Nathan’s Holiday Trek 2006
That evening, my sister engaged in one of the nice Polish traditions: she started making bigos, a kind of stew of cabbage, ham, vegetables, sausage and various other ingredients. It is dish that is best prepared during a couple of days, and so this particular pot was meant for consumption two days later, on New Year’s Eve.
First day in Wroclaw
In the morning, December 29th, my sister and I went shopping. This is one area of life where the change in Poland since the fall of Communism 17 years ago has been most visible. From the drab shops of that era, with low prices but little or no selection and surly personnel, today Poland has much better and bigger supermarkets and shopping malls than the Netherlands or Germany. All the big international chains have piled in to take advantage of a country of 40 million people with a rapidly growing economy. Here, my sister is shopping at one of the local Tesco’s.
It is standard practice in Polish supermarkets to have the liquor store as a “store within a store” with its own, separate cash register. Here is one customer leaving that area with his purchases, and wondering why the hell some guy is standing there with a camera...
Walking around a city like Wroclaw, one is constantly confronted by the contrast between the old and the new Poland.
