Hi fellow RGO'ers,

I just came back from a visit to Poland, my home country. Since the purpose
of the visit was to spend as much time with my 94-year-old grandmother
(Robert's great-grandmother) as possible, and I was there only for 10 days,
I did not do much else while there, but I still managed to get into orchids
a little bit while there, so here is the report on that:

1) While in Poland, I encountered a newspaper article on a planned highway
extension project through the Rospuda valley near the Polish-Latvian border.
There are about 15 (or 19 depending on which source one quotes) of native
orchid species that occur in this valley and several of them are quite rare.
Here is some info about this that I found in the English language on the Web
if any of you are interested: http://www.zb-zeme.lv/eng/xxx/wbg.htm. While
this article does not include photos of these orchids, here is a site that
shows photos of orchids growing in Poland -- note: the site is in Polish,
but the orchid name links on the left are in Latin and the photos don't need
translation http://www.polskie.storczyki.org.pl/gatunki.php?lng=lat

2) I had bought my grandma potted orchids on previous visits to Poland, and
several of them are still doing very well -- remarkable really considering
that my grandma cannot care for them herself, and she gets different
caregivers coming in whose primary duty is of course to take care of her,
and not plants. One of her Phals was in beautiful flower, too. So since it
was my grandma's name's day (which is more important than a birthday in
Poland) and it was so hot that cut flowers wilted very quickly, I decided to
buy her another orchid. My mother, David and I went to two local stores, one
was a fancy florist's and the other a hardware store.

The florist's while a bit fancy was pretty much a local florist's in a strip
mall in a part of Warsaw called Ursynow where my grandma lives. It had some
really impressive Phals, Miltaniopsis, intergeneric ochids, and a few Paphs.
I wound up paying $20 for an impressive two spike yellow flowered Phal with
several open flowers and several remaining unopened buds plus a new branch
off of one of the spikes. This was probably one of the most expensive Phals
I could have bought, but I wanted to splurge and get a really nice one for
my grandma. I limited myself to Phals since my grandma's caregivers
obviously know how to keep those alive already, and it was way too hot for
the Miltaniopsis to survive in my grandma's non-airconditioned apartment.

The hardware store had exceedingly healthy orchids, including two very
healthy flowering Vandas, several neat Paphs, and oodles of Phals that where
younger than the ones at the florist's. The prices started as low as $6.
Very few of the buds were blasted, unlike at a hardware store in the US,
where I often observe pitiful orchids with major bud blast issues.

Off topic: 7-months old Robert now crawls like a pro, stands up against any
piece of furniture he can find, drinks out of a straw cup, and if held
underneath his armpits with feet on the floor he makes strides practicing
walking. And most of these skills just emerged in the past two weeks. In
other words, he is an amazing menace! Very cute too.

And that's it on the Poland trip report.

Best,
Joanna

Wondered where you were, Joanna. Sounds like a good trip. I assume you took
Robert with you. How did he do in the plane?

Diana

Diana,

Yes, indeed. Robert did beautifully on the plane. He actually did better
than us -- David and I were truly exhausted and getting more and more grumpy
when our first flight was delayed and we missed the connecting flight etc.,
but Robert was just fine.

For anyone traveling with infants, my advice is: make sure to either book
seats in the bulkhead row or try to switch seat assignments to there at the
airport -- totally worth it: the airline provides a bassinet for infant to
sleep in in this row, and there is more leg space, so that toddlers can roam
or lie down on the floor in front of parents as well. It is best to travel
during a time when the infant would sleep most of the trip anyway -- that's
what we did on the way over to Poland -- but even when traveling during
daytime (as in our return trip) it is not all that bad, as long as one
remains patient while having one's hair pulled and one's glasses pulled off
regularly, and is willing to be overall baby-handled. From watching parents
of toddlers, they seem to have a harder time, as it appears that toddlers do
not need or want hardly any sleep while on an aircraft (even during the
overnight plane trip) and their boundless energy is spent running up and
down the aisle of the aircraft etc. But since Robert cannot run yet, he was
more manageable, and he seemed to enjoy his time as a lap child, being in a
bit of a clingy phase and thus wanting to be held often anyways.

Best,
Joanna

"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message
.. .
Wondered where you were, Joanna. Sounds like a good trip. I assume you
took Robert with you. How did he do in the plane?

Diana