Home now.

I'm finally home, but the jet lag is killing me right now. Will post later on diverse topics such as how awesome the first two weeks have been, how much more difficult it is to fly out of Warsaw than to fly into Warsaw, why you shouldn't arrive more than 2 hours before your flight, and recaps of various highlights during the first two weeks.

It is also worth noting that I took the Michigan Flyer bus home to East Lansing from Detroit airport. There's a certain Bialystok travel agent that desperately needs to see what a 'highly comfortable' bus actually looks like.

Best to all,

DDB

Tykocin

Not very far outside Bialystok (I believe there's a bus) lies the town of Tykocin, best known for the still-operating Jewish synagogue and the site of a significant Nazi pogrom against Polish Jews. (Wikipedia entry for the Tykocin pogrom ). I have seen the synagogue -- which is reportedly operated by groups of Israeli Jews who make something of a pilgrimage here several times a year to keep it open and to run an associated museum. More information is available here: David Dickerson's Jewish Culture and History Web Page .

Kiermusy Resort

After arriving in Bialystok, Dr. Krasnicka provided a brief tour of the town and Branicki Palace for Mrs. Prof. B, and then we and Dr. Krasnicka's graduate student went to dinner at a delightful resort outside town called Kiermusy. (Kiermusy Website in English) The resort is modeled on an 18th / 19th century Polish manor and is one of the most relaxing places I've been. The rooms in the building we are staying at are late 19th century in furnishings, while other buildings are decorated in 17th or even 15th century furnishings. If your goal in vacations is to step outside of the daily grind and not worry about anything for a couple days while you indulge in great food, a very good spa, walks or biking through the countryside, this place is worth it. We might try to get a group out here during the program for dinner.

 The restaurant is a marvel, and is presented as a traditional 18th/19th century Polish country home dining room.

The food is amazing. If you have the chance in Poland to try podpiwek, it is worth it. Podpiwek is a brewed drink in which, as best I can figure, they leave the yeast in for only 2 days. This gives the drink carbonation without an alcohol content. It is spiced lightly and contains a very nice slightly bitter aftertaste. As summer drinks go, it is excellent.

Polish legal institution visits and other stuff

Arrived in Bialystok yesterday and worked with Dr. Krasnicka to finalize parts of the program. We currently have scheduled two visits to or presentations on Polish judicial institutions. One will be a presentation on the structure of the Polish judicial system by the president of the Polish Supreme Court. The other will be an actual visit to a Polish trial. While the trial itself will be conducted in Polish, the presentation afterward will be in English, as will the tour of Bialystok's courts. Thanks to the generosity of the EU, the Bialystok court facilities are the newest and best courts in Poland. Thanks to the foresight of the chief judge of the Bialystok courts, they are also some of the most advanced anywhere in terms of using technology to facilitate the efficient administration of justice.

We have also almost finalized housing arrangements. I can't say that everyone got their preference regarding singles or doubles but we came close.

Dr. Krasnicka's class on Friday, June 17 will be rescheduled for Monday, June 27 at the same time. Those of us going to Krakow/Auschwitz will be leaving immediately after the morning class. Those staying in Bialystok will have free time, although Dr. Krasnicka and the Polish students will be staying in Bialystok.

The language classes are scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of Week 1. We have scheduled these as 90 minute sessions, and they are totally optional.

Polish Alcohol

I'm sure the Polish participants in the program will be happy to introduce the Americans to the Polish wodkas. I'm not so worried about those since grain spirits are pretty much the same everywhere, and I assume that the Americans know their own limits. Please, for my sake, don't do something stupid and try to uphold your national pride on the basis of your capacity for alcoholic consumption.

The beer ("piwo") is what might creep up on Americans not used to travel. Polish beers tend toward the domestic macrobrews - a few large brands such as Zywiec, Tyskie, Lech, Warka, Zubr. These are mostly strong lagers, comparable to a heinekin (but much better tasting in my opinion). Alcohol content is about 5.5%-6%, and the serving size is either .3L (10oz) or .5L (17oz). The price difference between them usually means that the .5L is the better deal, and it looks like a pint. Just be aware that it's bigger than a pint and that the alcohol content is slightly higher than the American norm for domestic macrobrew lagers (3.5%-4.5%). 4 of these equals a 2 liter soda pop bottle full of moderately strong beer.

That concludes my alcohol safety tip for the day.

Changing money

My experience so far has been that I'm getting about 2.65PLN to $1.00 using my credit card. Mrs. Prof. B brought a bunch of cash and has been getting about the same from the Kantors, provided she shops around a little. We looked this morning and found one selling dollars at 2.86PLN to the dollar. Inside the shop, however, his buying rate was only 2.36PLN to the dollar, about what you would get inside the Warsaw airport. 100 feet away, another Kantor was buying USD at 2.65.

My ATM from MSUFCU works fine here, but the rate varies a lot. I'm averaging about 2.55 PLN to $1.00 on withdrawals, which is ok. I end up using my credit card a lot.

In real terms, this means that a decent .5L beer (17oz - slightly larger than a pint) at a cafe or restaurant usually runs about 8PLN ($3), pierogi with meat run about 12-14PLN ($4.60 - $5.40), a large greek salad with feta etc. is abou 16PLN ($6.15), a large kebab plate or sandwich is 16 PLN ($6.15). Mrs. Prof. B and I have been eating out at nice restaurants for an average of about 65PLN for our big meal for the day. I typically have a .5L beer (when I'm traveling, I usually drink beer just to avoid stomach issues) and she has a uniquely Polish cocktail called a tatanka, appetizer, soup (for her), two entres and a desert - this runs about 65PLN or $25 for a nice dinner for two. In the US, these dinners would run us at least $50-$65 US for the quality of food and dining experience we're getting. Also remember that we're staying and eating in the heart of Krakow at the height of tourist season. It's not as good as 2 years ago when the exchange rate was 3.50PLN to $1, but prices are very reasonable.

At the grocery around the corner from my hotel, I'm buying a loaf of bread that lasts me three days for 2PLN, prepackaged lunchmeat and cheese sufficient for 5-6 sandwiches for 10PLN, and if I wanted beer at the grocery .5L of a good beer would cost 3-4PLN per individual can. Basically, I could eat reasonably well on about $10 / day or less.

More on the Cloth Hall

My post yesterday about the Rynek Underground museum lacked context because it's kind of hard to describe the market square in Krakow. Basically, there has been a market here in some form or another for potentially 3000 years. Most of that was as a primitive village, so it probably doesn't count, but Krakow itself is more than 1000 years old as a city. The Rynek and a nearby church were what the city was built around. The Cloth Hall was a major center of trade for the entire region. Here is a picture with some perspective from the southeast corner near a small romanesque church that sits incongruously out in the middle of things:

And another from a different angle...

Inside the lower level under the arches are restaurants. Within the Cloth Hall are merchant stalls, generally dealing with varying degrees of tourist goods. There is some nice amber inside, but the better deals are supposed to be down in the Jewish Quarter or even just up the street. From an American perspective it is slightly surreal because the stall owners are generally content to let throngs of people wander past their wares without a single sales pitch. 

Rynek and the mysterious "Underground Tourist Route"

I'm in Krakow right now and loving it even more than the last time I spent a week here. Yesterday, we visited the Rynek (again), which is the largest market square in Europe. I found out what the Cracow-itinerary for the June 17-19 trip is referring to as the "Underground Tourist Route."

Described in more detail here: Rynek Underground review , the Underground Tourist Route refers to a new museum underneath the Cloth Hall at the center of the square. Quite simply, it is one of the best museum experiences I have ever seen. I say this as someone who will quite happily turn off the highway in South Dakota to visit the Corn Palace, or in Aberdeen, Kansas to visit the Greyhound Racing Museum, or drive 4.5 hours on a whim to take my kids to the Cleveland Natural History Museum and Art Museum (don't laugh -- all the Cleveland museums are endowed with monster trusts from the oil barons, etc.).

Not large, the museum under the Rynek is mostly an archeological and ethnographical exploration of Polish culture and history based upon archeological digs under the Cloth Hall that were only completed in 2010. The museum is a technological marvel, including complete explanations of all exhibits in English and numerous interactive touch-screen displays to explore the exhibits more fully. Exhibits include explanations of the archeology underlying the market square (a rich source of material since it included a graveyard (which also includes six vampire burials that are a curious mixture between Baltic and northern European vampire-killing and disposing techniques), markets, trash heaps, and paved structures. There are even a few artifacts from a Mongol raid on Krakow in the 1200s.

The museum is so good it kind of spoiled me for the Ethnographic Museum that my wife and I visited later in the Jewish Quarter. Those exhibits were also excellent, but more in the style of a local museum with placards and occasional explanations in English.

There's an App for that....

I don’t know much about Android apps, so you’re on your own for that. But iTunes has some great Polish language apps for the iPod Touch and iPhone that have already helped me order another beer correctly.

So far, I have found the following four apps really helpful in order of usefulness:

1.     1. 123 Learn Polish – Everyday Polish by RosMedia. I like this app a lot. It has an audio track that will read a list of words in Polish so you know the pronunciation. The audio track is only a single track for about 30 words per subject matter, so finding a particular word is difficult, but it’s still really helpful.

2.    2.  Polish Language Dictionary & Translator by BitKnights LLC – very good basic dictionary that is searchable in both English and Polish.

3.    3.  BidBox Vocabulary Trainer: English – Polish by BidBox. Useful only if you really want to start learning Polish. Very good for basic vocabulary, but if you don’t have pronunciation of the different letters down then it won’t help much.

4.     4. Learn Polish Vocabulary – WordPower by Innovative Language Learning LLC. I like this concept a lot and will be working with it more over the next few days. Basically, it hammers 10 vocabulary words into you per day so that you gradually build a working vocabulary in Polish. Pedagogically, this is a great way to get a foundation from which to learn the language better. Contractually, I had some problems when I attempted to sign up for a subscription to the associated website. Their customer service was cool, though, so I am giving them another chance. When you first start this app, though, it will suggest opening a free account at the associated website. Resist the urge to do so. I’ll be happy to let you look at my account when you get here if you want, but the “$5/month – cancel at any time” subscription offer does not mean what you might think it means.

We will be providing three days worth of Polish language introductory classes. My number one recommendation is that you learn how to pronounce Polish letters before you get here. It’s not as hard as it looks, and except for one exception involving a few consonants preceding the letter “I” it is absolutely regular. And the accent always goes on the second to last syllable.

Arriving at Warszawa Chopin Airport

With apologies for the poor quality of the pictures (I had to take them in a hurry), here is a guide to the Warszawa Chopin Airport arrival areas that you will enter from the baggage claims.  There are two baggage claim areas in the airport, connected to each other. The one that you go to will depend in part on whether you are flying in from an EU / Shengen Agreement country or from outside the EU. If your flight comes from inside the EU, you will probably end up at the large baggage claim area. If you are arriving on an international flight, you will probably end up at the smaller baggage claim area. To get to the smaller baggage claim area, as you come off the escalator / stairs, etc. in baggage claim, go right.

After you get your baggage, you’ll exit the baggage claim area. If you exit from the large baggage claim that you encountered first and look to your right, it will look something like this:

 If you go through the smaller baggage claim area for international arrivals / customs, when you exit you will see this:

And this little coffee shop / diner:

I believe it’s called the Flying Circus, but I’ll check again next Thursday when I’m back in the airport. The easy way to tell if you are in the main arrival area or the smaller arrival area is that the doors out of the airport have blue signs in the main arrival area and reddish signs in the smaller arrival area. It is not a large airport, so if you find yourself in the main arrival area, walk in the direction I’m looking in the first photo, keeping the convenience stores on your right. You’ll come to this sign at the beginning of the corridor connecting the two arrival areas:

Walk through the doors and stay right. You will see this corridor, hopefully slightly less blurry:

At the end of the corridor, it will look like this:

Where that guy is sitting  is one end of a row of truly uncomfortable metal benches/seats. Walk along it to the right and you’ll see the Flying Circus or whatever it is coffee shop.

We will plan to meet you right outside the Flying whatever restaurant / coffee shop pictured above. If no one is there (highly unlikely, but possible), just go in, order a cappucino, and hang out for a little bit. We will find you. If you’re getting really desperate, my cell phone is 48 514 692 188 (dialed in Poland), Dr. Krasnicka’s cell phone is: 48 606 556 228 (dialed from inside Poland), and you can contact our two liasons at: Ewelina Gruszewska:  +48 508 456 368 (dialed in Poland) / Magda Majewska:  +48 692 526 611 (dialed in Poland).

There are two ways to get to Bialystok – bus from the airport and train from downtown. Taxi fares from the airport to downtown run about $25 USD, less if there’s no traffic. The train station is a monstrosity of communist central architectural planning, and the customer service handbook was probably written by Benito Musolini. The train station itself is far more difficult and confusing to navigate than Spain, England, Austria, and even the United States. One of our adjunct professors who just taught in Lodz with me last week described it as a post-apocalyptic vision of Penn Central Station in NYC. Getting on the train involves a mob-rush to extraordinarily narrow doors, a fight for seating and luggage space, and no certainty that you will have a seat at the end of the day. We plan to send you by bus.

Again, you should not need this information at all. Unless you are arriving at an hour when we literally cannot get anyone from Bialystok out to Warsaw or you failed to provide us with your itinerary on this handy form: http://studyabroad.law.msu.edu/poland/contact.php , someone will be at the arrival area to meet you. They will have a sign with your name on it.

DO NOT TALK TO TAXI DRIVERS INSIDE THE AIRPORT TERMINAL. There is a regular taxi stand outside the doors with legitimate taxis or you may go to the taxi kiosk that you can see from the international arrivals baggage claim gate. The policja are very good at keeping the unlicensed cab drivers out of the airport but some inevitably get through.

If you really really need it, the way to get from the international arrival lobby to the bus terminal is to first stop at the ATMs (“bankomats”) that are behind the row of metal chairs at the international arrival baggage claim gate and get some cash. I don’t know what their exchange rate is. I do know that the further you get from the airport, the better the exchange rate – in the airport the Kantors will give you 230 zloty for $100 USD. In Krakow, my wife is getting 275 zloty per $100USD. You will need cash for the bus.

Next, stop at the information kiosk immediately in front of the international arrivals baggage claim gate. They speak English. Ask them to confirm how to get to the bus terminal and to explain to you how to buy a bus ticket to Bialystok. (I will do this myself next Thursday and give you a complete explanation).

To get to the bus terminal, exit by this door:

Looking right immediately, it will look like this:

 Walk down to where the woman is in the picture, turn left and it will look like this:

Walk past the construction that you see there and you will see the bus terminal:

The bus schedule is posted on a stand at the end of the fence.

You want the Podlasie Express bus to Bialystok. We’ll also make arrangements to meet you in Bialystok.