It is always dangerous to generalize.

The primeval swamps and dinosaurs collapsed into glop, and the glop went into underground storage. Tree shrews became homo sapiens. The glop in underground storage became black tar. Civilization started up. Artists in Europe made sculptures, paintings, pots, and chairs. These were put into storage.

Some of the black tar was taken out of storage and transformed into astonishing wealth. Mr. Getty bought the sculptures, paintings, pots, and chairs out of storage in Europe. He had them shipped to California.

The mountain top was cleared. Bears, bobcats, and mountain lions were eliminated. The aboriginal human hunters were annihilated. The deer were fenced out. The palace of culture was constructed. The sculptures, paintings, pots, and chairs were put inside.

All of this had been accomplished before the day of our arrival. And we were on our way: Iwona and Piotr; Bozena, Lukasz, and their daughter Ewa; Malgorzata and me, Richard all speeding north on the 405 in Piotr's Jeep. Only one obstacle remained: we had no parking reservation.

We did have a report of a cancellation for a single parking space for 2:30. But our plans had not been precise. We had not signed up as official substitutes. Yet the rule had been made quite clear:
No reservation - no parking. No parking - no culture for us today.
We pulled up to the first guard on the sidewalk at 1:10.

Your reservation time, please?
2:30.
Go on through.
Several other guards waived us along. At 1:12 we pulled up to the guard booth at the innermost gate.
Your reservation time, please?
2:30.
The name?

I can guarantee that the guards in the booth had no idea how to turn the Polish syllables they then heard into letters that could be looked up on the list. After a moment of puzzlement, we were waived through. Polite smiles inside the car, then, once past, a burst of laughter. I understood at that moment that my companions brought a unique understanding and imagination to encounters with institutional control.

Once past the gate keeper, we descended 5 levels, buried our earthly car, and ascended back up to the surface. Then we were herded into silent bubbles which carried us up into the clouds. Up there, we were impressed with the money that had been spent on the palace. X hundred miles of electrical conduit, X thousand tons of Italian travertine limestone, X million square feet of sheet rock, X million square feet of window glass, X thousand hours on design drawings and models.

We went into one gallery and saw medieval manuscripts in cases lighted through optical fibers. I have heard that many of the monks who created these books didn't know how to read.

Outside, I found the plazas, water pools, views, cactus terraces, and central garden to be truly beautiful. For me these were the main event, and well worth the stages of the journey.

An alert to visitors on a rainy day: Don't bring your own umbrella. When you arrive at the palace, standard umbrellas are issued red or black. One of our party was carrying a personal umbrella with a floral pattern. This was against regulations and caused alarm for the guards. My theory is that their theory is that private non-standard umbrellas might be used to damage culture.