My travels have overall been really great, and I have quite a few stories I want to share with you, but I am still waiting to do a majority of that when I can upload photos. I finally have consistent internet access, but being the frazzled human that I am, I left my digital camera in Paris. The good news is that Hannah has it. The bad news is that I left it in Paris... and that I therefore only have about 5 photos of Berlin taken with a disposable camera, yet to be developed. Luckily other members of my travel entourage also took photos.
Here in Okonek, my aunt has a digital camera from 1987 so I might be able to take some photos of what's going on, which probably won't be too much since the forcast is COLD. I've experienced three days total of actual warmth this entire trip. My body feels all out of whack in this semi-permanent winter state the European continent seems to be in. My mom is getting to Okonek on Tuesday and other relatives are coming down next weekend for my grandparents 50th anniversary fiesta. Gonna party hard, Jamiołkowscy style.
As most of the world now knows, this morning a Polish government plane crashed, killing about 96 people (the numbers vary based on the source, that's the most recent I've heard). The President, his wife, a bunch of members of parliament, most of the top military officials, eight priests (or bishops or something? are there multiple bishops?), and a bunch of other people died in the crash. Most of the politicians were from the same party. I am not sure if any other country has experienced such a drastic, unintended, wipeout of a significant portion of its government.
I awoke this morning at 10 at my friend's house, to a conversation her and her other friends were having about how the "president died in a plane crash," when I got up there still wasn't much news about it--just a couple of articles in the Polish media. I went on the New York Times and they didn't have anything on it at all, and then a few moments later just a headline, "Polish President Dies in Plane Crash."
Afterwords we watched some news as the story slowly unfolded. People's reactions seem to have similar themes, including "why is the government still flying that old ass Soviet plane?" and "why the hell would they jam pack so many important people onto one aircraft?" The answers to those questions remain largely unknown. "Only in Poland..." is the general reaction. My friend's parents told me that there had been news stories in the past about how the President had gotten in a tiff with a pilot because he 'demanded' the pilot land, and the pilot was like, 'nah, shit is dangerous.' So they seemed suspect that a similar scenario may have taken place.
The media coverage here is nauseatingly religious. Not at all surprising since 95% of the country is Catholic, but not everyone is super observant. The reaction has been compared to that of the passing of John Paul Dos. On my train ride over I saw a lot of Polish flags hung outside of people's homes, and I wondered if there were more than usual or if I'd just never noticed. Apparently it was largely a reaction to the day's events. The whole response to it has made me wonder how America would respond in such a situation, and I feel that it would probably be quite similar, perhaps a tinge less on the Catholic front.
Anyways, I arrived at the train station in Okonek today around 5:30 and was greeted by my grandpa which was awesome! I love my grandparents, my grandpa loves making (sometimes mean) jokes at the expense of others... runs in the family, I suppose? My grandma is less likely to take a straight-forward jab at you but is also quite sassy. made chicken noodle soup and one of my favorite dishes, kotlety mielone (don't feel like explaining, so just google it if you feel so inclined) with potatoes--and the potatoes here are unreally DELICIOUS. My aunt made cake... it's going to be a good 10 days.
To add some insult to injury, I thought I'd share some of the ridiculous memorial prof-pics that are coming up on the Polish facebook-meets-classmates.com website.
Runner up
Wait for it...
Wait for it...
OH MY GOD they couldn't have just stuck to a ribbon and a rose?
ReplyDeletethat last picture is nuts.
the only nations i can think of that have ever experienced government-wipe-out quite like this are all in africa, and africa doesn't count in world history except for during colonialism, so you know...