Hello, Everyone!

Contact:
MARCO POLO
E-mail: marco@marcopolopoet.nl or marco_polo1@yahoo.com
 

Articles by Marco Polo

Floating Ambrosia!
Hitchhiking in Poland
Teaching English in St. Petersburg

 

Floating Ambrosia!
By Marco Polo

 

My beloved mistress’s request to have her 18^th Birthday dinner celebration (06/08/98) on ship cursing the Neva was met with delight at Beauty of St. Petersburg and dismay over the almost certainly dismal tourist fare. Let me tell you we were very pleasantly surprised!

 

To begin with the phone call to reserve a table on the New Island Restaurant Ship was as answered by the most charming and polite Arcady who at the end of our conversation, very shyly, informed that he “happened to be the general manager” – when the GM will make the phone reservations you know there is concern for the quality of the service!

 

When we arrived on board The New Island we were greeted by the very friendly and polite Métier d’Hotel, Natasha, who welcomed, with a winning, pretty smile, “Yes, Mr. Polo, you are expected! Your table’s waiting. Right this way, please!!”

 

Having expected a Soviet era, slap-dash repaired Neva River boat cum ‘restaurant’ was very pleasantly surprised to find a sparkling new interior (the ship itself was originally built in 1986 and completely rebuilt in Finland last year) with teak and fishnets, and the tables were all set with sparkling crystal and china fit or the Czar!

 

Our friendly, well trained waitress, Anna, who’s beautiful smile delighted, gave us menus that, frankly, where frightening in its tourist tackiness with a plastic-looking crayfish on the cover which we perused over an excellent bottle of Russian “Brut” champagne ($ 14). 

 

However, inside, the bilingual menu described mouth-watering dishes: Seven appetizers ($ 3-19) from “Gazpacho”, traditional cold and delicious Mexican soup, ($ 3) to the traditional Russian “Black Caviar with Blinis” ($ 19). The three most intriguing appetizers are: a “Terrine of Rabbit” ($ 6), a salad “Nicoise”, a lovely traditional French Provincial salad with a vinaigrette dressing ($ 6) – tho in this case the dressing could have used a touch more vinegar – and, a “Roulade of Pike-Perch and Salmon” ($ 6) – something like eating a delicate, cool, fish cloud with a tomato sauce light as the sun’s rays!

 

The five meat and three fish main course offered ran the gamut form an seductive “Grilled Entrecote with baked potatoes and green beans wrapped in bacon” ($ 14) to a rather popular “Fettuccini with Seafood” (a bargain at  $ 10!). Most beloved Muse chose for her Birthday dinner the excellent “Roulade of Veal filled with Chicken Mouse and Mushrooms”  – an ambrosia with the ‘Sauce-of-Love’! Your Poet-Errant (who with 50 lands visited knows something of cuisine) had the “Medallions of Pork in whole grain mustard sauce” ( $ 12) very delectable!

 

There are six inviting deserts (all $ 6) form “Plaisir”– very pleasing chocolate/vanilla mouse with seemingly floating wafers – to “Cheese Cake with raisins”, a light, satisfying desert fit for all gourmets!

 

There is also a tempting ‘Special Gourmet Menu’ (for the New Russians and Japanese!) with two appetizers ($ 16 & 18), two main courses ($ 44 & 52) and one dessert ($ 14)!

 

With the suburb cuisine, the Most Beautiful setting in St. Petersburg, efficient/friendly service and relatively inexpensive dinning (our three course dinner for two with Russian champagne and coffee cost only 550 r, $ 89, a real bargain in today’s St. Petersburg!) The New Island Restaurant Ship is one of the best dinning values in Petersburg!

 

Least you think that your roaming Rhymer owns part of The New Island there are some problems: The uncarpeted, shinning teak deck of the dinning salon makes the pretty waitress footsteps jarringly noisy. The waitresses must be taught to tie a twisted napkin around the wine bottle necks so the inevitable drips will be caught. The tasteful butter must be taken out of fridge earlier so it will not arrive at the table rock-hard making spreading it on the delicious French breads unpleasantly difficult. Unfortunately, only the charming general manage Arcady speaks enough to explain and make reservations. The office-like white ceiling tiles could more pleasingly be replaced with real cork. Lastly, and most annoying, the sound system is very poor quality making it almost impossible to hear the tuneful saxophonist Viktor (who agreeably turned out to be an old acquaintance!).

 

During the “navigation season”, mid-April thru October, the New Island Restaurant Ship has cruises daily at 14, 16, 18, 20 and 22:30 hours departing from University Embankment and First Line Street. (Trolley bus No. 10 from Nevsky Prospect – second stop after Palace Bridge.) Reservations: +7 (812) 963 67 65, +7 (812) 974 67 65 Homepage:  http://www.concordcatering.com/?chapter=6&Concord_ID=797c0ca09d9636afcc8092bd78f75d7a E-mail: concord@peterlink.ru Say “Marco Polo, the Poet sent me!” Dinner for two with champagne (August 1998) $ 90.

 

Copyright August, 1998 by Marco Polo   –  marco@marcopolopoet.nl  or  marco_polo1@yahoo.com

 

************************

 Hitchhiking in Poland
July, 1993
by
Marco Polo
The English Teaching Poet-Errant

"A great way to see Poland and meet Friendly, Hospitable Poles!"

      "Stop in any time while you are teaching English at Golun", the inviting letter beguiled. This pleasant request was from a new pen-pal, a Polish Nymph, whom here will be called only E. She writes her self-description as "a tall, blonde, [who] loves to interact with people...and is crazy about English". E was working as an "educator" at a summer camp for Polish children in the seaside resort of Ustronie Morskie which is only about 175 km. from Golun (20 km. South of the small town of Koscierzyna and about 100 km southwest of Gdansk) where this Poet-Errant was working as an English teacher at the "Perfect Intensive English Summer Camp." Having received this intriguing invitation at Golun, and being free for the inter-session weekend decided to make a hitchhiking trip to Ustronie Morskie to meet this enticingly self-described, somewhat mysterious Nymph, E.
     So on Friday, 9 July at 11:50 in the morning after giving my lovely group of ten intelligent, eager students their well deserved "CERTIFICATES of Completion", Prefect’s kind Director, Andrew Wojniusz, and his energetic wife Maria give their American English teacher a lift the first 22 kilometers to Koscierzyna. It was the first sunny, warm morning in six weeks. The birds chirped happily. The winds sang sweetly thru the colorful wild flowers. While standing waiting for my first ride exchanged smiles with two curious Polish kids on bikes who wanted to know more about this strange fellow with a hand lettered sign reading: SLAWNO.
     Ten, twenty, fifty minutes pass. Lots of cars go by mostly filled-full with vacationing Polish families. Beginning to think that perhaps Director Andrew's pessimistic warning that "Poles do not like to pick-up hitchers" is correct. Just have formed a resolution that if two hours go by with no ride will give up and hitch or start to walk back to Golun. An old man on a bike stops to give encouragement. Tho he speaks only Polish, his one tooth smile gives heart: Just as the old man wobbles off a red car screeches to a halt. The driver, in his late twenties, proudly makes this non-Polish speaking Bard understand that he owns a transportation firma and stops en route to chat for a few minutes with one of his drivers who has parked his truck on the side for rest. This young businessman and his company are an encouraging example of Poland's new Free Market at work. Not only does it provide transportation service and pay checks, but transports old Poets Free! Kindly, the young trucking company owner drives to the far side of Bytow to optimally position his hitching Scop to pick-up a lift to Slawno.
     After the ride with the young trucking entrepreneur a series of kind Poles finish my hitching trip to Ustronie Morskie in just five hours and twelve minutes! An old man in a dilapidated jalopy playing the most lovely classical music on his radio (a most deliciously welcome change from the jungle of popular music heard everywhere!); three big Polish men in a little Fiat who somehow squeeze a large box into the tiny car's small trunk to make room for their guest rider; a very fat salesman in a very big, fancy Mercedes with an extra-large box of juicy-ripe cherries which he continually offers copiously; and, finally, a Pole who has me ride in the back seat like going a taxi!
     At the reception of the "Wild-Women" Hotel there's a note waiting: "Dear Marco, Welcome! Sorry I can't be here when you arrive but have to take the children to the beach. The Manageress will give you the key to your room. I will be back about 4:30 p.m. Unpack and make yourself at home! See you soon. E" Have just finished and am returning from a look-about during which located the toilets and showers when there's a tall, lithe, purple clad, brunette(!?) wench attapping at the port of this old Poet's chamber.
     "Tho not a blonde, this Maid must be E, for who else would be attapping at an old Scop's door," reasons this Scribe. So take the initiate and make introduction. Yes, it's E with very passionate, seductive-blue eyes and cold hands which betray the hot fire of this inviting Muse's pulsing Heart.
     We pass a delightful evening chatting, walking about Ustronie Morskie with her 14 delightful eight and nine year old campers. (Happily discovering that we Share many Interests and Activities like walking, Travelling, Loving English and finding purple the sexiest color a girl can wear. Sharing is of the Most Importance in all our Lives!) E's work (what she called an "educator" is termed at an American camp a "counselor", a person who takes care of the campers – the children attending a camp) obliges us to be with her campers as we walk back along the beach watching the purple-red sun's setting and the charming kids playing with delighted squeals of pleasure at the sea's edge. For this old Seeker-of-Beauty-&-Wisdom E's fourteen, charming, young charges (the rosy-faced blonde girls, like so many angels, and the cupid like boys) only increase the promise of the suggestive caresses and penetrating glances with which intermittently Nymph E shyly tantalizes her roaming Bard like a lighthouse beckoning a ship in the dark sea.
     Back at the "Wild Women" Lithe Muse E ask if she may join her old Bard for tea in my room while her campers shower and prepare for lights out at ten. E makes sandwiches with enticing looks. We chat of Travel, Life and Love. "Your poem, 'The Only Promises' is lovely." Smiles E. With a twinkle in her passionate-blue eyes E continues, "Yes, I agree to your three promises: Honesty, Caring and Freedom!"
     At ten E says she must go see her campers into bed. With inviting smile E agrees, "Yes, I'll come back in half an hour!" The heart of this old Poet gives a leap at the delicious prospect of Sharing Poetry-of-Life with E, this delectable Nymph!!
     Smilingly enjoy the pleasurable anticipation while watching the last dying rays of red in the sky and then re-reading for the umpteenth time a few of the Dear Master's (Bill Shakespeare's) Sonnets. However, half an hour comes and goes. Forty, fifty minutes. An Hour! Well, as the Bob Dylan song goes, "and leaves you howling at the moon" which is just then arising!
     "Why does a girl promise Honesty and belie her words in deeds within the same evening?!" ponders this old Seeker-of-Beauty-&-Wisdom. "Freud pointed out almost a century ago that ambivalence is the basic arrangement of our emotions." This old voyaging Sage continues reasoning, "Suppose that E became frightened of the strength of her own deep, high-pressure well of Passions and could not even come back here to say good night. Well will just leave here early in the morning and let the conflicted Muse be."
     At five o'clock the next morning the sky promises a lovely, warm, sunny, summer's day. Birds chirp as this Poet arises. Have a long, lovely, hot shower with soap savaged in the bathroom. Dry myself with the pillowcase and brush teeth without toothpaste. All three (soap, towel and toothpaste) had wanted to borrow from Muse E. Tho now, the beguiling Nymph (who the un-Knowing might term a cock-tease) is not-to-be-seen-again so as not to disturb with a confrontation of the difference between her promising words and lying action. Pen Muse E a note of thanks and advice about how Honesty and lying affect Happiness and security. Imagine that E will feel relieved that her old Poet who had fanned her Passions too red-hot has decamped without exciting more fire. Slip downstairs and feel very Free in the fresh morning air at 5:40!
     Relatively quickly three pleasant rides take this roaming Scribe a kilometer past Slawno to the turn-off for Bytow. After getting bored waiting an hour start walking. Enjoying the fields full of wheat and yellow clover. Thinking of Walt Whitman. Smelling the freshness of the breeze. Feeling the warmth of the sun. Listening to the song of the birds. Very few cars and those mostly full of vacationing Poles. Full cars--no room for Poets, as in most of Life!
     Then finally a new, very fast, silvery-blue car stops short. Tom is a student of electronics in Gdansk. He speaks English very well. Explains that he, himself, is a frequent hitchhiker and apologizes that he is only going a few kilometers to visit family. Again walk a long way enjoying the beautiful Polish countryside and a lovely, large pine forest.
     After a long walk a car with Danish plates pulling a boat on a trailer stops. The driver is a Pole living in Denmark for the last seven years named Maciej who speaks some self-taught English. In the rail-junction village of Korzybie Maciej invites his hitchhiking Bard into his Brother-in-Law's (a retired police captain) house for lunch where I'm received like a member of the family!
     About an hour or so later after a nice chat and play with the family dogs Maciej drops this fully-fed Scop off at the intersection in Suchorze with fond words and promises to call after 23rd when this new friend, this Scop, will be back in Gdansk. Again start walking and enjoying the delightful summer weather and Poland's beautiful country scenery.
     After twelve minutes' walking, just passing an unattended apple orchard and was wondering if it is one of the bankrupt former state farms, a car filled with vacationing Poles stops and they all squeeze to give a place to their hitching Poet. They speak no English, but insist on my drinking a lot of their kiwi soda. Do enjoy kiwi soda! They drop me just before Koscierzyna at the turn-off for Golun. Some more delightful walking and three short rides bring the old Poet back. The last ride is with the beer delivery truck that gives me a bottle just when I was thinking how good a drink would taste! Return trip: 7 hours 25 minutes.
     Hitchhiking is a great way to see beautiful Poland and meet interesting Poles: This trip cost nothing. It yields: 95% fun-filled adventurous learning, 5% disappointment at E's understandable deceit, new Friends and one article!
     Many thanks to all kind Poles who pick-up hitchhikers! Remember, next time you stop to hive a hitchhiker a lift it may be your old Poet-Errant. Also, girls recall: you are always FREE to say "No". However, if you say: "YES!", say it Honestly!!

Golun, Poland, 10 July 1993
Copyright 1993 by Marco Polo 

************************

Teaching English in St. Petersburg

by

Marco Polo
The English Teaching Poet-Errant

     Happily, fifteen months of fun-filled adventure all started, quite by fortuitous chance, in Copenhagen on 30 June 1991. It was a bright, balmy midsummer afternoon with a brilliantly blue sky dotted with a few powder-puff-white clouds. Was catching the night sleeper to beloved Stockholm town built on 14 islands to a rendezvous with my beautiful Polish companion Wanda. 

     We had been trying to arrange a trip to what was then still the USSR to visit Leningrad and Vilnius where Wanda’s family had been born. However, Wanda could not find any cheap tours from her home in Gdansk which would accept foreigners. Intourist prices were (and still are) beyond the means of a poor, roaming Bard who teaches English for Fun and sometimes to be able to eat. The other way to get a visa to the USSR (and even today, still is required for Russia) was to have an invitation from a person or institution in the Soviet Union. However, did not, then, know any Soviets at all, so could not even ask for an invitation. 

     Well, on that morning of 30 June had just had word from lovely, nubile, fair-haired Wanda that her efforts to find an affordable package trip where unsuccessful. Rather dejectedly was taking a walk down to Neu Haven. (Literally from Danish “New Harbor”. However, actually, the oldest harbor now existent in beautiful, old downtown Copenhagen used these days as a yacht harbor.) Wanted to cheer-up my disappointed self with reviewing all the lovely, old wooden boats which poor Poets will never own. Well looking at the big yachts moored along the wharf this well seasoned voyager who has now travelled in 50 Lands espies an unknown flag! Surprised, coming closer, saw written in English on the side of the sailboat: “Lithuanian Artists’ Sailing Club”. Instantly, hail I, “Hello fellow Artists!” Seven heads pop-up and with great gusto return, “Fellow Poet! WELCOME!! Come aboard and have some Vodka!!” Well, we share cheers and stories and Fellowship. Several drinks later telling my new Lithuanian Artist Friends about Maid Wanda’s and my desire to visit and lack of an invitation. They say, “No problem, we have our official letterhead here and will write you and invitation on the spot!”

      “Eureka,” says my fax to Wanda after visiting the Soviet Consulate in Stockholm the next morning, “we'll have our visas. Join your old Poet in Stockholm. We'll ferry to Helsinki, see some Friends and show you round. Then train to Leningrad town.” Arriving in St. Petersburg (for we learn quickly that the residents wanted to return to the originally name as part of the Reform Movement) meet, thru friends of friends, several very hospitable Russians who put us up and showed us round. Thru these kind acquaintances met many more very eagerly, graciously hospitable St. Peterburgians. In the short interval of only a few days fall in love with their city with it’s charming canals, architecture and greatly varied Culture. Became, particular Friends with a fellow writer, the rather well known music critic Alex and his kind wife Luba.

      As we all well recall August 1991, a few weeks after sadly departing from new found friend Alex, acquaintances, and the Beauty of St. Petersburg, my heart was in my mouth and tears washed eyes as nightly watched the news of the Coup. Vowed then, that if the villainous plotters failed, I would come back to St. Petersburg (after three months of lucrative English teaching in Tokyo) to do whatever an old Scop can do to aid the Reform Movement along its rocky road toward Freedom.

      While Freedom is not the ultimate “end” in itself (Happiness is), Freedom is a most essential prerequisite to encourage each individual to look into their own Hearts and Minds to discover what each person wants for him/herself. Freedom, as the great English/American Poet W.H. Auden says, “is a whole climate of opinion” which allows an individual to follow their own path to their Happiness. Not a Happiness prescribed by anyone else: Not the state, church, family, Friends, colleagues, nor, even Lovers. Only YOU can introspect to know what you want! Then finding in our shared world your own required set of Happiness producing things is comparatively easy, particularly when we live in a relatively "Free" society.

      So just what could a voyaging Scribe do to “help”? Well, teach English as a volunteer. So contacted new Friend Alex and asked him to find a place where I could teach. He contacted a specialized English school which was near where he lived. “Specialized English School Number 192” was very happy to have a native English speaker (who is a Poet as well) volunteer.

      Returning to the new country, The Russian Federation, (with pockets filled with sustaining Japanese yen—actually I was the very first Japanese foreign aid program; even before the Japanese Government had decided to give aid to new Russia!) I met the receptive people at School 192 on St. Valentine’s Day 1992. What wonderful students!

    Every teacher’s dream: Intelligent, enthusiastic and diligent. Some were very creative. Will always recall with great affection my beautiful, blond, bright-blue-eyed, eighth grader, Tanya, who wrote lovely fairy tales in English for her own pleasure. Lovely Tanya is an example of the New Russians who not only take responsibility and initiative for themselves, but, also, have Fun-in-the-Doing!

    During the Spring semester at 192 I taught ten classes per week (two classes each of the seventh thru eleventh grades), plus we had a Poetry Club which met once a week. The Club was a voluntary, extracurricular activity. Between 10 and 15 pupils would gather every week from all the grades on Tuesday afternoons. We would read, analyze and discuss a Poem in English over tea and cookies. Usually, one of the immortal English language Poets from the titan Shakespeare down. The kids always wanted to read my poems. However, insisted that they read the Olympians.

    Meanwhile there was my “private life”: Existing in St. Petersburg with the all powerful yen (or any other “hard” currency) was then very inexpensive. Your wondering Scop, who is very poor by standards of the so called “developed world”, lived on a higher standard then every before in my whole Life (for less money than simple “getting by” cost in any Western country). Rented a charming two room apartment in a "new suburb" (actually now a score of years old) about 45 minutes from the center of old P-burg. Hired a housekeeper who took care of her Poet like the Ancients’ Muses had ordained it.

    The Cultural Passions of your photographing-Scribe include Classic music, Ballet and Jazz. Every night attended a marvelous performance of one or the other of these marvelous Cultural events accompanied by Friends, acquaintances and Beautiful girls. Afterwards, back to my place for a small, intimate party with luscious, copious food, caviar, champagne and Stolichnaya vodka. Do very much like my vodka!

    Not much makes sense is this Life. The news always depress this Seeker-of-Beauty-&-Wisdom: The craziness of the politicians’ games. Man’s inhumanity to man. I’m a rather stupid fellow, I know. Can not understand, when, in this century, when mankind for the very first time in human history, has the ability to fulfill all the material needs of every homo sapien on our old, Beautiful (as Buckminster Fuller calls it) spacecraft Earth, why is there want? Why do men fight over a few square meters of land? As the great jazz number goes, “This land is no man’s land. This here land is all our bury’n ground!”

    The only things that makes sense to your non-materialistic roaming Bard are Friendship: Sharing Poetry-of-Life together, and Beauty in all its forms: Nature’s or Man’s Creations. The most beautiful thing in this whole wide world is the female body. That’s why I enjoy so much taking Nude photographs. In Russia Beautiful Models, film, developing and printing are all affordable.

    This past academic year (October 1992 - May 1993) decided to teach in several different places: Thru my dear Friend Yuri Golitsinski, who was a fellow teacher at School 192 and a delightful inspiration, was given permission to teach in Yuri's class in one of St. P's Teacher training institutes where Russian English teachers are required to take refresher courses every four or five years. Frankly, my teacher’s of English were not the most motivated of students.

    Taught, also, at the St. Petersburg Cinematographic Institute to a small group of very talented, intelligent, energetic students. When Friend Jim Haynes (www.jim-haynes.com—the American expat, getter-together-of-Peopler from the University of Paris came to St. P. to work on the Russian edition of his very useful People-to-People guide book) met these energetic, positive, optimistic students, Jim succinct said, “Now, I feel confident about the future of Russia!” Jim (together with your teaching-Poet) helped these seven, “our Magnificent Seven” as Jim dubbed them, to realized a trip to Pairs that summer, 1992) to visit Jim in gay Paree.

    Also, this past year, not wanting to loose touch with my beloved eighth graders, have taught a group of charming kids who were pupils of sweet Yuri’s wife Nina in another specialized English school number 105. The kids were great. Was very sad to leave them, as with all of the students at the end of the year.

    The most stimulating students were a group of extremely intelligent Philosophers with whom you mere Bard meet weekly at the famed St. Petersburg Academy of Science.  Certainly this “teacher” of English learned a lot of Philosophy from these profound Thinkers. (Indeed, always learn a great deal from all my students. Sometimes, think that I learn more then “teach”!) These Philosophers are all Doctors of Philosophy, Doctoral Candidates and Professors! Was pleased to have been able to help them with improving their proficiency in English.

    (None every “teach” anything to anyone else. We can only learn by ourselves. A teacher can only make the information available to a student. The student him/herself learns = we all only teach ourselves!)

    Alas, those powerful yen have spent themselves! Tho did get very wonderful mileage: 15 months of useful, adventurous Fun! My wonderful Russian students wanted their old teaching-Bard to stay. Unfortunately, the Russian economy did not permit students to afford to keep a native English teacher. Because a foreigner in Russia is forced to pay for apartments in hard currency and Russian students have only very limited rubles, not enough could be paid to enable a foreign teacher to afford to live in St. Petersburg. So, Alas!, was forced to say adieu to all the wonderful students, warm Friends, Beautiful girls, magnificent St. P. itself and trilling Culture. However, will always dream of returning if devil money will ever permit!

 

Warsaw, 1 June 1993

Copyright 1993 by Marco Polo

 

NOTE Tuesday, 13 February 2007, returned to SPB in June 1994 and lived there until now. However, tho SPB is still Loved. Adored WIFE Olinka is living in Pairs, the City-o-Light and we want to Live and Love Together. So hopeful in April will move to EnJoy with BeLoved Olia in Gay Paree!!

 

 

To help support Marco Polo, The Photographing-Poet-Errant, click here

  

 
Top of Page

 

Return to Marco Polo Homepage

All material on this site is copyright and/or design copyright 2002-2008 by Marco Polo