From the fourth floor of our apartment building, I can look out the window and see the shopping area (for lack of a better English word) below. In Polish, it is a bazarka, a collection of small – one might even say tiny – shops where you can get almost anything you could want. I mentioned this in an earlier post, but thought I would describe it in some greater detail here. There is a U-shaped building with the inside of the U filled in with a rectangular building; both buildings are divided up into individual shops, “pawiliony” in Polish. There must be about 30 of these shops. When we first arrived last September, the real estate agent who found our apartment for us said the bazarka had everything, but a quick stroll around it made me think that she was wrong. Mostly it looked like some produce stores and some other odds and ends.
I was wrong and continue to be surprised how so many small shops really could provide nearly everything you might need. The fact is, although each store is specialized, each also sells much more than you might expect. The produce shops also sell canned goods and spices, even soy milk. The laundry “chemicals” shop not only sells detergents and shampoos, but also magazines, toys, and cards to top off your cell phone minutes. You can get keys copied, your hair cut, and your clothing mended. Lastly, there is a video rental shop – the reason for the title of this posting.
The video shop also does copying and scanning as well as selling lottery tickets and stationery. I wandered in there a couple of weeks ago to copy something and, for the first time since last fall, I looked at the videos. I don’t know why I didn’t investigate earlier. While it doesn’t have the greatest selection, many of which are action and gore flicks that neither Sarah nor I care for, on closer inspection we did find a number of titles that we were interested in.
Now browsing titles in a video store in Warsaw can be challenging. “Larry Crowne” with Tom Hanks is still titled “Larry Crowne.” On the other hand, “The Descendants” has been translated into “Spadkobiercy” (translation: The Heirs). What I discovered is that if you can read the little print on the back side of the container, it will often have the original English-language title mentioned amongst the microscopic credits. Fortunately, we have a magnifying glass just for such critical situations (the main other one being reading the instructions on medicine bottles). We have also learned how to look up the Polish titles on IMDB. Our method is thus: I go to the video store and browse through the videos with my magnifying glass in hand like Sherlock Holmes seeking out a clue to some mystery. When I find something interesting (usually a video container illustration that does not show a gun), I call Sarah up on my cell phone. She’s back at HQ sitting at her laptop awaiting my call. I can then tell Sarah the American title (when I can read it) or the Polish title, if necessary; she looks it up on IMDB and determines if it meets our criteria for checking it out; and then I can take final action down in the shop. To be truthful, we haven’t exactly followed this protocol, but I did write down titles so we could look them up back at our apartment.
I always double check the fine print to make sure the videos are in English or have English subtitles. The store does have a few Polish movies that are without dubbing or subtitles, but most of the movies are American or British.
By now you might be wondering what we’ve seen. From this store, we’ve checked out The Adventures of Tin Tin, The Knight’s Tale, and Larry Crowne. The first two were very enjoyable, the last was so-so. Further afield is Beverly Hills Video, more like the big video rental places in the states, from which we rented Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
We have also been to several theaters to see first-run movies, but more about that next time!
