of pierogi and cherry vodka.

I’ve tried to write about Poland three times now and somehow I never get past a few paragraphs. I don’t know if it’s laziness or ambivalence or if I’ve caught the ADHD bug that seems to be going around. 

Poland is amazing. Polish people are amazing. They are strong and proud and staunch, and maybe that was a little bit intimidating for a silly little passer-through from a country on the other side of the world. I just didn’t really… integrate.

Warsaw feels enormous but it’s actually slightly smaller than Auckland. The buildings are large and squat and Stalinist, the streets are wide as rugby fields; yet the centre is all warped silver and right-angles and glass, sort of American or Singaporean: 

I’d been to Poland before, and I really liked Krakow, but I know now that Krakow – with its aesthetically pleasing architecture and eclectic markets and paper-plate pierogi – was not really  an accurate representation of a country with 36 million people and a history of over a thousand years (yes I went to the museum). 

Poland is painfully emotional and yet…stoic. 

Anyway. 

Things of note:

IT IS ILLEGAL TO JAYWALK IN POLAND.
Yes, really. Everyone waits patiently, stoically, at every red man at the crossing. EVEN WHEN NOTHING IS COMING WTF.
I encountered this once before, in Japan. But it’s much easier to get away with being a dumb tourist in Japan (for obvious reasons). In Poland, where I look more or less like everyone else, I wasn’t about to risk the 200-zloty fine for skipping through a DON’T WALK light. It took an extra ten minutes to get to the gym each morning because I had to stop at nine different crossings and wait – stoically – with all the folks late for work and school and breakfast.

Polish cabbage is a beautiful thing.
I have never, ever been able to eat cabbage. Cabbage is hell. Cabbage is an entire night of gas and pain and misery.
But Poland takes cabbage and turns it into something not only tolerable but AMAZING. I got completely addicted to this pot of carrot-cabbage-cucumber coleslaw from the local budget supermarket and I still miss it.

Pierogi does not make you fat.
Well, maybe it does, but everyone in Poland eats pierogi (homemade is best, apparently, but I couldn’t source a Polish matka) and I saw zero fat people.
Polish dumplings are not like shitty Chinese dumplings. They are clean and wholesome and delicious, mainly because they actually contain meat and/or vegetables and not minced snouts. I had pierogi almost everyday (with coleslaw) and if I got fat then I didn’t notice.

Polish vodka is the best thing in the world.
Bison grass vodka may have *influenced* my decision to spend a month in Warsaw. And then I discovered cherry vodka, and pomegranate vodka, and mint vodka (ok that was shit).

Apartments are FAB.
Inflation has been a bastard to Poland (the recession, Covid, the war) but my 12th-floor apartment in Wola was the most luxurious place I’ve stayed in for, perhaps ever. I had a heat pump (that WORKED), a balcony, a full kitchen, a huge bathroom, a TV, and enough storage cupboards and brooms and cleaning sprays to equip the entire apartment block. And a view.

Polish milk bars are where you go for lunch.
And they don’t have milk. 
And they aren’t bars. But they are everywhere, and they serve ginormous portions of homemade traditional food: basically the Cobb & Co of Poland, but 10x cheaper and with better options.

Nobody smiles.
Well, nobody smiled at me.
But they did stare. My ugly feet and insane hair were on the receiving end of blank, bold-faced staring fairly much every time I stepped outside.

Polish runners wave to each other.
This must be a Polish thing because I haven’t encountered it anywhere else. Almost every single runner you pass in any part of the city – on a street, on the waterfront, through the quiet river trails – will give you a small (stoic) wave. No smile, but a definite wave.

Poland does gardens really, really well.
So many flowers! Every park, every street corner, every stray patch of grass is blooming with panies and tulips and irises.

Polish supermarkets will mess with your head.
Okay, groceries are definitely 100% cheaper in Poland than NZ, or most countries for that matter. But the price on the shelf and the price you pay at the checkout are entirely different things. The price in the largest print is what you’ll pay if you a) have the store membership card AND b) you have a Polish phone number AND c) you buy two or three or SEVEN of that item. Otherwise, you pay four times the price BUT YOU DON’T KNOW THIS UNTIL YOU GET HOME.

Humans are shit.
Poland is a living reminder that humans are the worst species on earth. If you go, visit the Warsaw Uprising and the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

The weather is f*cking insane.
I know, the weather is broken everywhere. But I arrived in Warsaw on a rainy Sunday night and it was a nice, autumnal 14 degrees. The following Saturday it SNOWED. It snowed again on the Thursday. A week later, it was 28 degrees and everyone was confused and wearing coats and collapsing.

Polish are like, really competitive.
I entered the Poznan Polmaraton because the Warsaw half-marathon sold out mere seconds after I booked my flights. But Poznan turned out to be a fabulous plan B, if only because I have never (and never will again) run 21km with 14000 people in 25 degrees alongside live DJs, fireworks, drums, smoke guns, choirs, chants, handmade signs, stereo systems, mums, dads, children, dogs, and pots and pans.

Poland is okay with weeing in the open.
At least, that’s what I gathered from the abundance of open urinals at the half-marathon base.

American tourists are nauseating in every country.
Sorry, but, jesus. So loud. Everywhere.

The Polish like bananas.
Okay, random, but I saw more people eating bananas in Poland than I have in any other country.