serving up the meal. We make alterations, but pretty much eat spaghetti stir fry every night.


The bird's eye view. Yes, I did make that salt shaker out of an empty sauce jar.


Thomas sizes up the situation.

Our Three Day Mission in Space

or "In three dimensional space"? The professors here, luckily for us, have pretty strong English.

Dear Curious Reader,


This is our office.


One of the craziest intersections I've ever seen. There are 6 lanes of traffic in and 4 lanes out, not to mention the several sets of tram tracks. To walk all the way around it and end up where you started requires at least 7 stoplights. See that yellow car in the background? That's in the same intersection. don't even know how many islands there are in the middle. Here is is turned a little to the left.



It's hard to be out taking pictures and not end up with one of Freedom Square. It's easy to get to by tram. It's my other center of reference: I know the relation between everywhere I go and either freedom square or the dorm. Also in freedom square? A martial arts supply store! It looks exciting inside, though I have only peered in. It's intimidating to enter a store not knowing the difference between "may I help you?" and "get out of my store."



The timeless battle of Dog vs. Water. I'm not sure exactly how long this dog was entertained by trying to drink out of this... vigorous stream of water. Eventually it gave up on drinking and just tried to defeat it in combat.

Today is the beginning of Wine Wednesdays. We just need to find a place to buy it. According to trustworthy sources, a red wine (like a cab) will go best with nutella.

We are having pasta for dinner, but nutella always finds its way into our diet. It seems silly to fight it.

All Math Done with Sigma Pi Sigma Pen

Dear Interested Reader,

I cut up onions for dinner every night. No matter how much I wash my hands they always smell a little like onions.

Getting closer, I think, to tracking down places to dance here. I have messaged some sketchy myspace profiles which claim to be swing bands/dancers in Łódź (hopefully at least one of them really is). Also there are some sites that outline the nightlife here; several recommend a jazz club that's in a neighborhoods I know to be good. Finally, I found a dance studio. However, whether they do more than beginning instruction (and which styles) is unclear due to the language barrier. I may go there tomorrow to investigate.

Our hot water was out for most of today. We meet again with Professor Filipczak tomorrow morning.

No pictures today.

Slight Technical DIfficulties

Dear Patient Reader,

They are all figured out now. I accidentally deleted several things. I was not able to get back past comments. Comment. Just the one from Claire about Nutella (the rate we are eating it at is unhealthy).

It's late, so right now it is more pictures, fewer words.


At the tram stop! you can only see Thomas' feet.



Tram stop from the other side. We are going to manufactura today.



The first of several pictures I promised to present of one of my favorite structures.


The second such picture. That guy was crazy on the xylophone.


It's funny because it's pronounced almost like Hollywood.


Grumpy lady, sand volleyball, Bierhalle. It's a restaurant with a microbrewery in it, so you can atch them making beer while you eat.


Whee!


The structure undergoing intensive reconstructive surgery.


Some smaller buildings on the way out. They have free wireless here, the first I've found in the city.


Troublemakers in Freedom Square.


We would be awesome at English School.

Sweet dreams!