When you go to a party at someone's house in Poland, you take presents: flowers for the wife, and vodka for the husband. The wife will probably drop a little curtsey as you hand her the flowers, and the husband smile beatifically, kiss the bottle, and chortle. The Poles are mostly naturally ceremonious and civilised, regardless of class.
The first party I went to in Poland was in someone's flat - I forget whose - and followed what I was later to learn was the usual pattern, excellent food and what then seemed a staggering quantity of vodka.
After about 2 or 3 hours, and half a litre, I went out on to the balcony to cool off. The other men all followed me, leaving the ladies to make coffee.
A young man asked me, "Do you love God, Chris?"
Before I had time to reply, he continued, "I don't. He's too big to love. But I love Jesus, and Our Pope (John Paul), and the Saints, of course."
In England, this would have been an extraordinary conversational gambit at a party of "professional people", and in very bad taste. The miscreant would have been starved of further invitations. In Poland, as the vodka flows, that's how people talk, about God, history, politics, poetry.
Vodka is not just spirituous, it's spiritual.
