Things are moving well in Poland.  This morning we started doing interviews, talking first with the proprietor of an iconic small business in Lodz– a retail shop called Pan tu nie stał, the name of which is in reference to a comedy film from the 80s in Lodz. You can check out some of their wares here. They do awesome work in the city and use apparel to project a positive image of the city much of the same way <a href=”http://detroitlives.com/products-page/” target=”_blank”>DL!</a> does.

In other news, Polish vodka is remarkably tasty. Nothing like that Popov garbage you drank in college. Most of the vodka Americans are used to drinking (Absolut, for example) is made with grains, but many of the true Polish varieties are made with plums or potatoes even. And quite honestly, Polish vodka is delicious– even straight. I know that probably sounds crazy, but the shock of its delightfulness is akin to drinking a nice glass of tequila and realizing that the world of tequila outside of Jose Cuervo’land is quite tasty. Drinking the potato vodka almost brings a sweet flavor and you don’t even need to mix it with anything. In Poland, vodka is the social drink of choice when hanging with friends or people you are close with, whereas beer is much more casual. Kind of cool.

OK. Enough about vodka, but hey, it’s culturally relevant these days, right?

(Portions of this post also appeared on the DETROIT LIVES! blog <a href=”http://detroitlives.org/2011/05/25/vote-for-cass-community-services-update-2-from-poland/” target=”_blank”>here</a>)