Iron Deficient

I'm walking around the city, being dogged by spinach cravings and feel that everything is slightly off today. Spring has finally pushed through the relentlessness of Winter, and on her insistence, this giant organism of a place has been sent into a frenzy. The streets, in spectacular resurrection, have flung up four months' worth of dust into the sky and enthusiastic commuters, with not enough hands for the ice-creams and cold drinks they're clambering after, are riding bikes, stockingless.

The gargantuan National Theatre, with its strong sand-stone architecture, has taken on a softer, pinkish hue. For a moment I pretend I am in Rome, before, tangentially, I am reminded of the fact that Poland almost held Madascar as a colony. This amusing caprice of history does not escape me and I slowly move my tongue over the words: Pax Romana, Pax Polonia.

Spring in Warsaw offers me my own personal history too, with this vivid regeneration stunning me with accute memories. As the new sun struggles to beat its rays through the city smog, I'm reminded of that crazy 2006-2007 summer when the bushfires, encroaching in on Melbourne, shrouded suburbia with smoke. I'm in Europe, with nary a gum-tree in sight, yet I think I am on Lygon St with the very particular smell of burning eucalypts sneaking into my nose.

I cross Swietokrzyska (haha), with its tooting taxis and impatient crowds, and let the descending humidity take me back to that brief time in Vietnam. It's enough to make me want to pull up a crate to mediocre British company and have a 20 cent beer from a dirty keg. And I really wouldn't be hard-pressed to trade in the stodgy Polish diet for a bowl of crisp baby spinach with slivers of braised pork. Hell, I even want to accosted by frantically waving mo-ped drivers, yelling in tongue I could only ever hope to master. There are frantic Vietnamese in Warsaw, certainly, but this is not their home and they look sad.

The city is in a process of rebirth , but its being slightly obstinate. On Plac Pilsudskiego, an image of a messianic Pope John Paul II is eerily projected onto the wall of an old building. The Pope, somehow neon-fantastic, flickers for a few seconds before disappearing to be replaced by something that I don't quite manage to catch. Everywhere I look there are plaques commemorating dead people and finished wars; all of them directing my reluctant gaze to the bulletholes in pre-war motar. It appears that Spring is here, but Poland doesn't want to be completely reborn.

I move away from Plac Pilsudskiego feeling a bit disenchanted and disconnected from the warm fronts colliding behind me. As I enter the penetrative lighting of Mini Europa, I direct my attention to the spinach cravings, growing irksomely stronger by the minute and think that, yeah, rebrith and regeneration are good, but I really don't want to be pregnant.