I just came back to this blog to reminisce. Its almost been a year since I started it. I did write a final post on June 26, detailing the finale of my adventure (including Dorothee’s word: mysterium), but it got lost in the Interwebs when Charlie moved the databases. Of course it was very cleverly written and super-awesome, and I have been lamenting its disappearance for the past several months.

I couldn’t hope to recapture the essence of that blog post, so I never bothered trying to rewrite it, but I decided it’s time to bring closure to this saga, on the record, for myself in the future more than for you, Reader. (Though I do love you.) Of course it’s several months down the road, and I can’t recall all the details, so thank God that I wrote a lot of e-mails to my mom and I use Gmail.

The End of the Cat Story

In June, the time was drawing near to recoup the cat from Magda the Cat Lady and make arrangements to send it to the United States. I was imagining that I’d be able to take it on the plane with me but I found out that would be impossible: I was flying British Airways, and they don’t take pets on Sundays. Of course. So we turned to dedicated pet transfer services.

E-mail to Mom, June 9

so kasia and i found a place that can do it for 1000 zl. we just emailed the cat lady to see if she can for sure bring the caton thursday the 24, and if so, ill send the cat on the 25th. if all goes well, youll have to pick the cat up on the 25th around 3pm in chicago…. but i will give the company your information so i suspect theyll call to confirm the time and place.

other good news is they take care of all the messy stuff (documents and whatever) so all i have to do is drop off the cat for them. they even give it a cage, but i think i might have to pay a bit extra for that.

anyway, ill let you know when it’s for sure. hopefully we hear from the cat lady tonight.

in other news, i found out i have to move outta my dorm on friday, since the admin office is only open m-f. so ill have to stay f and s night at a hostel or something. blah.

so ill let you know the deets when i know everything for sure… just thought id let you know asap in case youre waiting on the edge of your seat to hear some news.

E-mail from Kasia, June 9

she said it’s excactly how i remember and the cat is going to get the passport tomorrow. or at least, she’s going tomorrow to make it.

on Saturday, a girl from Warsaw will be there to see one of the cats and she could bring the cat (she says ours:) tell it to your sisters:)), that way, we would have the cat on Sunday. what do we say?:) oh, and the girl has a car. and she didn’t ask her, so she don;t know if she’ll agree. (i know after “if” i should write something different… sorry….)

there are 9 new cats, and they’re great. Magda said it’s getting crowdy at home, so she start thinking of moving out. haha

tell me, what should i write to her.

E-mail to Dorcel Transfer Service, June 10

Hello,

My friend called you yesterday (she speaks Polish; I don’t) to talk about sending a kitten to the United States. It’s been confirmed, and I’d like to move forward with the reservation process. Here’s the information you asked for:

Date of Travel: Friday, June 25

I understand I should drop off the kitten at least 4 hours before the flight. It’s no problem for me to have the cat at the airport as early as 7 or 8 a.m., so this is no problem.

Cat: 4.5-month-old Siberian kitten

My friend told me that you could even supply a cage for the cat. I assume this would cost a bit extra, but I’d like to do it this way because it would be a huge convenience for me to not have to worry about it. Also, I’ve talked to the receiver (my mother) and she said she’ll be able to be at Chicago at 15.15 on Friday, June 25, to pick up the cat. I assume you’ll work with her to give her more details also.

Please let me know the next steps in making this reservation.

Thank you very much for all your help.

Sincerely,

Tim Gorichanaz

E-mail from Mom, June 15

Do you need money??  Or are you really starving?

Kasia was set to pick up the cat from the cat lady’s friend on June 16. She had the unluck of being the one who had to communicate with the cat lady and the cat lady’s friend, find our where she lived (at the last metro stop out of town) and deal with the problems that arose when the lady didn’t appear to be home. Finally, she got the cat.

E-mail from Kasia, June 17

yes, we do have the cat. finally, since about 11 pm… it’s actually really cool. trained. and we have to /stroke?/ it all the time…

E-mail to Mom, June 21

Cat crate – Well, I just found out this weekend that the cat lady gave her friend the cat in a crate, and the cat lady’s friend also gave Kasia the cat in this crate. So atm we don’t know if we’re supposed to actually have the crate… Kasia suspects that the cat lady’s friend wasn’t supposed to give it to us. So last night Kasia e-mailed the cat lady asking if she wants the cage back… If she says yes, then we’ll offer to buy it. But I think she’ll say no…

E-mail to Kasia, June 21

E-mail from Kasia on Piotrek’s Gmail account, June 22

Magda just called me and, hold your breath, she gave us wrong cat. !. she’s asking, if we can send cat next week, so she can switch them on sat.

Chat with Kasia on Piotrek’s Gmail account, June 22

Piotr: Tim?

me: yeah

Piotr: she said, that she needs to know it now, because if we can’t send the cat later, she has to take a day off at work and go to Warsaw

me: well, it’s up to you if you want to send the cat later i guess. if you want to wake up at 6 next friday to go to the airport. i wouldnt want to make you do that though. so in my opinion, just tell her she’s going to have to come to warsaw herself

Piotr: did you get any informations from dorcel? did you set the date?

me: yes, the date is set

but if we really really had to change it im sure it’d be fine. but again, that’s in your ballpark, the decision isn’t up to me

Piotr: i think it’s not such a big deal for me to send the cat. the question is only, if i won’t kill it living with it for another week. oh, and if it won’t eat me. she likes to bite

me: again, thats in your ballpark, haha

well, make sure your door is closed when youre sleeping but really, its her mistake so she shouldnt have to inconvenience you for it

Piotr: it sleeps in my bed…

me: oh hahah

Piotr: well.. actually… it slept at least once, because normaly when i wake up it runs all over the place. ok, i’ll tell her we would really prefer to send it now, but if it’s an anormous problem, than…

me: o

Piotr: i call her

me: ok. now?

Piotr: she’s not answering

me: awesome

Piotr: she told me, she’ll be up till 11, and that she would call me. maybe i should jhust send her text? i’m always better in writing…

me: lol ok. oh did she say anything about that email? lol

Piotr: i don’t know, didn’t check my mail

me: ok

Piotr: ok, i probobly should go, my brother is really angry that i’m using his computer (linux doesn’t work either)/ i’ll try to write you what happened. if not, we meet tomorrow, right?

me: right. see you then

E-mail from Mom, June 22

What??????????????  Now what???

E-mail from Dorcel, June 24

That day, Kasia and I had no idea what was going on. We still had a cat that wasn’t ours (though we did have the booking to send a cat to the U.S. the next day). We had been in touch with Magda the Cat Lady and thought she was coming that night, but it didn’t happen that way. I didn’t have a phone to call Kasia, and Kasia wasn’t near her e-mail to answer me. Moreover, Magda wasn’t being very responsive. She had told us something about she was planning to take a train to Warsaw, and we thought she’d arrive that afternoon.

If everything went well, Kasia would be meeting with Magda during the daytime to switch the cats, and I’d meet Kasia at her house that night. I’d stay over so that Kasia and I could wake up at 6 and take the cat to the airport. Having not heard anything from anyone about anything, I hoped that things were going right and that night I took the bus to Kasia’s place. I knocked on her door, and hoped she’d be home. She was.

But she didn’t have the right cat yet. She had heard from Magda, who was apparently instead arriving in the morning. We didn’t know if she’d get there on time (or if she knew how to get to the airport), but we did find out that she actually did have the vet certificate we needed and the pet passport. That was a relief.

We woke up in the morning and took the wrong cat to the airport, where we’d wait. Kasia finally got a hold of Magda, who was thankfully on the way, and she only arrived about a half-hour later than we’d scheduled. It was a chore finding her… There were two different buildings with mazes for hallways.

Eventually, though, everything worked out.

E-mail to Mom, June 25

Okay, go to Chicago.

And that’s the story of how Miłosz came to America.

In Other News

That’s certainly the most exciting thing that was happening those last few days in Poland. That afternoon, after leaving the cat in the hands of Dorcel, I packed up and moved out of my semi-beloved dorm. I left some books there and threw out a bunch of junk. I donated a bunch of clothes in those clothes-donations-bins on the street. And then I rolled my life’s belongings down the street to the tram, which I took to the city center, and then rolled it some more to Hostel Green Mazovia.

The hostel was so cool. It was in the third or fourth story of a nondescript old building. It had enormously high ceilings and thick, rich rugs that covered the beautiful (though creaky) hardwood floors. Sitting around in that hostel, I felt like I ought to be smoking a pipe. It was that kind of place.

Dorothee had left a few days prior, saying goodbye with a “Mexican” goodbye party at which we ate, watched soccer and all-around had a good time. It was the perfect conclusion to a great semester of having her as a good friend.

My last few days in Poland I revisited all my favorite places: Muzeum Narodowe and Złote Tarasy, principally. I hung out with Kasia, too.

Also, I started hearing back from agency queries that I’d sent out for my first novel The Sage. No good news, really, but that’s just the way it goes.

I’m dearly sorry, dear reader. First, I haven’t written in a bit. Second, I went ahead and trained to Gdansk last week but forgot to tell you all about it. Well, if you thought I was going to tell you about it here, you’ve got another thing coming. The good news is, though, that you can find at least a bazillion photos from my little excursion on my Facebook album here (actual number of photos may vary).

Seriously, I have meant to do a lot more posts. In fact, I have a little text file staring at me from my Desktop, full of post topics and sentence fragments. Really, it’d only take the crumbiest bit of brainpower to string those fragments into blog posts (especially given what passes for journalistic content these days), but I haven’t been able to muster it.

It’s just that I’ve been so busy, doing all sorts of, you know, work and stuff. Actually, I have been getting to a lot of the tourist sites I’ve been putting off until the last minute, like the super-awesome Wilanów Poster Museum (my photos here). Oh, and the Siberian Cat Story has struck again with a super stressful sequel that I and my unfortunate mentorka Kasia have had to deal with.

Though I’m a worthless good-for-nothing, I promise you I will post at least one more story on this blogamajigger to bring closure to my study abroad experience (right) or at least to puke out (in five-word fragments) some of the adventures I’ve been withholding.

Look forward to that mess either on Saturday if I’m seriously bored (depending on the outcome of the big game), or after I get home on Sunday (fat chance). No, really, I owe you one more post. And maybe it’ll even include the awesome word my German friend Dorothee made up.

By the way, the photo in this post is neither from Gdansk nor Malbork. Take that.

In less than two weeks, I’ll be back home. And I can’t wait.

I guess I’m weird. Supposedly when people study abroad, they’re supposed to fall in love with where they are and all their fun and exciting study abroad friends… and they’re supposed to never want to leave. In their last weeks, they’re supposed to be so motivated to make the most of their last days, and on they’re last day, they’re supposed to be bawling.

Yeah, that’s not going to happen to me.

It’s not that I don’t like it here; I do. Like the country that is. And I really like a few of the people here. The problem is everyone else. But most of all, I’m getting dead-tired of my living situation here. Won’t say anything else about that because who know’s who’s reading this, but let it suffice to say that I really, desperately want to run Repair Disk on my hard drive but I forgot to bring my OS X install disk to Poland.

Another root of my, uh, discomfort may lie in the true reason I came to Poland: to finish my novel. I didn’t come here to make great friends that I’d never see again or to booze every night because you don’t have to be 21 to drink. I didn’t come here for the time of my life. I really did come here for a quiet place to write my book—and learn a lot about a new culture and do some traveling in the meantime (okay, okay, and make a few—FEW— real friends)… but now that the book’s done, there’s no gold-leaf covering the rat’s nest, as it were.

And then there’s the whole issue that I have no money. Why am I always thinking about money? I guess I’m just really insecure. Anyway, I’ve literally spent the whole semester spending money without any way to make money, and I’m at the end of my rope here. I just keep thinking about how I’m going to have to find a job when I get home and dig myself out of debt and blah blah blah, which has kind of put a damper on my spirits. So that’s why I’m reading Harry Potter.

Oh, and I’m also getting too stoked to launch my career as a fine artist and illustrator. Brace yourselves; I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve…

Despite all this stuff, though, I’m not quite ready to go home. I still have to see the fabled Wilanów Palace and the Poster Museum. I’m also gonna visit the Royal Castle again to see a collection of art that’s on loan here from Cracow (including the da Vinci piece). I’m also working on a little art project of the Old Town Market Square. I want to do another photo walk or two to see some parts of the city I somehow still haven’t gotten to… So all that’s gonna take some time.

Oh, and I’m going to Gdansk tomorrow. Later.

I just found out I had some notes for this in a long-forgotten draft. Seeing as I haven’t posted in a while, I thought now’s as good a time as any.

Perhaps the most fantastic part of any travel experience is trying new food. As you’d duh, I’ve never hesitated to try something I’ve never heard of here, and I consider myself all the more enriched for it. In fact, I can’t remember the names of most things I’ve tried, but nonetheless I feel qualified to make a few mopping generalizations about Polish cuisine.

1. The Polish love cabbage

There’s something sketchy about cabbage that makes it different from normal lettuce, and I suspect that it’s this exact quality that Poles love. You can find cabbage in many traditional dishes here. Two name two spectacular ones: gołąbki (cabbage rolls) and bigos (a sort of stew). Read about ‘em, find some recipes and make ‘em today.

2. They don’t know sweets like Americans

Let me first say that I’ve had some great cakes and other sweets here in Poland. Wawel-brand Krówki are simply unparalleled (not even the Latin American dulce de leche stands a chance), and Kasia’s mom made me this admittedly strange—but delicious—casserole of plain pasta, cooked strawberries and sweet cheese (just put them together and mix it all up. I don’t know what it’s called and I can only guess how to make it, but it seems simple enough).

But anyway, I’ve found that, in the grocery store, baked sweets are to be avoided. Simple reason: They look good (sometimes), but they’re never half as good as they ought to be (or would be, were we in America). I bought pączki from the grocery store once—mistake. I bought some little cakes from the grocery store once—kind of awful, and it was even thoughtful enough to coat my mouth in wax. I bought some delicious-looking pastries from the grocery store once—gross.

So maybe the verdict is that I just need to find a new grocery store.

Or get an oven. That’d be nice. (High on my list of things I miss about home…)

But even so, there’s nothing in Poland that’s quite like a Cinnabon. So take heart, America, even when Hong Kong and India are threatening to steal our King of the World crown, we’ve still got something unequaled.

3. Pierogi are fantastic

You probably know about pierogi—almost everyone seems to have known about them (they even mentioned them in an episode of 30 Rock)—but I never heard of them till I came to Poland. In case you don’t know, let me explain: They’re dumplings filled with anything you want. Just little tender treasure chests of boiled dough.

What’s inside? Sometimes it’ll be sweet, creamy cheese (like a cross between cottage cheese and cream cheese). Sometimes it’s just meat (type unspecified… yes, sketchy). Sometimes it’s spinach. Or mushrooms. Or a mix of random. There are also sweet ones: Blueberries and strawberries are popular fillings. The best part is you can even invent your own… like a Build-a-Bear.

Anyhow, the wonder of pierogi is that they’re just plain old peasant food, but they’re so delicious and filling. And here’s a not-so-secret (but heretical) thing I like to do: brown them a bit on the frying pan before eating ‘em (as in my photo). It makes them a bit more delicious, but demotes their status from Polish traditional dish to American bastardization (although I’d like to point out that a fair number of Poles brown their pierogi, too).

4. Home cooking is the best

Well, duh.

5. I LOVE HORTEX

Hortex makes really, really fantastic juices. They have a product line called Vitaminka that I buy religiously… Vitaminka juices come in a number of flavor combinations; they all have apple and carrot (sounds weird, I know, but it’s good) and the third ingredient can be strawberry, raspberry, banana, pineapple, peach… Please, God, tell me they have similar juice in the States, because I’ll really miss this. (Well, I guess I could get a juicer and make it myself…)

Okay, that’s all. Now let me get back to my strict diet of buckwheat and lentils….

So I wish I could tell you more about my latest escapades, about how I got into a fight with some Polish hoods in a streetcar or about the time I almost got arrested for jaywalking but out jayran the cops. Or about when I met a nice old Chinese woman when I was practicing Tai Chi in the park. Or about that time the bouncer didn’t want to let us in the club but I convinced him that I was an American celebrity and I was coming in with my entourage whether he liked it our not. Or even about the time Dorothee and I were this close to stealing—no, rescuing—the chameleon from the Warsaw Zoo. I’d tell you more about all those things if it weren’t for the fact that none of those things actually happened.

Anyway, everything here is świetnie. Or, fine at least. Except for the fact that I’m in the monetary red zone—well, far past it. But much like you can drive 10 miles past the E, the human body can survive up to a month without any food (or so I hear), so I’m not really worried about dying.

I finished class yesterday, and now I’m on summer vacation. As if I weren’t on vacation before. Really, not having class is only going to give me an extra 10 or so hours a week. Ha… I totally stormed my Polish class, by the way, and I’m facing a difficult crossroads in my life right now: I’m trying to decide whether to throw all this Polish grammar out the airplane window or continue studying it at home for novelty purposes. Help me decide.

Besides that, I’ve really been up to absolutely nothing. Watching TV shows, doing more paintings, working my second novel (Oh, you haven’t read my first one yet?) and drinking tea. Sorry, I wish I could be more entertaining for you.

After promising myself I wouldn’t do it again, I took another dip in the Eurozone this weekend on a trip to Berlin. (Reason being, the trip was too good a value to pass up.) Of course I expected to see at least one museum, the Berlin wall and the other obvious sights, but little did I know the trip would be super alternative, and we’d see Berlin in a pretty atypical way.

On Friday, for instance, we went to this art gallery, where we saw perhaps the most pretentious art exhibition in Berlin: a sound installation. We sat in a dark room (only populated by a few spotlit rocking horses on a square of fake grass) and listened to a girl reading parts of a German poem in freaky voices for 20 minutes.

The entire idea was almost too much for me, and I wanted to hate it just out of principle. Should this gallery really make money by charging people to sit in a room? Does sound art belong in gallery space—a channel traditionally reserved for visual arts? When I found myself thinking these things, I decided that I couldn’t condemn the installation; it made me think in a way that “normal” exhibitions often don’t.

Moreover, when our Berliner friend explained the poem to us afterward, I found I could really appreciate the artist’s work in itself. The poem is “Erlkönig” by Goethe, a cool story about a father trying to save his dying and delusional son; it’s well-known by all Germans (they read it in gradeschool), and the author’s interpretation of the poem would obviously engage German listeners.

Fast forward to dinner on Friday night, when we went to a place that “doesn’t really have food.” Apparently someone just buys a bunch of vegan-whatever-they-want every day, cooks it up, and then charges the magnetized locals a few euros for all they can eat. Picture that all the non-us people in the dark place are wearing things like slim-cut leather and zebra-print leggings (men, that is) with spoony haircuts. Now imagine this set to a screamo death metal playlist and couple this with the fact that we were forbidden to take photos inside the building and the testimony of my friend that she saw someone cutting lines of cocaine in the bathroom, and you’ll have a picture of what this place is like.

Anyway, the food was really good. Really, really good, actually, but it lacked protein of any sort, and none of us were really satisfied afterward, unfortunately. I could have been really disappointed by this, but I was grateful for the really—err—rich experience.

After dinner, I saw a woman riding a unicycle while pushing her baby in a stroller. True story. I tried to take a picture, but I was a little slow with the camera.

The next day we saw some other parts of Berlin. (That’s a really interesting thing about the city; each district is so distinct.) We took a tour at the awesome Berlin Underground Museum (highly recommended) and I had some currywurst (yum). Later, we took a stroll through the annual Carnival of Cultures, which was just okay in my book. I would have thought it was way cooler if I didn’t live in a city that had such festivals more or less every weekend all summer long.

On Sunday, we spent most of the day at a really cool park/flea market where they sold everything from fine art to garage sale–certified garbage (like Smurf McDonalds toys, for instance). I picked up a few books and had a crepe with Nutella, like you should every day for optimal health.

For lunch/dinner—our last meal in Berlin—we ate at what was supposed to be an Indian-Palestinian restaurant but actually turned out to be a Sri Lankan restaurant. Again, the food was good, but it was lacking in certain (and by “certain” I mean “any”) animal products that would have made it excellent.

Anyhow, Berlin’s a fantastic city, and I’m glad I had the opp to go.

See more pictures in my Facebuch album.

Oh, and in case you haven’t heard, this entire country got flooded this weekend. Looks like some tragedy happens every time I leave Poland…

I was really worried about going to Cracow. But not because I thought I’d get kidnapped in a taxi and wake up with both-kidneys-a-lung-and-my-liver removed (that’s a fear I reserve only for Latin America). No, I was deeply afraid that I’d be instantly captivated by Cracow—and that I’d wish I spent my semester there instead of dreary old Warsaw.

Talking to other people, the unanimous opinion emerged that Cracow is vastly superior—culturally, architecturally and interestingly—to Warsaw. With that in mind, I prepared for the worst.

Well, Wawel was very cool and I’m so glad that I was fortunate enough to see it (and on Night of the Museums, no less—we got in for free). And I don’t yet know how influential the Marcin Maciejowski exhibition in Cracow’s National Museum will have been for me. (You’ll see.) If you’re so inclined, check out his work; he’s good.

But, overall, I am proud to report that Cracow isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and my happiness with fortune for tossing me in Warsaw has at least doubled. (So glad I didn’t intend that to be a pun; I’d be ashamed of myself.) Cracow’s a lot smaller and a lot older. It has some really nice architecture and gardens, but all the modern-looking signs and posters take away from their integrity. Sure, Warsaw has its modern-looking signs and posters, but at least here they fit better.

Cracow itself feels cramped. Moreover, the streets are tiny and full full full of tourists bobbling here and there (even British ones in king crab Halloween costumes making lots of noise while sitting in cafes).

So anyway, Cracow is nice to visit, but I’m glad I’m living in Warsaw.

Oh, also visited Auschwitz… It is, as you might expect, a very terrible place.

To cheer you up, I’ll leave you with this:

Just thought you might like to know that I was invited to a wedding last night.

Yeah, some random Polish girl was going around the dorm asking everyone to accompany her to her roommate’s wedding on May 22. (Apparently that’s a very Polish thing to do.) I was just wondering how it’s possible that she, a girl from Warsaw, has nobody else in her life who’d go to a wedding with her. In any case, neither Fabio nor I had to make up an excuse, though; Fabio has a concert that night, and I’ll be in Berlin for the whole weekend.

Speaking of not having to make up excuses, I also recently lucked out in another area. My Spanish teachers here wanted me to participate in this weird bicentennial event celebrating the independence of the various Latin American countries (all around 1810). I never really wanted to do this, but I agreed because I figured it couldn’t be that bad, and all I’d have to do is read a simple poem.

But then I found out Angela (who’s studying in France this semester) is coming to visit me and Warsaw on that day and I didn’t really want to spend 2 to 3 hours holed up with a bunch of Spanish-speaking expats and goggling Polish kids.

Anyway, I started wishing I’d thought of a good excuse to get me off the boat—and then it happened: I found out the event was a black-tie gala, meaning I’d have to wear a suit. Well, seeing as I don’t even own a suit at home, I don’t have one here. And my dwindling Food & Rent Fund has long since crunched beyond what most would consider a comfortable budget. So, niestety, I had no choice but to resign from the centennial. Qué lástima.

(I have decided, though, that maybe I should get a suit when I get home.)

And now that I think about it, what would I have worn to that wedding?

Today I found the coolest store that I’ll probably never buy anything from (well, if I can help myself), not because they don’t have good stuff—quite the opposite, in fact—but because it’s terribly expensive.

If you couldn’t tell by the name, it’s a shop that sells food items from all over the world. Unfortunately, these things cost a bit more than they do in their home countries… Anyway, it’s a pretty awesome idea for a store (I believe there’s one in most big cities, so I guess it’s really nothing so special).

So in case you’re wondering, here’s some stuff I found in there:

Dr Pepper — 4zl ($1.24) per can

Guaraná (my favorite soda from Brazil) — 5.50zl ($1.70) per can

Pop Tarts — 29zl ($8.96) per box

Valentina (Mexican hot sauce) — 13.50zl ($4.17) per bottle

Squeeze Cheese (same brand you’d find in a dollar store at home) — 15zl ($4.64) per bottle

Nice!

By the way, the photo in this post comes from Zlote Tarasy’s Web site because I didn’t have the presence of mind to take my own picture when I was there today (even though I had my camera).

By the way, I finished my novel not too long ago. I’m sure it’ll change a bit more before it finds its way into the world, but if you’d like to start reading it, you can find the first two chapters right here. (No, I won’t tell you anything else about it. Just read it… It’s short.)

My second novel (but not a sequel) is already in the planning stages. So many stories to tell, so little time.