My Nudist Year

The nudist year of our Lord 2011 was a strange year for me.

I quit my job. Not because I didn’t enjoy it. Not because I didn’t like to earn money. I quit because I realized I was being exploited. I couldn’t allow that.

I started writing. I submitted about 20 pieces, all but one of which was short fiction, to various places, mostly on the internet. One of them got published. The one that wasn’t fiction.

I joined the organized nudist community from a feeling of disgust. I had learned quite randomly the previous fall that long-time friends of my family were in fact naturists. Something which they had never told my parents, even though my father had helped them move from New York to New Jersey, unaware I believe to this day that they were moving to be closer to a nudist or clothing optional resort. I felt ashamed that they would feel the need to hide it from us. They had invited me to join them that coming summer at the resort. In the spring I randomly started searching the internet looking for the address of that resort. I never found it. Instead I found somebody selling a guide to the nudist resorts of the world. I bought a copy.

I went on a trip to Europe. I landed first in Poland, the country of my birth. I decided my next destination would be Croatia. From what I could tell from the guide, it was a nudist hotspot – at least in comparison to Poland, which didn’t have anything at all. I invited a cousin of mine to come along. I doubt she had any idea I was going there for naturism. When I would mention the word to her family, they kept nodding their heads, saying “Yes, yes. Nature.” The day before we were supposed to leave, she got robbed. Her purse was stolen. It had her passport in it. Because citizens of the EU still need passports to get into Croatia, the trip was postponed.

I decided to give nudism in Poland a second look. I figured maybe something had changed in the years since the guide was published. I was right. On the internet, I found a website for the  first and, at the time, only official naturist resort in Poland, Sauna Cezar. I called up a Dutchman named Peter. According to the site, he was one half of “the couple” that ran the whole show – not just the resort, but also the nascent Polish naturist federation. He told me I was welcome to come.

I met Gosia in the sauna. I thought she was Peter’s wife. He had, after all, run up the stairs calling her name. She had come to wait for me in the sauna thinking I was just another guy who likes to take pictures of naked / nudist girls. She realized I wasn’t. She left me in the sauna with a male client who was close to the family. She later told me she thought I might be gay. I wasn’t – even though the first person I ever really fell in love with was a man. That’s another story. Gosia and I spent the weekend together. I was attracted to her. I felt her warmth – her spirit – her energy – her great generosity – her deep sadness. I kept my distance. I thought she was married. Gosia noticed that distance. She suspected it was hiding something. She later told me that if not for that distance, she might not have bothered with me. Meanwhile I couldn’t understand what was going on between us. I feared at first  that Gosia and Peter might be swingers. I wasn’t sure how I could deal with that. Then I thought Gosia might be thinking about a divorce. On Sunday over lunch she mentioned wanting to fall in love. In that moment I pledged to myself that if I had the chance, I would show this woman love. I would give her myself completely. Later in the evening, Gosia finally explained to me that she was divorced. Despite still living with Peter, she had been divorced from him for three years.

Gosia took me upstairs to her room. There was a stripper pole in the corner. It was symbolic of that night’s affair. My love-making was a show. Gosia was impressed. She complimented the deftness with which I removed my clothing. I even impressed myself with a well-executed interruptus. In the morning, a blond woman entered the room, saw me, excused herself, and left. It was a member of Peter’s staff. I bumped into Peter that morning. He was right outside the door to Gosia’s wing of  the house. He helped me find a towel. It was awkward. Later Gosia would describe to me how her youngest daughter informed her that there was a man sleeping in her bed. Gosia had told her that she was aware of it. When her daughter asked her why there was a man sleeping in her bed, she said, “I don’t know.”

I spent three weeks in Gosia’s bed. I wasn’t quite sure how and under what circumstances I would leave. I felt a little like Odysseus in the hands of Circe. I didn’t go anywhere. My meals were brought to me. Our  lovemaking was so vigorous I ended up with an inflamed urethra. At first I was afraid it was an infection. Gosia took me to see a doctor who frequented the sauna. He asked if I had engaged in any sexual activity of a suspicious nature. I told him I didn’t think so. Gosia would later tease him for it. As I ended up suspecting, the inflammation was merely a symptom of the trauma. It went away. The trauma resumed. Gosia would later confess that she was biding her time as she connived her way into joining my grand tour across Europe. The minute she had heard about the idea she had started dreaming of participating. She thought it was exactly the kind of thing she needed. She thought she had to convince me that it would be worthwhile to take her along. Little did she know I had already pledged myself to her. All she had to do was ask on day four. It took her three weeks to gather up the courage to do it.

Gosia and I traveled across Europe.  We were on the road for 46 days. We drove 6000 miles. We slept in 32 different places. We saw 12 countries. We visited 2 and a half nudist beaches. We pitched our tent on many a campground. We argued a lot. Gosia warned me before the trip that she was a tempestuous shrew and that if I were smart I’d have nothing to do with her and that I should expect that at some point she was going to leave me behind. On more than one occasion I was afraid she was going to do it. On one particularly bad night overlooking Normandy Beach, I confessed to her that I loved her. I thought it was the only thing I could say that would make her think twice about leaving me. She assumed as much and taunted me for saying it. I went to sleep in the car. Gosia stayed in the tent. At some point she started thinking I had gone off to the cliffs to kill myself. She went outside and wandered around looking for me. It was a cold night. She found me  eventually in the car but not before letting the pain of an old ear infection come roaring back. She had to wrap her head with her scarf for a few days.

I took more than 12,000 photographs. When Gosia and I came home, I wasn’t sure what to do with them. She’s the one who first suggested a calendar. I thought it was a good idea. We had plenty of calendar worthy photographs at our disposal. I just didn’t feel up to the task of organizing them. I was completely spent. I didn’t want to go anywhere. Gosia could sense it. She told me to leave. She told me to go home to America. She told me to create my own space. She claimed I shouldn’t stay because she couldn’t be sure how she would feel about me in a month’s time to not mention next week. I went back to my hometown in Poland. Gosia ended up coming to visit. I could tell there was something happening inside of her. There was a battle raging in her heart.

I flew back to the States. I started organizing the photos. I wasn’t making much progress. I was in a fog. The worst part was the pressure. Gosia kept reminding me that people only buy calendars at the end of the year. I was supposed to hurry. I decided I didn’t like that idea. I thought it was stupid that people only buy calendars once a year. I thought it was stupid that they have to buy calendars at all. I started looking for a way to make sure my calendar wouldn’t need to be thrown out. I wanted a calendar you could keep. I started reading about the history of calendars. I discovered the idea of a perpetual calendar was not something new. A huge American company had once adopted a perpetual calendar for its own use. The World Calendar was considered for adoption by the United Nations.

I realized if somebody else could do it, I could do it, too. I learned about the tropical year. I learned how dumb the Gregorian calendar really was. It was a half-baked idea even for its time. Here we are centuries later and the entire world is following it. Billions of people are following one pope’s bad idea. I should find that incredible except I’m not surprised. I’ve known for a while that people are weak and afraid. I’m weak and afraid. I’m no different. If I’ve been able to rise above the hatred and confusion of this world it’s because I was never too scared or too hungry to think for myself. I made assumptions about the world and I tested them. I learned from my mistakes. I was lucky to be well fed my entire life. That I owe to chance, or the grace of God – whichever you believe in. Conquering my fear is another matter. That is the product of my choice. That is the product of hard work. It’s something each of us can do – even the hungry. We need to find the courage to make our world better. Changing the calendar is one little piece. It’s nothing next to what needs to be done. But it’s where I start.

I’ve learned a lot this year. I’ve learned I’m not alone. I have Gosia. 150 days after we met, the battle inside her is over. She is no longer afraid to love. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. She told me so many times how sad she was. How alienated she had become from the world. How ready she was to abandon all of society and start living completely on her own. It was her only goal when we met. It’s not her goal anymore. I don’t know what her mission will be now, but I know that I’m prepared to support her. I’m prepared to support anybody who wants to be done with the fear that civilization instills in us from the moment we are born, starving and blind into this cold and wretched world. It’s the fear with which we’ve been oppressed. It’s the fear we share with our oppressors. It’s time for us to set it aside. It’s time for us to be whole again. It’s time for us to trust. It’s time for us to love. It’s time for a revolution.

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Bunculuka Croatia Nudist Campground

Bunculuka Croatia Nudist Campground - By the time Gosia and I reached Croatia there was a rainbow gleaming in the distance. At long last we thought our search was done. The beautiful sun filled sunny skies waited. We headed to Medullin, a town on the southern tip of the Istrian peninsula where a friend of Gosia’s helps to run a pension. Much needed laundry was done. The atmosphere was cool. Gosia’s friend checked the forecast. Rain was on the way for Istria. Rain was on the way to practically everywhere. I wondered where it could have possibly come from. One thing I knew for sure. It wasn’t America’s fault – despite what everybody kept telling me.

In the morning, on the slim promise of a fairly friendly forecast, Gosia and I decided to head east along the coast – to the island paradise of Krk. The landscape was breathtaking. Freeway curves protruded off the sides of cliffs. Everywhere jagged rock soared up into the sky. Distant green mountains beckoned. The only problem was staying on the road. It wasn’t just a matter of keeping my eyes off the landscape. It was in Slovenia that I realized my GPS didn’t include Croatia. I was driving blind with only a vague freeway map to guide me. It was through sheer luck that Gosia and I had stumbled into a Kaufland where we could buy a much needed electric kettle to heat up water. Our Communist era screw-in stove took an hour just to get water steaming, never mind boiling.

Even with the freeway map I missed an exit. That meant an extra toll. If there is one thing I didn’t expect on this trip, it was how much I would have to pay for the privilege of driving. The entire continent, with the blessed exception of Germany, requires paying tolls for the use of freeways, usually in the form of a sticker called a vignette. Prices range from 10 euros to 40 euros. Talk about missing America. If there was one difference about Croatia, it was the fact that they employed young boys at the ticket booths whose job it was to press the button that prints the ticket, take the ticket and hand it to you as if you as a foreigner had no idea what to do – like back home in New Jersey, where there’s no such thing as a gas station with self service. The first time I pulled into a gas station in Europe I honestly didn’t know what to do.

The island of Krk has few gas stations – at least from what you can see from the main road. We saw nothing but beautiful brush. With three choices of naturist camping available, Gosia and I decided to try the farthest one from humanity. It was Bunculuka, situated at the end of a fishing town called Baska, itself situated at the mouth of a narrow valley in turn situated at the very southeast corner of the island. It meant driving up a steep slope which at times I doubted my Ford Escort could do. But do it it did. Descending through the hairpin turns on the other side we didn’t regret it.

By the time we arrived at Bunculuka’s reception desk Gosia and I were both breathless from the view. We quickly declared our wish for a spot. The receptionist gave us a queer look. She asked with her sharpened English, “Do you know this is a nudist camp?” Gosia and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Yes,” we cried. “That why we’re here!”

We were at the end of the world.

Croatia Nudist Campground

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Slovenia Naturist / Nudist Center

Terme Banovci – Slovenia Naturist / Nudist Center - In Vienna, Austria it was raining all the time (not ideal for nudism activities). The lucky break Gosia and I had on Kahlenburg was one of the few exceptions. Back at Lobau a fellow naturist took pity on us. She gave me a tarp which I immediately took to wrapping around the tent. It kept out the rain. It also kept out the air. Our last morning in Vienna was spent lying on our bellies perched in front of the entrance.

It was in such a position that Gosia confessed to me the real reason for her divorce and the extent to which she had been manipulated by the patriarchy. Her tears mixed with mine. We wondered what the people passing by must have thought. We joked that they attributed our sadness to the lack of fresh fish Gosia had discovered at the cafeteria. Or the lack of any access to the internet.

We resolved to find the sun. Instead of heading to another inevitably rainy spot in Austria, we decided to completely change our plans and head south to a nudist attraction called Terme Banovci in Slovenia.

The mood grew heavy. Gosia kept pushing me to discuss my definition of betrayal. It bothered her when I tried to make our conversation about romantic partnerships more philosophical and less about me. I was unsure what was driving her. She stubbornly declined to detail any of her own experiences. It seemed her earlier confession had been enough.

Windmills filled the landscape. I felt trapped in a war of the worlds. Giant machines loomed rotating ominously all around me. I was glad when we crossed the border. In Slovenia there was nothing but corn. The weather was warm. I had to change into shorts.

The weather stayed beautiful as Gosia and I pitched our tent at Terme Banovci, the only naturist center in the world with thermal water. As we got wet, the air stayed dry. Evening too was beautiful. When we went to bed we expected a lovely morning. At some point in the night tell tale drops began plopping onto our roof. By dawn it was clear again. The weather lasted long enough to take a few pictures. A steady drizzle moved in. As we bathed in the warm water the rain bothered us not a bit – even though we both lacked the otherwise ubiquitous shower caps and umbrella hats. By the time we went back to the tent for breakfast we realized it was time to pack up.

Sunshine or bust.

Terme Banovci Nudist Naturist Center Slovenia Naturism

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European Nudism - There’s a stripper pole in Gosia’s bedroom. She asked me what I thought about it. She wanted my first impression. I told her the truth. I didn’t know what to think about it. She sort of smiled. She was relieved I hadn’t made any false assumptions. She told me she never danced for a man. The stripper pole was there for her and her friends. She wants so desperately for her fellow Polish women to come out of their shells. She thought having get-togethers in her bedroom and playing with a stripper pole might help them break down their walls and learn from each other the truth about their womanhood. Like with most of Gosia’s endeavors, I doubt she thinks this one was entirely successful.

Gosia feels cramped. She isn’t just divorced from Peter. She’s also divorced from her first husband, the father of her two eldest daughters. Living under the same roof with an ex-husband and a trio of step-siblings is hard. It’s harder when they all expect something from you. It becomes impossible when no one stops to consider what it is that you might want – not just as a mother or as an ex-wife but as a person. I wanted to tell Gosia that her problem isn’t uncommon. It’s part of what I call my arch-enemy: patriarchy.

I remember the first evening I spent at Cezar. There was a couple who had gone to Iran. They described to me the anger seething in the faces of the countless veiled women they had encountered. It was pure resentment directed indiscriminately at everyone and everything – but especially at other women and ultimately I believe each person directs it towards himself. That is the goal of patriarchy: subordination in the form of self-hatred.

That same evening Darek joked about a verbal gaffe of mine. I had wanted to say that something had been off to the side, meaning not in a central location. Instead of saying that, I used a similar sounding word that means perverted. In jest Darek had started describing Cezar as a resort situated on the most perverted hill in Poland. Two days later I learned that not only was Darek divorced but that his wife wouldn’t let him see his children. She considers him a weirdo. His practice of naturism she uses as a case in point. When Darek started describing his ex as the type of woman who sits around the house all day and does nothing but watch television, I thought to myself, “Who’s the weirdo?”

Darek hides his pain well. Gosia is another story. I hear patriarchy’s stamp in every word she shares with me. It’s in her self-doubt. It’s in her jealousy. It’s in her sadness.

Gosia is fortunate in one way. Her anger has a release. She doesn’t have to wear a veil. She can run around her house naked. If only that were enough.

Gosia is coming with me. Together we are crossing Europe in a quest to find freedom, equality, and mutual self-respect. We’re searching for nudism.

European Nudism

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Polish Nudism at Sauna Cezar

Polish Nudism – At some point over pizza, during a discussion concerning personal relationships, Gosia looked off into the distance and sighed heavily. Turning her blank eyes back to the table, she cupped her cheek in her palm and said, “I would like to fall in love.” The statement was simple. Its implications unfathomable. More than once Gosia had shared a sense of the deep unhappiness dwelling within her. The expressions had all been vague.

Later that Sunday, after the potatoes had been roasted in the fire, Darek and I followed Gosia and a friend of hers up to the gazebo. The first thing she did was brag about the ingenious device she had come up with for the grill. It was a pulley. The grill hung on a chain. When Gosia cranked the handle the grill went up and down. Three rods that held it in place moved within three sleeves attached to the fireplace. Gosia warned me before I took hold of the pulley that the sleeves were too short. I wasn’t allowed to let the rods come out or there would be hell to pay for getting all three rods back where they were meant to be. The warning was promptly ignored. Gosia laughed. She reminisced about the time such a thing had happened when the grill was hot. With drunkenness in the mix it hadn’t been a pretty scene.

Gosia recalled too, with fondness, the days in winter when she and her guests had gone sledding down the hillside on inner tubes. For some reason she thought I hadn’t understood the Polish word for inner tube. A long and confusing explanation followed in which she tried to compare what she was talking about to an “English paczek.” What she meant was a doughnut. It took more than a few laughs to clear that up.

Gosia’s good spirits didn’t last. Back at the house, the atmosphere turned sad. Gosia began discussing in detail the many encounters she had been forced to suffer at the hands of the Polish media. A young woman had approached her about doing a report on the sauna. When the woman showed up she turned out to be very uncomfortable with nudity and nudism. She later joined forces with a producer from Polish television. Together they tried to convince Gosia to agree to a documentary film that they wanted to sell to HBO. In the story treatment she was given, Gosia read about her life as a traditional Polish mother waking up early in the morning to make breakfast for her three children. It made her sick.

I was a little confused by the idea of a screenplay being written for any documentary film much less one about a nudist mother who doesn’t actually wake up early in the morning to make breakfast. Gosia tried to explain how hard it is to be a naturist in a country that has little understanding of the word. She went on a morning television program and was inundated with idiotic questions. People don’t want to understand. They want to cling to their stereotypes or prejudices or accept at face value the moronic sensationalism that some jackanape is all too willing to provide them. At one point during a radio interview, when the host kept asking Gosia what her husband thought about her prancing around naked, she responded bluntly, “I’m divorced. Do you understand? I’m a divorcee,” and hung up the phone.

The first time I heard the story about the radio interview I thought the line about Gosia being divorced was maybe a joke. I thought it might have been something she said to get the interviewer off her back. I was wrong.

Polish Nudism

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Polish Nudist Interview – When Peter first met me outside the door of Sauna Cezar, I was shocked by how suspicious he seemed about the idea of recording a nudist interview. I had to explain to him carefully the nature of the magazine and the fact that as distributors they assiduously screen their clientele. I repeatedly drove home the point that it was “safe.”

Peter is not a very outgoing kind of man. He’s friendly and willing to share a joke or two when it suits him. On the whole however he’s quiet and modest and doesn’t see the need to be interviewed. Looking back on our first encounter, I was sure there was more to his suspicion than mere shyness.

More than once Peter shared with me his doubt that a featured article in an English-language naturist or nudist blog or magazine could bring a single foreign customer to his door. I kept telling him it was at least worth a try. I wondered where his pessimism was coming from. The first time Gosia drove me to Vagina she too expressed a sense of general disillusionment. Unhappiness seemed wrapped around every one of her words. During our time in the jacuzzi she mentioned with a heavy sigh having had many “life experiences.” I wondered what she meant.

Nudism In Poland

On Sunday, Darek and Gosia sat with me in the Vagina courtyard. The topic of religion came up. Gosia was shocked to hear that I was a practicing Catholic. “You believe in God?” she asked. I replied in the affirmative. “You go to church?” she asked. I nodded. She exchanged a look with Darek. “It’s Sunday,” she said. “You’re not in church.”

“So what?” I said. Gosia seemed positively taken aback. She had no idea what to make of it.

“I hate the Polish church,” I said. I explained how a Polish priest once crammed the Eucharist down my throat. I had offered my hands as an altar for the Lord, as was my custom. Before I had finished the word “Amen,” the priest had jammed his hand halfway into my mouth. In Poland only a priest is allowed to touch the Eucharist. “The Polish church exists to subordinate people,” I explained. “I hate Polish priests.”

My words were like balsam. Gosia started describing the imperious behavior of priests who visit parishioners homes during the holidays to “see how things are.” The “tradition” of the “ministerial visit” is “sanctioned” by canon law. It’s a way for priests to extort money. I told Gosia I had my own experiences with the clerical Gestapo. They had left a bad taste in my mouth. Darek nodded his head. “They took a good thing and ruined it,” he said.

Many days later Gosia confessed to me that one of the Sauna’s first clients was a priest. He didn’t come to relax.

Polish Nudist

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 Polish Food

Zestaw (pronounced zestaf) is the Polish word for combo. Having driven all day to get to Sauna Cezar, without stopping once to eat, I was heartened to see the A-frame sign in the Solarium boasting a grill combo that included both chuck steak, pork belly and sausage. I told Peter to fire up the charcoal. Darek seconded the motion.

Polish food – meats

As hungry as I was I couldn’t finish the meal. I contemplated offering a bit of the pork belly to Gina, the family dog. She was nonstop barnstorming the table in what seemed like a relentless search for food. Peter had mentioned she was on a diet. One of the other guests shared her regret over having fed her. I decided to give her just one bite.

In the morning I treated myself to a can of zurek. It’s a soup made from sour rye complete with bits of sausage, potato, and hard-boiled eggs. The label claimed the can contained four portions. It’s probably true. I filled my bowl four times. There’s nothing like having breakfast and dinner at the same time.

Later in the day, before the concert took place, Gosia and Darek took me down to the neighboring rynek (Polish for market square) where festivities were taking place in celebration of the town’s unification. Bielsko and Biala used to be two separate towns. Vendors had their stalls filled with sausage, honey, and beer. There were Gorale, Polish highlanders, selling their traditional Oscypek, a smoked cheese made from salted sheep milk, served hot with cranberries – and my personal favorite, “slice of bread with dripping and pickle.” (Dripping is a dry-rendered lard, in this case from pork.)

Honey Vendor

“Slice of Bread with Dripping and Pickle”

New and old styles of cuisine go hand in hand in Poland. On Sunday Gosia, Darek and I went to get pizza. The two of them argued over which pizzeria had the best crust. In the end we chose the place with the thinnest. Gosia ended up buying pasta. She’s somewhat of a vegetarian. I got a pie with meat on it. Darek got a pie with a pear. On the way back to Cezar we stopped at a grocery market and bought a bag of young potatoes. We were going to roast them in a fire.

Gosia’s youngest daughter came up to the fire to roast some apples. By Tuesday I was following her and her mother to McDonald’s for dinner. Gosia bought a shrimp wrap and a filet-o-fish sandwich. I got the Wiesmac (Polish for “Village Mac”). Just the sandwich. No zestaw. 

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Nude Underwater Photography at Sauna Cezar 

Gosia nude underwater

When Darek finally pulled into Sauna Cezar after the concert, Babuka was half-unconscious. She was babbling something about wanting to stay in the car. She had to be dragged out. Darek carried her into the trailer. When he came out a moment later it was clear Babuka was not going to be joining us for the after-party. We headed to the sauna without her.

The sauna had been turned off. It was going to take a while for it to get hot. In the mild warmth, Darek and I napped. We joked that we might fall asleep in the sauna and wake up in the morning looking like mummies. Gosia joined us. She too napped.

Darek’s strength didn’t last for long. He declined to accompany me and Gosia to the pool. He wished us a good time.

In the pool, the lights in the ceiling were turned on. I had the sudden urge to take a picture. I realized this was a good opportunity to try the water-proof bag I had bought. I was drunk enough not to care about the risks. I told Gosia I had bought it as a guilty pleasure. She invited me to go get it.

Gosia seemed bored as she watched me fiddle with the velcro. For some dumb reason I thought I had to take the lens off the camera before I could fit it into the bag. It was causing problems. Gosia told me to do what I want. She was getting some red wine.

When the camera was ready Gosia followed me into the pool. Unfortunately I didn’t bother to remove the neck strap from the camera. Having packed it into the bag, I realized it was obstructing my entire view of the LCD screen. I had no idea if the camera was even on.

Gosia watched with a blank expression as I struggled to keep the camera underwater. I explained there was too much air in the bag. She asked if she could try to hold it. I came close to her and let her touch the bag but I couldn’t bring myself to give it to her. She insisted I let go. I did. For a moment I watched in agony as irrational fears of the bag flooding with water filled my head. I couldn’t stand anything bad happening to the camera in somebody else’s hands. I took it back. I finally found the shutter button. It sounded like the camera was working. I pressed the lens of the bag as close as I could to the camera. Gosia treaded water.

When Gosia and I left the pool it seemed like the bag had done its job. The camera was dry. We retired to the Jacuzzi. Gosia began telling me something strange. She said she had imagined that the camera was some kind of underwater typewriter that I had invented. I realized both of us had probably had too much to drink. There was also the matter of the Dutch cigarette we had shared.

At one point Gosia started asking strange questions. She wanted to know why I was taking the pictures of her nude underwater. I was worried she thought I was up to no good. I took the camera out of the bag and started showing her what it had managed to capture. Much to my embarrassment the camera had worked too well. There was body shot after body shot. I kept repeating my regret that the neck strap had obstructed my view of the LCD screen. I insisted that I had no idea what kind of pictures I had been taking.

Gosia asked me at one point what I had been doing “down there.” Apparently when I had been holding the camera underwater it seemed to her like I had been doing something with my other hand. Paranoia gripped me. I imagined Peter suddenly showing up wanting to know what the hell I was doing with Gosia in the middle of the night with a camera in a waterproof bag. I explained desperately that I had been trying to make sure the bag’s lens wasn’t obstructing the lens on the camera. The lens on the bag was connected to a long accordion-like piece of plastic that hung down due to its weight. I had to constantly make sure it was being held in place. I lifted up the bag to show her. All of a sudden we both realized the bag looked like a giant flaccid penis. We laughed hysterically. The paranoia passed.

Gosia and I retired to the solarium. Our philosophical conversation was soon interrupted by her eldest daughter. She still wasn’t asleep. Leaning out of the serving window, she complained that the cat was pregnant. I followed Gosia into the kitchen. She was interested in making herself some sandwiches. I tried to listen as her daughter talked about the cat. I was half-unconscious. It was half past three in the morning.

At one point Gosia asked me what I in fact planned to do with the nude underwater pictures. One last flash of paranoia filled me. I was grateful when I realized she was closing up. I meandered over to the stairs and offered a weak good-night. Gosia wondered why I was leaving. She hadn’t made the sandwiches yet. I stayed. The sandwiches were good.

It was cold that night. I almost froze to death in the trailer. For some reason I forgot to turn on the heat. 

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Poland Naturist, Photography & A Cafe Named After Anatomy

There’s a shutter speed option on many modern cameras that lets a photographer keep the shutter open as long as he wants. Its called the bulb setting. In the old days an air bulb was used to pneumatically release the shutter. Nowadays you just have to press a button. The name stuck.

After the concert on Saturday Gosia asked me to take pictures of her and a group of young men as they stood in the pitch dark in what I was told was a garbage dump. I was asked to make sure you could tell it was a garbage dump. I am not prone to questioning a woman’s motives but I admit the request left me baffled. I dutifully set my camera to the bulb setting and warned everybody not to move. They didn’t listen.

The problem with dim light is that you have to keep the shutter open for longer to allow enough light to enter the camera. If the subject moves at all, or if the camera moves, due to, let’s say, shaky hands, the image comes out blurred.

That night Darek drove me back to Sauna Cezar. Gosia and Babuka were in the back seat. It was near midnight and we were on our way to pick up Gosia’s eldest daughter. She had been attending her own party that night and needed a ride home. Combing through a dark neighborhood we finally found her at the gate of a house. She was kissing a boy. Gosia mentioned young love and its neediness. There was a sardonic tone to her voice. Earlier she had pointed out the strangeness of a mother going to pick up her daughter from a party in the middle of the night. She seemed distant.

Babuka started talking about the Vagina Café. She told the story of how she hadn’t been sure if she had heard the name right the first time it had been mentioned. When she realized it was exactly what she thought it was her first thought was that Gosia had to be incredibly “cool.” She started asking questions. Why was the café called Vagina? What was its purpose? Gosia struggled to explain herself in painfully broken English. From what I could gather it sounded like she wanted to create a place for women to be able to talk freely about their womanhood.

It took a while for Gosia’s message to get across. A lot of people assumed the bar was for gays and lesbians – including gays and lesbians. Gosia told the story of how one female client had come for more than the coffee. When the mistake became obvious the woman decided to stay away out of embarrassment. After a while she came back and admitted the truth. She had made a bad assumption. It seems that in Poland, like many parts of the western word, referencing sexual anatomy in an edgy way is perceived as being mainly the purview of perverts and liberals, dirty homosexuals being the most obvious kind.

Darek drove fast. I started taking pictures through the windshield. With the bulb setting the lights of the street blended into brilliant lines of tangled color. I showed the exposures to the ladies in the back seat. Gosia took an interest – just like she had in the morning. I thought of the pictures I had taken of her swimming and showering. She had stumbled upon a vain attempt of mine to take a good photo in the dim light by the sauna.. I had asked her if she would be willing to be photographed. She quickly adopted a comely pose. To no avail. Everything came out blurry.

I blame the shaky hands. 

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Vagina Cafe Concert in Poland

Freedom Plaza is one of three market squares in the town of Bielsko-Biala. It is the first encountered when heading west from the main thorough-fare along November 11th Street, which celebrates not just the end of World War I, but the birth of Polish independence after 125 years of foreign occupation. It is the perfect place for a café called Vagina.

Darek drove me to Freedom Plaza. We were heading to Gosia’s other business. As we approached the traditional outdoor umbrellas branded with the name of Lech beer everything seemed ordinary. I passed a collection of bicycles for rent. I noticed one of them sported a rainbow colored cannabis leaf on its frame. A light pole was tightly wrapped in a multi-colored spider’s web of yarn. There were mannequins in front of the doorway which led down a hall littered with more mannequins wearing crochet vests and dresses. The hall opened on a narrow courtyard. An umbrella made of yarn hung upside-down on a wire. A woman with dreads in her hair sat with a pair of men underneath an umbrella. Upon closer inspection the dreads too were made of the same multicolored yarn. A sign on the wall read, “Babukatorium. A meeting with Hungarian culture.”

The woman with the dreads was Babuka. She was a crochet artist. She was looking for her hook. A pair of local girls had taken it. They kept coming up to her to feel her dreads. “I never need a pillow,” explained Babuka to me later. “I always carry one with me.” She let me rest my head against them. I had to admit it was comfortable. The girls made her promise to make some for them.

Musicians showed up. A band was scheduled to perform outside in the square. Their equipment had been stashed in a bathroom adjoining the courtyard. One of them saw me with my camera. He asked if I might be able to photograph the concert. Their own photographer was missing. Naturally I agreed.

The MCS Blues Band played more than one encore. Babuka danced in the square with the children. It was unfortunate that a sizable crowd didn’t form until towards the end. A competing concert had been taking place nearby. When the Blues Band was done a crowd formed at the Vagina Café. The atmosphere was festive. Unfortunately a party had been planned that same night at the nude sauna. Darek was meant to DJ. He left the concert early but came back soon saying that only two couples had showed up. He blamed the weather. It was turning into a cold night.

At some point that evening one of the children gave me a hat that had been made out of a long balloon. The main bit was bent into a circle and the remainder jutted straight out. I tactfully arranged the hat so that the bit that jutted out faced backwards. Somebody had the bright idea to turn it around. Gosia laughed. It reminded her of a chuj, a dirty Polish word for part of the male anatomy.

In the circumstances it seemed appropriate.

vagina cafe

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Sauna Cezar

I brought a lot of baggage with me into the changing room at Sauna Cezar. I had a bag with personal items, a laptop, a backpack with all my photo equipment. I was a bit disorganized. A man came into the dressing room. I was embarrassed by how quickly he disrobed and headed towards the sauna. I tried in vain to fit the photo bag into a locker. I realized it would have to go on top.

Peter came down to find me. He led me back to the sauna and told me the folks inside were the right people to be interviewed. He seemed to think I was capable of videotaping inside a sauna. I had once been party to such an attempt. Even after the heat had been turned off for a whole morning the lens would fog within seconds. I was going to have to remember what was said.

Inside the sauna I found the man from the locker room sitting in one corner. At another corner lay a woman. Above her a short window stretched for about two yards. Through its glass in the distance sprawled the recumbent strength of a single finger of Klimczok mountain. It was beautiful.

I introduced myself. I introduced YNA. I introduced Naturally magazine. I mentioned having gotten my sunburn at a recent gathering of the Naturist Society. The conversation turned elsewhere. The woman started telling the man about a popular music festival she plans to attend. I realized they were friends. She mentioned opera. It was soon explained that the woman felt like she was living life backwards. She had gone to see opera when she was younger when she should have been listening to rock. Now that she had three growing daughters she was doing what they were doing. She was having fun. I wondered if her tattoos and her piercing were part of that rebirth. I lacked the courage to ask before she left.

I went with the man upstairs. After a quick swim in the pool I joined him in the jacuzzi. He introduced himself as Darek. He was a sales representative for a bathroom furniture company. He traveled Europe in search of distributors and had a wide range of experience with naturism abroad. With regret he discussed the miserable state of naturism in Poland. A few brave souls in cooperation with a handful of western investors faced a constant threat of sanctimonious hostility.

We moved outside to the solarium. I noticed the woman from the sauna was now clothed. She was standing behind the serving window. This was Gosia, my hostess. A couple came in from the garden to sit at the table. I shared with them a copy of Naturally magazine. I offered them the opportunity to be interviewed. The man demurred. He was afraid he had nothing to say. I assured him in my experience everybody has something to say. Another couple joined us. They too studied the magazine. I realized they had probably never seen a naturist magazine in their lives. For them it was an oddity. Like me.

Gosia disappeared for the rest of the evening. I wondered where she had gone. By the end of the night I was the only one left. Peter found me and asked me where I wanted to sleep. He offered the solarium. I suggested he show me the regular accommodations. We walked down to the trailer. I got what I think was the biggest of the three rooms. It was past midnight. I quickly fell asleep.

In the early hours of the morning I was woken by what felt like a series of small earthquakes. It was the couple from the table. They were moving luggage and it made the whole trailer shake. The wife was a wedding singer. She mentioned that she and her husband would have to leave early to make their train. She was scheduled to perform. I wondered if she had to carry her own equipment. It seemed like she had a lot of baggage.

I was soon to learn she wasn’t the only one.

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Sauna Cezar

Naturist Resort Poland - There was no sign for the Polish nudist resort Sauna Cezar.

Arriving at the gate I waved politely into the camera. When the gate started to roll back I waved again. As I drove towards the house I barely noticed the driveway heading down to the right. This as I learned later was the road to the guest house and the trailer. I parked in front of the garage. Peter, the man whom I had spoken to on the phone, came out through the front door. He was a tall Dutchman whose Polish I strained to understand. I asked him if he spoke English. He said it was just as bad as his Polish.

Peter took me inside. We passed by a stairway to the right and walked down to the door at the opposite end of the hall. This led to a longer hallway set perpendicular to the first. He led me to the right and showed me two locker rooms. One of them had an upright tanning booth. The other a sofa. Peter walked into the room with the sofa and pushed back a mirrored panel to reveal a wall of lockers. He opened one up for me. He then led me in the other direction, past other doors, turned the corner, showed me the sauna and the frigidarium, headed down a new hallway to a spiral staircase which led up to the pool, the jacuzzi and the solarium.

I marveled at everything – particularly the mosaics – sharing my thoughts with Peter as I followed him back downstairs and back through the door that led back to the hallway with the staircase now to the left. Peter went up the staircase and I absentmindedly started following him up. He stopped, shook his head and pointed back to the door. “You try the sauna, yes?” I realized I was trespassing into the residential part of the building. I nodded my head and went back down the stairs. This was after all a family business. Family boundaries are to be respected. I listened as Peter started climbing up the stairs calling, “Gosia, Gosia.”

I was left on my own. I went to the locker room and started to undress. I was nude when realized I hadn’t brought a towel. Seeing no towels on display I put my pants on and tried to head back to the car. I got lost. All the doors looked the same. One opened up into a massage parlor. Another revealed the boiler room. I found a bathroom at some point but unfortunately I didn’t have to use it. I would end up searching through the doors again later with only a vague memory that there was indeed a bathroom somewhere in this dungeonous tunnel.

I mentioned it was a shame that there weren’t any instructions posted for people who aren’t familiar with naturist sauna technique. I was assured that there were indeed instructions posted and was asked how it was possible that I had missed it. I was led out of the sauna and shown a small framed series of cartoons depicting short, round creatures with hairy backs alternately showering and entering the sauna or pool. I laughed. This was not something any American could ever consider to be in the slightest sense informative. It’s a cartoon. Americans laugh at cartoons. They don’t learn from them.

Americans in Europe, beware the cartoon. It might be the only sign you’re going to get.

Sauna Cezar Naturist Nudist Resort Poland

Naturist Resort Poland

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Nude Sauna At Caesar Sauna – Poland’s Only Official Nudist Resort

Bielsko-Biala, town of Caesar Sauna

Nude Sauna at Caesar Sauna - A GPS is only as good as the person who wastes good money to buy one.

On my way out to the first and currently only official naturist resort in Poland, the beautiful mountain-side sauna and relaxation spa called Sauna Cezar (Polish for Caesar Sauna), I was told that the freeway running from Wroclaw east to Krakow would probably be my best bet. I was supposed to turn right and head south on Wroclawska Street, (literally, the road to Wroclaw). The GPS would not stop telling me to turn around. I caved. I started heading north. I turned onto a narrow steep road, drove about 500 feet, turned the corner, and nearly crashed into a bollard. The rest of the road was a path for pedestrians.

The GPS wanted to take me east along a beautiful country highway. I realized it was set to avoid freeways. Driving on a freeway in Poland involves paying a toll. Poles are notoriously wary of paying anything. No wonder it was the default setting. I tried to navigate the menu to no avail. I tried to switch the language to English. Nothing worked. Country highway it was going to be.

There are very few traffic lights in Poland. There are also very few stop signs. Every road is either a priority road or not, in which case a driver either has the right of way or must yield it. This allows for a steady ride. It also tends to make drivers go fast. Polish highways have a reputation for being wild. Driving as I am accustomed on a country highway around 80 kph (that’s 50 mph), I was constantly being left in the dust trail of a Volvo sedan – until of course I came across a line of cars too timid to negotiate a big, slow-moving truck. Very few highways in Poland have more than one lane. In fact, just about the only time you see two lanes is going uphill – which never lasts for long. A determined motorist constantly risks getting squashed.

Despite feeling sheepish as I passed beneath the freeway I was supposed to have taken, I enjoyed the drive – until I reached the outskirts of Bielsko-Biala, the town in which Caesar Sauna is situated. An hour of traffic was backed up. Thankfully there were two lanes. When I saw the orange triangle sitting on the ground I realized it wasn’t the ubiquitous construction going on in the country. It was an accident. Motorists in Europe are required by law not only to have their own emergency road triangles, but also fire extinguishers, as well as an orange vest to put on when doing roadside repairs. Add the fact that you always have to drive with your lights on and the chances of an American being stopped by a policeman increase fifty-fold.

Luckily the “road demons” can be a friendly bunch. A whole string of motorists flashed me their brights before I took a swift turn down the highway. Sure enough, around the corner a motorcycle policeman stood next to his ride. I waved but he didn’t wave back. He was trying to inconspicuously cradle a radar gun.

When the GPS told me I had reached my destination I realized I was at another dead end. I called Peter, the Dutchman who with his Polish wife runs and resides at the small mountain-side nudist resort. He told me I was on the wrong road. It had the right name, but to get to the upper reaches, I had to drive up another road.

So much for GPS.

Nude Sauna

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On Monday I arrived in Poland. The so-called “New Europe.” Where a new naturist federation formed two years ago.

Thirty kilometers from the airport in Wroclaw (Yes, you read me right. Kilometers. I have no idea how far that is and yes that is the letter “L” with a line through it. Interestingly it sounds like a “W” whereas the first “W” in the name of that town sounds like a “V” while the second “W” sounds like an “F” and the “C” sounds like the “ts” in the word “cats” giving you – never mind. Welcome to Europe.) I found a Polish-style used car lot. It was six cars parked along the side of the road. Pieces of xerox paper taped to the inside of the windows spelled out the make, the model, and some numbers with commas in between them that I don’t quite understand. None of the cars had radios. Where a radio should have been were wires sticking out in every direction. I didn’t ask.

One of the six cars was the car my uncle had suggested I buy. It was a Ford Mondeo, which over the phone had sounded like Fort Monday, oh! I had never heard of such a car. It was not something I thought Ford would make. I was afraid Fort was more than a phonetic mishandling. Like the Somy television I had once watched where the soccer player’s pants had been stretched out two feet behind him. Yet there was the logo. Just like in America. Ford. Minus a radio.

I passed on the Mondeo. In town I found an Escort for sale from 1997. Same Ford Logo. Same xerox paper taped to the window. This one had something different. It had a radio. Air conditioning. Power windows. The mileage read 50,000. I realized the odometer had only five digits. Clever.

I took the Escort for a test-drive. The owner said his wife had used it to visit her parents. She didn’t need it anymore. The wheels squeaked but otherwise the car handled itself well. The engine stalled twice but that’s not ususual when you’re gauging a car’s manual transmission for the first time. It’s something you have to get used to.

I agreed to buy the car. I drove it myself down to the bank so I could withdraw cash. The man took cash for a very specific reason that I will not get into but unfortunately when I came back to the car and tried to unlock the door the key would not work. My uncle called up the man. He forgot to tell us the lock on the driver’s side was busted. To open the door on the passenger side you had to jiggle the key a certain way. He drove down to the bank to show us. We bargained down the price a bit. (It looked like a lot more on paper. Reference above.) Cash changed hands.

I took the car to a garage to get it inspected. Everything seemed fine. The mechanics told me I got a good deal. Until the car went up on the lift. They saw the rotten spot behind the wheel. They started jabbing at it. A hole formed. It got bigger. Half the frame ended up on the floor. My uncle suggested I take it to another mechanic. “The kind you don’t have to pay,” he said, winking. I didn’t know what he meant. But I am glad he’s my godfather.

I went to buy insurance. It turns out the previous owner wasn’t just shunning his in-laws. His wife had caused an accident. The premium on the Ford Escort had gone sky-high. Funny how that hadn’t been mentioned. When I went to see the new mechanic he gave me the bad news. The engine stalls when it’s cold. Here I thought it was my clumsiness with the clutch. He says it’s not even worth fixing. I said never mind. I got behind the wheel. I turned on the air conditioning. Thank God it works. I went to turn it off. The knob broke off in my hand.

This is not the New Nude Europe. For that we need to find some naturists.

Shoddy A/C Knob

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