30 years ago today on THE BEER BEAT: The finest restorative Pilsner Urquell ever, upon arrival in Prague.

Our Warsaw hotel room.

Previously: 30 years ago today: Both Auschwitz and Lanzmann's Shoah.

Sunday, July 12 and Monday, July 13

At some point in the evening on Saturday, a sweaty quartet of exhausted Krakow sidetrippers returned to the Hotel Nowa Praga in Warsaw, just in time for the official end-of-tour departure party. Only one indelible memory remains of this event.

Among us was a college-aged San Franciscan of Polish extraction, who'd devoted time during our absence in Krakow to exploring family connections. During the course of his wanderings, whether by design or happenstance, natives had undertaken to tell him the story of Jerzy Popiełuszko, whose grave he visited.

Jerzy Popiełuszko (Polish pronunciation: [ˈjɛʐɨ popʲɛˈwuʂkɔ]; 14 September 1947 – 19 October 1984) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest who became associated with the opposition Solidarity trade union in communist Poland. He was murdered in 1984 by three agents of Służba Bezpieczeństwa (Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs), who were shortly thereafter tried and convicted of the murder.

I recall the two of us talking at length during the party about the deep and sudden impact of Popiełuszko's legacy on my fellow traveler, and what it meant in the context of Polish freedom. Combined with my own morose reaction to Auschwitz earlier in the day, it may have been the most sober drunken evening of them all.

On Sunday afternoon, most of the group departed by bus for the airport to return to Copenhagen. I hadn't arrived in Moscow with the group, and I wouldn't be leaving with it. Barrie and I had tickets for the overnight train to Prague, and a there were a few hours left to kill.

A few of our tour mates also remained on hand; like us, they had planned differing exits. Our Polish tour guide Bozena was around, too, and so the stage was set for a carefree late afternoon and early evening. One by one, goodbyes, farewells and amens were said, until only two Hoosiers remained.

Dazed by meal of spaghetti and inexpensive Bulgarian cabernet, amazed at having uncovered a few bottles of Austrian-brewed Kaiser Bier at the Hotel Forum’s foreign currency bar, and largely unfazed at the prospect of the long trip ahead, Barrie and I stood alone in the shadow of the monstrous Stalinist Gothic Palace of Culture in downtown Warsaw.

We bowed to the edifice, and walked to the central train station to hop the sole overnight non-express to Czechoslovakia.

These being the days of waning Communism, our jovial mood couldn’t have lasted very long. Although our essential documents – passports, Czechoslovak visas, train tickets and couchette reservations – were in order, we had neglected to pack food and drink for the journey.

It was Sunday night. All the stores were closed, and mini-marts were in short supply in Communist Poland in 1987. Oddly, convenience had yet to be written into the five-year plan.

My backpack and Barrie's duffel bag bulged with Soviet black market booty, and we strained to lug them along while desperately foraging for victuals in the vicinity of the rail station’s platforms. Even with handfuls of colorful złoty, there was nothing to purchase except grainy licensed Swiss chocolate and returnable bottles of imitation cola.

The final whistle blew. We boarded hungry, and did the best we could to sleep in the stifling summer heat.

Twelve hours later the marathon rail crawl finally ground to a halt, and we stumbled into Praha hlavní nádraží station looking like bedraggled refugees from a war zone. Stomachs audibly growling, poorly rested, filthy and quite thirsty, the sodas having long since been drained, we dragged our belongings to the baggage storage check and lightened the load.

Departing the station, we were treated to our first glimpses of Prague’s timeless majesty and the city’s then-current reality: Standing in front of the museum at the top of the long, gentle rise of Wenceslas Square, against a backdrop of the old city sparkling in a bright morning sun, a taxi driver sidled over and asked us if we’d like to change money.

Several minutes later, one of the three official room finding agencies placed us for three nights in an athletic club dormitory on the far outskirts of the city. It would be several hours before we could check into the room, and probably another hour to get there.

Starving and parched, we were cast into the mysterious, gorgeous, crumbling city to fend for ourselves.

Exhilaration temporarily overcame fatigue as we ventured into the winding streets, over cobbled roadways and through strange arches. Soon, to our growing excitement, we found that the city boasted more than spires, spies, stucco and scaffolding – beer was all around us, and at last, pubs were in abundance.

After two weeks in the Polish and Soviet lands, where vodka reigned supreme, we were in Bohemia, the Euphrates of European lager brewing tradition, and the home of the original Pilsner beer.

We resolved to walk a just bit more before finding a good place to enjoy a draft beer – preferably Pilsner Urquell or Staropramen, or another Prague brand if necessary.

Armed only with an inadequate tourist map, Barrie and I crossed the Vltava River on the famed Charles Bridge, ascended Castle Hill, wandered down the other side, crossed the river again at a second bridge, and finally were devoured by the twisting alleyways that we knew eventually led back to Wenceslas Square.

A garden variety sight during our walk.

At length, having paused briefly two hours earlier for sausages dispensed from a tiny streetside window, we glimpsed the familiar green script of Pilsner Urquell adorning the façade of a faded, orange-and-pink-painted building.

Fate at Two Cats.

The final steps were the hardest. We passed through the stout wooden doors of U Dvou koček (At Two Cats), where Pilsner Urquell indeed was the house beer, the daily beer, and in fact the only beer available.

Blissfully unaware of protocol, we slumped heavily into wooden benches in an interior hallway. Unconsciously drooling, our beleaguered senses slowly were revived by the cozy, smoky, conspiratorial warmth of the main room, where clusters of Czech workers, students, soldiers and officials sat conversing.

Huge platters of pork and dumplings sat before many of the customers, but to man, each and every patron cradled an indescribably lovely mug of beer – and make no mistake: They were glass mugs, not the more stylish half-liter glasses that supplanted them not long afterward. It seemed too good to be true … and almost was.

Alarmingly, the waiters completely ignored us.

I limped to the long, imposing counter where a brawny, mustachioed man stood next to a pair of matching taps, both pouring the exact same nectar, and with a wheeled cart filled with clean mugs. Mustering my courage, I flashed four fingers and muttered, “Pivo, prosim,” having miraculously recalled the proper words without stealing a glance at the guidebook buried somewhere in my day pack.

He looked at me quite seriously, then smiled and complied, relieving me of roughly $2.00 while pushing four half-liter drafts across the slick countertop.

The brilliant golden liquid was cool, not ice-cold; frozen beer only numbs the palate, and though appropriate for Pabst, it certainly isn’t necessary for anything as grand as Urquell.

The noble hop aroma was evident and enticing, fighting through the billowing white head to reach my nose even at arm’s length.

Everything about the beer itself and the venue in which it was about to be consumed spoke of quality, respect, tradition, and the sheer, unbridled joy that one feels to be an adult and to think, feel and understand what is good about life.

When Barrie saw me approach, he bolted from the wooden bench and fell to his knees in a spontaneous demonstration of faith and appreciation that I’ve seldom witnessed in any church – such was the genuine, heartfelt intensity prefacing his gesture of supplication.

Seconds later I spotted his eyes, wet with unrestrained tears, his cheeks flecked with beer foam, all visible through the thick base of an empty upturned mug.

Needless to say, my reaction was comparable. I’ll never forget this moment of triumph and revelation, of this sense of beer ecstasy that will never be understood or truly appreciated by anyone who defines beer by the number of calories it contains or the volume of advertising revenue it commands.

Ominously, the alcohol went straight to my head ... and we still had to find our lodgings.

Next: Our sports club beds, glorious Prague and beers at U Fleků.

30 years ago today: Our dinner with Andrej on a surreal evening in Krakow.

The only two photos I took in Krakow in 1987.

Previously: 30 years ago today: The mysterious case of the phantom Warsaw pub.

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Warsaw, July 10.

Four of us – myself, Barrie, Nick and Nate -- really wanted to go to Krakow, and if possible, to Auschwitz. There wasn’t much tour time left, but we thought we had an “in,” this being an acquaintance of Nick’s named Andrej.

If we could navigate the three-hour train ride to Krakow, Andrej would meet us at the tourist office and arrange matters. The return train would get us back to Warsaw in time for the final group party on Saturday night. Our leader Kim was fine with our side trip, so a plan was hatched.

I decided to devote Friday morning to an American Embassy visit. In places like Eastern Europe, holders of American passports were allowed to go inside and browse the reading room, catching up on the outside world in a way that wasn't possible in closed societies without a free press.

For me, it meant checking the baseball standings and an all-purpose survey of the headlines. Walking back to the hotel, I felt raindrops -- yellowish-brown raindrops with the consistency of mustard, and of course they weren't raindrops at all, but pigeon droppings.

On a ledge two stories up, a woman was feeding a row of pigeons, whose butts hung out into space, depositing in perfect harmony with their intake.

Let it be noted that pigeons are rats of the air, and should never be fed in my presence. A perfectly functional Zantigo t-shirt was rendered obsolete, though quickly replaced from the seemingly inexhaustible supply hidden somewhere inside Barrie's duffel bag.

Daypacks promptly were loaded with overnight essentials, and rail tickets easily procured at Warsaw’s central station. So far, so good.

However, we hadn’t reckoned on it being an afternoon train out of the capital on a summertime Friday. Our tickets gave us the right only to stand in the corridor, and I was at peace with the idea.

Then I saw Barrie huddling with the conductor, gesturing and reaching into his travel pouch. Direct action once again carried the day, and moments later a whole six-seat, second class compartment had been cleared of its occupants. We were shown our places by the gracious, beaming and newly enriched conductor.

I’d like to believe the conductor split his cash bribe with the displaced passengers, though this is highly doubtful.

In Krakow, the tourist office informed us that no private rooms for travelers existed anywhere in the city. A luxury hotel was available, far out of our price range. We huddled; perhaps our local contact Andrej would be able to help us find a place to sleep.

After much waiting, Andrej belatedly materialized, promptly got us into to an upscale but scandalously inexpensive restaurant to dine on Polish duck and Bulgarian wine, but he possessed few coherent ideas about lodging.

Finally we were able struck a deal with a tiny, ancient woman Andrej knew, who showed up at the tourist office long after dark. At first she balked at housing all four of us, and so we upped the ante: $10 for the quartet. Soon we were on a tram headed into a leafy neighborhood, trudging up flights of stairs in an older building with no elevator, and entering the woman’s flat.

It was diminutive, with a kitchen, bathroom, truncated living room, and two other small rooms, all squeezed together like a dollhouse. By this time it was just before midnight, so we all turned in, scavenging an array of beds and couches.

What none of us realized, learning to our chagrin, each in turn, as we awoke through the night to use the toilet, was that our minuscule and superannuated host had surrendered her own bed, and was sleeping on two kitchen chairs pulled together.

Granted, she was short enough of stature to make it work, but to a man, we felt pure chastened embarrassment. On Saturday morning, she became belligerent (understandably) and angrily demanded more money, but what she didn’t realize was that without even conferring first, each of us had left a wad of assorted currencies to sweeten her pot.

I hope it was enough. Amid thanks, a hasty exit was made, and we returned downtown for brief sightseeing and bus tickets to Auschwitz. It wasn’t a place any of us wanted to go, but we all knew it was a necessary visit.

Next: 30 years ago today: Both Auschwitz and Lanzmann's Shoah.

30 years ago today: The mysterious case of the phantom Warsaw pub.

Above: Memorial to Mordechai Anielewicz, leader of the Jewish Combat Organization, who was killed during the Jewish Ghetto Uprising in 1943.

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Previously: 30 years ago today: From Vilnius to Warsaw with the Greimans.

Our first whole day in Warsaw came on Thursday, July 9. In my recollection, it was muggy but cloudy, with my photos showing almost no blue in the sky. It must have rained overnight, because there were oily puddles filling the potholes in the street.

After another forgettable breakfast, the group sightseeing began. Our guide Bozena was stylish and helpful. These days, refashioned as an American, she's a new age marketing wizard in Irvine, California. Not bad for a university gal from Lublin.

At first glance, Warsaw was not a picturesque city in the usual postcard sense. Most of it had been flattened during World War II, and the socialist-model rebuild had been gray and utilitarian, although the main square in the “old” town was famously restored "exactly" as it was before the war, based primarily on old paintings and drawings, many of which depicted buildings that never actually stood.

Still, even among the monotonous blocks of residential high-rises and dull commercial structures, there were trees, flower beds and throngs out walking, with many more trams and buses than private automobiles.

As usual, my memory is hazy, but as the day wore on, I can recall my mood gradually souring. After a promising start, the tour program was getting boring, and I began worrying that another tightly regimented day would somehow preclude the purchase of overnight train tickets for Prague, where Barrie and I would be traveling together by ourselves at the conclusion of the Warsaw segment.

This was irrational of me, even if my default setting while traveling had evolved to where I always tried to do housekeeping first, before fun and games. There would be ample time for tickets, and yet I chose to be publicly grumpy.

While our tour leader Kim Wiesener didn’t know me very well at this early stage of our friendship, he knew exactly what to say (paraphrased):

“Roger, rather than make everyone else miserable, why not go do whatever the (expletive deleted) you need to do, and meet us back at the hotel?”

Fine!

I stalked away heatedly in the direction the bus had come, so as to reach wherever I was going from wherever we currently were located, and my pace slowed as it dawned on me that I had no idea about the whereabouts of either one.

Not only that, but I had no map – and map vending machines typically didn’t exist in Western Europe, much less in the Communist Bloc.

A few days later in Prague, Barrie would nonchalantly demonstrate the perfectly effective way out of any such pickle, applicable anywhere in the world, but especially in inexpensive places like Warsaw Pact member states.

If one possessed a hotel card with an address, as we did, all you needed to do was show it to a taxi driver, along with a five dollar bill (American), and he'd spirit you damn near anywhere within a two-hour radius of the city center.

Unfortunately, then as now, stubbornness is my most troublesome default setting. I placed myself in a fix, and would resolve it. As for landmarks, we’d seen the Stalinist-era downtown “skyscraper” called the Palace of Culture upon arrival by train the night before.

Borrowed image of the Palace of Culture, 1980s-vintage.

In fact, the local joke went like this:

Q. Where do you get the best view of downtown Warsaw?

A: From the Palace of Culture, because then the Palace of Culture isn’t part of the view.

If I could find the Palace of Culture, the train station would be right there … but maddeningly, the Soviet Wedding Cake as yet remained out of sight from my vantage point.

Looking at a public transport schedule posted at a nearby bus stop, there was a reference to Pałac Kultury. This sounded right, so I walked along the bus route until a street sign pointed toward Centrum.

Eventually I could see the ugly building itself. The train station was roughly adjacent, and after some time in the queue, I was able to buy the tickets. While there, I got a map.

By the time I found the right bridge and crossed the Vistula River, I’d spent a couple hours either walking or standing in line.

It was hot and humid, in the middle of the afternoon. I remember cutting through a neighborhood to get to the hotel, but at some point I heard male voices -- and more importantly, the clink of glasses touching.

It was a pub of some sort. All I could fathom with any degree of certainty was that there was a building shaded by street trees, filled with men dressed mostly in work clothing, though a few wore suits – and they all were throwing back golden-colored draft beers in gorgeous fat mugs.

I was more thirsty than intimidated, and it was clear that Poles liked Americans. Entering the front door, I saw a serving counter and walked straight to it. No English was spoken, but a transaction was negotiated … once, and then a second time. I’d like to report that something novel and revealing came of it.

Nothing did, but at the same time, no one hassled me. I drank my beers in peace just like everyone else, and quickly found the hotel.

Later when I resolved to take Barrie there, I couldn’t find the pub, and neither could Bozena. No one seemed to know what I was talking about, but I swear it was real.

Wasn't it?

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The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier ...

 ... and downtown Warsaw churches. I'm unsure why this seemed important at the time.

Next: Our dinner with Andrej on a surreal evening in Krakow.

30 years ago today: From Vilnius to Warsaw with the Greimans.

Previously: 30 years ago today: The drinking lamp is lit in Riga and Vilnius.

The funny thing about this human experience is the notion that we’re obliged to keep “civilization” rolling, when at some point we won’t be around to see how it all plays out.

Spoiler alert: There aren’t any endings except your own, and even if there are, it’ll be biology making the final call.

An ending was planned for SSTS Tour S-819, and it would be in Poland. We departed Vilnius at 12:05 p.m. on July 8, 1987, bound for Warsaw by rail.

But would there be an end to communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe? At the time, it didn’t seem so.

The opposing -isms seemed locked firmly into place. Ordinary citizens in the Bloc went about their business, just like us. The majority kept their heads down, worked their jobs and raised their families. They made do, and the system survived.

However, we were about to experience palpable ferment in Poland. By 1987, Solidarność (Solidarity) had become more than your dziadeka's* trade union, and a shift was underway.

In the 1980s, Solidarity was a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement, using the methods of civil resistance to advance the causes of workers' rights and social change. The government attempted to destroy the union by imposing martial law in Poland, which lasted from December 1981 to July 1983 and was followed by several years of political repression from 8 October 1982, but in the end it was forced to negotiate with Solidarity. In the union's clandestine years, the Pope and the United States provided significant financial support, estimated to be as much as 50 million US dollars.

Solidarity’s leader and shipyard electrician Lech Walesa surely was the most popular Pole still living in Poland, although first place overall went to a fellow from Wadowice in residence at the Vatican by the name of Karol Józef Wojtyła -- Pope John Paul II.

After World War II, Poland relinquished territories to the Soviet Union in the east and absorbed former German lands in the west. Ethnic Poles arrived from one side, and Germans were expelled from the other. The Jewish population obviously was no more.

After the war, the vast statistical majority of people in Poland identified as Poles, and were staunchly Roman Catholic. Communism in Poland utterly failed to create a New Polish Man (or Woman); the countryside successfully resisted collectivization, and the factory workers took their “leading roles” literally, not with the usual grain of symbolism, whether implied or imposed.

It made for a certain conformity to tradition, and as a result, an accompanying rebelliousness. Poland was a headache for the Kremlin throughout the Cold War, and America was happy to exploit the situation whenever possible.

Consequently, by 1987 arguably the third most popular Pole was from a small town in Illinois by way of Hollywood, as explained by a native during our stint in Warsaw.

“There is only one place in the world where your Mr. Reagan would have received more votes (than in 1984),” the man told us, gesturing to the surrounding urban landscape.

“Here, in Poland.”

It may have seemed as though communism wouldn’t end, and yet all around us there were cracks and fissures, albeit not always evident to short-term foreigners. Ironically, whether wittingly or otherwise, yet another outsider was trying to ride the tiger while rewriting the big rule book, ultimately helping to enable the collapse of the very edifice he sought to reform.

His name was Mikhail Gorbachev, and he lived in Moscow.

---

Our group already had done the USSR, and visited Gorby’s pad, otherwise known as the Kremlin. We’d black marketed, eaten caviar, raised Nick’s flag above our Leningrad hotel, watched Orthodox priests swing their censers, patronized the V.I. Lenin Memorial Shithouse and done push-ups with a Latvian student group, as led en masse by Mette the most badass ever Danish bartenderess.

Oceans of alcoholic beverages had eased the passage, and a few rivulets remained to be consumed as the train left Vilnius for what proved to be a grueling 9-hour trip on the single hottest day of the summer to date, all windows open though to little avail.

Upon arriving at the border, there were the customary bureaucratic unpleasantries, as well as the requisite bogie exchange, as described previously.

The primary reason our border stop lasted so long was the need for something called a bogie exchange. It had nothing to do with Casablanca or Lauren Bacall. Simply stated, the standard Soviet rail gauge is wider than the gauge used in both Eastern and Western Europe (with the exception of Spain and Portugal).

So it was that for a solid two hours, as wheels were exchanged and passports stamped, the train sat motionless at a scorched agricultural plain of a border crossing, with visibly wilting greenish-brown crops stretching to the horizon, and a town nestled atop a low hill, perhaps a few hundred yards away.

Most of us remained on the train, except for the two friends from Los Angeles – quiet, laid-back and West Coast hip. They spied the town, briefly conferred and made for it, returning 45 minutes later, their bags stuffed with non-resealable bottles of clear liquid with tiny paper labels.

I didn’t need to ask.

Just then, as we congregated in the corridor to begin passing the bottles, an elderly shirtless man was spotted striding in our direction. It was Mr. Greiman, and therein lies a story.

If memory serves, Mr. and Mrs. Greiman lived in Australia, where they had moved after escaping war-torn Eastern Europe during or soon after WWII. They'd seen bad things, and hadn't forgotten them.

The Greimans were in their late sixties, and had joined the youth and student tour for the sole reason that doing so enabled them to obtain the necessary visas to visit relatives in either Latvia or Lithuania (it’s hazy), with whom they hadn’t met in decades owing to the Iron Curtain.

It is a matter of significant regret that I failed to appreciate the unique position of the Greimans, whose lives and experiences were the polar opposite of the boisterous band of party-hardy Anglo collegiate types comprising the remainder of the group.

By contrast, Mr. Greiman's persistently annoyed mantra was “get off my lawn.” I’m guessing he had justification, and that I might have learned a lot from him by giving a little and perhaps staying sober for an evening, but I didn’t.

It was my loss.

Now Mr. Greiman was lurching toward us down the sweltering rail corridor, torso fully exposed, and wild eyes fixed on the first open bottle. He fairly snatched it from one of the Los Angeleno’s, while mumbling please and thanks at once, hurriedly lifting it to his lips and drinking – gulping – deeply of what he apparently thought was mineral water.

Luckily the window was down, and adjacent weeds along the track duly received a tremendous Greiman vodka shower. I don’t recall seeing the Greimans again after this episode, but I’ve always hoped they got what they needed from the trip in spite of the impediments of nearby youth.

It’s strange what you remember, and what you don’t. The train came to a stop in Warsaw well after 9:00 p.m., and we congregated on the plaza in front, waiting for our guide and the bus to the Hotel Nowa Praga.

There was a women dressed in peasant garb, standing behind a rickety wooden table by a shoddy cement wall. She was selling admirably healthy strawberries, and none of us had Polish złoty to spend on her wares.

Barrie didn’t ruminate. Taking stock of the situation, he produced a few dollar bills that she happily accepted as illegal tender in honor of the wonderful Mr. Reagan, depleting her stock to nothing.

Then Barrie grandly announced the reason for her bountiful crop: Undoubtedly these were Chernobyl strawberries, fertilized with the fallout from the nuclear disaster the previous year.

We ate the nuclear strawberries, each and everyone, laughing all the way to the hotel.

Next: Our dinner with Andrej on a surreal evening in Krakow.

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* grandfather's, in Polish