Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

This past Sunday, I enjoyed a wonderful, catch-up visit with Bozena Wiercinska, my dear friend in Warsaw at Bonu, the Sicilian coffee shop and wine bar, recently opened in the famed Europeski Hotel on Krakowskie Przedmiescie. Ours was one of those great, leisurely holiday conversations that lasted hours over cappucino and cheese sandwiches, sitting in large accommodating wing chairs beside an inviting fireplace. It was one of those occasions where two friends who know they’re on a ticking clock dispense with the superficials and cut right to the heart of the matter.

“So how did you make the decision to come to Warsaw?” Bozena asked me. “Is it working out for you here?”

For several years, I had been contemplating an extended stay in Warsaw and always counted on Bozena — whom I met in 2005 in Poland through a friend of a friend and who later spent a summer with Henry and me in North Carolina — to be there to ease the transition. She is the kind of friend I knew I could call in the middle of the night if my child got sick, or if some other catastrophe struck. But, alas, it was not to work out that way.

At about the time I made up my mind to take a sabbatical in Poland, Bozena and her husband decided to go to Sicily. Yes, sunny Sicily! Just as Warsaw — with its tragic, heroic history — beckoned me, Sicily with its bright skies, inviting beaches and remarkable wines called out to Bozena and Janusz. Through the Internet, Bozena, who had taught English in Warsaw for many years, learned about an English language school for sale in a small town in Sicily where there was no competition. Her only son had just graduated from the Polish equivalent of high school, her husband was in transition, so they decided to roll the dice and try something new. So Bozena, like me, in middle age, is living and working in a foreign country, wrestling with a strange new language and unfamiliar customs, trying to learn the rules and prompts, written and unwritten. But luckily, just as I have in Poland, Bozena has met an angel or two to help smooth the transition.

Once we settled on a time, there was no question about location. Bonu — Ala Zbierajewska’s new Sicilian mecca, that has become as close to my own personal “hang out” as any in Warsaw — would get our business. Ala, a Pole who had just returned to Warsaw after spending six years in Italy’s island paradise, has a passion for hospitality, Sicilian wines, antipastos and olive oils. Her coffee and wine bar had just opened this fall, meeting a big need in Warsaw of providing a relaxed “third space” that is neither home nor work. Bonu is a place you can meet friends or just stop by for a cup of coffee. Delightfully done up with Sicilian art and fully stocked with wines, preserves and olive oils, it’s easy to enjoy that laid-back Sicilian lifestyle and just relax. When you’re next in Warsaw, stop by and raise a glass of Sicilian wine in the heart of the city.

Ciao & Czescz!

(For more information about Bonu, check out www.bonu.pl.)