Tag Archives: Poland

Christmas in the 21st Century


Posted by Patrick Okens

Dec. 25 – Krakow, Poland

The Okens family Skypemas dinner.

There will come a time when tales of Skype-ing your family on Christmas Eve will sound old-fashioned and quaint – like actually hand-writing a letter or going on a sleigh ride. But we’re not there yet.

Let’s have a virtual show of hands if you Skyped someone for Christmas, or chatted with people via Facebook. Chances are, if you’re reading this you did one or the other or both. And why wouldn’t you? It’s cheap, easy, and impossible to be with everybody you know and love. There are rumblings that our hyperconnectedness makes us unhappy. That it strips us of true human contact and makes us lonely, even as our number of Facebook friends expands. But for me, this Christmas, this was not true at all.

Krakow could make a stranger sad right about now. It got milder and the snow vanished. There are, in fact, few lights and I did not find large nighttime gatherings of people going to Christmas mass. This morning, out for a run, I encountered only a few dog walkers along the river. But in the middle of this medieval town, there is Wifi and I have a MacBook Air.

Yesterday was my first-ever Skypemas dinner with my parents, sister and aunt. My hostel suite has a kitchen, and I cooked up some cheese pierogies to go with kolbasa sausage, borscht-in-a-cup and plus-sized Polish beer. I fired up my laptop and connected to my parents’ Skype address in Canada. And so we had a dinner table (lunch for them) conversation in between my mouthfuls of pierogies and gulps of “Kasztelan Niepasteryzowane” which is smoother to drink than to say. Contacts such as these don’t need to be long or particularly deep to be meaningful. That improvised gathering was the most important thing I did yesterday.

The Internet provided a few other bonuses. I listened to two CBC broadcasts; the reading of the story “The Shepherd” (a Facebook link by a friend) and this year’s “Vinyl Café” concert. These have become a yearly ritual and I felt right at home, here in my hostel in Poland. Courtesy of YouTube, Elvis crooned “Blue Christmas”. And on Facebook, friends reported about Santa-impersonating fathers, cats sleeping on the wrapping paper, and about gathering with family.

“Home for Christmas” is not about to disappear. A MacBook Air cannot give you a kiss under the mistletoe. On Christmas morning, fiber optic cable won’t squeal with glee seeing the presents under the tree. But if you are alone at this most sentimental of times, and you know the difference between the real and the virtual, get online.

Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas!


A walk around Krakow


Posted by Patrick Okens

Dec. 24 – Krakow, Poland

What is it about cobblestones? Do they interest me just because I’m North American and don’t encounter them at home? Is it that I only ever see them in movies, picture books, paintings? Possibly. But there is more to it than that.

I had been wondering what about Krakow made it so intensely compelling, and I finally figured out that the answer was literally at my feet. Cobblestones aren’t alive, but there is life to them. Cobblestone streets were made by people, not machines. You think of labourers gripping heavy hammers and chisels, quarrying rock and roughly shaping it. It is easy to imagine their aching backs as they hunched to place the stones in mortar on the ground. Similar to people, cobblestones all differ. Some are bigger, some are rounder, some are smoother, some cracked and crumbling. No step you take on cobbles will be the same as the previous one, as your soles and ankles adjust to the uneven surface. And like people, when you bring many cobblestones together you can create something important. You can get somewhere.

In Krakow, the rough textures are not only at your feet. Walls, buildings, towers are all made of brick and stone. Some have new plaster. Others, particularly in the old Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, are benignly neglected, picturesquely cracked, paint faded. The old town is sheltered from the vicious, snarling traffic I encountered in China, Russia, even Ukraine. What struck me about the broad Glowny Rynek (main market square) is that it remains a place for people where cars rarely intrude. The sounds are all human – the general hum of a crowd, the distinct clarity of a mother calling to her child, footsteps. Black-cassocked clergymen doff their hats to one another. Nuns stride in pairs. At noon yesterday, a long line of people waited patiently for their free Christmas tree – a radio station marketing promotion. Last night, from a balcony overlooking the square, musicians took turns playing. A folk singer, a guitarist, a gently improvising trombonist. There were Christmas lights, and booths selling crafts, sausages, pierogies, mulled wine. It is festive but low-key.

Which is not to say that Krakow is stuck in the past. The cobbles are more timeless than time-bound. The market square was always a place for wealthy vendors to trade, and today those vendors have names like Gap, Prada, Bulgari. Steel rails cut through for sleek new trams to pass, whispering loudly. Streetcars have rolled on Krakow’s streets since 1882. And I’ve seen many iPod-wearing joggers taking advantage of their Christmas break to run along the placid, swan-studded Wisla.

I’m going back out to see how Christmas gets celebrated here and will report back tomorrow. To all, a good night!