The lighter side of Albania

Through a twist of fate and the willingness of a tiny school in Albania to once again host over 40 middle school students from all over Europe, the Kielbasa Chronicle made a return trip to Tirana this year. I remember last year, tearing the four pages out of my tattered Eastern Europe guidebook, thinking I would only have to research Albanian words, food, and directions once in my life. After all, this tiny bunker-strewn wasteland is not exactly known as a tourist hot-spot. The food is great, the weather is mild this time of year, but clean and orderly it is definitely not.

Despite having made the same trip last year, five of the twelve kids on the cross country team made the return voyage, so they must have had a good time. We also brought along the czar of CEESA athletics and our athletic director, Jim Matter. My assistant coach from last year, Rachel, could not make the trip since she had a baby a few months ago, so the new addition to the coaching staff, who absolutely loved the trip, was Barbara, our middle school German teacher.

After four years, and missing it by a whisker a couple times, the boys’ team brought home the championship trophy, and their coach couldn’t have been prouder. The great thing about working with kids this age is that they have almost no experience to draw upon, so there is also little fear of failure. Just go out and run for the fun of it. Being on the trip is reward enough. It’s certainly a far cry from the days of coaching high school cross country where the season started Aug. 12 and ended the last weekend in October, with the kids running six days a week. We needed to employ all kinds of strategies, from bowling nights to camp-outs, just to keep the kids engaged. I have many good memories of those years, but don’t miss the level of commitment required.

It was a stress-free trip with a great bunch of kids who were so much fun to travel with. Sometimes teenagers have tendency to whine when things aren’t so entertaining, but this group was complaint free. The adults were also, and we even found time to rent a bus for an afternoon on the Albanian coast. After driving many air-condition deprived miles down potholed roads and passing through countryside which probably hadn’t changed in 50 years, we arrived at a remote beach, inhabited by only us foreigners and the staff of a tiny restaurant & seaside cabana rental. The fresh seafood dinner was phenomenal, as we enjoyed the company of our fellow coaches from Budapest, Moscow, Prague, and Zagreb. We all had to agree that middle school cross country was by far the most relaxing sport to coach.

Oktoberfest in Munich!

If you aren’t paying attention at Oktoberfest, you will get your ass kicked. It’s not because of anything you did to provoke somebody’s wrath. You can just be standing in the beer tent enjoying the festivities, drinking in both the suds and the atmosphere, and you will first hear a warning. This comes in the form of a whistle. Not the kind you hear at a rock concert or sporting event, but an actual whistle. The referee kind. If you do not heed the warning and get out of the way in a timely manner, you will receive the foot of a sturdy but mature-looking German woman right between your butt cheeks.

This happened to me at the Paulaner tent on a sun-drenched Saturday afternoon. I don’t blame her for doing this. After all, she needed to deliver a flock of broasted chickens to some hungry festival goers and I was oblivious to the urgency of the situation. I’m sure I was not the first ass she kicked that day and there would undoubtedly be many more to come as the crowd became increasingly lubricated.

The tents. Paulaner. Haufbrauhaus. Augustiner. Lowenbrau and a score of others I can’t remotely pronounce. If I tried, it would sound like an attack of bronchitis. They are set out in succession along the back row of the festival grounds, gleaming temples devoted to the art of brewing and the ritual of imbibing. Each holds around 10,000 from around the world, some having reserved their place at the long wooden tables over a year in advance. If you are lucky enough to gain entrance sans reservation, you will be treated to a spectacle that can only be found annually for two autumnal weeks in Munich.

The beer is why they have made their pilgrimage. The natives, in all shapes and sizes, sporting lederhosen passed down from generation to generation for just this occasion. Australians with their yellow “Fanatics” t-shirts. The Brits, Scots, and Irish clad in their rugby jerseys. Americans in their university hoodies. and the Italians looking . . . Italian. Gelled, slicked back hair, high-priced T’s stamped with designer names, and gold-plated chains around their necks, ready to throw themselves at anything in a traditional dress.

The dirndl. Some are born to wear it, with their ample curves almost spilling forth from the bodice. Others look just a bit too ample for the form-fitting corset. But that doesn’t stop them from trying to squeeze into one for a few days while swilling beers and noshing on the cornucopia of pork products to be found around every corner of the legendary grounds. My traveling companion, despite looking fetching in her budget costume, felt a bit out of place since hers was cut comparatively high, eliciting more than a few stares and catcalls. Feeling self conscious and a bit allergenic, the dress lasted a few hours before being jettisoned, but the pictures were worth the price.

The weekend went by fast, a blur of hoisted beer steins and the ooompah of brass polka bands. This was one trip I won't soon forget. Hope to be there in 2010!

Part II: Think positive. At least now you have zero chance of dying!

Back in the friendly confines of the Polskaland and taking time to savor the little day-to-day intricacies that make working and living here a true pleasure. School has started, the kids have been rejuvenated by a full summer of doing nothing and the editor of the KC has been newly minted as a master of education, whatever that means. Take it with a grain of salt since this is only year 10 of what I feel might be a Ripkenesque career as an educator.

Or maybe I should use a Brett Favre analogy? Here's hoping I don't need a veritable cocktail of painkillers to make it through my day when I'm in my early 40's. By the way, I really have no feelings about the Vikings' signing of the scourge of Green Bay since the boys in purple have been dead to me since the ruinous end of the 1998 season, which you can relive in painful, raw detail here. It almost brought me to tears all over again, but some masochistic part of me watched it until the bitter end. Damn you Gary Anderson! Or maybe I should be thanking him since the last 11 years of Sundays have seen me anesthetized toward any feeling of living vicariously through grossly overpaid athletes that couldn't care less about the average fan. But I'm NOT bitter.

Anyway . . . I never did finish my story about Pamplona. I will let the rest of it pour forth in the hope that it will provide some catharsis and rationalization. Where was I?

The running takes place at 8:00 AM every day for the whole 8 day festival. The average time it takes for the bulls to get through the 850 meter course (about 1/2 mile) is around 3 1/2 minutes. At around 6:30, I was lined up at where I thought would be an ideal spot (see video), midway between point 5 and 6 on the map. My thinking was that I would only be faced with a short 200 meter pants-filled dash into the bullfighting arena where I would bask for a few seconds in the admiration of the cheering throngs while simultaneously getting the hell outta the way of 1,500 pounds of pissed off hamburger. The rest of my traveling party had retreated to a balcony overlooking the course, for which they each paid 40 Euros, including breakfast.

About 6:45, Juan Law (Spanish cousin of Johnny Law), started clearing the streets. They had an ingenious method of closing the gates on each cross street to divide the course into one block sections, separating the crowd that was trying to do the same thing I was doing. Us glory-hounds were quickly surrounded by cops in nasty-looking berets and forcibly removed from the course. Oops. Didn't read anything in my research about that. Back to the drawing board. So I had been pushed off the course around point #6. I then needed to hightail it all the way back to the start, fighting my way through drunken cowards the whole time. I made it all the way back to #3 in the main plaza about 200 meters from where they release the bulls. There was a huge crowd assembled and all of them had that "What the eff have I gotten myself into?" look of terror on their face. In fact, there was even a procession of people lined up behind the cops who marched them out of the plaza after they elected to "use better judgement" as my mom would say. Pansies.

So all runners are packed in between points 3 and 4, but around 7:30 they swing open the gate (#4) that confined us to that area. This gives us 30 minutes to spread out along the course and take our positions from which we will attempt to avoid getting trampled by not only bulls but each other. At this point, there is no turning back. Foremost on my mind was the fact that one of the bulls scored a kill the day before when it was turned around going the wrong way on the course. It proceeded to gore anything in his path including an unlucky Spaniard who took a horn in the lung and jugular. Medical personnel pulled him under a gate only a few seconds after he was hit but he bled out in an instant was declared dead soon after.

As luck would have it, I ended up camped in the same position I had been in one hour previously. The adrenaline was pumping and, as per my nature in situations such as these, I wanted to capture the scene, bringing some of the sights and sounds of Pamplona home with me on my camera. Where I went wrong at 7:52 on that fateful day is anybody's guess. But after making a short video of the minutes leading up to one of those "gotta do it before you die" moments, one of Pamplona's finest spotted me from his perch on one of the wooden gates that seals off the course from any overzealous spectators. He barked at me in Spanish, which I took to mean "Sir, could you kindly put your camera away since the bulls will be released in just a few short minutes. I know you wanna capture this momentous occasion but you should really pay attention while trying to tempt death."

Alright, it's been 17 years since my last Spanish class so forgive me if I got the translation wrong. Soon enough, I felt like John Hinkley at the Washington Hilton in 1981. Surrounded by four of Juan Law's cousins as my heart pounded with fear, there was no escape and all I could think about was how stupid I was for not running into the crowd as soon as he had singled me out. I showed them that I had put my camera away and was ready to dodge bulls. But instead of congratulating me on my courage and my desire to showcase their fine city, they shoved me to the ground and under the gate. Not only was my dream of running with the bulls crushed but my brand new white pants bought specifically for this occasion were stained with the dirt, grime, and fluids of an all-night Spanish bender. As I frantically scrambled to run back to the start of course and fight again, the fireworks signaling the start went off and I wasn't even in a position to watch others get gored. Was it the blonde hair and blue eyes that made me the victim of police brutality? Or maybe stupidity? I guess I'll never know, but at least it makes for a good story.

Part I: To run or not to run?

I'm normally not up for glorifying myself through grandiose displays of machismo (okay, back in my 20's I was), however, when opportunities like this present themselves in such a fortuitous and timely manner, I find them too good to pass up. It's kind of like if you told me you had a boat chartered off the coast of South Africa, with full scuba kit, buckets of chum, and Steve Irwin back from the dead ready to guide me on a cage-diving expedition for Great White sharks, I would not hesitate to say, "I am in! She's a beauty!"

I've been spending the whole month of July in Madrid, pursuing a gilded certificate that will guarantee my supreme effectiveness as an educator (sarcasm alert!). This requires me to spend 40 hours a week in a classroom, with evenings spent hammering out papers that will somehow provide me with some deep, meaningful insight into my role as a mentor to children who would much rather be taught about matter's phase changes by The Pussycat Dolls. All of this introspection means that when the weekend comes, it's time to let loose a little bit.

Last Thursday, my ears perked up when I overheard one of my classmates saying that she and some other students were taking the bus on Friday night to Pamplona for the Festival of San Fermin. They were going to get tickets for the 9:30 PM bus which meant that their arrival time would be around 2:00 AM. The plan was to enjoy the sights, atmosphere, and beverages, watch the main event at 8:00 AM, and hop the first bus back at 9:15 AM. They assured me that we would be back in Madrid no later than 2:00 PM, in time for a long afternoon siesta. She even said that she would personally go down to the bus station and buy my bus ticket. All I needed to do was show up for dinner after Friday's class, and then hop on the bus. Perfect, I thought.

The adventure began much earlier than it was supposed to when about an hour into the bus ride north of Madrid, we were jolted from our sleep by the unmistakable sound of "clump, clump, clump" coming from our flat tire. Instead of pulling to the side of the road and calling for assistance, the bus driver had to limp his steed another 20 minutes up the road to the first exit, since the shoulders on major highways here are much too narrow for a vehicle of that size. Everybody on the bus had to suspend the buzz of anticipation for a couple hours, but at least we had stopped at an exit with what seemed like a roadside, local watering hole.

A couple of fellow Americans and I decided that since we were going to be here awhile, we might want to wet our whistle inside the Bellavista Pub & Hostel which, from the outside, looked deserted and badly in need of our business. Well, little did we know how bad they wanted our business. Upon entering the darkened tavern, we were immediately sized up by at least twenty willing ladies vying for our affection. Upon learning that beers were priced at 14 Euros (almost $20), we decided that we just weren't that thirsty. In retrospect, the fact that they had underground parking, a heart around the word "pub" on their neon sign, and billed it as not only a pub but ALSO a hostel should have tipped us off immediately that it was a house of ill repute. Or maybe the girls just REALLY like Americans and it's REALLY expensive to ship beer out to the middle of nowhere.

After two hours of waiting around the parking lot, watching the bus driver and the service van crew wrestle with the oversize tire and jack, seeing many shady looking characters arrive for the customer service and then depart after a brief period of time, we reboarded the bus and continued on our journey. Two hours later, we arrived in Pamplona at 4:00 AM to the throngs of inebriated revelers wandering the streets in the traditional red and white festival attire.

The bus station looked like a M*A*S*H* (for my younger readers, this was a television show about a mobile army surgical unit during the Korean war) triage unit with bodies spread across the pavement in various stages of consciousness. It smelled like I would imagine the streets of Bombay would on a hot summer night, with lakes of urine dotting the streets. At least I wasn't wearing sandals, like some of my travel companions, causing them to convulse as the wetness leapt up to their toes.

After the two hour delay, we realized that our fiesta window was closing fast and daylight would soon be here, so we made our way to the city center plaza where all the action was happening. On our way, we hashed out a bargain for the obligatory red bandannas and sashes that would identify us as serious tourists ready to follow in the footsteps of Hemingway, who immortalized the city of San Fermin in his novel, The Sun Also Rises. The Spaniards have paid tribute to their "Ernesto" by erecting a monument to him in front of the bull fighting arena. There is also a life-sized sculpture in one of the ancient cafes. He wrote extensively about the traditions and pageantry associated with the festival, and apparently must have been the kinda guy who lives in the moment without a thought to what morning will bring:

"The things that happened could only have happened during a fiesta. Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have any consequences. It seemed out of place to think of consequences during the fiesta."

I've never been to Mardis Gras in New Orleans, but I would imagine the clogged, narrow streets of this small Spanish city, a pick-pocketer's paradise filled with boozey victims of adult ADD, would be an apt comparison, minus the beads and frontal nudity on every balcony. Crisp white shirts soon became crimson with wayward swigs of sangria. Corner bocaterias were open all night long selling jumbo bottles of San Miguel and jugs of Don Simon. Everybody was infused with the spirit of San Fermin,

What came as a surprise was that despite all the besotted revelry, everybody was relatively well-behaved. There was a minor police presence but in Spain it's more the unseen threat of authority rather than a visual show of force. One poor fellow was tackled to the ground and hauled off by no fewer than ten officers as hundreds of foreigners uneasily observed the scene. Even the Englishmen minded their Ps and Qs which if you've ever encountered a gang of them on a "piss-up" is not an easy feat.

To be continued . . .

Oh S**t! It's actually on TV!

Nobody in this country cleans up after their dog. There are brown landmines of every shape and size littering the city of Warsaw. I probably have to dodge these lawn sausages at least a dozen times a day from the moment I walk out of the gate of my building until I ride my bike through the Kabaty Forest on my way home from work.

People really have no collective fecal conscience here. I'm sure they believe that these canine colon cannonballs are biodegradable and will eventually be swallowed up by the ground. Instead, they just lie in wait for some unlucky pedestrian to plant his painstakingly polished loafer into its squishy goodness.

On a related note, did you know that through the power of the internet, you can send somebody (preferably someone you don't like) a bag of doggie duds? Check out this site . It's even been featured in Time and Maxim magazines so apparently someone is ordering enough to keep them in business. Too bad this didn't exist back when the Unabomber was terrorizing America. You can't be sentenced to life in a super maximum security prison for Fedexing dogcrap but it sends the same message as a bomb without the bloody mess: "You're not really my favorite person."

Anyway, the commercial crusade that encourages Poles to "Clean up after your dog man." has reached the airwaves of MTV. I haven't personally seen it, since that would require me to sit through some of their mindless programs (Tia Tequila? My Super Sweet Sixteen? Whatever happened to music videos?) but the magic of Youtube will allow you to watch it over and over.

It took fourteen hours and around forty people to film this one minute commercial. I was happy to be a part of something that gives back to society, something that just may make Europe (it will be shown in other countries) a safer place to wander around without constantly staring at the ground.

Off piste or piste off?

Last week, we had "winter break", more commonly known by its other name: Ski Week. Luiza and I were lucky enough to find a cozy little apartment nestled in the French Alps near the famous Alpe D'Huez resort. Click on the map to the right for a better view.

This was my first European ski experience and I found it much different than the U.S. Here, you are treated too much longer runs, some as long as 4-5 miles, but you are riding / skiing straight down the face of a mountaintop glacier rather than through powder-covered mountain runs carved out of vast stands of evergreens. Finding pockets of "freshies" can prove to be quite difficult, especially when day after day is bathed in glorious sunlight. I'm not complaining . . . it was just a bit, like I said before . . . different.

Also, rather than one ski lift taking you to the top of the mountain, you might have to hop onto an aerial tramway or gondola lift before jumping on a chair lift to take you to the peak. The area we were at reportedly has 93 different lifts. This may seem like a mind-boggling number of ride choices but I am thinking they are including surface lifts in order to inflate that figure.

The Dutch continue to live up to their reputation as a fun-loving, hard-partying bunch. We walked to the only hotel in Allemont for Après-ski and found out that it had been bought in the last year by an Amsterdammer. The place was filled to capacity by fifty of his fellow countrymen and boy did they know how to party. The hotel bar was packed with people dancing on tables (which included us after awhile) and singing along with the in-house band. Strangely enough, their well-behaved children, numbering at least twenty, were in the adjacent room having dinner while being attended to by hotel staff. After eating, they then left their parents to party while they went to bed, on their own! Not only do the Dutch know how to party but their children are self sufficient. Not bad.

After five straight days of me riding my board and Lu on her skis, our bodies felt like one of those Stretch Armstrong dolls from back in the 70's. Next time we will enjoy more Apres Ski and less of those quad burner 10K long black diamonds. Though over here, they aren't diamonds, just black lines. However, you can't possess nearly the same amount of bravado when you tell your sporty friends how you were rippin' it up on the black line runs.

Anyway, hope that spring has almost sprung in your neck of the woods. We are still getting some dustings of śnieg over here in the Polska land. Oh, by the way, we wish you a happy Women's Day. This is the day that you honor the women in your life which means makeshift flower stands all over the city are having their best day of the year selling tulips and roses. So if you have a Polish woman (or one of Polish descent) in your life, make sure you surprise her by acknowledging her existence on this special day.

The feminists were out in force today, making sure their calls for liberation for Polish women were heard in the form of a live female rap group on the back of a semi truck. Yeah, I don't get it either. Whatever happened to the art of the protest song?:

"Shall we see the sea?" she said sheepishly.

Back from a wonderful tour of the Polish seaside towns of Gdansk and Sopot. Gdansk comes in a close second to Krakow as coolest city in Poland. It holds a special significance in Polish history as being the birthplace of the Solidarity labor union, which was the first of its kind behind the Iron Curtain. I've heard they have an excellent museum dedicated to "Solidarnosc'" and how it led to the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, but I opted out of this visit in deference to moja dziwczyna, Luiza. It would've been torture for her to submit to a Polish history lesson on such a beautiful weekend. In her words, "I don't need to spend such time walking around with huge pictures of Lech Walesa staring at me." Point taken : ) I really have no frame of reference for comparison. Maybe it would be like me visiting Samuel Gompers Park in Chicago or the Teamsters Freight Transportation Museum. I don't really think the Teamsters did much to alter the course of world events, however.

Sopot, the quaint city with white sand beaches and no shipyard was where we chose to stay for the four day holiday weekend. It is also home of Molo, the largest wooden pier in Europe. Every city is always trying to claim something as the biggest, longest, highest, etc. In fact, there is a great website dedicated to roadside attractions in the U.S. called The Gallery of Huge Beings. For some reason, my home state of Minnesota is contains more than its fair share of fiberglass statues.

It was a great opportunity to unwind before making the final push toward summer. We did a whole helluva lot of nothing productive, one could say. It was all one continuous stretch of walking, talking, sitting, people watching, basking, eating, and drinking.

Oh, I did get to watch the Sopot 7's rugby tournament and also invented a new game called "Polish or not Polish". It's funny to hear Luiza describe for me the reasons she thinks somebody looks "typical Polish" while I explain the importance of footwear and dental health on determining country of origin.

Before I go, I would like to plug a blog I've been reading called The Polandian. This contains some really insightful commentary on Polish culture and also links to obsure youtube vids that have some relevance to my adopted homeland. Maybe I shouldn't tell you about it so I am free to propagate some its literary material as my own. If Big Dan Bergan and Penny Tingstad are reading this . . . I'm only kidding! Plagiarism is a serious crime kids.

Here's a great clip of heavy metal legends Iron Maiden playing a Polish wedding back in 1984. Thanks to the guys (and gals?) at Polandian:

Home is where the heart is. . . or should be.

April 2nd is the anniversary of Pope John Paul II's death. This is considered a day of reverence in Poland and you can see many candle votives and makeshift memorials to this holiest of men as you walk around Warsaw. There was even a "sighting" of the pontiff in a bonfire on last year's anniversary.

Last spring, I was fortunate enough to travel to the Vatican with my parents and brother, Dave. We went into the basement of St. Peter's Cathedral where all the popes are enshrined in their crypts. Of course, there was a small crowd gathered near PJP's tomb as they each waited their turn to pray their devotions. It really was a moving scene.

John Paul II is now on the fast track to canonization, or sainthood. The Catholic church wants to remove his body from the crypt and display his remains inside the cathedral. However, there are those in Poland who want his heart removed and enshrined in Wawel Cathedral (pictured). This is in Krakow, near Watowice, the Pope's birthplace.

This practice is not without precedence. Famous composer and pianist, Frederic Chopin, has his heart embedded in a column of Holy Cross Church here in Warsaw, while the rest of his body lies in Paris.

You can read a fascinating article about this debate here.

Another venture into high culture . . .

Last night I attended my first ballet. I didn't really know what to expect but expectations were higher than when I attended my first opera back in December. There were a variety of reasons for this heightened anticipation, the foremost being an obvious difference in "agility" between opera singers and ballerinas. Operatic sopranos are not exactly renowned for there delicate grace. The opera is not over "when the amazingly flexible lady sings".

Chauvinistic comparisons aside, another reason that ballet is superior to opera is the lack of spoken words. Every emotion and plot twist is conveyed through dramatic movement. Yes, it can be a bit difficult to determine sometimes if a sweeping gesture ending in a skyward point means "I'm enraged!" or "I'm a superstar!", but it's much easier than trying to decipher words sung in Italian, and translated into Polish on the reader board.

You can read the synopsis of this production of LA BAYADÈRE here, but I will give you my shortened interpretation:

Scene I: Guy who looks like caveman dances around. Apparently he doesn't have much to do with the story but reminds me of Brendan Fraser in "Encino Man". Poor girl, escorted into the scene by caveman falls in love with rich man. They dance around, he lifts her up over his head in celebration because she only weighs about 90 lbs. and he prefers petite girls. Bald bad guy is standing behind a tree, sees this and points to the heavens to demonstrate his anger.

Scene II: Rich guy has to marry different girl because his father (old guy in huge turban) arranged the marriage. He's not happy because this girl is too big for him (she weighs about 105, which is obese by ballerina standards). Poor girl comes in, dances around at the wedding, and gets poisoned by the vengeful mother-in-law to be who puts a snake in her flower basket. Follicly-challenged villain is crushed because he also likes petite girls.

Scene III: This was the long, drawn-out, drug-induced dream sequence. Rich guy mourns the death of his true love. Trapped in an unhappy marriage, he turns to drugs, taking long drags off a hooka pipe. Has a few too many drags and passes out. Dreams about 27 ballerinas dressed in white tutus. Dances around in the afterlife with poor girl.

Final Act: Guy painted all in gold dances around in loin cloth. All females in the audience (including the one seated next to me) admire how good he looks, errr, I mean dances. The entire cast gets together for one more dramatic dance number, complete with explosions, lightning, and a floating Buddha. The temple is destroyed. Everyone dies. Rich guy and poor girl are reunited in heaven, which is apparently really smoky. The end.

My final observation about ballet is that all males should be required to wear a codpiece. I was fortunate enough to be sitting in the third row where it was possible to appreciate every subtle nuance of this production. This was both good and bad as I certainly enjoyed the exquisite beauty of the performers but was also subject to a close-up view of . . . hmmmm, how shall I put this? . . . the revealing nature of spandex.


Which leads me to this question. How does one become interested in being a male ballerina? I'm certain that a healthy share of these guys are straight. After all, wasn't the great Russian dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov, a suitor of Sarah Jessica Parker's on Sex in the City? (I don't really know these things off the top of my head. We have a great research department at the Chronicle.) I think this video may explain a few things. Thanks for reading . . . have a good weekend!

Happy Fat Thursday!

Today is one of my favorite "holidays" on the Polish calendar. On the Thursday before Fat Tuesday, all across the country, Poles are eating traditional filled pastries, called pączki (plural for pączek). They are quite similar to the bismarcks from Sunrise Bakery I enjoyed eating as a youngster.

Apparently, these treats are meant to use up all the lard, sugar, and fruit in the house before the start of Lent, when they are forbidden. Get down to your bakery and celebrate Fat Thursday, Polish style. I am on my fifth pączki today. Check out this video from a Chicago newsstation, where one bakery makes 100,000 of them for this big day.

The difference between America and yogurt?

The answer to this often heard riddle? Yogurt has culture! Just providing a little microbiology humor for you on this dark and gloomy Friday in Warsaw. Yes folks, we have entered "the tunnel" as the teachers at ASW call this time of year. It starts around mid-November and lasts until the end of February. During this span, we rarely see the sun. It is dark when you roll out of bed, and dark when the kids go home at 4 PM. During the daylight hours, the sky is consistently gray, enough to make a person retreat to the nearest solarium, or tanning salon.

The best way to combat tunnel syndrome is to venture out of your home during the evenings. On Wednesday, for example, I received a dose of high-brow sophistication by attending the opera. Yes, the opera. And as anybody who has known me for awhile can attest, I can sometimes lack the social refinement necessary to blend in at functions such as this. However, I found this spectacle to be quite elegant, albeit a severe test of my limited attention span.

The interior of Teatr Wielki was quite a sight to behold. Like most of the ornate buildings in Warsaw, it was completely destroyed during WWII but painstakingly recreated during the 50's and 60's. You can take a virtual tour here.

All the operatic cliches were on display. The show was called La Traviata, or "The Misguided One". It was sung in Italian, but they did have a lighted sign above the stage where the play was translated into Polish. This does nothing for the monolinguistic imbecile. Yes, there was the proverbial "fat lady" from the famous sports quotation: "It ain't over until the fat lady sings." In this case, she sang. And sang. And sang some more. And then she dies at the end. Maybe from too much singing.

La Traviata clocked in at around 2 hours 40 minutes. This is longer than most sporting events, but certainly not as exciting. They did have a couple intermissions where one could hit the concession stand. However, there were no giant pretzels, hot dogs, or oversized foam #1 hands for sale. This led me to ponder few ways they could improve the opera:

5) You should be allowed to stand and cheer during the exciting parts of an opera.

4) Since there are not many exciting parts, more fight scenes could be added, and maybe even a chase scene that spills out into the audience.

3) One of the songs should be designated for audience participation, ala "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". Who wouldn't want to belt out the lyrics "I'm the Barber of Seville! Figaro! Figaro!" at the top of their lungs?

2) Everything is better with dancing. Have the singers shed a few pounds and incorporate some choreography. Think Michael Flatly from "RiverDance" but with the voice of Luciano Pavarotti.



1) Scotchguard the theatre seats, install cupholders and allow beer vendors to roam the aisles. But they would call out in an operatic tone. "Beer here! Get your ice cold beer here!" Or in Polish "Ziemno Piwo!" (Damn I'm getting good.)

That's all for now! If it's sunny where you are . . . ENJOY IT! I am jealous and rapidly turning a shade of pale that matches the fluffy powder I am hoping to find in Idaho at the end of the month.

Do widzenia!

Twinsanity

Great weekend . . . Had a party at my place for Luiza and her twin sister Asia (AH-sha). The girls turned 30. Hard to believe, they look like they are still about 23. Something in the water over here, maybe. It was a great party, and I was happy to host. Am I getting lazy with the use of these video blogs instead of actually writing something? Well, I think that you would much rather look at some pics of these two cuties than read some random musings about my daily life.

12 more days until I'm back in Minnesota! See you soon!

From Russia with love . . .

Here are the pictures of the Speech and Debate Team's trip to Moscow, with a few archived pictures added for flavor:

К сожалению, я пока не говорю по-русски!

It's nice to be back in the tropical latitudes of Poland. This is a relative comparison to the frigid tundra of Russia, where I have spent the last four days. Mid-November and there was already a substantial accumulation of powder on the ground with a bone-chilling wind that seemed colder than anything I have experienced in northern Minnesota. Okay, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration but it made me glad I brought my long underwear.

Normally, I would steer clear of Moscow this time of year. Come to think of it, I don't think I would ever have made it to the Russian capital without the benefit of being the coach of the ASW Middle School Speech and Debate Team. I know what you're thinking, "How does one achieve such a distinguished position?". Well, I was the first one to answer the e-mail from the activities director once I heard where the tournament would be held.

Growing up during the height of the Cold War (i.e. the Carter and Reagan administrations), I never would have thought that it would be possible that I would someday travel to the center of the "Evil Empire". This was supposed to be forever forbidden, since the Soviets were purportedly hell-bent on completely destroying me, and my country, using nuclear weapons. The only way to avoid this, of course, was by hiding underneath my desk at St. Leo's Elementary. At least, that is what the emergency preparedness filmstrips would have me believe. You remember filmstrips don't you? Everyone would always clamor for the privilege of turning the knob on the projector at the sound of "BEEP!". Good memories indeed.

I think my childhood fear of being vaporized peaked after watching "The Day After", a made for TV movie about a nuclear attack on a small mid-western city. "But I live in a small mid-western city! This could happen to me!" I thought. Check out this clip to and put yourself in my shoes as an impressionable young boy. It scared the @$#% out of me.

But thanks to Rocky Balboa, the Cold War ended on Christmas Day in 1985. His victory over Ivan Drago and the impassioned speech that followed made me realize I wasn't going to die. Because in Rocky's words,
"If I can change . . . and you can change. . . . everyone can change!"

Thanks for reading! I will have pics from this trip up soon . . . Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

You just might learn something here.

The Kielbasa will retroactively chronicle a couple trips taken last month. It has been a slow couple of weeks since fall break but this should whet your appetite for a trip to Europe . . . my door is always open!

My friend from way back in the day, Brian a.k.a. Scrote, met me in Berlin for the weekend last month. What a great city . . . amazing art, a youthful vibe, great nightlife, and plenty to offer from the historical perspective. It is always great to catch up with such a great friend, even if it is just for a couple days. Check out some pics:

The next bunch of pics you will see is of Torun, birthplace of Mikołaj Kopernik. "Who the heck is that?" you might be asking. You might know him by his other name, Nicolaus Copernicus, the founder of heliocentric theory. Okay, now you might be really confused. Let's just say that one of the first things that every kid learns in science class is that the sun is the center of our solar system. It hasn't always been that way . . .

Before we gained the knowledge that we are only a miniscule part of the vast cosmos, Copernicus boldly challenged the notion that Earth was motionless and was the center of our universe. This was a pretty ballsy move way back then, since most scientific scholars were also men of the cloth. In the 16th century, any published research that went against church doctrine was met with utter disbelief and could result in house arrest or even death.

So I decided to take the 2 1/2 hour train ride from Warsaw to Torun and spend Saturday afternoon conjuring up the ghost of one of history's greatest scientists. Actually, it was a great excuse to get out of the city and spend the day with
"moj' kochanie", Luiza. Almost 6 hours in the same train compartment and she still returns my phone calls . . . I love this country!