(no subject)

"Walking along the closest equivalent Warsaw has to New York's Fifth Avenue one bright spring morning, I spotted what looked like an artist's canvas on a tripod outside the elegant Blikle Café. Pavement advertising might be common in other European cities but Blikle was Warsaw's most famous and venerable pastry shop and such display seemed almost vulgar. But this was the early 1990s and Warsaw was changing at a blistering pace; maybe Blikle was too. Indeed, the Blikle display proudly announced the arrival of the 'New York breakfast' of smoked salmon, cream cheese and bagels. Expensive and exotic, the arrival of the New York branded bagel seemed to be just one more sign that borders really were coming down that that Poland was opening up to Western tastes."
Maria Balinksa; The Bagel: The surprising history of a modest bread.