From: "Zachary Foreman"

Date: Sun, 3 Nov 1996 00:42:22 GMT+2

Subject: All Saints' Day and other stories

I have decided to experiment with the literary method of chronicling by going backwards. Although it violates our ideas of cause and effect, I think that we place too much faith in Order and Reason when we attempt to decipher the unconnected happenings in our lives. So:(btw thank you to all of you who gave me addresses, now will begin the grand experiment. I'll need your help. I will send all 35+ postcards at once and see which get where when. Will the Stanford post office continue it's remarkable tradition of being a few days behind the rest of the cosmos? We shall see...)

Ch5. Gdansk, Sopot, et alia Poland is a Catholic country. This may not seem like much but it is a fact that is truly unavoidable to anyone who lives or visits here. There are hundreds of churches in Krakow and each has multiple masses here every day, all packed. The down side is that it is difficult to find an open shop or restaurant sometimes. The reason I'm discussing this is because Friday was the observed day of All Souls' Day. We have Halloween. Children dressing up in vinyl Darth Vader costumes that have that new car smell (me, Eugene, OR, 1983) and adults renting expensive costumes and Stanford students dancing at the mausoleum of our hallowed founders is somehow related to this moving, religious event. Since it was a holiday, that meant (for the students) one thing: Travel. Some of my friends went to Budapest. Some to the Tartry mountains, some to Vienna. I went to Gdansk. Why Gdansk? Well, since I don't have wealthy parents or a job, it is difficult for me to justify spending $100+ for a weekend when I can travel farther and have as much fun to places where I have never been. For the round trip (1300 km) it cost less than 10 dollars. Not bad for 20 hours of train travel. I wanted to see the birthplace of Solidarity, where the beginning of the end of communism began. I also wanted to be in Poland for the holiday since for them it means something far different. It is truly a holy day. Last year, I traveled to Lithuania in the summer. I decided that I wanted to be married there. I know people are happy everywhere when they get married but there is something special about getting married in a 800 year old church in a beautiful small provincial town. I want to be buried in Poland. That statement may sound a little macabre but death is something that we all should think of, it's something that unites all of us. Whoa, ok, I'll lay off the philosophy and get back to the story.

I want to be buried in Poland because you aren't forgotten. There is a much greater respect for the past here than in America. We always search for the New and Improved, all of us chase after Progress. At around 4:30 in the afternoon (although the sun had already long since set), I found myself in a cemetery, although it seemed more like a market. It was so crowded that I had difficulty getting in. People were waiting patiently for their turn to get out and get in. At the time I wasn't even looking for it. I was trying to find this Gothic/Baroque cathedral in Gdansk and I got of the tram. I followed a large stream of people: old, young, parents with swaddled infants in strollers, little kids running around, hugging trees. Eventually, I found myself at the cemetery. Before I got there I could smell the scent of thousands of candles burning. As in all cemeteries, there were rows and rows of headstones, indicating where each family or individual was buried. Some were plain but most were finely sculpted. All had crosses. But what was strange was that in front of each and every plot, there were people standing or sitting, watching over the candles that they had lit and the wreaths of flowers that they had placed on the grave. In one corner of the cemetery, mass was occurring (I think). I walked the width of the cemetery and read several headstones. The cemetery was about the size and shape of a football field and the graves were packed fairly tightly together, with room for paths in between them. Every year on this day, families travel from wherever they may be to where their families are buried. Some had come hundreds of miles, just to guard the grave of their grandmother. The dead were not forgotten. What stays in my mind the most is the number of children present. We don't usually talk to our children about death, let alone take them to cemeteries. Most of the time, the children acted like, well, children. This was not an extraordinary scene for them. It is difficult for me to imagine what this is like for the average Pole. There is not the extreme grief that we normally associate with graveyards because we usually only go during funerals. This was not a day of grief but of remembrance and, in fact, joy. Families saw each other and spent time with each other. Whole communities spent hours in the cold, together. After that I went to the cathedral. There was no mass at that time so the only ones there were tourists. Funny how the cemetery was a much more lively place. That day I had also gone to the beach, on the Baltic Sea. Sopot is a upscale resort city and it has beautiful beaches. I walked out to the end of the pier (supposedly one of the longest in Europe at over 300 meters). Then I walked along the beach in search of amber. Almost all of the worlds amber comes from these beaches. I found rocks that looked like amber, plastic that looked like amber and glass from beer bottles that had been worn down that looked remarkably like amber. I finally found a small piece and am very proud. In the 15 minutes of my walk, I encountered about 6 other groups, also looking for amber. Earlier that day, I went walking around Gdansk, starting at the monument to Solidarity in the north and visiting the huge St. Mary's Cathedral, the largest brick church in the world. Inside there is this clock that can tell the time, the phases of the moon, the position of the moon and sun in the zodiac, etc, etc. It also has animated biblical scenes (Adam and Eve strike every hour). Legend has it that the clockmaker was blinded so that he could never build a better one. And apparently it was pretty good, it was said to have lost only three minutes in the hundred years that it was working (then those lousy Prussians invaded).Basically everything in Gdansk was closed, so I just walked around, looking at the architecture, sitting in on masses, walking along the water's edge. Of course things can never be good in Zachland for long. At the train station I was trying to find platform three, this (helpful?) guy asked me where I wanted to go. I told him Malbork because I wanted to stop there for a few hours to check out the Teutonic Knights stronghold. He told me that this was the train and that it was leaving in a few seconds. You can see what's coming. About 20 minutes into the trip, I get worried because I should be there by now. The conductor asks for my ticket and tells me I'm on the wrong train. I have to wait in this random city for three hours , go to Katowice, wait for an hour and then get to Krakow by 6:43, in fact on the Berlin to Krakow train that I took to get here. I kill time by reading Milosc, window shopping, walking around, etc. I listened to What's the Story (Morning Glory)? about 12 times and then my batteries went dead. I arrived safely and slept all day. I also formulated a requirement for civilization. A country is not official civilized until you can drink the water and they have public bathrooms. I walked around Gdansk all day and, even in restaurants, you have to pay the equivalent of 20 cents to go to the bathroom. Even more humiliation: if you do more, you pay more, if you know what I mean. Can you imagine walking into a bathroom and there being a booth with a woman who asks you the polish equivalent of "Number one or number two?". The only thing worse would be working there. Not my idea of a fun job. "Where do you work". "Oh, do you know that restaurant on Solarska street...I work in their bathroom". They didn't even have a public toilet in McDonald's. So, drinkable water and free access to toliets=civilization.

Ch 6 Classes and Professors I'll keep this short because it's not too interesting. you can write if you want to know more. In order to get a certificate or diploma, you need to take 5 classes. My current schedule is Transition to Market Economy, Formation of Political Systems on EE after 1989, NATO and EU enlargement, and History of Polish Literature. I'm also taking Polish and am planning on having a tutorial. This program was to have been semester-long. But since the Hobart and William Smith College group is only here ten weeks, much had to be modified. I was expecting a choice from at least 30 classes, all graduate students, for a semester. What I found was that we could only choose from 11 classes, more than half of the students are undergrads and the classes would be compressed. That left me with the problem of fitting 5 semester classes into a ten week schedule. So I decided to try to do a tutorial that would start later. We'll see how it goes. I have the Literature class every Monday and Wednesday. There are five students in the class. Joe and Lee, from HWS, Mike, Susanna and me. Mike is 26 and from Seattle. Susanna is from Germany. I like this class the most. We are reading lots of works from Polish literature, poetry, drama, novels. If anyone is interested I could recommend some good stuff. We just finished the section on literature during WWII. We just don't have enough time to truly give justice to any of the works that we are reading. I almost forgot. This is the same building as the old Stanford-In-Krakow one. The library here is full of Stanford books and readers. I have a reader in my room and it reminds me of home. It's funny how Stanford seems to be so far away but only a few years ago this place was full of Stanford students. On Tuesdays, I have the transition class. It's weird. Our professor wears a lot of make-up and has very tweezed, arching eye-brows. She always uses colorful overheads and tends to stand in front of them. She has a very penetrating stare that can really put you off. In fact, my friend in the class told me that he was really scared when she stared at him from within the overhead because she seemed to have the word "CAPITALISM" written on her forehead. She is very promarket and anti-Czech. She has a really scary Vaclav Klaus impression (he's the prime minister of the Czech republic.) Anyway, we all complain about that class and I'm not sure how much I'm learning from the lectures. It should get better though because we are moving from theoretical foundations to case studies of individual countries. On Thursdays, I have the formation of political system after 1989 class. It's ok but too long. He talks in very dense sociologese and often rambles into personal anecdotes (which are pretty impressive but he seems a little conceited). The other day we talked about nationalism, patriotism, nation-building and the differences between them. I also found out that the Poles consider the Czechs their younger childish brothers. They are usually described as a little "funny". Anyway, on the first day, I was struck by the vast range of backgrounds we have in the program. One person, Martin, teaches classes in Dublin in Sociology and Religion. Another is a sophomore double majoring in English and Spanish. A lot of the students already have their masters degrees in European studies. On Fridays, we have NATO and EU integration. Political Science and although interesting at times, is pretty boring. The only thing that saves it is the amazing class makeup. There are two girls from Ireland (in EU but not NATO) a guy from Germany, a guy from Belgium (VERY Flemish), two girls from England, me, two other students from the US (but studied in Belgium) and a marine living in Krakow. Also of course the Polish professor. We have the best discussions because one of us is usually an expert in a particular area. I find myself having political discussions all the time and I love it. One night we were arguing about the significance of Britain in World War Two and about medieval Flanders and where Europe ends. I like learning about history but it's much better to hear it from a friend at a party, with passion. Pieter, the Flamand, is very patriotic and loves talking about Belgium and, especially, Flanders.I talked about the reformation, 16th C trading patterns, you name it, and he had definite opinions about everything. It's the same with all the International students here. I'll tell more later. Last Wednesday was a party at the Irishwomen's apartment. I ended up talking to Lucy (from Suffolk) for about 3 hours. She talked about Labour politics, Republicanism, Margaret Thatcher, etc and she also had very definite opinions. It's great talking to intelligent, well informed people on subjects about which they are really have true feelings. Well, that's all for this edition. I really should talk about the people and everyday life in Krakow but I guess I'll save that for later.

Keep in touch,

Zach