A little popcorn with your opera? Maria Stuarda, Live from the Met

Instant plot summary (Spoiler Alert!)

I recently took advantage of an opportunity to visit the Metropolitan Opera....in New York. One of the more artsy-fartsy cinemas in town hosts live broadcasts from the Met from time to time which are broadcast to something like 63 countries via satellite. Admission was 55 PLN, which ironically enough is just about what the cheap seats cost at actual, live performances of the opera in Krakow.

Why would people spend that kind of money? I think part of it has to do with a fundamental curiosity about America. One thing that is becoming increasingly clear as I spend my time here is that people pick up information about the United States in dribs and drabs from a variety of sources, and they sometimes have some skewed perceptions as a result. That's a separate post, but suffice to say at this point it is often from the more unofficial sources such as the Metropolitan Opera that people here get a sense of what life is like over there. Before the curtain there were a number of audience shots, and I could not help but wonder what was going through the minds of people for whom sitting in the house of an American production would be a novelty.

As this transmission was broadcast at a movie theater, the concession stand sold soda, popcorn, the usual movie-house bill of fare. Upstairs, before curtain and during intermission it was possible to buy coffee, little cookies, wine, the typical opera bill of fare. There was also a contrast evident in how people were dressed: some were dressed for the movies, some were dressed for the opera. Of course, this is how a typical opera audience dresses in the States, but it is more noticeable in a culture where "dressing appropriately" means something more than making sure you have a heavy-enough coat and a warm hat.

It is also worth noting that just about every building here in Poland has a cloakroom, and it is considered anywhere from somewhat to extremely gauche to bring your coat into a building with you and drape it on the back of your chair. This theater was definitely a place where you were expected to check your coat.

The seats were IMAX-ish, oversized and with ample legroom, sort of like a car's bucket seat. They did not fold. The screen was one of those wide-field-of-view semicircular ones, and the screen was behind a stage that would be large enough for a small concert (for which it is in fact used, from what I understand). This dual-use type of cinema went out of fashion in the U.S. 80 years ago, but it apparently remains here, at least to some extent.

The opera was Maria Stuarda by Donizetti, and was performed in Italian with English subtitles. The theater projected separate Polish subtitles underneath the screen. The “with the artists” segments at the intermission were not subtitled, which led to the rather unusual phenomenon of a large number of people sitting in a theater listening to an untranslated language that was not their own and not the dominant language of the country where the screen was located. Interesting to me was that a large number of people who elected to remain were middle-aged or older which means that many of them probably didn't actually speak English. Even those who did may have had difficulty with the accent, as again the American one is not commonly taught here and a number of people have told me that they understand British people just fine, but have trouble wit' dose Amurrikins over by dere like dat. 

The opera itself was, well, operatic as operas are wont to be. Basically, Roberto, 1st Earl of Leicester is hoping, to use the appropriate Italian phrase, to engage in bunga bunga with both Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, and as such is trying to reconcile these two women and prevent the former from executing the latter. He's assisted, somewhat ineptly, by Giorgio Talbot, whose motive remains, alas, unclear. Meanwhile,Guglielmo Cecil is urging exactly the opposite on Elizabeth: an immediate execution of her cousin. Ultimately, Elizabeth figures out that Roberto is potentially a two-timer, and more or less decides to chop Mary out of jealousy. Though this is not stated explicitly, considering the utter lack of political context and the fact that Mary is a goody two-shoes throughout, it's the most logical explanation. Bob takes this kind of hard, though obviously not as much as Mary does. There's in fact a scene where Elizabeth and Mary confront each other and more or less have a catfight in front of the English court. Other important parts of history, such as the Babington Plot, the wine-cask letters, the murder of Lord Darnley, the fact that Darnley was a jerkoff and the fact that Mary probably would have done the same to Elizabeth were the roles to be reversed were all somewhat glossed over.

What was not glossed over was the religious aspect of all this, and the fact that the lead, as usual, takes a good 45 minutes to die in the last act. In fact, in one of Mary's last arias she says "tell Elizabeth I forgive her, and that I hope God's wrath won't come thundering down on her heathen country." It was also interesting to see Elizabeth presented as a petty tyrant, which is such a contrast to how she's seen in the English-speaking world. It would be like making an opera about the American Civil War with Clement Vallandingham as the hero and Abraham Lincoln as the paranoid military dictator squashing dissent by suspending habeas corpus, whilst only tangentially mentioning that there was in fact a war going on.

The performance was, as to be expected, excellent. I particularly liked the portrayal of Elizabeth as a petulant, pouting monarch, and of Roberto, the smoothest operator this side of Silvio Berlusconi. Mary was a little overwrought for my taste, but the rest of the ensemble performed quite solidly. 

The music, as is typical in opera, compensated for the plot or lack thereof. 

  

Wieliczka

Generally the expression "back to the salt mines" is used in situations where the fun's over, and it's time to get back to the drudgery of the daily grind. Poland has figured out not only how to make people want to go visit the salt mines, but also how to make them a major tourist attraction.

Wieliczka is one of the most important towns in Poland that you've never heard of. It's located in the exurbs of Krakow, and at one point the salt that came out of the mine accounted for a full third of the taxes paid into the Royal treasury. There is evidence that neolithic humans obtained salt from the site, and the mine itself was active between the 13th century and 2007.  We often forget that salt was an extremely expensive commodity at one time, and one that was very important for the preservation of food as well as a way of covering up food that had already spoiled. Miners at Wieliczka were not only paid in money but also in salt: a literal handful of it, with both hands cupped to receive it. Our guide said that this among other things actually made the miners relatively well-off at the time, though it was commonly advised that a woman look to marry a miner who had large hands.

Miners are still active lower in the mine, as most of the town is undermined, a million tourists visit each year and therefore a cave-in would be disastrous for any number of reasons. There is a walking tour with an optional trip to a museum slightly deeper in the mine, as well as a separate "miner's trail" for the more adventurous.

I took the Polish language tour because 1) it was cheaper, 2) I wanted to practice my Polish and 3) I've noticed that in Poland if you can manage to understand the local language, tours given in it tend to be better. Now, I've had some excellent English-language tours in Poland, but from time to time I will overhear a Polish guide leading a Polish tour next to ours, and he will mention things that the English guide did not that are particularly interesting.  I didn't take any photos because it costs an extra 10 złoty to do so. Maybe next time I go down there, I might bite the bullet as it is probably worth a photo album.

This tour took about 3 hours altogether, which made it both long and not long enough. I would have liked to have spent a little bit more time in the museum, as I felt a little bit rushed when looking at some of the old documents down there. I suspect that this was kind of the point. We also had a number of kids on the tour of the museum who were probably just fine with the amount of time we spent there. And who can blame them? When you're 5 and 1980 seems like ancient history, why should you be impressed with some document Władysław VI Niestety signed back in 12-something? 

The centerpiece of the tour is a series of statues and carvings made entirely out of salt. There's one of Goethe, one of Piłsudski, one of General Haller, and a number of religious figures. Why nobody has carved a statue of Lot's Wife yet is beyond me, though it is possible they are afraid the sculptor will misunderstand and carve a sculpture of a LOT Polish Airlines 787 instead.

The photo that everybody always takes of Wieliczka is the chapel of St. Kinga, in which everything from the altar to the artwork to the stations of the cross to even the decorative elements on the chandeliers are made of salt. There's a statue of John Paul II at the back of the chapel, as well as a rendering of DaVinci's The Last Supper carved into one of the walls. Though the carving is only about 60cm deep, the perspective is so good that it looks much deeper. The chapel is in active religious use, and I think it's even possible to get married down there. 

What was noticeable was how religious a place the mine was. Many of the larger chambers have chapels in them. The traditional goodbye of the miners was (and through the tour-guides, remains) "szczęść Boga" or "may God grant you luck" or more idiomatically, "go with God." There's just 

something about having 60+ meters of earth over your head supported by wood pilings and salt, as

well as the periodic leakage of methane with attendant explosions that tends to make people religious, 

I guess.

Speaking of methane, one chamber bears the marks of a fire, the "Komora Spalone" or "The Burned

Chamber." The mine rather hilariously translates this instead as "The Spalone Chamber", as if there 

was some guy from Italy named Spalone who had a chamber named after him for some reason. The 

other bit of Anguished English I remember was a placard in the chapels that urged people to be

respectable in a place of worship. It does convey what they wanted it to convey, but what flashed 

through my head was ex-Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley famously saying "so what do you want 

me to do? Take off my pants?" at a press conference.

 

The tour was a chance to learn some interesting things that you don't usually think about when it comes to salt mining. Different methods of mining leave different markings behind on the walls from which they are mined, and one chamber of the museum actually has a very clear illustration of this as three walls facing each other were each mined using different methods. The walls are all painted white, as miners didn't have the kind of illumination they are accustomed to nowadays (which even still doesn't mean it's terrific). Also, wood was and largely still is the primary building material down there. Steel rusts, particularly when it is exposed to lots and lots of salt. On the other hand, wood is preserved by salt because the microorganisms of corruption can't survive. There was a painting we saw that had been painted sometime in the 1650's, and has never seen the light of day. It has been restored exactly once. There were documents down there from the 14th century that are not only legible, but aside from the archaic handwriting don't really look that old. They certainly look better than, say, the Declaration of Independence. Some of the pilings and joists holding the ceiling over our heads in place were several hundred years old. Indeed, what was remarkable about the mine was how very clean it smelled. There was absolutely no musty smell of old wood, no smell of smog, no real smells at all until we walked by a modern locomotive that had the usual smell of well-oiled machinery.                                             

The biggest enemy to preservation of the mine is the fact that people have to breathe. Over time the water vapor exhaled by tourists damages the carvings and sculptures, and so a complex de-humidification system has been installed to maintain a constant atmosphere. There are also some caverns that are off-limits to tourists, and we were in one chapel that was in very bad shape. Our guide says that they only let people in there in the winter season, when there are fewer tourists.

Overall it was a very impressive sight to see, a kind of miniature underground city complete with mock-ups of the horse stables that were once down there and even some detritus of mining that has now been completely covered in salt. I would highly urge any visitor to Krakow to visit the mine!

 

  

A review of The Hobbit

It's been a busy week and weekend! Despite having a cold I've been able to get out and about and do a number of things that I'll forget to write about if I don't do so immediately. So, pausing the language discussions for a minute, I'd like to discuss The Hobbit, among other things.

I saw The Hobbit about a week ago at the Multikino which is located to a considerable distance to the northeast of downtown Krakow. The theater would not have been out of place in an American shopping mall, though I will admit that the seats are more comfortable here than they are at home.

The film itself was suitably epic, with the special effects and large-scale battles that we've come to expect from Peter Jackson. As in the not-Wagner Lord of the Ring[s] Cycle, the film starred New Zealand. It also featured Ian McKellen and a cast of actors you've definitely seen before, but you aren't quite sure where. One half-expects a Christopher Walken cameo.

This interpretation featured the same kind of ponderous, epic dialogue that was present in the first three films. While the tone of this film was somewhat lighter than in the previous three, it just felt a little too dark and heavy for a novel that was ultimately intended as a kid's book. The film also leans heavily on its predecessors, with Elijah Wood showing up mostly to say hi, and Saruman the White showing up despite not having been introduced canonically until the Lord of the Rings. In this film Saruman is condemned to sound rather more like a bumbling and indecisive Jimmy Carter than the scheming Richard Nixon he becomes.

The Middle Earth National Security Council scene in particular is mostly a "hey, remember these guys?" sort of shoutout than anything else. I also think the producers may have saved a little money on CGI by directly ripping off at least one scene from one of the previous movies. Scott Mendelson at the Huffington Post commented that the film has trouble standing alone independent of the trilogy that came before, and I think I tend to agree with him. Read his review here. 

I fear that the producers and director are trying to stretch the material a little bit too far. The Ring trilogy takes up three books, three movies, and nine hours. I believe the writers of the current Hobbit trilogy have been and will continue to be hard-pressed to be able to have one book take up three movies and nine hours. Unfortunately, this difficulty posed by a shortage of material seems to have solved by making virtually the entire film an extended running battle. Half of Gandalf's lines consist of "run!" And the company of dwarves has the rather astonishingly good luck of being able to plow through roughly an army division worth of goblins without so much as a scratch. Even Klingons were never that good. 

Dialogue and character development never were the strong suits of the Lord of the Rings movies, and that continues to be a major weak spot in this particular film. Thorin Oakenshield will go snarling at Bilbo for no particularly good reason, only to very suddenly change his opinion at the end of the movie. Indeed, Thorin is played exactly as Aragorn was. Each of the dwarves is interchangeable. The changes in Bilbo's character are inexplicably sudden, and I fear that since the book is now split over three movies it will be much harder to see the fundamental "coming of age" that defines that particular character.

In favor of the film, I will say that the cinematography is spectacular and the action scenes are well-done. There is some decent humor, and I was impressed at how quickly the lengthy running time of the movie flew by. However, this latest installment of the Ring Cycle is just a little too Wagnerian for my taste.

I give this film two stars out of four. It's worth seeing for the spectacle and for Martin Freeman as Bilbo, however it just feels a little bit like Lord of the Rings Lite. 

Angielski as Ona is to be Learning (English in Poland pt. II)

In my previous post I gave a general overview of how the English language is used, who uses it, and why as well as how well they do so. I would now like to comment a bit on how English is taught, based on my limited observations and discussions with students here in Poland. I should stress that at no point is my intent to make fun of non-native speakers of English, especially considering that my Polish can be pretty funny at times. And I also don't want to make fun of non-native English speakers because over here they have me WAY outnumbered!

A major complaint I've heard from Polish students is that English classes are effectively the same each and every year, from grade school to college. The focus of each class is similar, and it's hard to get a feeling of real progress in the language. Practical experience tends to be somewhat limited as well, and I heard that in a lot of classes the students will "cheat" during conversation practice and speak in Polish, which defeats the purpose of the exercise.

Now, lest we say "lord, what fools these Polaks be," a lot of the complaints I've heard about English instruction here in Poland are very familiar to me, as they are some of the exact same complaints I have about how I learned Spanish. I remember learning all of these verb tenses and conjugations for all sorts of verbs...having learned hardly any nouns. I didn't even know what the Spanish word for "noun" was, and had to look it up. At my best I could read and write Spanish reasonably, but speaking and understanding it was difficult because that's not what we practiced. This was exacerbated by the fact that the dialogues we heard in class were completely different from what you hear on a Spanish-language TV broadcast, wherethecommentatorwillspeakquickandsmunchwordtogethandomitpartofmanyofthem. After having taken years of Spanish, I could kind of figure out dribs and drabs of what soccer commentators were saying, aside from, of course, GOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!

I observed in my last post that few people here speak English with me despite the fact that I would be an excellent conversation partner. I think a major reason this is the case is that many have a very real fear that they will look stupid in front of me. Part of this I think comes from an incomplete understanding of the United States, and how it is different from Poland in one major respect. I would say that the average American from a large city is used to hearing English spoken with inaccurate grammar and a heavy accent. We are used to trying to figure out what somebody means. That doesn't seem to be the case as much over here. Now, that's gradually changing as people move here from farther east and from the south, and in general I have to say the Poles I've met have been great at trying to understand me when I attempt to speak their language. But I would wager that for most Poles, hearing a heavy foreign accent with weird grammar is a bit of a novelty, and so they assume this must be the case for English speakers as well.

In Poland, I've noticed that a very real stress is placed on speaking the language correctly. I once had a conversation with someone only to have a complete third-party stranger jump in and correct my grammar (which in a place like New York would probably be met with a response like "please to be go screwing yourselves.") On more than one occasion I've made a bit of a hash of a sentence when talking to a stranger and had that person very superciliously repeat that sentence with the correct grammar, not because they didn't understand what I said but because they were, well, correcting me. People do do this in the States, but usually not when speaking to a random foreigner in the street. The long and short of it is, people really care about the language over here and assume that Americans feel exactly the same way about their own. We really don't, to the point where there are a great number of native speakers who don't speak grammatically either. 

So, what's difficult about English for the average Polish speaker? First and foremost, definite and indefinite articles. Polish does not have definite articles such as "a", "an", or "the", the need for these being obviated partially by the case that a noun takes and partially by the fact that "this" is generally used in the place of "the", i.e. "pass me that spoon" or just "pass me spoon" is grammatical in Polish, but "pass me the spoon" isn't used (I'll give a more thorough description of grammatical case later). In fact, many Polish speakers seem to decide whether or not to use an article by flipping a coin.

Poles will occasionally have trouble with English word order. I never realized how strict word order was in English until I did some translations from Polish. Because Polish has cases and case endings, and because adjectives must agree with the nouns they modify, it does not make a difference whether you say "black car" or "car black." While the order of a Polish sentence is still generally subject-verb-object, thanks to case endings it is very clear what the subject and object of any given sentence is, meaning that an order of object-verb-subject is understandable. A good example of a kind of word order that is perfectly normal in Polish is an old joke about what "CCCP" stands for: "cep cepa cepem popycha/pogania." The very literal translation of this sentence would be "a fool a fool with flail pushes/chases", subject-object-adverb-verb. A translation which actually makes sense would read "A fool chases a fool with a flail", subject-verb-object-adverb. The rigidity of English word order sometimes causes problems for Poles, although this is more noticeable in writing than it is in speaking.

Of course, some English words are hard to pronounce. This might be hard to believe considering that Polish has great words like "chrabąszcz" and "Szczebrzeszyn" in it, but it's true. In particular, "th" is hard for pretty much any European. English dipthongs are hard to pronounce for just about any European outside of Holland. English also has a bunch of different ways to pronounce each noun, and its spelling famously makes no sense.

What's been very interesting for me to observe is that a speaker will have problems pronouncing a foreign language or foreign word even if said word is made up entirely of sounds that speaker is used to making. It has also been interesting to do some informal comparisons between non-native speakers of English and how a native speaker of, say, Chinese, has very different problems with the language compared to a native speaker of Polish.  

In the next post, I will finally get to the Polish language, which on a good day is spoken in an almost entirely grammatical manner by its native speakers.

The English Język As Ona Jest Spoke

Tough he is German, he speak so much well italyan, french, spanish and english, that
among the Italyans, they believe him Italyan, he speak the frenche as the Frenches
himselves. The Spanishesmen believe him Spanishing, and the Englishes, Englishman.
It is difficult to enjoy well so much several langages.

- O Novo Guia da Conversação em Portuguez e Inglez (The New Guide to Conversation in Portuguese and English), also known as English As She is Spoke, by JOSÉ DA FONSECA and PEDRO CAROLINHO

If my time in Poland has taught me anything, it is that there is nothing so beautiful as hearing somebody speak her native language. There is also sometimes nothing so funny as hearing somebody attempt to speak a language not his own or one that he does not know at all, as the above passage from one of Mark Twain's favorite books amply illustrates. As I mentioned in my last post, most of my communication in Poland has been conducted under a kind of lingual inexactitude.

I got back to Poland on Wednesday and have come down with a bit of a cold, which means that I haven't been as active as I would like to be. However, I have wanted to comment for some time about language in Poland, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.


English is used in settings where you would expect it, such as airports and cultural events, international conferences, hotels, museums and guided tours. It is also used gratuitously by those who wish to add a touch of class or cosmopolitanism to their establishments. Granted, I don't know what things look like in a smaller town like Kielce, as Kraków is a very tourist-heavy town. What's interesting is that reading and writing of English tends to be much better than the speaking of it, those being the primary ways the language is used in international communications and journals. 

English speaking here is spotty, in quality as well as quantity terms. In theory, everybody my age (20-somethings) should speak English as the language is a mandatory subject in school from a young age. Indeed, I heard that in job interviews knowledge of English is assumed, and the interviewer is interested in what OTHER other languages the interviewee speaks. Generally, German and particularly French are valued, the latter especially so because many Frenchmen make it a point of national pride to either not speak English or pretend that they don't. This is not to say that all young people are comfortable speaking English, and competence in it varies widely, just like any other subject one learns in school.

Among the older generation English is not as widely spoken, probably partly because it wasn't expected and partly because during the time of the Iron Curtain there wasn't much reason to do so. I get the perception that under Communism English was actually a somewhat edgy second language to learn, because its primary use was in listening to Voice of America broadcasts. The Soviets encouraged speaking Russian (which was mandatory in schools), and I'm under the impression that most people over 40 or 50 have at least some competence in that language.

The generational gap that I'm seeing is that a lot of is that older people tend to be proud of what English they have, even if it is very little, while younger people tend to be embarrassed even if their English is quite good. I've had old people cheerfully practice the three phrases of English that they know, whereas everyone my age will pretty quickly switch to Polish as soon as it becomes clear that I can more or less manage in their language. Now, I understand that I am in Poland, Polish is the language, and I really don't like those American (or German!) tourists who insist that everything be made to suit them in a foreign place. The reason I'm a little surprised that few people will try to speak English with me is that my presence represents an excellent opportunity to practice the language in an informal, and actually useful, setting. It also gives people an opportunity to hear the American accent, which I understand is not very commonly heard in instructional settings. Indeed, every English teacher I've met in Poland is clearly aiming for a British accent and British usage.

This is not to say that the American accent is completely unherd of over here. It can be heard all the time in films on TV. However, these films are all Polish-dubbed rather than subtitled. The dubbing also does not exactly cover the English underneath, as it does in, say, Spanish dubs of American movies on Telemundo or Univisión back home. In essence, the viewer hears two languages at once, first the original English dialogue, then the Polish translation delivered in a very flat voice by an inevitably-male reader even as he reads female parts. This system is ungainly in the extreme for movies that are dialogue-heavy, as hearing the Polish translation delivered in the same tone of voice for all parties involved along with the original language underneath makes it impossible to understand who is saying what when and why. To compensate, a lot of the movies that get aired are ones that don't have a lot of dialogue, i.e. brainless action movies. After all, exploding cars and buildings are a universal language, and the plots of such films are usually interchangeable enough that you don't really have to know why Jason Statham is blowing up a building owned by Jet Li, only that he probably had a good reason for doing so. Or maybe not even that. Maybe he's been filled with some kind of drug that requires him to maintain a constant adrenaline rush to stay alive, by doing things like blowing up buildings and having sex while driving at unsafe speeds AND having a shootout on city streets (This actually describes a Jason Statham movie. And its sequel.) Anyway, the average Polish television set is filled with things like Dolph Lundgren having an extremely improbable (but I will admit, very cool) car chase across the roofs of Chicago and teaming with Montel Williams to prevent terrorists from nuking Washington DC using hijacked ICBMs. This presents an opportunity for unexpected hilarity; the translations are not always accurate, sometimes in an attempt to keep the films "PG" in Poland. So you'll occasionally hear the English dialogue be something along the lines of "OH, Sh******t!!!!", a line which tends to occur frequently in these sorts of movies, and the overdub will be a very calm "goshdarn."

Some nature specials and the news are handled better, with interviews being translated as we are used to them, but with the English dialogue completely obliterated.

Having digressed from the main point of the thread, I'll come back to the topic of how people actually learn English in a later post, as well as what is difficult for Polish speakers about English. I will then talk about what's difficult about Polish for English speakers, the answer to which is, in one word, "everything!"

Back in the States

The New Year is always a time for reflection and planning, so I have spent some time reminiscing about my months here and thinking about what comes next. I have spent the holidays back in the United States, which I hope explains the paucity of posts over the last month. Granted, spending time in Chicago is as close to spending time in Poland as you can get, particularly if that time is spent on Milwaukee Avenue. I am still struck by how much Warsaw looks like Chicago in terms of general layout, sprawl, street size and the faces of the people who are in those streets. 

One thing that struck me while taking stock of the time I've spent in Poland so far is that everything I've been learning takes place in a kind of indistinct haze. A lot of this is due to the language difference: my day-to-day conversations take place in a language in which at least one of the speakers is not completely comfortable. While my Polish has greatly improved with constant practice, I still can't express myself with all the nuance that comes naturally to me in English. I also do not catch all of the finer points of what others are saying, and when it becomes clear that I am not a Pole, most people will speak in simpler sentences anyway. Likewise, on those occasions when I speak English with someone from overseas, I find myself trying to be clear rather than nuanced. My writing and speech takes on a very straightforward and sometimes almost brutal quality for this reason. I will finish this year in Poland writing like Hemingway. My sentences will be short. They will be simple and true. And this will be good. Wordiness is too often confused for weightiness, complexity of writing for complexity of thought. I have long known the power of simplicity. My time in Poland continues to give me an occasion to practice it, as I spend time trimming unnecessary verbal foliage as a matter of course. That being said, it is nice to be surrounded by native English speakers, as this demands much less work from everyone involved.

In the coming year I hope to find a way to conduct some cultural outreach. This will of course be bi-directional: I want to leave people with an accurate impression of the United States, as well as thoroughly understand Poland. Accomplishing this will require more thought than I initially anticipated. If my time in Poland has taught me anything, it is that the best way to do things is often an informal one. Formal approaches through formal channels often require a tangle of red tape, pieces of paper with five stamps on them from different departments, and so on. Formal events are also few and far between. The other thing that I'm realizing is that I cannot expect to learn about Poland by the truckload. I think I had this expectation of having a series of deep and probing conversations with a number of people for hours on end. While I have had those sorts of conversations and learned many interesting things from them, far more frequent is the five-minute chat between classes or in a hallway. I'm going to have to piece Poland together five minutes at a time.

I still need to get into the habit of watching TV. I don't do much of that in the States, partly because there is seldom anything good on. Of course, to hear certain Poles talk about it, Poland is increasingly having the same problem. This is hardly the point: it is excellent language practice.
At the risk of sounding obvious, I will say that living in a country and being a tourist are completely different experiences, and that it isn't possible to really get the feel for a place without living there for an extended period of time. I saw Krakow on a superficial level for two weeks, and now at a deeper level for two months and change. Poland looks much more complicated now than it did the first time I was there, largely because now I have seen more of the warts that every country has but are easily hidden from someone who sees the tourist sights, eats at good restaurants, and is on a budget that is looser than that of the average resident.

All in all, I'm very glad to be working and living in Poland. It continues to teach me a lot about not only another country, but my own, not only about other people, but also about myself.