October 23rd, 2007 Bialystok Village Museum

A lovely traditional Polish Tapestry. To those of you that know me well, No! I have not purchased it ...Yet!

Pawel in the Resturant

Museum Road

Reception Room

Wind Mill

Don-Quixote

Traditional Bialystok home which is occupied year roundAnother Carving

Mark and Pawel

Barn used by residents of the museum

Donkey

Grave 1872

1800s Graveyard

Bialystok Thatched Roof Home

Traditional Bialystok Thatched Room Home

Another Bear

The Billy Goat

The Pine Forest

Crosses

Dasia training the Donkey!

Hand Carved Bear

Another Barn

Barn

The Polish Golden Autumn

I awoke early this morning and made further preparations for my Eugene O’Neill lecture. While working on my materials I experienced a revelation about the Fulbright award. The award is truly a gift, not merely the gift of experiencing a foreign academic institution, but a gift of time to pursue those things that matter to an academic scholar. Time is a fleeting commodity and through the grant of the Fulbright I am able to recoup time to study, study without distractions, and to perfect the presentation of this material. Truly a gift of time! Pawel and Dasia came to the Academy to pick me up and we drove outside of the city to the Bialystok Village Museum. This museum is an outdoor museum featuring a village of years gone by consisting of houses, barns, windmills, and even a cemetery with graves from the 1800s. The museum is situated in a White Birch and Pine forest. The air in the country was sharp and crisp, scented with pine, and clearing the mind and senses with each breath. We walked a distance through the forest and arrived at the Folwark Nadawki restaurant. This restaurant is a rustic restaurant keeping with the time period of the museum. We dined on a traditional Polish soup which contained quartered hardboiled eggs and sausage bits. In addition to this traditional soup I ordered potato pancakes. The Podlasie region is a region noted for it’s potatoes and the pancakes were delicious. In addition to the fireplace, which was lighted for us when we arrived in from the cold searing wind, the restaurant features a banquet hall which Pawel and Dasia will have for their wedding reception in June of 2008. They both hope that we will be able to return to Bialystok for their wedding. We finished our meal and walked past the donkey, the goats, and the dog to the edge of the Pine and Birch Forest. We pulled our hats down and wrapped our scarves around us and walked with the winds to our backs to the warmth of their automobile. Autumn may be cold in eastern Poland but it is certainly a season in which one feels truly alive. We joined the procession of trucks bound for Bialystok and arrived at Teatr Lalek in a short time. I spoke with my friend Dr. Marek Waszkiel, had an espresso, and returned to the Academy. This evening I will prepare for tomorrow night’s lecture on Eugene O’Neill.