Saturday, December 29, 2007

Our Polish Christmas

The Christmas season in Poland began much like it does in the U.S., except a bit earlier here because they don't have Thanksgiving to worry about. The grocery store across the street from our apartment building had lights and garland up by the last week of November, and Piotrkowska, the big and beautiful shopping street in Lodz, was covered in hanging lights early this month. It made things so merry and bright.

And then as we got closer to the actual holiday, we noticed something really odd. Almost all day long, when we were home, we heard this loud, rhythmic pounding outside. It sounded like someone was bouncing a basketball, but it was too loud and too rhythmic and too frequent to be that. This went on for several days, remaining a mystery to us, until we were walking down our street last week and saw that someone had hung a huge floor rug over a giant metal bar outside their apartment and were beating the dust out of it. I guess everyone in the city was cleaning up in preparation for company.

Our celebrations began the Saturday before Christmas with a dinner with our branch. (At their request, I brought cream cheese brownies and they were devoured. I'm glad I could share a little bit of American goodness with them.) They had a program afterwards where all the kids got to sit with Mr. and Mrs. Claus, and then their parents were asked if the kids were naughty or nice. Anna sort of participated. She wouldn't sit with the Clauses, but I said that yes, she had been good this year, and they gave her a bag of fruit and candy, which mostly Trevor and I have eaten.

Our friends Magda and Darek from Warsaw invited us to spend Christmas Eve with them, which is the day they celebrate the most in Poland. We spent Monday morning and afternoon in and out of the kitchen, helping to prepare the traditional food and decorate the Christmas tree. In Poland it's tradition to have 12 courses for Christmas Eve dinner, as a symbol of the 12 apostles, we think. Here's what we had:
  • Barszcz (the Polish word for borscht, which is beet soup) served with ravioli
  • mushroom soup
  • pyrogi (dough pockets filled with cabbage and mushrooms)
  • potatoes
  • cabbage and mushrooms
  • fried fish (usually carp, cod, or some kind of pollock)
  • a salad sort of like potato salad, only this one also had carrots, corn, peas, and apples
  • a dish layered with fried cod and shredded carrots and parsnips in a tomato sauce
  • a sweet pasta dish with poppyseeds and raisins
  • almond poppyseed cake
  • Polish cheesecake, called sernik
  • compot, a hot drink made from dried fruit (I think)
Everything was delicious and it was really cool to see how everything was made. We began our meal by breaking wafers (like they use for communion in the Catholic church) with everyone, giving wishes to them and hearing their wishes for us for the new year. Magda and Darek's grandmother was the only other guest and she told Trevor that she wished for a "man child" to come to our home this year. He was a bit flustered, because he was still figuring out the word for "man child," and he said, "Same to you." There's a classic Christmas memory for us.

After the meal we opened our presents. Magda and Darek were so kind to us. They gave us a book, a beautiful tablecloth, chocolates, toys for Anna, and their grandmother gave us a pretty crocheted pillowcase. It was fun to be there with them and to see a real Polish Christmas dinner.

It also got me thinking about American Christmases and how there really isn't traditional Christmas dinner food. Each family might have their own traditions, but the whole country doesn't. This got me kind of down, but then thinking about Thanksgiving and how that's pretty traditional fare cheered me up. Anyway, I thought it was cool to see how they do it in Poland.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Mystery Solved

So, as many of you have heard, Anna has called herself Papa for the last few months. We had absolutely no idea where this came from, but we loved hearing her say it and we repeatedly pointed to her, asking "Who's this?" just to hear it a hundred more times. Everyone we know here loves that she calls herself Papa and they call her that just to make it stick. But, as cute as it was, we still couldn't figure out where she got it. We wracked our brains, thinking of any other words we say or nicknames that might sound similar. (The closest thing we came up with was "poke poke," which is what I say when I poke her revealed belly button. But that still didn't seem to be it.)

And then one day it clicked.

People frequently stop us on the streets or talk to us on buses or trams because they're charmed by Anna's innate adorableness, and they do quite a lot of Polish baby talk with Anna. And then as they leave, they wave and say "pa pa," the Polish version of "ta ta" or "bye bye." There it was! She thought they were calling her that and that "pa pa" was her name. The human mind is a wonder and I love seeing Anna's at work. Anyway, this connection just occurred to me the other day and I had to share so that you could see the method to her madness.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

A quick look at our journey to Poland

Here are some random photos to document our journey to Poland and stuff we've seen since we've been here.

at the JFK airport before we left in September
a cute street in Warsaw
bathing tiny Anna in the even tinier sink in our hotel room in Warsaw
a cool street in Wroclaw

my babies sleeping on the train (This was on the way back to Warsaw after our 15 hour flight to Poland and a 3-hour train ride to Lodz. We did this over night and into the next day with basically no sleep for anyone.)

this is the inside of a huge church made entirely of wood, no metal nails or anything

on the train again

this is what it looks like when we get bundled up to go outside (please notice Trevor's leather jacket that he got at a used clothes store for about $2)

Welcome to our blog

Hello, and welcome to The Life and Times of Trevor & Ashley Banks. It's a lame blog title, I know, but I was desperate. And not only is it lame, it also presents a grammatical problem ... which doesn't sit so well with my neurotic side. But would "The Lives and Times" sound any better? Yeah, I don't think so. Anyway, I'll keep thinking about it, and, if you have any suggestions, please feel free to share.