Christmas and New Year's in Our New Town

With any luck this will be my last long post, as it details the last of a very eventful month and year.  They would probably have been shorter, but I have been rather understandably busy of late.

The luggage we brought from Radom.  This is the train from Katowice.

 I know some of the pictures I've shown you and some of the things I've said of Gliwice capture the beauty of this city, but when we came here there were magnificent decorations and light displays everywhere one's feet can take them.  Our flat is on a street that follows what remains of the medieval town walls, and everything we could possibly want is within walking distance.  There had been a fire in our building which resulted in a great deal of water damage to the flat we lived in -- and Peter had only just finished renovating it for Zofia (our landlady, who lives in the flat when she comes to Poland and in Kamloops when she doesn't) when life started hitting the fan for us in Radom.  He does lovely work.  In addition to all the modern conveniences and gorgeous not-so-modern views, our new home came with a flatmate.  He is a very handsome, albiet hairy black adult male.

I am of course referring to our cat, Brutus.

He still seems to think he is a kitten, so he pesters the other cats that Peter and Christiana have at their place to no avail (they are both between 14 and 17) so he stays with Zofia when she returns to Gliwice.  Sarah and I both miss having a feline fiend around, so we happily agreed that he could come live with us when they offered.  They invited us to dinner the day after our arrival and we came home with our new companion, who was left to re-acquaint himself with the flat while we went to Tesco to get some of the necessary supplies for him and for us.

Brutus demonstrates why he wants to live with us.

 Fortune had one more nasty little insult to add to the injuries we had already sustained at her hands, however.  It came in the form of a stomach virus that first compromised our appetites, then made it so that we could not venture very far from a bathroom under any circumstances.  By turns it left us sick, exhausted, and a little humiliated over the next week.

For me it actually began in Radom, and I had initially thought that the loss of desire for food was mostly to do with all the stress of trying to move when we didn't know for sure that we would even need to leave until a few days beforehand.  When my stomach decided not to stay put on Monday morning, I thought nothing of it.  I believed it would just go away with a little bit of rest and a slowly paced meal...which very much worried Christiana when she invited us over for dinner again that night.  I began hoping for a Christmas miracle, but my stomach did not return until nearly the end of the week.  It struck Sarah on Boxing Day, and took about 4 days of eating nothing but rice and hamburger for either of us to stop our intestines from rebelling.  Aside from our Christmas activities, all we did in our first week of living in Gliwice was sleep.

Peter's Christmas Tree

Since we didn't know where we were going to be for Christmas, our shopping for our friends happened at the last minute.  Before we left Vancouver, we went to the market on Granville Island and found some postcards with Native art (which we brought with the intent of leaving as thank you gifts for friends and hosts along the way) -- so we already had an idea of what to do for Christiana.  All it needed was a frame.  Black picture frames are apparently rather difficult to find around Christmas time: lime-green and neon purple frames are all the rage, but black is difficult.  Ultimately, Sarah, Peter and I found ourselves at a hardware store near the edge of town because there were a few things he needed to return.  He and Sarah went to the hardware store to do what was needed and try to search for ribbon while I seized the opportunity to go to the mall across the parking lot and try to find the things necessary for our gifts (and Christmas decorations).  While I succeeded in finding a black picture frame, there was no wrapping paper to be found and the only ribbon Sarah could find would have matched the other picture frame options available to me.

This meant that I had to give Sarah her Christmas present early, since she is wonderfully crafty but needed paint brushes to make wrapping paper for our gifts.  We had a little time to ourselves and decided to go to the craft store on the market square so Sarah could choose her brushes, and we also managed to find the colour of ribbon we wanted for our wreath on the door!  On our way home we stopped at a small corner store to peruse their selection of Scotch whiskey for Peter since it seems to be one of his favorites.  We knew from previous conversations that he had only ever tried blended scotch of the variety that burns you from tongue to stomach when you drink it -- thus we arrived at the conclusion that for all he had done for us he deserved to taste a good single-malt from Scotland (the Glenlivet mentioned in a previous post).

One of the questions I've been asked most frequently by my students relates to the sorts of things people in Canada typically eat for major celebrations like Christmas and Easter.  I can imagine that if you're reading this, you're probably curious to know what a few Polish traditions are (unless you've already experienced them).  One major contrast between our two cultures is that Poles don't typically eat meat at Christmas.  In fact, the only meat-like substance they eat that day is a jellied carp.  Due to allergies I was unfortunately unable to try (and therefore describe) it, but I invite Sarah to do so in the comments.  Other typical Christmas foods are a clear borsch (that more or less only contains water and grated beetroot, but is very delicious), home made pierogi, and a special bread that is only made at Christmas.  It is very important to note that all of this is done on Christmas Eve, as Christmas Day is one of rest and visiting only.

Everything starts when the sun goes down.  We arrived just after dark and were welcomed by both Christiana and Peter (into an apartment that looked and smelled divine) with hugs and a kiss on the cheek.  While Christiana made the last few preparations in the kitchen, Peter explained a few of the customs in which we would be taking part.  Before supper, we all thought a quick prayer for the things worthy of our gratitude then went on to tell those around the table what we wished for each other.  In Poland, there is a special form of holy wafer that is made only at Christmas time and sold door to door.  At dinner on Christmas Eve the man of the house offers half of it to the lady, then tells her the things he wishes her to have in the coming year and she returns the favour.  They then continue the breaking of bread and sharing of wishes until everyone has told one another what they wish and have eaten their bread.  We all found it highly entertaining when -- having shared wishes with Christiana and Peter -- I turned to Sarah and found myself unable to speak because the wafer dissolving in my mouth had glued my tongue to the roof of my mouth.  Oddly enough, Sarah, Peter and I all had the same wishes for one another: good jobs and safe travels.

Fish is usually the first course (traditionally there are 12 in all, but it made no sense when only 4 were being fed), so by the leave of my hostess I went straight to the borsch.  I still felt horribly guilty about the whole thing -- not just because Christiana had gone to the effort of preparing what looked like a wonderful meal, but because my stomach had unfortunately chosen this time to hate me.  I had barely struggled my way through half a bowl of soup in the 24 hours prior to this meal, had fought and lost a battle with my stomach that morning and had not eaten anything else -- yet I still struggled with that beautiful bowl of borsch.  I was grateful that it was such a simple dish, or the purgatory that was this stomach virus would not have tolerated it.  I convinced my body that it wanted the slowly paced spoonfuls of broth and wrestled my way though mouthfuls of beet  -- and was making headway against my bowl until the pierogies were added.  I won't lie.  I love them.  Even though our first few weeks in Poland were spent eating little else because it was the only word we knew, they are still one of my favorite Slavic foods.  Unfortunately I only managed to get 2 out of three pierogies down before the vague rumbles of rebellion began and I was forced once more to return my attention to the beet soup that had been providing me with the simple nourishment that was threatening to leave my body in un-holiday like ways that I was determined would not come to pass.  My predicament reminded me a little of a passage I once heard read from Angela's Ashes in which the main character describes what happened after his first communion, and his grandmother calling the priest to see how best to deal with the mess.

Christiana and Peter both seemed very concerned that for whatever reason I didn't like the food, and no amount of explaining to them seemed to help the understanding that I was unwell, not dissatisfied with the meal.  Eventually, switching into my extremely limited German seemed to explain that my thirst was greater than my hunger -- though it would have helped me greatly if I had remembered at the time that the German word for sick is krank.  The evidence of my heroic battle against food was removed as the cheese cake and Christmas bread came out.  The cats had to help me with the cake, I am horribly sorry to say -- but I was quite pleased that the bread helped to quiet some of the gastronomic rioting.  We exchanged gifts after sweets and tea.  We were both very surprised and touched when she gave us each a pot of honey from the apiary of a family friend (we weren't aware that she had time with all of the preparations that had been made for both dinner and our arrival), and for a second I felt another twinge of guilt for our meager offering.  However, she seemed to be very much appreciative of her far-traveled artwork, which maintains a place of pride in the living room.  As for Peter, we still refuse to tell him the price of his gift since he would never forgive us.

After being slightly disappointed that the superstition about animals being able to use human speech at Christmas Eve did not seem to validate itself, we went home and I slept until the afternoon on Christmas Day.  Sarah woke me with a kiss and pressed something cold and metallic into my hand -- when I opened my eyes I saw a lock with two keys.  When we had come to Gliwice on the All Saints' weekend, we crossed a bridge on the way to the botanical garden that was covered in locks of all shapes and sizes...all of them covered with initials.  Peter had explained to us that couples came to the bridge with these locks to fasten them to the rails and throw the keys in the water as a way of promising that they would always be together.  There must be almost a hundred locks on this bridge, and I thought it was adorable then.  I still do.  She explained to me that she chose one of our locks that had two keys so we could each throw one in -- and she felt that using a combination lock would be cheating.

Our Christmas Tree

Christmas Day did indeed prove to be a day of eating and visiting with friends.  As we were finishing a simple lunch, some of Peter's friends came to call and were very curious as to the reasons why two Canadians had found their way to Poland, let alone Gliwice.  At some point, I will have a list of FAQ's we've encountered since we came here -- but that seems to be at the top of the list.  Smaller portions seemed to be my forté by dinnertime, and I managed another bowl of borsch with only a little struggle before we went over to our building to visit a 94 year old woman who didn't have a lot of family in town to see her on the holiday.  Christiana explained that we were going to be her next door neighbors for a few months -- at least while we searched for work in Gliwice.  She was every bit as tiny as I remember my great-grandmother being, but she was also still quite sharp and full of questions.  Afterward, we welcomed them into a home that was still a clutter of suitcases so that they could see what we had made of the tree ingredients we were given, and to see how Brutus was settling in with his new flatmates.  Once they went home, I resumed sleep.  The virus began to assail Sarah on Boxing Day, but she went for lunch while Christiana understandingly gave me permission to stay home and rest.  We didn't feel it would be courteous for both of us to beg off, and once she left I was so dead to the world that I didn't even notice Brutus coming to share my pillow.  In fact, I didn't even wake up when Sarah came home with some of the lunch that our friends had sent for me -- and make no mistake, Sarah had no intentions of letting me give into my stomach's demands of emptiness.  I ate some of the Christmas bread for her sake, then napped with her for a while before waking to sweat-drenched sheets and the first signs of hunger that I had encountered all week.  The soup was quite possibly the most delicious thing I had tasted even though I had to water it down to prevent its density from shattering the tentative truce between food and my digestive tract.

Brutus misunderstands "Pussy Riot"

Sarah and I both spent the rest of the week sleeping and watching movies online, but the noise of fireworks that had been persisting since Boxing Day still left us wondering what the excitement was about.  We did notice in our earlier excursions that fireworks were pretty well being sold everywhere leading up to the holidays and we were hearing its evidence through our walls.  On New Year's Eve we finally convinced each other to leave the flat for the first time since the disaster bug had begun to hit us both (until a diet of hamburger and rice for most of the week began to take effect, we couldn't have strayed very far).  The streets were mostly deserted, since it was 11:30 at night before we finally ventured out to find the festivities -- but the percussive sounds of fireworks eerily reminded us of some of this town's history as we walked through the mist and slight rain.  Finding nothing in the old square close to our house, we followed the lights, noise, and small trickle of people to a much larger party that was happening in a square close to the university.  A techno band was playing to the crowded park while fireworks accompanied them and hot-air lanterns floated off into the night.

We moved to the rhythm of the music and talked with a young man who tried to speak to us in Polish before quickly apologizing for his English.  He asked the standard questions, because he had never heard an accent like ours before in spite of studying with many people from the US.  He wished us luck, then later came back to ask us to help him take pictures with his friends, who were just as curious but spoke mostly Polish.  When midnight came, flares illuminated the square with phosphorescent blazes of light and fireworks danced across the sky -- I couldn't tell at first if it was real, or the product of that midnight kiss.  For a few seconds I think we were both pretty oblivious to the fact that we were being spattered with a fine mist of champagne from our neighbors a few feet away until our friend came to give us hugs and welcome us to his city.  He didn't move on until he had coaxed a New Year's kiss on the cheek from each of us, as he was single and had nobody to do it for him.

Life in 2013 had been eventful, to say the least.  We were starting the New Year in a new city, in a country far from home.  I was feeling properly alive and adventurous for the first time since returning to Radom from Krakow, and we had kissed a perfect stranger.

I can't speak for Sarah, but I took it as a sign that things were going to start looking up for us very soon.