I moved to Warsaw for the work and stayed for five years because the work kept coming. I never loved it. It's a city that was rebuilt in a hurry by people who had other things to think about, and it looks like it: wide, grey, brave, unbothered by whether you like it.
But there was a ramen place on Poznańska with six seats and a woman who nodded when you came in and put the bowl down without asking, because after the third visit she knew. Tonkotsu, extra egg, a beer. I drew that counter perhaps two hundred times. It's the most-drawn object in my life after the 28.
She closed in 2019, the month I left. I don't think those two facts are related but I've never been able to fully separate them. When people ask about Warsaw I say it was fine, and then I say: there was this ramen place. That's the honest review of five years.
Cities you love give you views. Cities you merely live in give you counters, and the people behind them. I've come to think the second kind of gift is the one that lasts.