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The world is turning on its hinges, all the leaves have fallen, and darkness falls in the afternoon. If you're in Poland, anyway. Your autumn may well differ.
A day mainly occupied with crossing the nation by train, deposited me at the heart of this lovely city, only a couple of blocks from the oldest part of town. I've only spent a few hours wandering about, but already I can safely say that:
1. Hotel Maltanski is a lovely place to stay. I'd recommend it to anyone physically capable of climbing one flight of stairs. (There is no elevator.)
2. The city is full of great restaurants. Well... I've only looked at the menus of a dozen or two and eaten at one, but they all looked good and the one tasted great, so statistically, it seems a good bet. Foodie Tip: When in Poland, order Polish food. What are the odds you're going to find better elsewhere?
3. The pierogies here are terrific. (See item 2)
4. There's a lot of amber for sale here. I mean, cubic vulgarwordloads of it. Shop after shop and, in the Cloth Hall, stand after stand, of amber in every plausible shade from deepest burgundy to palest yellow. Some of it small, most of it pretty damn big, and a significant percentage simply ridiculous. If you have too much money and like your jewelry LARGE, you're a fool to be living anywhere but here.
5. I'm really, really tired, and even more looking forward to tomorrow.
'Night, all.
Above: no image tonight becauseI'm having troubles uploading images. I'll try again here tomorrow.
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Michael Swanwick, forgive my elbowing in here, but I've tried in vain 2x to send you a (quite positive) comment via you web site & it is not working. So, here it is, 6 months late: I was left in an altered state of consciousness & entered a timeless moment when I read 80 magic words you penned in Slow Life, when the awareness of the life of the deep first began to seep into Lizzie's sleeping mind. It was & still is amazing. The effect it had on my psyche was similar to my first reading of Urusula K. Le Guin's description of the light in the forest in The Word for World is Forest. Thank you.
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