These are some big fucking raspberries

Are they not? I put my hand in the photo for scale, but I'm not sure they do them justice. I visited three museums today and on my way home I passed a woman with a sad little card-table stand that was laden with these fat bastards. Of course, I had to wait to eat them until I boiled water and let it cool so I could wash them, but man alive. Worth it.

Such things are required to overcome a post-Warsaw funk. It rained nonstop and was cold as shit there last weekend. I think it's probably good I saw the city under the worst possible circumstances (nowhere to go but up) but it may be one of Europe's ugliest cities. I feel bad saying that, because -- and yes, this is a constant refrain in Poland -- more than eight of every 10 buildings was blown to shit during the war. And if it's not bad enough to have the Germans flatten your city, you get the communists to build it back up.

I looked at eight flats in 24 hours, and they were all explosive shitholes. One was in a giant communist block-style apartment building that smelled so bad I'm pretty sure I openly recoiled. Interestingly, it was located along part of the former ghetto wall. But history was not enough to overcome the stench. At another flat the landlord offered to drop the price if I'd help him with conversational English. I thought that was actually kind of adorable, but again, shithole. At a separate flat the landlady asked if my editor and his wife (who is just three months older than me) were my parents. Goo. And finally, a guy tried to convince me that the view from his flat included "the Empire State Building." Hmmm.

Saturday night I met some people from the American Embassy and I'm hoping they will be able to direct me towards a better approach for flat-hunting. Right now my threshold is "won't make my mother cry," and yet I can't seem to exceed it.