I thought this time I would talk about polish football considering the Bundesliga began having matches this weekend without fans. Having seen a few European football games including being a part of EURO 2012 (with the best of the best national team players) and in Krakow, it is hard for me to imagine having empty stadiums. I have been to professional football games in the Boston area and they are like being in a library compared to European games. It was so quiet except for one little section of Latin American fans. I missed the rock concert atmosphere of the European football games. I am sure football games around the world are just as raucous but I am only familiar with the European games.

As of today, the Ekstraclasa is scheduled to begin playing at the end of May. There is no word if masks will have to be worn in the stadiums but supposedly only 50 fans will be allowed in. Polish stadiums are not as big as those in Germany, Spain, England, but still….. now you can hear the players yelling for the ball, swearing, etc. 😉

While in Cracow (Polish spelling) I went to a game but checked with some of my friends to make sure this was a safe game to go to. There is an advantage to being a woman in the sports world at least in Cracow because women are given huge discounted tickets to sporting events. I took advantage of these discounts many times.

There are some serious rivalries in the Ekstraklasa – the first Polish league out of five leagues in the country. Within these five leagues there are hundreds of teams. Living in Cracow I was in a first league city. My team was Cracovia, the oldest football team in the country, playing since 1906. There is also another top teir team in Cracow – the BIG cross town rival Wisła. These two teams play in what is locally know as the Holy War. Think Yankees-Mets, White Sox-Cubs, Michigan-Michigan State but up the hate 10x. Hooligans tend to run amock during these games so many regular, every day people don’t go. It is dangerous. It can also be dangerous to be seen around Cracow wearing the wrong colors. It is not unusual for hooligans to beat each other up over their respective team. It’s silly, it’s juvenile, but it happens with football hooligans all over the world. I am all for supporting your team but it IS just a game at the end of the day.

My team was Cracovia because it not only had a football team but also the best hockey team in the country and I am a hockey fan – first. I had my Cracovia scarf but was careful wearing it out and about. And when it came time to see a Cracovia football game, I wore it. But I also scoped out the competition to make sure it was a relatively safe game to go see.

It is not unusual to see opposition fans coming into Cracow escorted by the police from the train/bus station (they are next to each other in Cracow) to the stadium. There are tanks, water cannons, riot police and plenty of uniforms for the more serious games. Fans will come from all over the country, usually well oiled (drunk) before they even get to the stadium.

Going to a football game in Cracow is truly an experience. Both Cracovia (2012) and Wisla (2011) have new stadiums (less than 1/2 mile from each other) with the latest security. In order to go to even one game you have to go before the game (usually a few days) and get a photo ID. Then come game day you show the photo ID, go to the entrance of the top to bottom metal turn styles, stand, look up and have your picture taken. Then you can go through the turn styles assuming everything checks out. Once in the stadium (holds a little over 15,000 people) there is the opposition area in a corner location that has either two rows of chain link fencing to keep it from the general public. A ring of police surround that area to keep an eye out for any shenanigans. There is also the family section which is also available for women if they don’t want to sit with their family/friends. It is not guarded but patrolled.

Everywhere else is seating for the home team. It is raucous, it’s active, it’s high energy even before the match starts. Singing, synchronized scarf waving, drums, sometimes bugles, whistles, face paint, team jersey…. a pageantry of red and white. It was definitely interesting. I chose an afternoon game (a bit safer) with a minor rival.

Going on two months of stay at home advisories and unlike most people, being a remote worker prepared me for significant time alone/confined. But even I am getting a bit of cabin fever, especially on a nice day like today – sunny, breezy, temps around 20 (C), so I went out for a long walk this morning and got some exercise, some vitamin D and saw a good chunk of people not wearing masks. I wear one. It’s not the prettiest and I can see no need for makeup any time soon since the makeup would not be seen and would be smeared. Cosmetic companies/stocks may drop. With most of the face covered, even sunblock seems somewhat optional.

But courtesy of this stay at home order, it got me thinking of places I want to go when there is some semblance of normal in the travel cards. I am thinking there will plenty of good deals, empty planes, empty hotels and great service. So my bucket list is as follows:

1. Eastport/Lubec, Maine – the first places to see the sunrise in the U.S. Since it’s right on the US/Canada line, maybe go to Campobello and see FDR’s summer retreat. Go drive up Route 1 that runs along the coast of Maine, take food detours, picture detours……. and use up my rental car points in the process. Gas is still relatively cheap.
2. Billings, Montana; Salt Lake City, Utah; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Boise, Idaho. I just need these four states to get the continental US state count. They are all red states that does thrill me, but I figure 24 hours in and out would be ok. Maybe fly to Salt Lake City, then drive to the other states, and maybe take a right and go see Mount Rushmore.
3. Berlin. I want to go back to Berlin. There is still so much to see and granted, I packed a lot into two days when I was there one November, still so much to see.
4. Dresden. Art, architecture, food, history.
5. A small ship cruise up and down the Croatian coast. Katarina Cruise Lines. I have had my eye on a trip with these people for years. I either had the time or money but never both. One day…..
6. Lviv/Lwow. I was there once for a few hours, not enough time to go really see the city. It was like going into a time warp – 20 years earlier.
7. Milan – visit my house of worship – Armani. I have been to the Duomo and the neighboring gallerias. Maybe do some more local tours in the suburbs and have pizza and gelato of course.
8. Porto. Everyone goes to Lisbon, I want to check out Porto.
9. The Baltics. Hopefully I can get there before they are invaded by Russia.
10. Edinburgh and Glasgow and take trains around the country.

I am sure there are others, but I just want to do more traveling around Europe. I wanted to get to North Africa but ran out of time and then there was the Arab Spring and nothing seems to be safe there now, especially for a non native.

For now, here’s hoping that some travel will be allowed soon. Everyone be safe.

This is definitely going to be an Easter for the record books for all the wrong reasons. But before this, there have been many other Easters celebrated. And with this in mind, I would like to share some photos of the amazing Easter markets in Poland. So colorful, so pretty, so hopeful. They usually start a couple weeks before Palm Sunday so people can buy their palms in addition to other things for baskets. But because palms are moderately rare in Poland, pussy willows are a popular alternative.

An additional tradition is Smingus Dyngus (Wet Monday). This is when boys throw water over girls and spank them with pussy willows. The tradition is that the boys like the girls and if you got wet, this boy was going to be your husband. While I was in Krakow I rarely saw the water throwing (sometimes it was a squirt gun instead of a bucket of water) and never saw the pussy willow spanking. Just to be safe, any woman usually carried an umbrella if outside on Wet Monday. And no, I never experienced this tradition.

Easter baskets in Poland are a little different compared to the US. Usually a basket is lined with a white linen or lace napkin and decorated with sprigs of boxwood (bukszpan). The baskets contain a sampling of Easter foods: pisanki (colored eggs), a piece of sausage or ham, salt and pepper, bread, a piece of cake and an Easter Lamb made of sugar or even plastic. They are brought to church to be blessed. Sometimes the Easter Lamb is made of bread.

I do not know where the time goes….. Almost 10 years ago I was in Milan for my first international housing conference. After an initial hiccup with my first hotel, I was lucky enough to find something even better. I made the most out of that hotel stay as well as walking all over Milan. I did attend the conference, which was most productive, but I also managed to see all kinds of other things. And while Milan and most of Italy is suffering tremendously with the virus, I want to show some of my favorite memories of the city from that summer trip.

To my Italian friends, you are in my thoughts. When all has passed, I look forwarding to seeing you again and exploring all the wonderful things that Italy has to offer. Be safe.

With the virus running rampant through most of the world with a European epicenter, and people self-quaratining or practicing safe distance procedures, I thought this week I would try and help with any cabin fever issues, taking some out to enjoy some of the wide open spaces in this world. This particular open space moment was in January in western Switzerland at an international balloon festival near Davos. It was a gorgeous but cold day, and worth all the shivering. Enjoy!

One of the many holidays not celebrated in the US, boy do I miss this holiday when I was in Poland. Some would say every day is women’s day, men’s day, children’s day, but because women are now the majority population in most of the industrialized world, let alone the rest of the world, it is time for women to start acting like the majority – not the minority.

For example, women’s football. In a recent UK/German women’s match in Germany, 70,000 people showed up! That was the highest attendance for a women’s match ever. In the United States, the US women’s football team is infinitely more successful than the men’s team yet still makes a pittance in comparison. A women’s owned and operated restaurant in Marrakesh. Women owned businesses are increasing across the globe. Not in the size and scale of male companies, but more on the ground, more local, more directly benefiting the community.

The theme for this year (according to the UN) is *I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights*. This equality should be across all sectors of life but still isn’t. One area where women are making great strides are on corporate boards.

http://femalebreadwinners.com/women-on-boards-3-top-reasons-it-changes-the-atmosphere/.

There are also the micro financing groups such as Kiva that help women in particular with growing small businesses, providing for their families and communities.

I have no photos of this particular day in my travels, but some photos of the first women’s march. Hopefully the growth of women’s rights will continue and expand. WE are the majority population, it’s time we act like it.

Sorry for the delay, I have been knocked out by a bad cold (not the coronovirus) and have had zero energy the past few weeks. FYI, the flu shot is useless for colds.

I know I have talked about this before (camps) and how this camp in particular has become known locally as the Disneyland of camps because everyone (internationally) knows about it, almost everyone visits it and it is in the international press a lot lately due to the anniversary of its liberation, but also because survivors are TERRIFIED that people are forgetting history and with that, we are doomed to repeat it.

I hope civilization does not repeat it but considering the Armenian genocide (before WW2), what happened in Rwanda in the late 1990’s, the Rohingya being forced to flee their own country in the last couple of years, and not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees……… man will be the death of man I fear.

And on that happy note, more evidence that this horrible time in history DID happen (Holocaust) and it will happen again if we as a people are not vigilant. Since pictures speak a thousand words, I will let them do the talking and hope that the images will remained ingrained in people’s memory so generations never forget and never repeat.

When I lived in Krakow I visited this camp when I first arrived in late 2009, then went again in late 2014 before I returned to the states. The one thing that people say when they visit in person is *why did they build a town around the camp?* Well, that is not what happened. The town was there before the camp. Yes, the camp abuts a neighborhood and is separated by a high, concrete wall but that had nothing to do with the residents. Also, the town is Oścwięcim – not Auschwitz. This is a common mistake among tourists.

For next time, happier memories for this blog.

One of the more poignant stories and images has been of the orchestra at the camp. Signs at the camp are written in Polish, Hebrew and English.

This is a list of items for men (left) and women (right) that were confiscated and weighed before being taken away. Things such as coats, jackets, pants, skirts, jewelry, scarves, and women’s dresses. Sztuk is the number of pieces while you can see above the weight in kilos and how many train wagons were used.

I think people get the point. But I will always keep these photos as a reminder. Plus one of the greatest books ever illustrated and written about that time period – Maus by Art Spiegelman. I have Maus I and Maus II. It’s one of the first graphic novels and depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. The work employs postmodernist techniques and represents Jews as mice, Germans as cats, and Poles as pigs.

I am not sure how to treat this event. Obviously a positive in that some people were saved and the truth came out about what horrible, disgusting and disgraceful things that man does to his fellow man – throughout history.

I have been to Auschwitz-Birkenau twice. Auschwitz (in Oswiecim – its local/regional name) has become quite a tourist spot for better or for worse. Visiting in the summer, or a sunny, pleasant day or with hundreds of people is just not the same as going in the middle of winter, on a dark, dreary, cloudy cold day. THAT is the time to go, to get a real idea of what it was like.

Birkenau is more powerful than Auschwitz. But to get a real feel for these horrible places you need to go visit the other less popular camps, in other parts of Poland, and do it during miserable weather. I went to Majdanek in December one year. Majdanek is SE of Lublin.

Majdanek was made into a secondary sorting and storage depot at the onset of Operation Reinhard, for property and valuables taken from the victims at the killing centers in Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. However, due to large Jewish populations in south-eastern Poland including Kraków, Lwów, Zamość and Warsaw which were not yet “processed”, Majdanek was refurbished as a killing center around March 1942. The gassing was performed in plain view of other inmates, without as much as a fence around the buildings. Another frequent killing method was shootings by the squads of Trawnikis. According to the Majdanek Museum, the gas chambers began operation in September 1942. There are two identical buildings at Majdanek, where Zyklon-B was used. Executions were carried out in barrack 41 with the use of crystalline hydrogen cyanide released by the Zyklon B. The same poison gas pellets were used to disinfect prisoner clothing in barrack 42. Of the more than 2,000,000 Jewish people killed in the course of Operation Reinhard, some 60,000 Jews (56,000 known by name) were most certainly exterminated at Majdanek, amongst its almost 80,000 victims accounted for, altogether.

In 1944, the Museum at Majdanek was created and has served as a research center. Nearly 250,000 people visit the Museum and camp area annually. The occupies roughly half of the 2.7 km2 from its original size with the buildings mostly bare. But there is still enough there to have a moving effect.

For those who Holocaust deniers, and others….. these are MY photos from my visit one December. This place was one of the most impactful places I saw in Poland. It did happen.

Where I am it is more summer (18 degrees) than winter so I thought since others may have much colder weather, and may need some warm thoughts, this week I am posting some photos from an annual summer festival in Krakow. Some years it was pleasantly warm, this particular year it was hot – very hot. I do not know how the re-enactors handled the heat with the heavy clothes. Glad it was not me. 😉

Many people keep saying – the good ole days when times were simpler. Well, they were definitely simpler but I prefer the modern era with vaccines, indoor plumbing, and food and work safety regulations – among other things.

One of the many things I miss about Europe are the markets. Christmas markets and Easter markets in particular. There is a wide variety of things to see and buy including local food, crafts, cookies, porcelain, furs, lace, along with local musical performances. Here are some of my favorite Christmas market photos from Krakow and beyond. Wesołych Świąt!