History /
An American studying medicine in the PRL 1978-1985: my story [142]
During your time in Poland, how often did you travel back to the US? Every summer?
As often as I could! My first year in Krakow I went for Christmas and then the summer.
How did you spend your holidays (ie christmas) in Poland?
I hooked-up with a fellow student( Polish) soon into my time in country and spent holidays with her family.
How annoyed or affected were you with the shortages of goods in stores?
Żartujesz? Very annoyed but not nearly affected as the Poles. I'll get into how we dealt with "nie ma" later.
Did you travel to any other eastern bloc countries at the time?
just transiting through East Germany.
From the airport we were all taken to Warsaw's Old Town, some grand place with nice old furniture. I want to say Dom Polonii but I'm npt sure. I remember being very tired and hungry. The food was delicious I recall as well as the beer(fantastic Czech brew "Budweiser" in a 0.33l bottle!)
After lunch off to Krakow. I slept the entire way. We arrived to a rectangular, grey concrete building DS "Piast". It was very depressing in its appearance; warning us to what lay inside. Our room was very small, two cots and a window overlooking the courtyard. Our mattresses were filled with straw. We shared a bathroom with two other guys from the adjacent room. The accomodations were spartan to say the least. But I had some of the happiest, and saddest, times of my life.
I paired-up with a guy from Queens New York, who soon became know to us as PT. He was a very sweet, honorable and sensitive man. We too had many sweet and exciting adventures together.but we also fought like rabid dogs. Despite the fighting, we remained roomates and later house-mates for the entire seven years. I'm ashamed to say I might not have been the best friend to him and he might have expected a bit too much from me. Suffice it to say we both left Poland not speaking to each other. I'm seriously thinking about writing him to bury the hatchett. PT will appear frequently in the text. We were always together until the "skirts" appeared. That's for another day.
My first days in Poland were filled with so many emotions. It was intense!! I was so stoked to be finally in the land of my ancestors. In a place where everybody spoke the language my parents spoke' where everyone knew how to pronounce my name correctly! No stammering, no pausing, thinking to yourself, then asking "how do you say this"? I WAS WITH MY PEOPLE!
