Cafe Havana near the University and Wroclaw Rynek

   Old friends from Austin, TX, George Dolis & Ingrid Wiegand, help celebrate D'Jalma's 50th birthday on 1/26/04. They were on their
 way to visit Ingrid's mother in Germany. With its Che Guevera posters on the walls, Cafe Havana easily served the best --and only-- Cuban food in Wroclaw.

 

  

Little Polish Restaurant near our apartment 

  Friends Richard & Basia Benesevich, Ingrid &
  George, and D'Jalma at a little Polish restaurant that served homemade Polish cuisine near our apartment. Richard is an American from Connecticut who received his Magistrate degree from U of Wroclaw and teaches in Walbrzych, a former mining town in Lower Silesia. He informed us that Charlie Watts buys his horses in Walbrzych, Lower Silesia.

 

Hala Ludowa (The People's Hall)    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The concert venue where ordinary people could pay ordinary prices to see world class opera productions. I bought a ticket for the first
  cycle of Wagner's four-part opera, Der Ring des Nibelungen, for 60 zloty, the price of a movie
  ticket. This is a production of Verdi's Troubadour. The Wroclaw symphony orchestra performs for the opera company. Translated German lyrics in Polish ran outside the proscenium: a communist era gimmick to grow the blue-collar fan base.

    

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, yes, they sell grzaniec, hot mulled red wine, during intermission: "If you don't like it, I'll refund your money then I'll drink it myself," the vendor told me. 

 
   Ah, grzaniec, more than warmth for a soul who makes the 20-minute walk in snow from 17A Pasteur'a  across the Maria "Madame Curie" Sklodkowska bridge spanning the Stara (Old) Odra River to the Hala Ludowa.
                                                 

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PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

To a Bob Dylan Concert

After an 8-hour train ride from Wroclaw Glowno to Prague, we enjoyed visiting the Bob Dylan tour backstage. D'Jalma's brother, Tony Garnier, plays bass and has been Bob's road band leader and friend since the late 1980s. He is the best bass player in world.

  Backstage at the Dylan concert, dinner is served  for the band members, crew, and guests

 

10/23/03
 D'Jalma and his brother Tony Garnier with great  Czech poet, playwright, and political dissident, Vaclav Havel. Havel never misses a Dylan  concert when the band tours Central Europe.

 

  Vaclav Havel steals the backstage show

 Backstage at Bob Dylan's Prague concert, Hedwig Gorski converses with Vaclav Havel as Mrs. Havel looks at some photos local photographers took of Pres. Havel and his entourage.

 

 Movie actor Peter Stormare

 Hedwig with Peter Stormare,
 the Swedish actor who put the 
 Steve Buscemi character
 into the wood chipper
 in the film Fargo. He really
 is a sweet fellow! Don't we look related? The concert was "smokin'" hot, and Bob did a few James
 Brown moves on stage.

  Hotel Olga
 We had the attic room at the Hotel Olga in Prague, a short walk from the concert stadium. The Czech language is the least
 understandable for one who knows Polish. It's easier to understand spoken Ukrainian and Russian. The Czechs won't take Polish
 zloty currency, even though it is of greater value! This is how much they are against the war in Iraq and Poland's participation in the coalition, Peter said. Central-Eastern Europe is a land of determined passion.

KRAKOW  (CRACOW) POLAND'S SHOWCASE CITY

We often took the train to Cracow, south of Warsaw in MaloPolska. Next to mysterious Wroclaw, Cracow is by far one of the most interesting places to visit in an altogether intriguing country. Roman Polanski grew up there in the Jewish ghetto. His experiences informed the film "Pianist." 

 Cafe Krzysztofory 

 
   1/22/2004
 The "gig" that D'Jalma did for the American
 consul and French Institute/French Consulate
 to help mend French and American relations, we
 thought. I introduced the Acadian culture before
 D'Jalma performed Cajun-Creole classics backed
 up by Kris Bodzon and his Polish blues band,
 Soulfinger. Read more about the event at the
 American Embassy website, which has more pictures  http://www.usinfo.pl/krakow/events/cajun.htm

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 Hotel Europejski window shown at left where Hedwig looks out. This was a lovely room that we always booked. The hotel concierge downgraded us after D'Jalma's inadvertent faut pas on our final visit. 

View pictured of the train and bus stations from Hotel Europejski window shown above. 

AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU 

CONCENTRATION CAMPS SOUTH OF KRAKOW

 Auschwitz Concentration Camp

D'Jalma stands in front of one of the many museum displays inside the preserved camp buildings.

11/07/2003
 After a 1.5 hour bus ride from Krakow,
 Hedwig stands at the infamous gate to the
 Auschwitz Concentration Camp. D'Jalma's
 hands were shaking when he took this picture.

Birkenau Barracks

  A few miles away from Auschwitz, the mass slaughter took place in Birkenau. Railroad tracks lead into the barbed wire camp where the  rubble from the below-ground crematoriums still remain. Ashes were dumped into the scenic
  pond surrounded by lovely white birch trees. Our cab driver, a long-time resident of Oswieciem,   said that the smell of burning human flesh added a sweet aroma to the air.

Inside one of the preserved barracks at Birkenau, we stand around the latrine   that runs the length of the building between  rows of tilted sleeping bunks. Even in daylight, the interior remains dark. Visitors  from around the world visit daily the preserved camps. It continues to be a solemn and   haunting experience of phantom disbelief for all who walk the grounds.  

WALBRZYCH IN LOWER SILESIA 

Walbrzych was a coal mining town before the mines were closed.
Unemployed miners protested in Warsaw, sometimes violently, during our entire stay in Poland. Evoking the past successes of Solidarity could not help the miners survive in the 2003 Polish economy.

 12/16/03
  I traveled to Walbrzych to give a lecture on Ernest Gaines to students of Richard Benesevich  at the Panstwowa Wyzsza Szkola Zawodowa. We stopped to listen to a Ukrainian street band on the Walbrzych Rynek.

  On the Catholic holiday of the Three Kings, a priest knocked on Richard's door to bless the house, as is the custom. Richard and D'Jalma thought they were in for a lecture when the priest asked if they smoked. Instead, the priest invited them to join him in a cigarette break.