Getting nostalgic about Perivale

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My request to the heavens for a celebration of my recent giving notice to my rapidly sinking language school was answered nicely as this weekend randomly and suddenly turned into a Polish road trip, with six (ex-)workmates to a cottage, built by our half-polish/half-czech comrade Jakub's family in the early 1990s. The cottage is situated in the village of Miedźno, near the city Częstochowa, which is one place I have been dying to visit for a long time. Our expedition to this cottage comprised seven people and two cars, who gathered in the early morning calm of the somewhat surrealistic Sídliště Rajská Záhrada on thursday, a Czech state holiday to commemorate the independance of Czechoslovakia from Austria-Hungary.

The journey there was long and winding, and became noticeably more chaotic as we crossed into Poland (bringing my total number of countries visited up to 20, and total number of countries sharing a land border with the Czech Republic visited upto 4/4, at last!) The roads were mostly just one lane and way too crowded, many being rebuilt, and therefore the fact that we made three stops in this country was very welcoming. One was for lunch at a collection of roadside diners outside the town of Nysa, where we all had the Polish delicacy Pierogi (something I already knew well enough from the christmas market at Ealing Broadway shopping centre) - basically small dough rolls filled with something, usually mincemeat. Our next stop was at a petrol station, which made me ridiculously nostalgic for west London.. strangely, Polish products aren't sold anywhere in the Czech Republic but found everywhere in London, especially the area where I went to university, where Polish soldiers were stationed during the Second World War and then settled with their families, creating a huge community. Names such as Zywiec, Tyskie, Lech, Paluszki, Delicje, Alpen-Pierniki - basically everything you see in the "foreign foods" aisle at Tesco - made me feel that if it weren't for all the signs being in Polish, one could easily have confused me into thinking this was a petrol station in Perivale.

We arrived at the cottage at 6pm that night, having just managed to get to the shop to collect enough food for breakfast. The cottage was by default freezing (colder than day temperatures outside) and therefore two fires, one in each room downstairs, had to be regularly maintained by someone. A room temperature of 15 degrees celsius in the rooms with the fires was considered an achievement, while the upstairs bedrooms were left to space heaters. It is therefore extremely difficult to get out of bed in the morning - my default reaction being to think of creative ways to pile as many blankets on top of me in a manner whereby I'll be warm enough to fall right back to sleep, rather than just getting up and running out of the cottage, where the 9am temperature is about 5 degrees warmer than upstairs inside.

This meant that I slept in through the shopping trip on the friday morning, and was left with everyone else's leftovers that lunchtime. Friday was a gloriously lazy day - we took a long walk to a reservoir, ate lunch and had a hilarious game of football before dinner and playing some card games. The countryside here is slightly less wild than what I'm used to in the Czech Republic (around Zlín or in Jeseníky), and definitely far more deserted - I'm pretty sure I could have taken a nap in the middle of our road for an hour and only suffered a one in ten chance of disrupting a car or being run over.

Today we spent the morning playing basketball, then got ready for our outing to Częstochowa. The reason I'd been so interested to visit Częstochowa is that I chose it by chance as a very important location in the historical narrative behind the fictional universe where my current novel is set. This is all a future projection to the 22nd century (for the historical narrative - the novel is set in the 24th century) and so any number of details are incomplete and waiting to be filled. Actually visiting these places you've written about is a perfect way to do this. And I really couldn't have chosen a better city to work with as an important location - Częstochowa is pretty much entirely focused around a large church (which for social reasons could not remain in the 22nd century) and a bunch of paneláky, which would've decayed and been built over by then.

Anyway, enough about the future (your future, but in some way my present), in your present (in some way my past) Częstochowa is an extremely energetic city. It seemed incredibly small as its life source is rather big for its own shoes, and is encapsulated by a colossal avenue stretching through the entire city centre leading to Jasna Góra (literally "Clear Hill"), atop which the aforementioned church sits. Unfortunately I am not particularly fond of the Catholic church, thus felt I had to keep my walk around the area (which invites you to "visit this place as a pilgrim") rather brief. The energy there was amazingly intense, and I don't really feel I could have done it any other way. The church had an apparently continuous sermon taking place inside, with a recorded message being spoken over a huge soundsystem. The area around the church was more relaxed (though still intense) - everyone rightly respected the wish for people to be quiet in the area, which made it tremendously easier to appreciate. Perhaps the most striking sight, though in my opinion distasteful, was a rather graphic mosaic depicting the Archangel Michael stomping someone's head in, footed with some parable inviting him to "send all evil which treads in this land to hell".

I got a text message from the rest of the group, who had already finished exploring the place long before me, inviting me to end my "pilgrimage" and come and join them to sample Częstochowa's prized hot chocolate. This is definitely recommended - about 5 minutes down the main avenue, on the right side walking away from the church, there is a pierogi place and then a chocolate cafe next door, which sold the nicest hot chocolate I have ever tasted in a variety of flavours. Unfortunately the name eludes me. We then went for dinner in a restaurant further down before joining the 2 members of the group who knew Jasna Góra well enough before heading back home, with 2 boots full of Zubrówka vodka, stuff you can't get in the Czech Republic, stuff which you can get in the Czech Republic but is cheaper in Poland and in my case, stuff which might cure my occasional homesickness of west London. Stuff which, although Poland hasn't charmed me enough to make me want to live there, sort of makes me wish I lived somewhere nearer the border. Sort of.

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Photos

The Polish side of Jeseníky
photo by Reena Sattar

Pierogi
photo by Ginny Contreras

Group shot "on the cottage"
photo by Reena Sattar

Jasna Góra, Częstochowa
photo by Ginny Contreras

Reunited with żywiec
(don't ask why they give you a straw)
photo by Reena Sattar

Comments

[Aaron]

Nice!
Hay man, sounds cool! Massive church by the looks of things. I very very much want to try the hot chocolate. Quick question, what is the lowest temperature you are expecting to get over this winter? Sounds like its going to be a cold one down your end. Hope you are well man, nice straw in the beer by the way!

[pilnikjezerobota]

yeah the hot chocolate was great! expecting about -20 on clear nights after weeks of snowfall, kinda the same as last year.

[Anne-Marie]

<3
loved reading this... you must let me know again when you're back in England... is it the weekend around the 24th? I look forward to reading your novel! xo miss you!