Chiuso per ferie

My first proper holiday in quite a while and I really don't know where to start.

Let's do it in two parts, shall we?

The trouble with Italy is that it's not simply one country but rather a cluster of separate little universes, each with its own distinctive character and culture.
Italians - most unhelpfully - don't even actually speak Italian. They speak Fiorentino, or Romano, or Napoletano, or Siciliano, or Nonès, or Sardo, e cosi via. Some of them even speak German, just to keep us guessing. According to Lepschy and Lepschy, the only word they can all agree on is espresso.
I tend to be easily bored, so perhaps that's why I love visiting Italy so much.

I only had a week to spare so I made a whistle-stop tour of some old haunts in the central and northern regions of the country. We'll start with the centre and then I'll post the other half domani, domani...

Pisa:

Plenty of other things to see in Pisa

Look, it's all kind of wonky

Tower? No towers here...

Florence:

Rooftop terraces

The Duomo, playing hide and seek

The Porcellino protects his merchandise

A quiet moment in a side street

Ponte Vecchio

Sunset from Piazzale Michelangelo

Florence by night

Weird things about being back in the UK. Again.

Swine flu: Have I missed something? In Poland they also have swine flu. But in Poland people do not wear face masks on the plane.
Equally bizarre is the state-of-emergency behaviour observed on going to church with my parents this morning: bottles of alcoholic hand sanitizer replace the traditional holy water at the threshold, while an awkward silence replaces the usual hand-shaking at the peace greeting. There is no communion wine, and there are special instructions on how to receive the wafers, with one hand over the other and Absolutely Not directly in the mouth. In addition, small plastic bags in which to place dirty tissues before discarding them wait at the ends of the aisles.

As far as I could tell, no-one appeared in the least sick: not even a squeak of a muffled sneeze (apart from me - but that was probably the flowers). I have yet to meet anyone with swine flu, or indeed to see any evidence of an epidemic. In addition, swine flu is notorious for affecting the young: since we're talking about the Church of England here, I hardly think the risk is that great.

Besides which, a Brit who's worried about shaking hands in church or breathing in recycled air on the plane isn't going to think twice about trying on publicly-accessible clothes in the shopping centre, not to mention tasting their friends' cocktails in the pub, or dancing the night away in some sweaty nightclub.

This is a strange place.

w Dębnikach

Here are some pictures of the neighbourhood that has been my home for the past six months:

Babcie

I saw the Weather Babcia today. I passed her on the stairs taking the rubbish out, and when I tripped and dropped one of the bags she said 'Ciepło, ciepło!'
I thought this was a way of warning me to stay calm on the stairs but it seems she was commenting on the weather again because she limped on...

... ale będzie zimno wieczorki i ranki...

Three floors down, I overtook Smoking Babcia just before the front door. 'Don't hold the door for me!' she said, but I thought it safest to do so anyway.
Smoking Babcia is the most impressive babcia in the building because she stumps along on two walking sticks, puffing energetically on a cigarette clamped firmly between her lips.

I am amazed at her persistence, both in her bloodyminded determination to continue enjoying her cigarette, and her insistence on walking the twenty metres to the tiny nearby park to sit in the sun every morning.

Success

I'm stealing someone else's idea for this one.

A friend - ok, a Facebook friend - posted a link to a TED talk by Alain de Botton on success.

It struck me in particular and I watched the whole thing because for the past few years I've been under the influence of success anxiety or status anxiety linked to my job or whatever the exact term is.

De Botton points out that we envy people who are similar to us but have achieved more: they appear more successful, and this is based on the assumption that we all have equal opportunities and therefore any failure or lack of success on our part is a failure to take advantage of these opportunities. In other words, it's our fault. When in reality it may not be.

It also struck me because of a conversation we had last night about beggars in Kraków.
On the way back from Kazimierz at about 11.30pm, a woman with a child heard us talking in English and came up saying 'please money food'.
My flatmate's policy here is not to give, because everyone has a chance to work and these people could get a job somewhere. By giving them money, you perpetuate the vicious circle in which they are already trapped. My policy is that things are more complicated than that: so I feel extremely guilty but still don't give.

I was trying to work out what it is that makes me so reluctant to give these people money. From time to time (maybe one in three) I give money to someone who is sitting and begging with a cup, as quickly and discreetly as possible and with as little actual communication with the person in question as possible. However, I really hate giving money to people who pester me. I feel as though I'm not being allowed the time to make a rational decision. In this case I'm pretty sure it's about more than just resenting the loss of a few zlots.

Another friend said that we give money to beggars because we are purchasing a Good Feeling. We see them, we feel bad, we give them some cash and then we feel as though we are a Good Person.
My argument here is that, up until the guy limped up to me with a sign around his neck asking for money for an operation, I wasn't feeling Bad. So he has created a false demand for this good feeling while at the same time being the nearest and most convenient local supplier.

I also don't like it when people target me in English. I feel as though I am being exploited as a rich foreign tourist (which is sadly something that I am not).

My default reasoning is that begging is a very humiliating thing to do and that if someone is asking for help, there must be a good reason behind it and therefore I should give. But I resent the emotional manipulation that goes alongside it. So I'm stuck with a dilemma. Either I pay, and pretend I didn't for fear of ridicule among my more sensible friends, or I don't pay, and I feel bad. Which instinct is correct?

Going back to success: I went to a very good school and to an excellent university and my friends are all doing pretty well. I'm even aware that some of them look down on me for doing what is perceived as a poorly-paid menial job (translation) and for working as a freelancer rather than for a respectable multi-national with a good pension scheme.

Then again, I think about all my efforts over the past few years to do yet another training scheme, yet another bit of work experience, and I wonder whether the best thing would be just to live somewhere where there is plenty of sunshine, where I can go roller-blading in the morning, where there is a nice river to walk along, and just to earn enough money to travel and to rent a decent space in a nice city where I can sleep undisturbed in the sunshine in the afternoons.

Here's the talk. Let me know what you think:

w kawiarnii

Outside Tribeca, Rynek Główny, Sunday, 6.30pm:

Waitress: Czy mogę zapytać co Pani robi?

- Robię korektę.

Waitress: ???

- W angielskiej wersji menu są błędy. Normalnie płacą mnie za to. Jestem tłumaczką, to mój zawód.

Waitress: ...

Art

Every so often, my flatmate and I decide that we will do something culturally improving. I mean, it's great to go out and drink beer and go dancing at Piękny Pies and watch downloads of 'How I Met Your Mother' for five hours straight, but occasionally - just occasionally - we feel that it might be a good idea to do something that is actually going to broaden our horizons, nurture our inner selves, expand our minds. Something wholesome, something Good For Us, something arty.

Unfortunately, our good intentions don't always translate into reality.

For example, in June we went to a panel discussion, with a couple of friends, on the opening of a new exhibit in Bunkier Sztuki.

After approximately thirteen minutes, all five of us - very discreetly - got up, politely shuffled our sheepish way out of the row and legged it up the stairs as soon as we were out of sight of the panel.

Then there was the book signing in Empik. Our intentions were so good: we arranged to meet inside after work at 5pm (if you actually meet inside Empik, instead of in front, the world changes in a subtle yet significant way. I have yet to write a post about meeting people outside Empik. This is negligence on my part).

Unfortunately my flatmate had to work late on a project, and I got an urgent job, so we never got there.

Once we even nearly made it to Teatr Bagatela! Having decided that our Polish was just about good enough to understand drama (although after watching Trans-Atlantyk I very quickly changed my mind), we decided to go and watch a play.
Teatr Bagatela is the theatre of the absurd in Kraków (it's also another place people meet in front of, but that's not important right now). This means - best-case scenario - visual comedy that even we can understand and - worst-case scenario - satire, ironic Polish in-jokes and utter incomprehensibility. We asked some Polish friends to come with us and looked up tickets but unfortunately there were none on the day we wanted. Then my flatmate went on holiday and I had a school trip and it simply never happened.

So when I heard about the live drawing show yesterday I was slightly sceptical about our ability to actually get there.

And yet...

Somehow at 7pm we were sitting in the cool of the gallery, facing a huge sheet of brown paper parcel-taped to the wall, waiting for the performance to start.

The artist - who is French but of Polish family - introduced himself briefly and then sat on a chair at one end of the 'canvas', looking at his feet in silence. We waited. He began to whistle a few bars of Chopin* and then - still whistling - got up and sketched a huge crescent moon in charcoal and chalk. Underneath the moon, the towers of Wawel quickly emerged, chalk moonlight glinting off the charcoal spires.

So the story began in Kraków...

He sketched the whole fairytale for us, acting through the drawing: sometimes drawing over an old episode, sometimes tearing off something to replace it somewhere else, occasionally whistling a clue (like the Marseillaise, for a French character).

And it was fun! Slightly confusing in parts, but then afterwards the artist was there so you could ask him to explain it. We were charmed. Apart from the magic of watching the picture appear on the paper before our eyes, this art was not something to stand in fear of and to be afraid to admit not understanding. It was clear, the clues were there to follow, you could watch the technique and best of all you could actually ask questions.

It turns out there's another pictorial storytelling session next Friday, so if you're interested I'd highly recommend it - Dietla 11, 7pm, at Otwarta Pracownia.

We might even go again...




*Nocturne in E-flat major.