A Pole doesn't daydream, he thinks of blue almonds.

Poles also don’t believe in jaywalking.

Ninety percent of Warsaw was systemically razed to the ground by Nazi Germany, so the city is now crisscrossed by Soviet boulevards.

Enormous roads. Plazas filled with monuments.

Atop a mud mound overlooking Krakow

Warsaw's main square

On these big ol’ crossings, no cars are seen for minutes, but crowds of Poles stand in ranks looking at each other across the street, quietly waiting. 

Apparently the Wehrmacht were so thorough in destroying everything that an 18th century landscape painting had to be used to recreate the city.

Which is why I spend most of my time in Krakow.

Before leaving London, I chatted with a girl from Maine and we discovered we were both going to Warsaw. Or at least she intended to since I had to quietly point out to her that her flight was bound for Wrocław. 

No, Wrocław is not the Polish way to spell Warsaw.

I'm the first one off the plane into passport control, and spend only enough time in Warsaw to pick up a pączek (best jelly donuts ever, and the woman was surprised I'd had them before as sufganiyot).

And then I'm on the train south to Poland's old capital.

Krakow's main square (Rynek Główny)

My priority is usually dumplings, and then everyone I love, in that order. 

I started hunting for pierogi.

I picked out a joint with a patio around the corner from St. Florian's Gate. It's from the 14th century when the Turks were pushing up on Poland's borders, so a great place to eat dumplings, and watch a woman spill beet soup all over her muu muu.

Red splish splash.

The city is so green. Krakow in spring is apparently leafy and it's best to try to go somewhere with a detour through tree tunnels.

My hostel is just on the northeast corner of Planty Park, a five acre amoeba that includes the entirety of the Old City.

I hear trumpets, so I dash into the Main Square in time to see the hourly tooting from the church towers of St. Mary's, done by volunteers from the local fire brigade.

There was no plaque explaining this giant sad head.

There are fresh rhubarb tarts for just a euro each, so perfect walking food on the way to Wawel Castle. 

Apparently a big chunk of it was flown over to Chicago to put into the Tribune Tower to flag it as the biggest Polish community outside the country itself. 

I do remember how many dumplings I had in Chicago, so yes, New Poland is in Illinois.

It's a solid place to watch the sunset and then to wander into the old Jewish area.

The next morning, I hopped on the first bus towards Auschwitz, the concentration camp right by the little town of Oświęcim.

As we got closer, we kept thinking the bars of the birch forests and each barbed fence meant we were there.

The town that bumps up against the old death camp is so incredibly normal. They have a Carrefour and a McDonald's, and what seems like a lot of street parking.

It's disconcerting to be here on a perfect spring day.

The place is unreal enough as it is, and to see it while birds are chirping and swooping around makes it all the easier to think of it as just a massive museum. And then it keeps occurring to me that 1.1 million people died here.

I'm pretty glad that I showed up early enough to not need a tour guide to wander the camp. It's really good to be able to go through all the exhibits whenever there isn't a crowd, to just walk around and blink and look.

Auschwitz is unsettling in its banality, in how structured everything is. Each country's dead had its own building : the Jews of Holland, Bohemia, Russia, etc. Here is the wall where people were shot, here is where people were hung, here is where they bathed.

At the grotesque twin camp of Birkenau just ten minutes by shuttle away, it's the scale of it that pulls at your mind.

Auschwitz and Birkenau, the two of these places just giant lesions and it's hard to say what all these crowds of people, what we're all hoping to see here.

Spanish tourists pushed and shoved onto the shuttle, squawking that they were in a group ahead.

I don't think they appreciate the weirdness of pushing onto a crowded tram bound for Birkenau.

At this second camp, there were no exhibits. The railroad tracks led straight in and diverged before splitting again. The buildings for prisoners had been made of wood, so only the chimneys had survived and now these brick monuments sprawl to the horizon.

The crematoriums looked like they had only recently collapsed at the far end of the camp where forest crept back in again.

Signage indicated that Jewesses had revolted against their grim duties and with the help of outside youths had blown up the giant ovens.

I don't think I felt much of anything until I sat down next to the fields of chimneys and bright yellow flowers. And then you're kinda just WHOOSH.

Auschwitz is relentless in its presentation, halls filled with nothing but whorls of human hair, another with prayer shawls, hairbrushes, suitcases, pots and pans.

I was alone in one hall where a heartbeat continuously throbbed and only the outlines of people floated on the walls, like the wraiths left behind after Hiroshima.

Walls of names and so many faces, one just of children, so many people who had no idea what was upon them. 

One man was quoted feeling like it was all a big misunderstanding, that if he could just explain it to the German soldiers, it would be okay.

I've taken a class on historical trauma, interviewed refugees whose families tried to kill them, and edited accounts of shtetl life, but the physicality of being in a barracks where people had died two to a bunk, or standing in an underground "shower" lit only by a skylight where Zyklon B would be thrown in,

That stuff takes your breath away.

There were lots of Israeli tourists, divided into same-gender groups, but all wearing the Israeli flag as capes.

I was glad I had another hour before the bus back to Krakow came. I helped a family from Illinois get tickets for the same trip, and then just flopped down to nap in the sunlight.

The bus ride back was fun, and I ended up going out to dinner with the Midwest couple and their son.

He and I hiked to the top of Kościuszko Mound, a big jelly mold of dirt that looks over the city.

The mound has no handrails, so I take the outside curve when we run into folks descending. A deaf family took my picture, we got a big boot of dark beer, and it was off to bed.

The best thing to go with a cold breakfast is a visit to the next door Warhammer megastore and then back to the old Jewish area.

Three shots at the underground bar, one quince, one cinnamon, and a orange blossom flower.

And then it was synagogue time.

Alte shul

Cheder Cafe had a spiced Israeli coffee in a big finjan kettle. I sat out the showers of rain with Jew-Jitsu, the Hebrew Hands of Fury, and a peek into the Kabbalah of Food.

One last plate of pierogi in Krakow, and there are illustrations of the Pierogozord. He is armed with a fork as tall as he is, and his body is made up of two pierogi touching.

Groat and pork dumplings, mm.

Warsaw Uprising Museum

Train back to Warsaw, and it's nice to have tea served so often. Fields of lurid rapeseed, canola, fronds of wild grain, feathery gusts of pale butterflies over the muddy fields. 

We zip through spindletrees like leafy bar codes as the train slides through the spring rain, couples huddled together under umbrellas on the overpasses.

Once in Warsaw, I picked up some pickled herring and salmon, and ambled down Solidarity Avenue toward the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

I don't regret the walk, but Old Town Warsaw looks like a Hollywood set. Particularly after coming back from Krakow, the fake aging shows.

My flight is at 6 am the next morning, so I'll be sleeping in the Warsaw Airport that night.

I pedal on an exercise bike for an hour at the shopping mall because that's how you can charge your phone there.

Ingenious.

Quick nap outside the palace of Culture and then I'm the sole passenger on the bus to the airport.

Ye Olde and new buildings

Also, Warsaw wins my award for Most Comfortable Airport to Sleep In.

I found the below nook on the second floor. Dim, shielded, quiet, and there were even four outlets to charge things. The website Guide to Sleeping in Airports is magical.

I land in London and head straight to work on a windy Tuesday.