We woke up with plenty of time to finish our packing and were out of the house by around 11 to catch our 1:05 PM train to Prague. We were extremely pleased with our good timing. However...when we got to the train station to look up which platform to go to, there was indeed a train leaving at 1:05, but it wasn't to Prague. In fact, we couldn't find any departures that listed Prague as a destination. Dun Dun DUUUNNNNN!!!!!
Chaos ensued and we got stuck in Poland. Please read further for details, or skip the entire next paragraph.
The train listed at 1:05 PM was to Dresden. Laura had looked up the train right before we left, and could have SWORN that there was a 1:05 train to Prague. And we were for sure at the right station. She didn't know if the train route she looked up had included a transfer anywhere - she thought it was a direct train. So, we go to the information desk. There are TONS of people there and the slowest information people I've ever seen. After finally getting to the front, Ross speaks in Polish for us (bless him) and tries to figure out how to get to Prague. The guy says, 'take that 1:05 train to Dresden and then you can transfer there to a train to Prague.' By this time, It's about 12:40 ish. So, we go back to our platform, find the train to Dresden, Ross comes up, puts our bags on the racks, we find our seats, etc. Getting all settled. But I felt extremely uneasy about it. I asked Ross if he could just check with one more person that this was a train to get to Prague. So Ross asked the people sitting around us, and a woman shook her head and started speaking very quickly. Ross said, 'no, this train is not going to Prague, it is only going to Dresden.' So I'm still thinking - how the heck do we get to Prague, or are we really supposed to go through Dresden to transfer...?? Then, we decided that must be it, Laura's route definitely said 1:05 from this station, so we must be on the right train. With 10 minutes to spare; awesome. BUT, then I asked Laura, "Isn't Dresden in Germany?" She didn't know. And I said, "Yeah...I am pretttty sure Dresden is in Germany. We can't take this train, we have to get off." Ross comes back on the train (he'd gone to ask a conductor for more information), he confirms that Dresden is in Germany, and I tell him we need to get off right away. So he gets all of our bags off the racks and pack mules them back to the platform. Why couldn't we take this train? Because the specific Eurail pass that we were using only covers central Europe (which includes Poland and the Czech Republic - NOT Germany). The whole reason we BOUGHT the Eurail pass for central Europe was because getting into and out of Poland is for some reason egregiously expensive. So we did NOT want to go to Germany with an invalid pass, have to pay a fatty fine, and then use our other Eurail pass (that covers the rest of western Europe) to get from Dresden to Prague. This was a total disaster because we need all the other trips on our western European Eurail pass, and we bought the central pass primarily to get into and out of Poland. Which further complicates things, because we could have taken a bus for 40 Euros, but again - it totally defeated the purpose of buying the freaking Eurail pass. SOOOO Ross stands in line and argues and battles in Polish on our behalf at the information desks for like 2 hours!!! All we were trying to figure out was how the heck do we get from freaking Wroclaw to freaking Prague without going through freaking Germany?!?!?! These are the things you can't plan for. We looked it up, but...apparently there are ZERO direct trains. And Polish info people are crazy slow and for some reason clueless about where their stupid trains go!!! In the end, Ross was our champion and savior and I don't know what we would have done with out him. Actually I do. We would have ended up in Germany, wasting our rail pass, getting fined, and probably crying. It would have been awful. Ross found a way for us to take a 6 AM train tomorrow morning to a small town in the Czech Republic, and from there, transfer to a train that would go to Prague. 6 AM = bummer, but all we cared about was not going through Germany. He let us stay at his place an extra night (which is what he was debating for last night and this morning, so I don't think he was too upset), and back to his flat we went. We arrived back home at 3 PM after leaving at 11. It was a complete waste of a day, we were all exhausted, annoyed, and just plain drain from so many things going wrong and so many bad surprises coming out of nowhere. It was funny because I had those moments on SAS, and I would always listen to this song called Puddles that a friend of mine named Nick wrote/played/sang. I listened to it all the time, especially with Meredith and Katherine in Egypt. It was always comforting. As we were walking from the bus station back to the train station, I was about to cross the street, but had to step around a puddle. The puddle reminded me of the song, and I pulled out my iPod for some miraculous musical calming of the traveling soul. It was a good moment.
At Ross' place, we emailed our CouchSurfer in Prague to say, Hey, we're stuck in Poland, but thanks anyway. Laura, who is on the verge of getting sick, slept while I attempted to catch up on personal things. Nick happened to be online and I told him about how comforting his song was to me today. It's awesome to tell things like that to SAS people because the fact that I'm stuck in Poland isn't a huge shock...it's just what happened today; and they get that. The Nate also got online from his crazy yacht trip currently docked in Bali and after talking with some SASsers and writing long overdue replies to friends back home I felt much better. Things continued to improve when Ross told us he now had time to make us a traditional Ukrainian dinner (he didn't have time yesterday) and that tonight there was a beer festival (which turned out to be Juwenalia all over again (seriously) just in a different city - it happens at different times in different cities in Poland). I like to think that things happen for a reason, and if you're going to be stuck in Poland, having an awesome host cook you a traditional meal and take you to a beer festival isn't the worst way to be stuck.
The meal he made us was Borscht, which is a type of soup. I think it has a beet base, and it had lots of carrots and cabbage in it. You eat it with a dollop of sour cream on top too. I was really scared I wouldn't like it which would have been terrible because Ross spent like 2 hours making it. BUT, I of course tried it and it was Really good!!! So YAY for new food!
Then, we went to Juwenalia by Ross's university. We had to take THE most packed bus ride I have ever experienced to make it there. I kind of thought I was going to suffocate - there were people touching me on all four sides and there was no need to hold on to anything. Super intense and pretty funny to witness and be a part of. Juwenalia here was crazy, definitely, but not nearly the jaw dropping scene in Krakow. Here, you were not allowed to bring your own beer in (so there were tons of kids lining the fences drinking their own beer) and all the beer inside is of course over prices. Since we were taking a 6 AM train we didn't want anything anyway. Of course tons of kids were there, and we found some of Ross's friends who offered us some Amazing Polish sausages fresh and hot off the grill. So good. The big show tonight was a light show that took place on one of the dorm buildings. There are lights in every room's window, and some high tech company does this funky light show. Some super weird stuff! A lot of it was in Polish, or Polish childhood songs, or Polish jokes that aren't even funny to people not from Poland (even if they speak Polish). So we understood very little, but the lights created characters that danced and made smily faces and spelled words out. One of my favorites was when the lights made a stick figure Michael Jackson, and had it dance to MJ music for like 30 seconds before pretending it was a video game and flashing the words: DEMO across the dorm wall. Super funny. Anyway, it was a bit anticlimactic but great fun. Oh yeah, and all four of Ross's roommates (who I think were scared of us) came along and they were actually so fun to hang out with. Not like we could understand them, they were just goofy and funny!
Trying to get out of the Juwenalia madness after the light show was insane. Ross kept saying, 'stay close' and we did, but somehow still lost him and #5 (roommate) in the crowd. But, #2, 3 and 4 had kept an eye on us and ushered us into a clearing and walked with us up the street. We knew we were farther ahead than Ross and #5 so we waited for them and eventually they found us. Since it was late, it took forever to get home. We didn't make it back til 1 AM...so we settled in for a quick 4 hour nap...
Accomplishments:
Getting stuck in Poland...?
Travel Tip:
CHECK CONNECTIONS!!!
Showing posts with label Poland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poland. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Dwarfs
This morning started out relatively slow - there's not that much to do per se in Wroclaw. Most people say one day is enough. However, it is such a gorgeous little town that I could easily spend more than one day just wandering around admiring the architecture. At any rate, we were in no rush.
By the time we got to the main square area, we decided to look for breakfast/lunch. We kept seeing chalkboards advertising "omlettys" which we really hoped meant omlettes. I haven't seen any American breakfast food advertised like that the whole trip! It was kind of yucky weather so we found an omletty place and sat inside. An omelet sounded great, but so did a cheese, ham, and lettuce "tosty" (small sandwich). So, naturally, I just got both. That's the beauty of being an American in Poland - food is cheap. For the (seemingly) millionth time, my food arrived, and my freaking sandwich had a freaking LAYER of mushrooms on the bottom. Again. SERIOUSLY POLAND? Why do you keep doing this to me? What is your obsession with NOT putting mushrooms on the menu and then putting them on ALL of my food?? I don't get it. Bah. That aside, breakfast was great.
Then the cool stuff starts. Ross had a great idea yesterday for us to post on CouchSurfing, within a Wroclaw message board group, that we were in town and wanted to be shown around. Ross had school so he was busy until 6. Luckily for us, a really nice girl named Marta responded to our message and agreed to meet us in the city center at noon. Then, on our way to meet her, somebody else called us (Ross let us borrow a phone, whose number we posted on our CS message board post), and also wanted to meet up. His name was Karol and he was new to CS. I looooove helping newbies get acquainted with the beautiful world of CS. So then the four of us bummed around all day and got our own little private tour. Marta has been really involved with CS for quite some time and is about to graduate university, so she knew a lot about the buildings and things that we saw. Karol is in his first year at university and knew much of the same things Marta did. It was so awesome to pal around with locals and explore the cute city.
Ross had also told us that the city had tons of dwarfs - somewhere between 50 and 100 - all around the inner city. These dwarfs are little miniature statues that decorate the outsides of lucky buildings. I got totally sucked into this adorable trap and was searching for dwarfs all day. I now have way too many dwarf pictures on my camera - but they're all so cute! And they're all doing different things. The dwarf outside of the bank is depositing a little dwarf check. The dwarf outside of the kiosk is selling newspapers. The dwarf outside of the casino is rolling dice. How cute is that?! I was in love.
Some things that Marta/Karol taught us...the main square in Wroclaw is the second largest in Poland and in Europe; the first largest is the main square in Krakow where we just came from. Both squares are unique in that they have a large building, the town hall, in the middle of them; most squares are void of buildings in the middle. Then we passed by the most popular meeting point in the city. It used to be used as a flogging pole, so that's gross. But, now people just meet up there and sit on the steps. The date on it is 1492 (I think), but it's cool because it's so old that the 4 is written as half of an 8 (kind of like the shape of an awareness ribbon or something). There's also another 'meeting point' where girls tell guys to meet them if the girl doesn't want a relationship but just wants to meet up platonically. So the guy says, "hey let's hang out" and the girl says, "ok, meet me at this place that signifies that we'll just be friends," and that's the guy's way of knowing that he's been romantically rejected. Haha. They also pointed out a bridge to us that they used to throw witches off of. Great. Then they took us by this hilarious fountain in the university area. The legend says that the first virgin to graduate from university will cause the naked man atop the fountain to fall off. He's been up there for centuries. Legends are so fun haha. After that, we went to their main university building - which was GORGEOUS! There was a crazy picture of the exact same building in 1944 after WWII bombings had ruined quite a lot of it, and a newer picture from 2006 or something showing the current building. Incredibly impressive how they were able to preserve the ruins and build it up again to be how beautiful it is. Then we walked across the cutest bridge in the world. All along the railings of both sides are locks. The locks have lovers' names written on them and sometimes a date. Couples go to this bridge to put their lock on it, and then throw the key into the river below. HOW CUTE!?!! I really love this town. The railings are just FILLED with locks, it's amazing! Close to the other end of the bridge is the main huge cathedral in Wroclaw. This also got bombed by the Nazis when they were fighting with the Soviets over who would get the city. There's a picture inside the cathedral of the cathedral after the bombing with literally no roof and sunlight pouring in. Really crazy to see all this stuff in person. After this Marta took her leave and we thanked her graciously for kickin' it with us for the afternoon.
Then Karol, the newbie, was stuck with us! Haha. Not really. He was such a nice guy, and totally unnecessarily paranoid that we were bored of him or didn't want him there or that he was being a bad tour guide. Every 5 minutes we had to be like, 'dude, relax! We like you!' He was super funny and a total gentleman. He walked us to the famous panorama in Wroclaw. The panorama is a really old painting that depicts a war scene between Poland and Russia. During WWII, the canvas was all taken down, rolled up, and stored in a basement to preserve it. After the war, they brought it out again. It is super cool because it is a 360 degree painting that took I think 3 lead painters and all their minions 9 months to complete. Then, it gets cooler, because the painting is partially 3D. Not only is it panoramic, but the museum has it so that real-life-type artifacts blend in with and come out of the painting. So, for example, there was dust/sand/gravel/grasses that seemed to just pop out of the bottom of the painting. In the bramble were broken wagons, a sword, an old fire pit, etc. I'm really glad we went to it and learned a little Polish history.
Karol, who had already seen it multiple times on school field trips, picked us up promptly when it was over :) Then, knowing us so well, took us to his favorite ice cream shop! Yes, he was a keeper. I tried green apple ice cream (weird, but good!) and some creme ice cream that is a favorite among Poles. Yum yum. After ice cream we strolled back to Students' Island, where we were yesterday evening. We hung out on a park bench looking out at the river and the island across the way and chatted. I wrote postcards and Karol entertained us with his quirky humor and stories. He almost felt like our private stand up comedian, it was so great! Ross met us at the park, and the baby sitters traded shifts :) Haha. Karol went home and Ross took us on a slight detour on the way back to his place. We went to an old meat market where they used to kill animals, and now there are sculptures of all the animals they used to kill there with a plaque apologizing for killing them.
At home, Ross whipped up some pasta for dinner. Sometime, somehow, around making dinner, it was decided that Ross was "Daddy", Laura was "Mama", and I was the child, obviously. I think this came about because there was this yogurt that Laura and I bought. She ate her half on the train yesterday and I hadn't gotten around to eating mine yet. Ross (jokingly, I think) wanted it out of his fridge, and was trying to make me eat it before dinner and before I could have a beer with dinner. I think this is when he said, "Daddy says so. No yogurt, no beer." It was kind of creepy but more funny than anything. After that, there were lots of references to Daddy saying something and Mama either agreeing or not. Really bizarre. The things we come up with to entertain ourselves...During the course of dinner, I obviously managed to spill spaghetti sauce on my grey nylon pants which means they are officially dirty (they were definitely already dirty, it was just less in-your-face before). Which means, since I avoid wearing my jeans since they're fragile due to all the ripping and almost ripping occurring in less than ideal places, I had to resort to the ugly green nylon pants I'm borrowing from my wonderful sister.
Finally, dinner was over, ugly green pants were on, and Ross was taking us out to some bars. We did the most literal definition of bar-hopping ever. There were maybe 7 all within a few steps from each other. Ross just kept saying, "Go in, see you if you like it, tell me if you want to stay." So we popped into bar after bar after bar and then naturally realized that we liked the first bar the best. This first bar was called the Old Sofa, and was filled with mismatches sofas, seats, and armchairs. We chose a cozy spot on the second level and soon Karol joined up with us. The four of us had a splendid evening enjoying one last night of Polish beer and funny, CouchSurfing/travel-related stories. Eventually, we were the only people left (it was a Monday night, after all) and the bar kicked us kids out. We went back through a couple other bars, stopping at one to dance for maybe 20 minutes or so. Then, without any of us buying a drink, we simply decided to move on and it was no problem, we just walked out! Amazing. Then we went to the main square which was all lit up with glowing streetlights. The fountain in the middle looked especially amazing with the orange colors of night gleaming off the glass and shimmery water. Then we parted ways with Karol and the three of us went home.
It was actually very sad because Ross kept saying multiple times how sad he was that we were leaving. He tried to talk us into staying longer, like up to two months longer. And we were like, sorry dude, we're going to Prague. But he seemed so genuinely sad and kept calling us his favorite CouchSurfers! (I think he's only had one other surfer though lol.) Nonetheless, we did what packing we could before crashing for the night.
Quotes:
"Bud'mo; Hey! Bud'mo; Hey! Bud'mo, Bud'mo, Bud'mo; Hey!"
(Ukrainian cheers-song that Karol taught us so that we could impress Ross, who is Ukrainian. Bud'mo is pronounced "boo-jee-mah". Very fun to chant. I wish we had drinking songs/chats/cheers. Cheers is boring.)
Accomplishments:
Found so many dwarfs!!!
Travel Tip:
Networking is important even when traveling...putting ourselves out there on that message board really paid off!!
By the time we got to the main square area, we decided to look for breakfast/lunch. We kept seeing chalkboards advertising "omlettys" which we really hoped meant omlettes. I haven't seen any American breakfast food advertised like that the whole trip! It was kind of yucky weather so we found an omletty place and sat inside. An omelet sounded great, but so did a cheese, ham, and lettuce "tosty" (small sandwich). So, naturally, I just got both. That's the beauty of being an American in Poland - food is cheap. For the (seemingly) millionth time, my food arrived, and my freaking sandwich had a freaking LAYER of mushrooms on the bottom. Again. SERIOUSLY POLAND? Why do you keep doing this to me? What is your obsession with NOT putting mushrooms on the menu and then putting them on ALL of my food?? I don't get it. Bah. That aside, breakfast was great.
Then the cool stuff starts. Ross had a great idea yesterday for us to post on CouchSurfing, within a Wroclaw message board group, that we were in town and wanted to be shown around. Ross had school so he was busy until 6. Luckily for us, a really nice girl named Marta responded to our message and agreed to meet us in the city center at noon. Then, on our way to meet her, somebody else called us (Ross let us borrow a phone, whose number we posted on our CS message board post), and also wanted to meet up. His name was Karol and he was new to CS. I looooove helping newbies get acquainted with the beautiful world of CS. So then the four of us bummed around all day and got our own little private tour. Marta has been really involved with CS for quite some time and is about to graduate university, so she knew a lot about the buildings and things that we saw. Karol is in his first year at university and knew much of the same things Marta did. It was so awesome to pal around with locals and explore the cute city.
Ross had also told us that the city had tons of dwarfs - somewhere between 50 and 100 - all around the inner city. These dwarfs are little miniature statues that decorate the outsides of lucky buildings. I got totally sucked into this adorable trap and was searching for dwarfs all day. I now have way too many dwarf pictures on my camera - but they're all so cute! And they're all doing different things. The dwarf outside of the bank is depositing a little dwarf check. The dwarf outside of the kiosk is selling newspapers. The dwarf outside of the casino is rolling dice. How cute is that?! I was in love.
Some things that Marta/Karol taught us...the main square in Wroclaw is the second largest in Poland and in Europe; the first largest is the main square in Krakow where we just came from. Both squares are unique in that they have a large building, the town hall, in the middle of them; most squares are void of buildings in the middle. Then we passed by the most popular meeting point in the city. It used to be used as a flogging pole, so that's gross. But, now people just meet up there and sit on the steps. The date on it is 1492 (I think), but it's cool because it's so old that the 4 is written as half of an 8 (kind of like the shape of an awareness ribbon or something). There's also another 'meeting point' where girls tell guys to meet them if the girl doesn't want a relationship but just wants to meet up platonically. So the guy says, "hey let's hang out" and the girl says, "ok, meet me at this place that signifies that we'll just be friends," and that's the guy's way of knowing that he's been romantically rejected. Haha. They also pointed out a bridge to us that they used to throw witches off of. Great. Then they took us by this hilarious fountain in the university area. The legend says that the first virgin to graduate from university will cause the naked man atop the fountain to fall off. He's been up there for centuries. Legends are so fun haha. After that, we went to their main university building - which was GORGEOUS! There was a crazy picture of the exact same building in 1944 after WWII bombings had ruined quite a lot of it, and a newer picture from 2006 or something showing the current building. Incredibly impressive how they were able to preserve the ruins and build it up again to be how beautiful it is. Then we walked across the cutest bridge in the world. All along the railings of both sides are locks. The locks have lovers' names written on them and sometimes a date. Couples go to this bridge to put their lock on it, and then throw the key into the river below. HOW CUTE!?!! I really love this town. The railings are just FILLED with locks, it's amazing! Close to the other end of the bridge is the main huge cathedral in Wroclaw. This also got bombed by the Nazis when they were fighting with the Soviets over who would get the city. There's a picture inside the cathedral of the cathedral after the bombing with literally no roof and sunlight pouring in. Really crazy to see all this stuff in person. After this Marta took her leave and we thanked her graciously for kickin' it with us for the afternoon.
Then Karol, the newbie, was stuck with us! Haha. Not really. He was such a nice guy, and totally unnecessarily paranoid that we were bored of him or didn't want him there or that he was being a bad tour guide. Every 5 minutes we had to be like, 'dude, relax! We like you!' He was super funny and a total gentleman. He walked us to the famous panorama in Wroclaw. The panorama is a really old painting that depicts a war scene between Poland and Russia. During WWII, the canvas was all taken down, rolled up, and stored in a basement to preserve it. After the war, they brought it out again. It is super cool because it is a 360 degree painting that took I think 3 lead painters and all their minions 9 months to complete. Then, it gets cooler, because the painting is partially 3D. Not only is it panoramic, but the museum has it so that real-life-type artifacts blend in with and come out of the painting. So, for example, there was dust/sand/gravel/grasses that seemed to just pop out of the bottom of the painting. In the bramble were broken wagons, a sword, an old fire pit, etc. I'm really glad we went to it and learned a little Polish history.
Karol, who had already seen it multiple times on school field trips, picked us up promptly when it was over :) Then, knowing us so well, took us to his favorite ice cream shop! Yes, he was a keeper. I tried green apple ice cream (weird, but good!) and some creme ice cream that is a favorite among Poles. Yum yum. After ice cream we strolled back to Students' Island, where we were yesterday evening. We hung out on a park bench looking out at the river and the island across the way and chatted. I wrote postcards and Karol entertained us with his quirky humor and stories. He almost felt like our private stand up comedian, it was so great! Ross met us at the park, and the baby sitters traded shifts :) Haha. Karol went home and Ross took us on a slight detour on the way back to his place. We went to an old meat market where they used to kill animals, and now there are sculptures of all the animals they used to kill there with a plaque apologizing for killing them.
At home, Ross whipped up some pasta for dinner. Sometime, somehow, around making dinner, it was decided that Ross was "Daddy", Laura was "Mama", and I was the child, obviously. I think this came about because there was this yogurt that Laura and I bought. She ate her half on the train yesterday and I hadn't gotten around to eating mine yet. Ross (jokingly, I think) wanted it out of his fridge, and was trying to make me eat it before dinner and before I could have a beer with dinner. I think this is when he said, "Daddy says so. No yogurt, no beer." It was kind of creepy but more funny than anything. After that, there were lots of references to Daddy saying something and Mama either agreeing or not. Really bizarre. The things we come up with to entertain ourselves...During the course of dinner, I obviously managed to spill spaghetti sauce on my grey nylon pants which means they are officially dirty (they were definitely already dirty, it was just less in-your-face before). Which means, since I avoid wearing my jeans since they're fragile due to all the ripping and almost ripping occurring in less than ideal places, I had to resort to the ugly green nylon pants I'm borrowing from my wonderful sister.
Finally, dinner was over, ugly green pants were on, and Ross was taking us out to some bars. We did the most literal definition of bar-hopping ever. There were maybe 7 all within a few steps from each other. Ross just kept saying, "Go in, see you if you like it, tell me if you want to stay." So we popped into bar after bar after bar and then naturally realized that we liked the first bar the best. This first bar was called the Old Sofa, and was filled with mismatches sofas, seats, and armchairs. We chose a cozy spot on the second level and soon Karol joined up with us. The four of us had a splendid evening enjoying one last night of Polish beer and funny, CouchSurfing/travel-related stories. Eventually, we were the only people left (it was a Monday night, after all) and the bar kicked us kids out. We went back through a couple other bars, stopping at one to dance for maybe 20 minutes or so. Then, without any of us buying a drink, we simply decided to move on and it was no problem, we just walked out! Amazing. Then we went to the main square which was all lit up with glowing streetlights. The fountain in the middle looked especially amazing with the orange colors of night gleaming off the glass and shimmery water. Then we parted ways with Karol and the three of us went home.
It was actually very sad because Ross kept saying multiple times how sad he was that we were leaving. He tried to talk us into staying longer, like up to two months longer. And we were like, sorry dude, we're going to Prague. But he seemed so genuinely sad and kept calling us his favorite CouchSurfers! (I think he's only had one other surfer though lol.) Nonetheless, we did what packing we could before crashing for the night.
Quotes:
"Bud'mo; Hey! Bud'mo; Hey! Bud'mo, Bud'mo, Bud'mo; Hey!"
(Ukrainian cheers-song that Karol taught us so that we could impress Ross, who is Ukrainian. Bud'mo is pronounced "boo-jee-mah". Very fun to chant. I wish we had drinking songs/chats/cheers. Cheers is boring.)
Accomplishments:
Found so many dwarfs!!!
Travel Tip:
Networking is important even when traveling...putting ourselves out there on that message board really paid off!!
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Ross - CS # 15
Another early morning for us. I'd done most of my packing last night but it was still hard to roll out of bed at 730. I didn't think the boys were actually going to get up that early, but they all did. Pawel wrote down which buses we could take to the train station and for a minute I thought he was going to let us venture into the cold, cruel world by ourselves :) But, as is their tendency, they assisted us to the last possible second. Jacek and Pawel each carried our smaller backpacks and walked to the bus station with us. Then they took the bus with us, walked to the train station, Pawel confirmed that we didn't need to reserve tickets (we were pretty sure we didn't...you usually don't for domestic, regular trains like this one), walked us to the platform, Pawel confirmed (again!) with a conductor that we didn't need to reserve tickets (we still didn't think we needed to), and finally Pawel gave us the go ahead that we could get on our train in our little second class car. Then he and Jacek returned our bags and we got onto the train.
The train ride was productive in that we used the time to work out details of the last part of our trip. I'm really excited for our "edits". Since we are having a really tough time finding hosts in Prague, we'll probably only stay four (hopefully five) days instead of seven, then we'll do more days than planned in both Berlin and Hamburg. That will be cool because we've heard so much about Berlin that it will be good to have a little more time there. Then we are shaving one or two days off of Copenhagen. One thing I've realized on this trip is that in four or five days, you do have enough time to see a lot of a city. And, the great news about all these edits is that it allows for a full week and a half in Sweden - where I will definitely get an amazing Scandinavian experience! - and for a full week and a half in France! With so much time in France, we are now thinking of going to Bordeaux (after Stockholm), and possibly popping into southern France for a few days. We have the Eurail space to make these trips since we're not going to Norway. And the train rides between Paris-Bordeaux-Southern France are all only like 3 hours. So: More time with family, less time on trains, and seeing new areas of France! AND not being rushed, and being able to speak the language for the last week and a half. I think it's great. Very excited; not heart broken at all :)
Off the train, Ross (shortened for our convenience from his actual Ukrainian name of Rostyslaw) was waiting on the platform with us with another Ukrainian friend of his named Hayla. Ross has TONS of energy and speaks English almost as fast as I do! He announced that he was having a bad day but seemed as cheerful as ever. He and Hayla, who had her car with her, drove us back to his flat. After Laura and I shared Pawel's twin bed for 5 nights, having a queen sized bed that could fit both of us looked like heaven in a mattress! After we dropped our stuff off, we set out to go boating. As we arrived at the docks, Ross's bad day got worse since another guest staying at his flat had lost their set of keys and needed to leave but had no way of locking the door. Frustrated, Ross left to back exactly where we just came from and Hayla, Laura and I took out a motor boat.
I got to learn how to steer the motor boat which was really fun though I think I may have freaked out the boat rental guy a little bit...woops! Wroclaw is called 'the city of a hundred islands and a thousand bridges', and there are tons of islands around the city center with multiple bridges connecting everything in a web like network. It was a sunny afternoon and we motor boated past the cathedral, and around some of the bridges, before turning and going back in the other direction for a while. I let Laura steer some because it actually took me quite a bit of concentration to make sure I wasn't going to crash, and I wanted to be able to relax and take pictures of the bridges and buildings! We only rented the boat for an hour, so soon we took it back to shore, safe and sound. We waited in the sun for Ross to come back and meet us, and when we were all together again we set off.
By then, it was dinner time, so we went to a convenience store and loaded up on chips, beer, bread, meat, and cheese. SO unhealthy it kind of drove me crazy, but we wanted to go have a picnic on "Student's Island" in the evening sun and most grocery stores were closed. Walking around, I noticed tons of cool murals and weird things drawn on the sides of buildings! This town is very cute. The architecture is all German (the city was given to Poland after WWII) but it's all really beautiful. The colors are great too, they really remind me of San Francisco.
Our picnic turned out great! Ross brought a picnic blanket (tarp on one side, fleece on the other) and we all sat and enjoyed our unhealthy meal. There were lots of young people sitting around, playing guitar, barbecuing, and just lounging on benches. It was a really great environment. Across the water you can see the university building and multiple bridges. I love that there are islands just in the middle of the city!!
As our picnic was wrapping up, my beer got quite comfortable in my bladder and soon I had to go to the bathroom quite badly. Normally, I would not write about such topics but - this got bad. Ross kept showing us cool little buildings and alleyways and more dwarfs and everything was very interesting and pretty. We passed by a restaurant and Hayla went in and asked if we could please use their bathroom. They said since we're not customers it would be 5 zloties (3 zloties = $1) for all three of us together. I said, screw it, I can hold it. Because sometimes I am just that frugal. And sometimes being frugal has terribly painful consequences. It was taking forever to walk to the bus stop, and once we got there, it was another 15 minutes before it was supposed to come. At this point, I was seriously getting nervous I would pee my pants. And how embarrassing would that be?! So I worked my kegel muscles and I held it in as hard as I could. Finally the bus came, and that 10-15 minutes of riding the bus and walking to Ross's flat felt like hours to me...I had to go so badly. Finally - I MADE IT! Woohoo! Anyway, the three of them enjoyed making fun of me a great deal I think; I looked pretty ridiculous hopping around trying to keep myself all together...
And that really was the last eventful thing to happen today. Then we went to bed to get ready for our only full day in Wroclaw the next day!
Quotes:
"We need to go get some drinks so that I can delete my bad day." - Ross
Aww...foreigners' English; Love the phrases they come up with!
Accomplishment:
Didn't pee my pants.
Travel Tip:
Just PAY $1 to go to the bathroom!
The train ride was productive in that we used the time to work out details of the last part of our trip. I'm really excited for our "edits". Since we are having a really tough time finding hosts in Prague, we'll probably only stay four (hopefully five) days instead of seven, then we'll do more days than planned in both Berlin and Hamburg. That will be cool because we've heard so much about Berlin that it will be good to have a little more time there. Then we are shaving one or two days off of Copenhagen. One thing I've realized on this trip is that in four or five days, you do have enough time to see a lot of a city. And, the great news about all these edits is that it allows for a full week and a half in Sweden - where I will definitely get an amazing Scandinavian experience! - and for a full week and a half in France! With so much time in France, we are now thinking of going to Bordeaux (after Stockholm), and possibly popping into southern France for a few days. We have the Eurail space to make these trips since we're not going to Norway. And the train rides between Paris-Bordeaux-Southern France are all only like 3 hours. So: More time with family, less time on trains, and seeing new areas of France! AND not being rushed, and being able to speak the language for the last week and a half. I think it's great. Very excited; not heart broken at all :)
Off the train, Ross (shortened for our convenience from his actual Ukrainian name of Rostyslaw) was waiting on the platform with us with another Ukrainian friend of his named Hayla. Ross has TONS of energy and speaks English almost as fast as I do! He announced that he was having a bad day but seemed as cheerful as ever. He and Hayla, who had her car with her, drove us back to his flat. After Laura and I shared Pawel's twin bed for 5 nights, having a queen sized bed that could fit both of us looked like heaven in a mattress! After we dropped our stuff off, we set out to go boating. As we arrived at the docks, Ross's bad day got worse since another guest staying at his flat had lost their set of keys and needed to leave but had no way of locking the door. Frustrated, Ross left to back exactly where we just came from and Hayla, Laura and I took out a motor boat.
I got to learn how to steer the motor boat which was really fun though I think I may have freaked out the boat rental guy a little bit...woops! Wroclaw is called 'the city of a hundred islands and a thousand bridges', and there are tons of islands around the city center with multiple bridges connecting everything in a web like network. It was a sunny afternoon and we motor boated past the cathedral, and around some of the bridges, before turning and going back in the other direction for a while. I let Laura steer some because it actually took me quite a bit of concentration to make sure I wasn't going to crash, and I wanted to be able to relax and take pictures of the bridges and buildings! We only rented the boat for an hour, so soon we took it back to shore, safe and sound. We waited in the sun for Ross to come back and meet us, and when we were all together again we set off.
By then, it was dinner time, so we went to a convenience store and loaded up on chips, beer, bread, meat, and cheese. SO unhealthy it kind of drove me crazy, but we wanted to go have a picnic on "Student's Island" in the evening sun and most grocery stores were closed. Walking around, I noticed tons of cool murals and weird things drawn on the sides of buildings! This town is very cute. The architecture is all German (the city was given to Poland after WWII) but it's all really beautiful. The colors are great too, they really remind me of San Francisco.
Our picnic turned out great! Ross brought a picnic blanket (tarp on one side, fleece on the other) and we all sat and enjoyed our unhealthy meal. There were lots of young people sitting around, playing guitar, barbecuing, and just lounging on benches. It was a really great environment. Across the water you can see the university building and multiple bridges. I love that there are islands just in the middle of the city!!
As our picnic was wrapping up, my beer got quite comfortable in my bladder and soon I had to go to the bathroom quite badly. Normally, I would not write about such topics but - this got bad. Ross kept showing us cool little buildings and alleyways and more dwarfs and everything was very interesting and pretty. We passed by a restaurant and Hayla went in and asked if we could please use their bathroom. They said since we're not customers it would be 5 zloties (3 zloties = $1) for all three of us together. I said, screw it, I can hold it. Because sometimes I am just that frugal. And sometimes being frugal has terribly painful consequences. It was taking forever to walk to the bus stop, and once we got there, it was another 15 minutes before it was supposed to come. At this point, I was seriously getting nervous I would pee my pants. And how embarrassing would that be?! So I worked my kegel muscles and I held it in as hard as I could. Finally the bus came, and that 10-15 minutes of riding the bus and walking to Ross's flat felt like hours to me...I had to go so badly. Finally - I MADE IT! Woohoo! Anyway, the three of them enjoyed making fun of me a great deal I think; I looked pretty ridiculous hopping around trying to keep myself all together...
And that really was the last eventful thing to happen today. Then we went to bed to get ready for our only full day in Wroclaw the next day!
Quotes:
"We need to go get some drinks so that I can delete my bad day." - Ross
Aww...foreigners' English; Love the phrases they come up with!
Accomplishment:
Didn't pee my pants.
Travel Tip:
Just PAY $1 to go to the bathroom!
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Amber & Pierogi
FINALLY - some freaking sunshine!!! As if this country's history isn't depressing enough, it's been gloomy / overcast / rainy ALL week! But today is the day...the day we woke up to sunshine!
Laura and I had an extremely pleasant afternoon seeing Krakow in the happy daylight. We went back to the main square to do our little souvenir shopping routine. Since it was a Saturday, and sunny out, there were tons of people everywhere, as well as a multitude of souvenir booths set up around the square. The cafes are much prettier when there are so many people sitting at them eating colorful ice cream. And in front of all the cafes (Krakow's main square has the most cafes per square meter than any other place in the world) were lines of horses and carriages. Very picturesque.
Souvenir shopping was actually a lot of fun because we got to walk around outside and be in the great atmosphere at the main square. And we got some ice cream to help us shop :) I really didn't like the plates I was seeing and I was starting to have a little hissy fit inside my head directed at my father for talking me into starting this ridiculous collection. It is really the worst possible thing to collect on a back packing trip!!! And I really don't like the plates that say the city or country on them. I also don't like it if they look really touristy - I like ones that are more of traditional ceramics, that you can eat off of, that you can tell where they came from by the designs rather than by a screen printed picture of the most famous cathedral in town. Anyway, I wasn't finding any good plates. And by the way, they're expensive too! Laura gets her tiny, cheap, cute, useful little shot glasses, and I am carting around tableware. Anyway! I found a plate I really liked with traditional Polish ceramics that can be eaten off of and then I was happy again! As soon as the stress melted away from knowing that I didn't actually have to spend a lot of money to carry something that I didn't like around awkwardly for the next six weeks just so that my 'collection' wouldn't have any gaps in it...I was fine :) Soon after that Laura found her shot glass and we were feeling productive. And also like spending money.
See, I worked really hard to pay my whole way through this trip. And I clearly adore traveling, and part of the fun of traveling is getting really pretty souvenirs. Since I have the money to, I am interested in getting nice, high quality, long lasting souvenirs. And Laura's middle name is Amber. I realize these facts sound 100% unrelated, but now I will tell you that aside from salt, Poland is extremely famous for producing really high quality amber from near the Baltic sea. Ergo, there are amber shops EVERYWHERE. We then decided to go on an amber mission: Laura, because it was her middle name, so she'll spend money on it, and me, because I like jewelry and spending money on pretty things. We didn't want to get it off the street, so we walked around the side streets spanning out from the main square and spent all afternoon looking at gorgeous amber! Something that was very helpful was finding out that stores actually can get certificates that verify their amber is genuine and high quality - good to know. We looked around for quite a while, mentally comparing prices and designs. Some things were jaw-droppingly expensive. Even for Polish Zloties.
But then I found another store that had a plaque of recognition for being one of the best places to shop in Krakow in 2009 from some local Krakow website (called Krakow-life.com or something). They also had all their certificates. It was easy to see on the surface why they were such a nice place to shop. Their store was roughly two times bigger than most of the other amber stores. It was also well lit, and the pieces were well displayed, and it was just a very comfortable place to be (other places were small, cramped, had little selection, had pushy sales people, etc). There were two very nice young women that took out a plethora of bracelets, earrings, and rings for us. We made a terrible mess. But it was OK, because they were so sweet about it and we both found things we liked!! And they are gorgeous, and real, and didn't break the bank. I wanted a bracelet, but they were way more expensive than rings. I wear a rings a lot more often, but I tend to cycle through them. So I really didn't know what to get and debated for quite some time. At one point, the nice sales lady had attached 4 different bracelets around my wrist to try and help me decide! Then I decided it was better to get a ring because I would probably wear it more and it was cheaper so I'll feel less badly when it (probably) eventually gets cycled out. Though I do plan on wearing it regularly. I'm just a little hesitant because it's so pretty that I can't really wear anything else on that (my right) hand because I wouldn't want to distract attention away from the amber ring. And I have so many other rings that I like...Anyway. I made a decision and I got it and I like it. It's slightly too big, so I'll have to get it re-sized when I get back home. But I am very excited to wear it, it's a really nice piece of jewelry. And as far as souvenirs, it is small and light weight, so: BONUS! Take that, Plates!
By then, we had shopped up an appetite and didn't have anything else we really needed to buy, so we went on a food mission. There were little cafes and restaurants everywhere, but we finally stopped at one that was advertising pierogi. Somehow I hadn't had any of that yet! Dumplings with meat and/or cheese, yes please. This restaurant was cute because at the front, it looks like it just has ice cream (bummer....haha) but past the ice cream are super comfy couches and an entire upstairs with lots of tables. We sat downstairs in a cute little comfortable corner. I ordered the meat filled pierogis (dumplings) and Laura got the cheese pierogis. And then we split them, naturally. They were huge for dumplings! We'd seen Jacek eat some a few days ago but his were tiny, that's why ours seemed so big. Really they were the size of pot stickers or something like that. Anyway, to accompany our pierogis (which, as hinted at above, we thought would be quite small), we ordered two pancakes filled with fruit with whipped cream on the side. That was our appetizer though it was more like a dessert. It was so good. It was kind of like a crepe filled with peaches, kiwis, bananas, pineapples, and probably some other things. Then they had been drizzled with red fruity syrup with two beautiful piles of whipped cream on the side. To top off our ultra-Polish meal, we tested out a recommendation from Jacek, which was to mix beer with ginger juice. I don't think this is the same thing as gingerale. Another Polish/Central European tendency is to mix beer with a fruit syrup, like raspberry. So we ordered two beers, one with ginger juice and one with raspberry syrup. We planned on sharing those too but after tasting both, Laura preferred the raspberry concoction and I preferred the ginger concoction. It tasted like Christmas in a beer - not kidding. They were both really delicious!! Such an unexpected combination though. Also, in Poland they drink beers with straws. At the bar the other night though, they didn't give us straws. Here, we got our straws. So we had an all-out Polish meal. And the real glory of it all was that this fabulous, hearty, delicious, authentic, cultural meal cost us each about $10. AMAZING. Poland is great for food fanatics :)
After our leisurely shopping spree and lunch date, we strolled back to the boys' apartment. We found them sitting right where we left them, and for the third day in a row they told us they had been "relaxing all the day". Laura thinks it's a 19-year-old-boy-thing. Haha.
Over lunch, Laura and I started talking about the end of our trip (I know I usually only write about the day's happenings an nothing before and after). We have 10 days of travel on our Eurail. It will take two to get from Stockholm to Bergen, and another two to get from Bergen to Paris. Also, Bergen to Paris is approximately a 35 hour trip with at least 4 transfers. And Norway is supposed to be the most expensive country we're planning on visiting. So...we decided just then to cut Norway from the itinerary! Exciting, I think. I mean, I'm kinda bummed...but honestly, when I read about Norway it didn't excite me. And at the end of our trip, I'd rather not be spending 4 days on a train...that is 4 days we're losing out on being other places! Either we can spend more time in the cities we're planning on already, or we can go to more places that are close by. So when we got back to the apartment, we spent the afternoon trying to figure out how to give the last part of our trip a major face lift. We toyed with the idea of going to Finland and Estonia, but it's a 15 hour ferry ride to Helsinki and it's kind of expensive. Trains to Helsinki from Stockholm is a joke if you just look at a map. Also, ferries do not help use our expensive Eurail travel days! Another part of this whole equation is that having just recently found out I have family living in Sweden willing to meet (and host!) us, I don't want to cut my time short with them since I am so excited to get to know them! So, we're not sure what's going on with our trip after Sweden...but we'll figure it out.
After another evening spent inside on a computer (sounds so lame...I know) it was time to go to a "small house party". We clarified, "Is your definition of a 'small house party' anything like your definition of a 'barbecue'?!" They said no, that we could expect 20-25 people. Ok. That's manageable. When the boys started ironing their shirts (they make their beds, too!) I realized that perhaps I should change out of my nylon quick dry REI pants and into jeans, and maybe even put mascara on or something. Haha.
Alcohol is spelled 'alkohole' here, and the alkohole store close to their flat was closed, so we took a bus to a supermarket and they did their shopping for snacks and alkohole to bring to the house party there. Then we were a little lost. I don't know how it happens, but somehow, even when we are with hosts, we get lost at night! And it's always when we're trying to hit up the night life! Laura and I just think it's funny since it's happened to us so many times. The boys picked a direction and we started walking. Half an hour later, we somehow were exactly where we started - we had done a full circle. Laura and I were completely unphased, because circles are our Official Shape of our trip. We're used to them. Circles happen to us all the time. However, the boys' reactions, especially Jacek's and Shshks's exasperated Polish sounds - were hilarious!!!! Laura and I took great pleasure in welcoming them to our world of circles.
Fifteen or 20 minutes later, we finally arrived at the small house party. Which, contrary to belief, ended up being only four other people! So that was funny - not at all what we expected. I can't pronounce the actual host's name, or remember it well enough to spell it, but there was another boy named Pawel there (great, since we already know how to say that name!), and two girls both named Marta (easy!) Haha. Everybody was really nice and it was a very fun evening. Laura commented that it felt a little bit like we were back in a dorm but it was still really fun. They poured snacks into three bowls that were placed in the middle of the circle. Then the traditional Polish drinking commenced, passing around a bottle of flavored vodka and drinking to everybody's health. I really, really, do not like vodka, and thank goodness Laura understands this and was the one pouring to my health. She always poured me a very little amount, so that I could participate as comfortably as possible. Yuck. We spent the night chatting, laughing, sharing vodka, and listening to music. One of the Marta's there is also on CouchSurfing, and everybody spoke very good English, so it was a fun night of hanging out with Polish kids! Also, these people were friends of Pawel's. They all study together...they study tourism! How cool is that?! Why don't we have that?!
Finally it was time to catch our bus home, and everybody piled out of the flat and to the bus stop. We made it home without any difficulties and went to bed right after.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention. The boys recommended we go to another city in Poland, sort of on the way to Prague, called Wroclaw. We had heard good things about it from one of the girls on the train from Budapest to Krakow too. We had two extra, as of yet unplanned, days of travel on this particular Eurail so we figured, why not?! And they boys have a friend living there who is on CS who was more than willing to take us in. Easy. So, tomorrow morning we're getting up early to go on a spontaneous adventure trip to western Poland. That is how our lives work...:)
Quotes:
Shshk: "Can I get a hallelujah?" (when we finally arrived at the small house party after walking around for almost an hour).
Me: "Hallelujah!"
Shshk: "Who let the dawgs out?"
Everybody: "WHO! WHO WHO WHO!"
I don't know how or why this kept happening, but it was great fun. This happened multiple times throughout the night...
Jacke: "When Shshk sees a red light, he will not move."
(Everybody crosses the street while it's blinking green...Shshk wasn't off the sidewalk yet when the walk light turned red)
(Random girl crosses the street)
(Shshk's eyes bulge in surprise as he points at her crossing during the red walk light)
I know this is not a real quote, but it was so funny...the look of surprise on the his face!
Accomplishments:
Tried Polish vodka.
MADE IT HALF WAY THROUGH OUR TRIP! (Which is going by way too fast, naturally.)
Travel Tip:
Be aware of timing. All of a sudden, it's almost mid-May, so tourist season has officially started. We're having a bit of a struggle trying to find available hosts in Prague :/ Wish us luck!
Laura and I had an extremely pleasant afternoon seeing Krakow in the happy daylight. We went back to the main square to do our little souvenir shopping routine. Since it was a Saturday, and sunny out, there were tons of people everywhere, as well as a multitude of souvenir booths set up around the square. The cafes are much prettier when there are so many people sitting at them eating colorful ice cream. And in front of all the cafes (Krakow's main square has the most cafes per square meter than any other place in the world) were lines of horses and carriages. Very picturesque.
Souvenir shopping was actually a lot of fun because we got to walk around outside and be in the great atmosphere at the main square. And we got some ice cream to help us shop :) I really didn't like the plates I was seeing and I was starting to have a little hissy fit inside my head directed at my father for talking me into starting this ridiculous collection. It is really the worst possible thing to collect on a back packing trip!!! And I really don't like the plates that say the city or country on them. I also don't like it if they look really touristy - I like ones that are more of traditional ceramics, that you can eat off of, that you can tell where they came from by the designs rather than by a screen printed picture of the most famous cathedral in town. Anyway, I wasn't finding any good plates. And by the way, they're expensive too! Laura gets her tiny, cheap, cute, useful little shot glasses, and I am carting around tableware. Anyway! I found a plate I really liked with traditional Polish ceramics that can be eaten off of and then I was happy again! As soon as the stress melted away from knowing that I didn't actually have to spend a lot of money to carry something that I didn't like around awkwardly for the next six weeks just so that my 'collection' wouldn't have any gaps in it...I was fine :) Soon after that Laura found her shot glass and we were feeling productive. And also like spending money.
See, I worked really hard to pay my whole way through this trip. And I clearly adore traveling, and part of the fun of traveling is getting really pretty souvenirs. Since I have the money to, I am interested in getting nice, high quality, long lasting souvenirs. And Laura's middle name is Amber. I realize these facts sound 100% unrelated, but now I will tell you that aside from salt, Poland is extremely famous for producing really high quality amber from near the Baltic sea. Ergo, there are amber shops EVERYWHERE. We then decided to go on an amber mission: Laura, because it was her middle name, so she'll spend money on it, and me, because I like jewelry and spending money on pretty things. We didn't want to get it off the street, so we walked around the side streets spanning out from the main square and spent all afternoon looking at gorgeous amber! Something that was very helpful was finding out that stores actually can get certificates that verify their amber is genuine and high quality - good to know. We looked around for quite a while, mentally comparing prices and designs. Some things were jaw-droppingly expensive. Even for Polish Zloties.
But then I found another store that had a plaque of recognition for being one of the best places to shop in Krakow in 2009 from some local Krakow website (called Krakow-life.com or something). They also had all their certificates. It was easy to see on the surface why they were such a nice place to shop. Their store was roughly two times bigger than most of the other amber stores. It was also well lit, and the pieces were well displayed, and it was just a very comfortable place to be (other places were small, cramped, had little selection, had pushy sales people, etc). There were two very nice young women that took out a plethora of bracelets, earrings, and rings for us. We made a terrible mess. But it was OK, because they were so sweet about it and we both found things we liked!! And they are gorgeous, and real, and didn't break the bank. I wanted a bracelet, but they were way more expensive than rings. I wear a rings a lot more often, but I tend to cycle through them. So I really didn't know what to get and debated for quite some time. At one point, the nice sales lady had attached 4 different bracelets around my wrist to try and help me decide! Then I decided it was better to get a ring because I would probably wear it more and it was cheaper so I'll feel less badly when it (probably) eventually gets cycled out. Though I do plan on wearing it regularly. I'm just a little hesitant because it's so pretty that I can't really wear anything else on that (my right) hand because I wouldn't want to distract attention away from the amber ring. And I have so many other rings that I like...Anyway. I made a decision and I got it and I like it. It's slightly too big, so I'll have to get it re-sized when I get back home. But I am very excited to wear it, it's a really nice piece of jewelry. And as far as souvenirs, it is small and light weight, so: BONUS! Take that, Plates!
By then, we had shopped up an appetite and didn't have anything else we really needed to buy, so we went on a food mission. There were little cafes and restaurants everywhere, but we finally stopped at one that was advertising pierogi. Somehow I hadn't had any of that yet! Dumplings with meat and/or cheese, yes please. This restaurant was cute because at the front, it looks like it just has ice cream (bummer....haha) but past the ice cream are super comfy couches and an entire upstairs with lots of tables. We sat downstairs in a cute little comfortable corner. I ordered the meat filled pierogis (dumplings) and Laura got the cheese pierogis. And then we split them, naturally. They were huge for dumplings! We'd seen Jacek eat some a few days ago but his were tiny, that's why ours seemed so big. Really they were the size of pot stickers or something like that. Anyway, to accompany our pierogis (which, as hinted at above, we thought would be quite small), we ordered two pancakes filled with fruit with whipped cream on the side. That was our appetizer though it was more like a dessert. It was so good. It was kind of like a crepe filled with peaches, kiwis, bananas, pineapples, and probably some other things. Then they had been drizzled with red fruity syrup with two beautiful piles of whipped cream on the side. To top off our ultra-Polish meal, we tested out a recommendation from Jacek, which was to mix beer with ginger juice. I don't think this is the same thing as gingerale. Another Polish/Central European tendency is to mix beer with a fruit syrup, like raspberry. So we ordered two beers, one with ginger juice and one with raspberry syrup. We planned on sharing those too but after tasting both, Laura preferred the raspberry concoction and I preferred the ginger concoction. It tasted like Christmas in a beer - not kidding. They were both really delicious!! Such an unexpected combination though. Also, in Poland they drink beers with straws. At the bar the other night though, they didn't give us straws. Here, we got our straws. So we had an all-out Polish meal. And the real glory of it all was that this fabulous, hearty, delicious, authentic, cultural meal cost us each about $10. AMAZING. Poland is great for food fanatics :)
After our leisurely shopping spree and lunch date, we strolled back to the boys' apartment. We found them sitting right where we left them, and for the third day in a row they told us they had been "relaxing all the day". Laura thinks it's a 19-year-old-boy-thing. Haha.
Over lunch, Laura and I started talking about the end of our trip (I know I usually only write about the day's happenings an nothing before and after). We have 10 days of travel on our Eurail. It will take two to get from Stockholm to Bergen, and another two to get from Bergen to Paris. Also, Bergen to Paris is approximately a 35 hour trip with at least 4 transfers. And Norway is supposed to be the most expensive country we're planning on visiting. So...we decided just then to cut Norway from the itinerary! Exciting, I think. I mean, I'm kinda bummed...but honestly, when I read about Norway it didn't excite me. And at the end of our trip, I'd rather not be spending 4 days on a train...that is 4 days we're losing out on being other places! Either we can spend more time in the cities we're planning on already, or we can go to more places that are close by. So when we got back to the apartment, we spent the afternoon trying to figure out how to give the last part of our trip a major face lift. We toyed with the idea of going to Finland and Estonia, but it's a 15 hour ferry ride to Helsinki and it's kind of expensive. Trains to Helsinki from Stockholm is a joke if you just look at a map. Also, ferries do not help use our expensive Eurail travel days! Another part of this whole equation is that having just recently found out I have family living in Sweden willing to meet (and host!) us, I don't want to cut my time short with them since I am so excited to get to know them! So, we're not sure what's going on with our trip after Sweden...but we'll figure it out.
After another evening spent inside on a computer (sounds so lame...I know) it was time to go to a "small house party". We clarified, "Is your definition of a 'small house party' anything like your definition of a 'barbecue'?!" They said no, that we could expect 20-25 people. Ok. That's manageable. When the boys started ironing their shirts (they make their beds, too!) I realized that perhaps I should change out of my nylon quick dry REI pants and into jeans, and maybe even put mascara on or something. Haha.
Alcohol is spelled 'alkohole' here, and the alkohole store close to their flat was closed, so we took a bus to a supermarket and they did their shopping for snacks and alkohole to bring to the house party there. Then we were a little lost. I don't know how it happens, but somehow, even when we are with hosts, we get lost at night! And it's always when we're trying to hit up the night life! Laura and I just think it's funny since it's happened to us so many times. The boys picked a direction and we started walking. Half an hour later, we somehow were exactly where we started - we had done a full circle. Laura and I were completely unphased, because circles are our Official Shape of our trip. We're used to them. Circles happen to us all the time. However, the boys' reactions, especially Jacek's and Shshks's exasperated Polish sounds - were hilarious!!!! Laura and I took great pleasure in welcoming them to our world of circles.
Fifteen or 20 minutes later, we finally arrived at the small house party. Which, contrary to belief, ended up being only four other people! So that was funny - not at all what we expected. I can't pronounce the actual host's name, or remember it well enough to spell it, but there was another boy named Pawel there (great, since we already know how to say that name!), and two girls both named Marta (easy!) Haha. Everybody was really nice and it was a very fun evening. Laura commented that it felt a little bit like we were back in a dorm but it was still really fun. They poured snacks into three bowls that were placed in the middle of the circle. Then the traditional Polish drinking commenced, passing around a bottle of flavored vodka and drinking to everybody's health. I really, really, do not like vodka, and thank goodness Laura understands this and was the one pouring to my health. She always poured me a very little amount, so that I could participate as comfortably as possible. Yuck. We spent the night chatting, laughing, sharing vodka, and listening to music. One of the Marta's there is also on CouchSurfing, and everybody spoke very good English, so it was a fun night of hanging out with Polish kids! Also, these people were friends of Pawel's. They all study together...they study tourism! How cool is that?! Why don't we have that?!
Finally it was time to catch our bus home, and everybody piled out of the flat and to the bus stop. We made it home without any difficulties and went to bed right after.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention. The boys recommended we go to another city in Poland, sort of on the way to Prague, called Wroclaw. We had heard good things about it from one of the girls on the train from Budapest to Krakow too. We had two extra, as of yet unplanned, days of travel on this particular Eurail so we figured, why not?! And they boys have a friend living there who is on CS who was more than willing to take us in. Easy. So, tomorrow morning we're getting up early to go on a spontaneous adventure trip to western Poland. That is how our lives work...:)
Quotes:
Shshk: "Can I get a hallelujah?" (when we finally arrived at the small house party after walking around for almost an hour).
Me: "Hallelujah!"
Shshk: "Who let the dawgs out?"
Everybody: "WHO! WHO WHO WHO!"
I don't know how or why this kept happening, but it was great fun. This happened multiple times throughout the night...
Jacke: "When Shshk sees a red light, he will not move."
(Everybody crosses the street while it's blinking green...Shshk wasn't off the sidewalk yet when the walk light turned red)
(Random girl crosses the street)
(Shshk's eyes bulge in surprise as he points at her crossing during the red walk light)
I know this is not a real quote, but it was so funny...the look of surprise on the his face!
Accomplishments:
Tried Polish vodka.
MADE IT HALF WAY THROUGH OUR TRIP! (Which is going by way too fast, naturally.)
Travel Tip:
Be aware of timing. All of a sudden, it's almost mid-May, so tourist season has officially started. We're having a bit of a struggle trying to find available hosts in Prague :/ Wish us luck!
Friday, May 7, 2010
Depression | Juwenalia
Today was the big day that I have been nervous for. Today we visited the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. Pawel told us to take a bus from the main station, which was about a half an hour walk away. We both got up super early (which was good to know that we're still capable of getting out of bed before 10!) and got to the bus station with just enough time to grab some circle bread. I don't know the actual name of it, but apparently it is a Krakow specialty. It is literally a circle of bread. Kind of like a bagel, but thinner, and wider, and twisted sort of like a pretzel. I took a picture, so don't worry if you're not getting a crystal clear mental image of said circle bread. Looking out the window of the bus, I noticed that 10 minutes later we were at the stop that is a 30 second walk away from Pawel's flat!!! All that waking up early and walking to the station for nothing.... :)
Sitting on the bus for over two hours knowing that I was going to visit the camps was a weird experience in itself. They're obviously not something to be excited about, and it was early so Laura and I didn't really talk at all on the bus ride. How do you prepare yourself mentally to see something like that, where so much pain and suffering were inflicted?
Another weird thing is how much of a tourist attraction the camps have become. I think it's incredibly important that people do go and see them and learn about and from them, but at the same time it just makes me a little sick seeing tourist companies advertise "WAWEL CASTLE - SALT MINES - AUSCHWITZ". What? The camps used to be free to visit but they get more and more visitors every year (I like the word visitors better than tourists). In 2009, there were approximately 1.3 million visitors which is a staggering number. What is sobering about it though is that 1.3 million is also approximately the number of people that were killed in the Nazis' first gas chamber...located at Auschwitz.
Nowadays, if you visit between 10 AM and 3 PM you must be accompanied on a guided tour. The camps have been a country museum since 1947, and the people working at the museum are very organized about herding visitors. We paid for an English tour and then got head phones. The head phones were sort of like a one way walkie-talkie, where we tuned into a certain channel that allowed us to hear our English speaking guide through a microphone. This was good because you could always hear what she was saying. She could also talk while we walked between different areas of the camp. And the headphones were also nice since there were so many other tour groups, all speaking different languages. In that sense, it was good. But we were still walking around Auschwitz with a group of 20 people watching hundreds of people take pictures of the exact same things. Whenever I'm in depressing places, I tend not to take pictures. I think it changes the experience because the things I saw there - I'm not going to forget any time soon. And the pictures aren't "good" or "pretty", they're not "fun" to show people. So I just take mental pictures. It's also just an almost awkward feeling taking pictures of such horrible things - or maybe it's guilt for having the freedom to take such pictures when the people trapped here had all freedoms stripped away.
At the camp, there are many different blocks. Lots of blocks are totally closed off, but the blocks that are open all have different themes with pictures, exhibits, real artifacts, tablets of explanations, and sometimes monuments. Between all the blocks, visitors learn about where the victims came from, how they were treated, what the living conditions were like, and about various tortuous and catastrophic things happened to them. There were tons of genuine paper artifacts, from lists of people that had been shot at the death wall to an actual receipt of the Zyclone B gas that was used in the gas chambers. There were striped pajamas that were worn like a uniform in the camps, and it was heartbreaking to see all the rips and tears and mud stained onto them after all these years. There were huge glass cases filled with different things: one with childrens' shoes, one with adults' shoes, one with thousands of pairs of glasses taken away from people, one with luggage that was taken during the selection process when people arrived at the camps, one with kitchen gear taken from people (since people thought they were moving to "resettle" they had brought pots/pans etc). Three of the cases were especially disturbing. One had thousands of pieces of equipment taken from disabled people: wheel chairs, crutches, prosthetic limbs, casts, braces, slings, even a back brace. That was rough. Another especially terrible case was filled with human hair. And by case, I mean this glass compartment spanned the length of an average sized room. It was huge. And it was disgusting. Real human hair of victims that have survived to help show just one of the many disgusting things done to prisoners. Hair was shaved off of people as soon as they arrived at the camps, or in some cases after people had been gassed. A side case showed what the hair was used for - which was to make some kind of cloth/canvas looking thing. I'm not actually clear on what the mats were used for after that, but tests were done that confirmed human hair was being used to create these things. The third especially disturbing case was filled with empty Zyclone B containers. Really awful. Knowing that every single one of the hundreds of containers there helped kill hundreds of thousands of people was just awful. And the receipt showing that each container cost only 5 marks was right next to that, neatly displayed in a smaller glass case.
One of the blocks had pictures lining the walls of victims. The process and atrocities committed were very well documented. The pictures showed first the number assigned to the prisoner. Below that was the name (terrible). Below that was their date of birth, and sometimes their profession. Below that was the arrival date at the camp, and the date of death. I hardly saw any photos of people that survived longer than a month or two. The arrival and death dates were so disturbingly close together. Though I wonder if maybe it was a relief to die sooner rather than later in a place like that. The professions were also disturbing. I couldn't read any of them but our guide pointed out words to us that meant things like "professor" or "priest" or "lawyer". Seeing all the faces and knowing their professions and their fate and that they had lives and careers and families is nothing short of nauseating.
Another block was nicknamed the death block. Nothing good happened in this block. We saw the rooms were the gestapo would meet to decide the fate of certain people. We saw the rooms where different methods of torture were carried out. One such room was just a tiny space with no windows where 20 to 40 people would have to stand all close together for an entire day or longer...long enough to suffocate. Nobody survived those rooms. There were other standing cells that were not wide enough to sit in or lay down in. Prisoners were forced to enter the standing cells through a tiny opening near the ground which resembled a kitty door. We also saw the male and female washrooms - the actual sinks that people used to strip and clean themselves - before going out the door to the death wall to get shot in the head. That was disgusting. The actual death wall was destroyed so there is a replica in its place at the camp. Gross...just gross.
Of course, the grand finale to the camp was going into the actual, original gas chamber. The feeling walking into that room, that tiny room where a minimum of 1,000 people to a maximum of 2,000 people were stuffed into, was terrible. By the way, 1,000 was the minimum in order to be cost effective in terms of gas usage. Standing in that gross, depressing room and looking up at the hole in the ceiling that the Zyclone B gas was poured through from murdering men in gas masks above was just awful. I don't know what other words to use, so my apologies if this is not articulate enough. Joined to the gas chamber was another room with the ovens that the dead bodies were carried into to be cremated after their gold teeth had been stolen and their hair had been shaved off. It was just incredibly eerie to be standing there, looking at the color of the floors and the walls, knowing that such horrific things happened. That literally hundreds of thousands of people died right where I was standing at any given moment.
Back in the fresh air, which didn't even seem so fresh considering there was still two layers of barbed wire and guard towers everywhere, the Auschwitz tour concluded. Half an hour later, we jumped on a free shuttle bus to Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II. This camp was designed for death. There were four gas chambers here which were destroyed seven days before the liberation. All that's left now of the chambers are and fields of grass that were fertilized with human ashes. How awful.
Birkenau was tough because we walked on the same platforms that millions of people were unloaded onto. Once on the platform, prisoners underwent a selection process. Mothers with children under 14 and sickly or disabled people were chosen to die immediately. Mothers and children got to stay together to avoid anxiety separation issues I think. The people selected to be murdered immediately had their suitcases taken away and were marched down the platform we stood on to the end of the platform where the gas chambers to close to. If people weren't murdered immediately, they were put into different areas of the camp. We saw a block where prisoners were forced to 'live' and it was filthy. There is a cement floor there now that it has been turned into a museum, but during the war it was a mud floor that was often muddy. there were sorts of bunk beds stacked three high. Each 'bed' (platform of wood) looked wide enough to sleep three uncomfortably, but really they each slept 9. Everybody knew that the top was the best, because it was warmest, and because you didn't have to have other people's urine/feces/blood drip down on you. My brain just can hardly even fathom how disgusting that is. The poor people on the floor get the brunt of their companions excretions and the mud floor.
Close by to where the gas chambers were, there is now a monument. Below the monument are tablets with the same message inscribed in many different languages. I don't remember the exact wording, but the message was about the importance of remembering what had happened here. It was there that our Birkenau tour concluded.
Then it was another two-plus hour commute back to Krakow in which we also stayed silent the entire time. I almost had a culture shock kind of feeling arriving at Krakow. [We thought we would be clever and get off at the bus stop close to Pawel's flat so we wouldn't have to walk an unnecessary 30 minutes...again, but the bus didn't stop there. So...we had to take it all the way to the main bus station.] The main bus and train station is connected to a giant mall. So have this terribly depressing day, and we get off the bus and immediately walk through this materialistic, neon light, McDonald's filled mall and it was just bizarre. That we had just seen something so awful, yet 70 years later, which really isn't that long, life just goes on as normal in this mall that looks just like any other mall. Sigh.
ANYWAY...the plan for tonight was to participate in Juwenalia, which is Polish for National Students' Drinking Week. Not kidding. It's some kind of tradition in Poland where students literally just drink for the entire week and the police can't do anything about it, because it's a tradition. There are also concerts basically every single night. It is pure chaos, I've never seen anything like it. First we went to a Polish rock concert which was held outside. I think there were dorms surrounding the stage because there were lots of students in windows just hanging out watching. The first band we saw was straight up screamo awful, but the second band was actually quite good. We followed the boys into a Polish mosh pit and I felt much too old/lazy to be there! Halfway through the set, Laura and I had to go to the bathroom so we found our way to the porta-potties in the back. After going to the bathroom, we decided we'd had enough of Polish mosh pits and enjoyed the music in the back where we weren't getting rammed into by dudes twice my size. It was a lot of fun people watching - I swear we saw a nine year old totally drunk off of like one beer. She must have been 4 feet tall, this girl was tiny and looked ridiculously young. I have no clue how she got in. Maybe she really was old enough, but all of her friends also were tiny and looked young. It was so ridiculous, I took a creeper picture of her haha. Just because it was funny to see a nine year old drunk.
After the second band, our group (which aside from Laura and me was Jacek, Shshk (NO CLUE how to spell his name), Stephan, and Pawel) decided to go to a barbecue. Hey, yeah, a barbecue, that sounds fun! Great! Walking to the barbecue, we passed by a convenience store across the street from a bar. The bar looked near empty. The convenience store had a huge line and a mob of people outside. So hilarious...(you can buy alcohol at convenience stores and then drink it on the street. Well, I don't think you're normally allowed to drink on the streets, but during Juwenalia you are allowed to). I wasn't interested in drinking at all, but the boys got their alcohol and onwards to the barbecue we went. First we passed by a grassy area with tons of people lounging around, standing, sitting, grilling, eating, etc. Trash everywhere. Also, people dressed up in crazy costumes everywhere. So strange!
Then...then...we went through some underpass and my jaw probably just dropped. All of a sudden there was super loud music, coming from a stage far away in the distance, with fluorescent green neon lights flashing like rave strobe lights, lighting up the otherwise dark trees and sky. Thousands - literally, thousands - of people. Dorms were all around this huge park or lawn or whatever it was. There were grills every 20 feet or so that people actually were using. (By the way, this was the "barbecue" they were talking about. We explained to them that in the US, a "barbecue" is like 20 friends grilling and hanging out. This was an all out rave with probably much less speed and coke.) Closer to the stage there was fog and dancing and craziness. But it was really insane; Never have I seen so many drunk students in one place, outside, dressed up and acting like maniacs. There were people just in towels, people in full on checkered body suits (the spandex ones that cover their faces too), somebody dressed like a devil, somebody dressed as the Heath Ledger's Joker, and lots of other people not dressed up but still acting insane. We found the boys' friends and stood around conversing with young drunkards who were very enthusiastic about meeting us. In Poland, the way they drink is from one bottle that gets passed around. If you have a shot glass, you drink your shot to the health of the person to your left, and then you poor that shot. And then you go around in a circle like that, one at a time, drinking to everybody's health, until the bottle is gone - at which point you open the next one. Polish people really do drink as much as their reputation lets on! It's pretty funny. Also it might not help that stereotype that we were there during National Students' Drinking Week. Since I'm in Poland, of course I had to taste their vodka (which while for vodka was good, but did not change the fact that I don't like vodka) but I was not on a mission to do anything more than taste it just so that I could say I had vodka in Poland. After my baby tastes, when people drank to my health I said thank you very much but no I was not having any more. Pawel was also funny because I think he maybe forgets that we are 22 and 23...he kept trying to tell us how to take a drink and then the chaser and we were like: dude. We went to college. We're big kids. In fact, we're 3 and 4 years older than you. Also, shots + chaser = pretttttty universal. Funny though that he was trying to teach us haha.
I ended up talking about American politics with some really nice drunk guy and when he left I somehow found the only other sober girl at Juwenalia. Her name was Asia and she is an Erasmus student (who told me much more about what Erasmus actually is). She speaks Polish, English, Persian, French, and a little Russian...no big deal. SO JEALOUS! Haha. She was super sweet, and before I knew it, Pawel was ushering us home. Laura got one or two marriage proposals and I got an offer to move to Poland, so I guess it was a successful night!
Then Pawel went into a well-intentioned but still hilarious over-protective lectures about Polish boys. Really. I think because I was talking with some drunk guy (after Asia left, there were only drunk guys to talk to) and ended up writing my name in his phone because he asked me to. I didn't see the harm in it because I am 100% positive he will completely forget about it and never contact me, which I could care less about. At any rate, I think this is what spurred Pawel's speech about how we should be careful around Polish boys because Poland can be unsafe for girls and how he didn't want me to get sexually harassed and how he wasn't sure if I wanted 'anything to happen tonight' and he went on and on about it. Finally, I had to lay it out for him and just say, 'Hey. Look. I'm sober. I have a boyfriend. And I'm not a slut. So, NO, nothing was going to 'happen tonight'. And FYI, 19 year old drunk boys are the same everywhere. I know how to talk/deal with them.' He then apologized and said to let him know if he was being over-protective and without missing a beat, I said yes you are being over-protective! It really was all well intentioned, and that I appreciate because that is sweet. I just think it is still funny because Laura and I have been gone for so long and we've been to such extreme/intense countries before this trip, and we've already experienced so many bizarre things. We've been through a lot. And we've never stayed with a CouchSurfer this young before, so trying to be like ultra taken care of and watched over when we're used to being so independent and always, of course, having each others' backs 24/7 (which we do - it's awesome), was a little bit surprising for us. Definitely not bad at all, it just required some explaining that we don't need somebody telling us how to drink or how not to be sexually harassed at a humongous park filled with drunk kids 3 and 4 years younger than us. Seriously that is like Jonathan's age. Even if I was drunk, didn't have a boyfriend, and was a slut I still wouldn't have had 'anything happen' with a drunk Polish 19 year old. Come on... haha.
That was about all the excitement for the night though. We parted ways with all of our conversants and walked home safely with our group of Polish boys. And now we can say, no, we haven't been to Oktoberfest (YET), but we have experienced Juwenalia!! The biggest and longest drunk college party ever. Ever.
Quotes:
Drunk dude: "Where are you staying tonight?"
Me: "Oh, we're CouchSurfing with Pawel and Jacek."
Drunk dude: "Well, I have a bed so you don't need to sleep on a couch."
THANKS, 19 YEAR OLD DRUNK DUDE! hahahaha
Accomplishments:
Not throwing up at the concentration camps.
Travel Tip:
Treat your student ID like gold :)
Sitting on the bus for over two hours knowing that I was going to visit the camps was a weird experience in itself. They're obviously not something to be excited about, and it was early so Laura and I didn't really talk at all on the bus ride. How do you prepare yourself mentally to see something like that, where so much pain and suffering were inflicted?
Another weird thing is how much of a tourist attraction the camps have become. I think it's incredibly important that people do go and see them and learn about and from them, but at the same time it just makes me a little sick seeing tourist companies advertise "WAWEL CASTLE - SALT MINES - AUSCHWITZ". What? The camps used to be free to visit but they get more and more visitors every year (I like the word visitors better than tourists). In 2009, there were approximately 1.3 million visitors which is a staggering number. What is sobering about it though is that 1.3 million is also approximately the number of people that were killed in the Nazis' first gas chamber...located at Auschwitz.
Nowadays, if you visit between 10 AM and 3 PM you must be accompanied on a guided tour. The camps have been a country museum since 1947, and the people working at the museum are very organized about herding visitors. We paid for an English tour and then got head phones. The head phones were sort of like a one way walkie-talkie, where we tuned into a certain channel that allowed us to hear our English speaking guide through a microphone. This was good because you could always hear what she was saying. She could also talk while we walked between different areas of the camp. And the headphones were also nice since there were so many other tour groups, all speaking different languages. In that sense, it was good. But we were still walking around Auschwitz with a group of 20 people watching hundreds of people take pictures of the exact same things. Whenever I'm in depressing places, I tend not to take pictures. I think it changes the experience because the things I saw there - I'm not going to forget any time soon. And the pictures aren't "good" or "pretty", they're not "fun" to show people. So I just take mental pictures. It's also just an almost awkward feeling taking pictures of such horrible things - or maybe it's guilt for having the freedom to take such pictures when the people trapped here had all freedoms stripped away.
At the camp, there are many different blocks. Lots of blocks are totally closed off, but the blocks that are open all have different themes with pictures, exhibits, real artifacts, tablets of explanations, and sometimes monuments. Between all the blocks, visitors learn about where the victims came from, how they were treated, what the living conditions were like, and about various tortuous and catastrophic things happened to them. There were tons of genuine paper artifacts, from lists of people that had been shot at the death wall to an actual receipt of the Zyclone B gas that was used in the gas chambers. There were striped pajamas that were worn like a uniform in the camps, and it was heartbreaking to see all the rips and tears and mud stained onto them after all these years. There were huge glass cases filled with different things: one with childrens' shoes, one with adults' shoes, one with thousands of pairs of glasses taken away from people, one with luggage that was taken during the selection process when people arrived at the camps, one with kitchen gear taken from people (since people thought they were moving to "resettle" they had brought pots/pans etc). Three of the cases were especially disturbing. One had thousands of pieces of equipment taken from disabled people: wheel chairs, crutches, prosthetic limbs, casts, braces, slings, even a back brace. That was rough. Another especially terrible case was filled with human hair. And by case, I mean this glass compartment spanned the length of an average sized room. It was huge. And it was disgusting. Real human hair of victims that have survived to help show just one of the many disgusting things done to prisoners. Hair was shaved off of people as soon as they arrived at the camps, or in some cases after people had been gassed. A side case showed what the hair was used for - which was to make some kind of cloth/canvas looking thing. I'm not actually clear on what the mats were used for after that, but tests were done that confirmed human hair was being used to create these things. The third especially disturbing case was filled with empty Zyclone B containers. Really awful. Knowing that every single one of the hundreds of containers there helped kill hundreds of thousands of people was just awful. And the receipt showing that each container cost only 5 marks was right next to that, neatly displayed in a smaller glass case.
One of the blocks had pictures lining the walls of victims. The process and atrocities committed were very well documented. The pictures showed first the number assigned to the prisoner. Below that was the name (terrible). Below that was their date of birth, and sometimes their profession. Below that was the arrival date at the camp, and the date of death. I hardly saw any photos of people that survived longer than a month or two. The arrival and death dates were so disturbingly close together. Though I wonder if maybe it was a relief to die sooner rather than later in a place like that. The professions were also disturbing. I couldn't read any of them but our guide pointed out words to us that meant things like "professor" or "priest" or "lawyer". Seeing all the faces and knowing their professions and their fate and that they had lives and careers and families is nothing short of nauseating.
Another block was nicknamed the death block. Nothing good happened in this block. We saw the rooms were the gestapo would meet to decide the fate of certain people. We saw the rooms where different methods of torture were carried out. One such room was just a tiny space with no windows where 20 to 40 people would have to stand all close together for an entire day or longer...long enough to suffocate. Nobody survived those rooms. There were other standing cells that were not wide enough to sit in or lay down in. Prisoners were forced to enter the standing cells through a tiny opening near the ground which resembled a kitty door. We also saw the male and female washrooms - the actual sinks that people used to strip and clean themselves - before going out the door to the death wall to get shot in the head. That was disgusting. The actual death wall was destroyed so there is a replica in its place at the camp. Gross...just gross.
Of course, the grand finale to the camp was going into the actual, original gas chamber. The feeling walking into that room, that tiny room where a minimum of 1,000 people to a maximum of 2,000 people were stuffed into, was terrible. By the way, 1,000 was the minimum in order to be cost effective in terms of gas usage. Standing in that gross, depressing room and looking up at the hole in the ceiling that the Zyclone B gas was poured through from murdering men in gas masks above was just awful. I don't know what other words to use, so my apologies if this is not articulate enough. Joined to the gas chamber was another room with the ovens that the dead bodies were carried into to be cremated after their gold teeth had been stolen and their hair had been shaved off. It was just incredibly eerie to be standing there, looking at the color of the floors and the walls, knowing that such horrific things happened. That literally hundreds of thousands of people died right where I was standing at any given moment.
Back in the fresh air, which didn't even seem so fresh considering there was still two layers of barbed wire and guard towers everywhere, the Auschwitz tour concluded. Half an hour later, we jumped on a free shuttle bus to Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II. This camp was designed for death. There were four gas chambers here which were destroyed seven days before the liberation. All that's left now of the chambers are and fields of grass that were fertilized with human ashes. How awful.
Birkenau was tough because we walked on the same platforms that millions of people were unloaded onto. Once on the platform, prisoners underwent a selection process. Mothers with children under 14 and sickly or disabled people were chosen to die immediately. Mothers and children got to stay together to avoid anxiety separation issues I think. The people selected to be murdered immediately had their suitcases taken away and were marched down the platform we stood on to the end of the platform where the gas chambers to close to. If people weren't murdered immediately, they were put into different areas of the camp. We saw a block where prisoners were forced to 'live' and it was filthy. There is a cement floor there now that it has been turned into a museum, but during the war it was a mud floor that was often muddy. there were sorts of bunk beds stacked three high. Each 'bed' (platform of wood) looked wide enough to sleep three uncomfortably, but really they each slept 9. Everybody knew that the top was the best, because it was warmest, and because you didn't have to have other people's urine/feces/blood drip down on you. My brain just can hardly even fathom how disgusting that is. The poor people on the floor get the brunt of their companions excretions and the mud floor.
Close by to where the gas chambers were, there is now a monument. Below the monument are tablets with the same message inscribed in many different languages. I don't remember the exact wording, but the message was about the importance of remembering what had happened here. It was there that our Birkenau tour concluded.
Then it was another two-plus hour commute back to Krakow in which we also stayed silent the entire time. I almost had a culture shock kind of feeling arriving at Krakow. [We thought we would be clever and get off at the bus stop close to Pawel's flat so we wouldn't have to walk an unnecessary 30 minutes...again, but the bus didn't stop there. So...we had to take it all the way to the main bus station.] The main bus and train station is connected to a giant mall. So have this terribly depressing day, and we get off the bus and immediately walk through this materialistic, neon light, McDonald's filled mall and it was just bizarre. That we had just seen something so awful, yet 70 years later, which really isn't that long, life just goes on as normal in this mall that looks just like any other mall. Sigh.
ANYWAY...the plan for tonight was to participate in Juwenalia, which is Polish for National Students' Drinking Week. Not kidding. It's some kind of tradition in Poland where students literally just drink for the entire week and the police can't do anything about it, because it's a tradition. There are also concerts basically every single night. It is pure chaos, I've never seen anything like it. First we went to a Polish rock concert which was held outside. I think there were dorms surrounding the stage because there were lots of students in windows just hanging out watching. The first band we saw was straight up screamo awful, but the second band was actually quite good. We followed the boys into a Polish mosh pit and I felt much too old/lazy to be there! Halfway through the set, Laura and I had to go to the bathroom so we found our way to the porta-potties in the back. After going to the bathroom, we decided we'd had enough of Polish mosh pits and enjoyed the music in the back where we weren't getting rammed into by dudes twice my size. It was a lot of fun people watching - I swear we saw a nine year old totally drunk off of like one beer. She must have been 4 feet tall, this girl was tiny and looked ridiculously young. I have no clue how she got in. Maybe she really was old enough, but all of her friends also were tiny and looked young. It was so ridiculous, I took a creeper picture of her haha. Just because it was funny to see a nine year old drunk.
After the second band, our group (which aside from Laura and me was Jacek, Shshk (NO CLUE how to spell his name), Stephan, and Pawel) decided to go to a barbecue. Hey, yeah, a barbecue, that sounds fun! Great! Walking to the barbecue, we passed by a convenience store across the street from a bar. The bar looked near empty. The convenience store had a huge line and a mob of people outside. So hilarious...(you can buy alcohol at convenience stores and then drink it on the street. Well, I don't think you're normally allowed to drink on the streets, but during Juwenalia you are allowed to). I wasn't interested in drinking at all, but the boys got their alcohol and onwards to the barbecue we went. First we passed by a grassy area with tons of people lounging around, standing, sitting, grilling, eating, etc. Trash everywhere. Also, people dressed up in crazy costumes everywhere. So strange!
Then...then...we went through some underpass and my jaw probably just dropped. All of a sudden there was super loud music, coming from a stage far away in the distance, with fluorescent green neon lights flashing like rave strobe lights, lighting up the otherwise dark trees and sky. Thousands - literally, thousands - of people. Dorms were all around this huge park or lawn or whatever it was. There were grills every 20 feet or so that people actually were using. (By the way, this was the "barbecue" they were talking about. We explained to them that in the US, a "barbecue" is like 20 friends grilling and hanging out. This was an all out rave with probably much less speed and coke.) Closer to the stage there was fog and dancing and craziness. But it was really insane; Never have I seen so many drunk students in one place, outside, dressed up and acting like maniacs. There were people just in towels, people in full on checkered body suits (the spandex ones that cover their faces too), somebody dressed like a devil, somebody dressed as the Heath Ledger's Joker, and lots of other people not dressed up but still acting insane. We found the boys' friends and stood around conversing with young drunkards who were very enthusiastic about meeting us. In Poland, the way they drink is from one bottle that gets passed around. If you have a shot glass, you drink your shot to the health of the person to your left, and then you poor that shot. And then you go around in a circle like that, one at a time, drinking to everybody's health, until the bottle is gone - at which point you open the next one. Polish people really do drink as much as their reputation lets on! It's pretty funny. Also it might not help that stereotype that we were there during National Students' Drinking Week. Since I'm in Poland, of course I had to taste their vodka (which while for vodka was good, but did not change the fact that I don't like vodka) but I was not on a mission to do anything more than taste it just so that I could say I had vodka in Poland. After my baby tastes, when people drank to my health I said thank you very much but no I was not having any more. Pawel was also funny because I think he maybe forgets that we are 22 and 23...he kept trying to tell us how to take a drink and then the chaser and we were like: dude. We went to college. We're big kids. In fact, we're 3 and 4 years older than you. Also, shots + chaser = pretttttty universal. Funny though that he was trying to teach us haha.
I ended up talking about American politics with some really nice drunk guy and when he left I somehow found the only other sober girl at Juwenalia. Her name was Asia and she is an Erasmus student (who told me much more about what Erasmus actually is). She speaks Polish, English, Persian, French, and a little Russian...no big deal. SO JEALOUS! Haha. She was super sweet, and before I knew it, Pawel was ushering us home. Laura got one or two marriage proposals and I got an offer to move to Poland, so I guess it was a successful night!
Then Pawel went into a well-intentioned but still hilarious over-protective lectures about Polish boys. Really. I think because I was talking with some drunk guy (after Asia left, there were only drunk guys to talk to) and ended up writing my name in his phone because he asked me to. I didn't see the harm in it because I am 100% positive he will completely forget about it and never contact me, which I could care less about. At any rate, I think this is what spurred Pawel's speech about how we should be careful around Polish boys because Poland can be unsafe for girls and how he didn't want me to get sexually harassed and how he wasn't sure if I wanted 'anything to happen tonight' and he went on and on about it. Finally, I had to lay it out for him and just say, 'Hey. Look. I'm sober. I have a boyfriend. And I'm not a slut. So, NO, nothing was going to 'happen tonight'. And FYI, 19 year old drunk boys are the same everywhere. I know how to talk/deal with them.' He then apologized and said to let him know if he was being over-protective and without missing a beat, I said yes you are being over-protective! It really was all well intentioned, and that I appreciate because that is sweet. I just think it is still funny because Laura and I have been gone for so long and we've been to such extreme/intense countries before this trip, and we've already experienced so many bizarre things. We've been through a lot. And we've never stayed with a CouchSurfer this young before, so trying to be like ultra taken care of and watched over when we're used to being so independent and always, of course, having each others' backs 24/7 (which we do - it's awesome), was a little bit surprising for us. Definitely not bad at all, it just required some explaining that we don't need somebody telling us how to drink or how not to be sexually harassed at a humongous park filled with drunk kids 3 and 4 years younger than us. Seriously that is like Jonathan's age. Even if I was drunk, didn't have a boyfriend, and was a slut I still wouldn't have had 'anything happen' with a drunk Polish 19 year old. Come on... haha.
That was about all the excitement for the night though. We parted ways with all of our conversants and walked home safely with our group of Polish boys. And now we can say, no, we haven't been to Oktoberfest (YET), but we have experienced Juwenalia!! The biggest and longest drunk college party ever. Ever.
Quotes:
Drunk dude: "Where are you staying tonight?"
Me: "Oh, we're CouchSurfing with Pawel and Jacek."
Drunk dude: "Well, I have a bed so you don't need to sleep on a couch."
THANKS, 19 YEAR OLD DRUNK DUDE! hahahaha
Accomplishments:
Not throwing up at the concentration camps.
Travel Tip:
Treat your student ID like gold :)
Thursday, May 6, 2010
So Much Salt
Nobody woke up until 12:30 after our long night at that bar/club.
We had bread and Polish sausages for breakfast and then ventured into the world to buy bus tickets to go see the Wieliczka salt mines. There we paid for our 2nd guided tour (because we had to). The tour guide was really adorable though and she gave us a great tour. Unlike the Budapest caves, I did not feel ripped off at the end of 2 hours.
The salt mines were crazy cool!! I've never seen anything like it. They were very, very different from the coal mines we visited in South Africa. It was pretty touristy with lots of well lit chambers, but that doesn't change the fact that all the chambers, statues, monuments, etc. are literally carved out of rock salt! You could lick the wall (I didn't). You could also touch the "salt cauliflowers" and I did do that. Real salty. It kind of turns to normal salt-ish powder as soon as you touch it. A lot of the salt looked dark but if there was a light behind it the salt was actually fairly opaque and kind of clear. It was really amazing to see entire chambers and statues carved out of salt. They also had other figurines in the mines to help show what it was like to be a salt miner and how they mined it. Some of the stairs made out of salt that were used in the 17th century are still there. Tourists walk on mostly normal wood stairs. The best part about the salt mines though were the chapels. They literally had CHAPELS carved out of salt. They have electric lighting, but the chandeliers (which are stunning) are made out of wood and salt crystals. Salt, salt, salt. Our guide said it used to be called white gold I think. Apparently lots of people get married in the main chapel. Also, I guess salt chambers have really good acoustics, so there's a big chamber that is used for concerts down in the mine as well. Sometimes that chamber is also used as a party venue. Oh yeah, and the air is supposedly really good in the salt mine. This is because nothing can really grow around that much salt, so there is no other life. Just salt. And I think something about the composition of salt helps make the air especially clean/good too. It's supposed to be really great for your lungs and there is even a rehabilitation area in the mines for people with asthma or other health problems. I don't think I explained that well - but yes, the air was good. Anyway, it was very cool to see! I definitely got some salt from one of the gift shops (a rock salt grinder and some fruity smelling bath salts). What cool souvenirs :)
By the way, I have way too much stuff now. And way too much of it is breakable. I blame my father for making me start this silly plate collection. And of course it's ridiculously expensive to ship it home, and I'm paranoid it will break, so I am just carting around a bag full of breakable things. Awesome.
After the salt mines, Laura and I came back to Pawel's flat. It was around 8 or 9 so the boys had already eaten. We set off to go find food. We pretty much stopped at the first place that was still open that looked like it would serve us food. It was a funny restaurant because the prices were high (for zlotys; exchange rate 3 zlotys = $1) and the restaurant had nice table cloths and a fancy ambiance. But Laura's napkin was dirty, my glass was chipped, and the tablecloths also looked dirty. But the food - oh, the food...Amazing. Everything was SO good. Laura got a garlic soup that smelled fantastic. She also got a pork-steak with fried onions, bacon, and garlic butter on it. Best heart attack food ever. I got turkey in a white wine sauce that was delicious. Then we shared the most amazing dessert. It was called "Every Color of the Rainbow: fruit, ice cream, chocolate." It was a large plate with whipped cream in the middle, surrounded by 7 scoops of ice cream (chocolate, vanilla, mango, strawberry), with kiwi and strawberry slices around the edge. Oh yes, and drizzled in chocolate and caramel sauce. AMAAAAZING. The best part is that we can eat a meal like this here (which was definitely a splurge for us!) but it only cost us each about $15!!! Yummm.
Quotes:
"Air is free; you can breathe as much air as you like." - Our tour guide at the Salt Mine
Hilary: "I like that we're being silent right now." (While stuffing our faces with dessert)
Laura: "Words would ruin it."
Accomplishments:
I have been trying to learn Polish - just a few phrases and words. I can now say
1) Hello, how are you?
2) Thank you
3) Do you speak English?
4) I don't speak Polish
5) Please
VERY EXCITING FOR ME!!
Travel Tip:
Ok...so some guided tours are worth it...
We had bread and Polish sausages for breakfast and then ventured into the world to buy bus tickets to go see the Wieliczka salt mines. There we paid for our 2nd guided tour (because we had to). The tour guide was really adorable though and she gave us a great tour. Unlike the Budapest caves, I did not feel ripped off at the end of 2 hours.
The salt mines were crazy cool!! I've never seen anything like it. They were very, very different from the coal mines we visited in South Africa. It was pretty touristy with lots of well lit chambers, but that doesn't change the fact that all the chambers, statues, monuments, etc. are literally carved out of rock salt! You could lick the wall (I didn't). You could also touch the "salt cauliflowers" and I did do that. Real salty. It kind of turns to normal salt-ish powder as soon as you touch it. A lot of the salt looked dark but if there was a light behind it the salt was actually fairly opaque and kind of clear. It was really amazing to see entire chambers and statues carved out of salt. They also had other figurines in the mines to help show what it was like to be a salt miner and how they mined it. Some of the stairs made out of salt that were used in the 17th century are still there. Tourists walk on mostly normal wood stairs. The best part about the salt mines though were the chapels. They literally had CHAPELS carved out of salt. They have electric lighting, but the chandeliers (which are stunning) are made out of wood and salt crystals. Salt, salt, salt. Our guide said it used to be called white gold I think. Apparently lots of people get married in the main chapel. Also, I guess salt chambers have really good acoustics, so there's a big chamber that is used for concerts down in the mine as well. Sometimes that chamber is also used as a party venue. Oh yeah, and the air is supposedly really good in the salt mine. This is because nothing can really grow around that much salt, so there is no other life. Just salt. And I think something about the composition of salt helps make the air especially clean/good too. It's supposed to be really great for your lungs and there is even a rehabilitation area in the mines for people with asthma or other health problems. I don't think I explained that well - but yes, the air was good. Anyway, it was very cool to see! I definitely got some salt from one of the gift shops (a rock salt grinder and some fruity smelling bath salts). What cool souvenirs :)
By the way, I have way too much stuff now. And way too much of it is breakable. I blame my father for making me start this silly plate collection. And of course it's ridiculously expensive to ship it home, and I'm paranoid it will break, so I am just carting around a bag full of breakable things. Awesome.
After the salt mines, Laura and I came back to Pawel's flat. It was around 8 or 9 so the boys had already eaten. We set off to go find food. We pretty much stopped at the first place that was still open that looked like it would serve us food. It was a funny restaurant because the prices were high (for zlotys; exchange rate 3 zlotys = $1) and the restaurant had nice table cloths and a fancy ambiance. But Laura's napkin was dirty, my glass was chipped, and the tablecloths also looked dirty. But the food - oh, the food...Amazing. Everything was SO good. Laura got a garlic soup that smelled fantastic. She also got a pork-steak with fried onions, bacon, and garlic butter on it. Best heart attack food ever. I got turkey in a white wine sauce that was delicious. Then we shared the most amazing dessert. It was called "Every Color of the Rainbow: fruit, ice cream, chocolate." It was a large plate with whipped cream in the middle, surrounded by 7 scoops of ice cream (chocolate, vanilla, mango, strawberry), with kiwi and strawberry slices around the edge. Oh yes, and drizzled in chocolate and caramel sauce. AMAAAAZING. The best part is that we can eat a meal like this here (which was definitely a splurge for us!) but it only cost us each about $15!!! Yummm.
Quotes:
"Air is free; you can breathe as much air as you like." - Our tour guide at the Salt Mine
Hilary: "I like that we're being silent right now." (While stuffing our faces with dessert)
Laura: "Words would ruin it."
Accomplishments:
I have been trying to learn Polish - just a few phrases and words. I can now say
1) Hello, how are you?
2) Thank you
3) Do you speak English?
4) I don't speak Polish
5) Please
VERY EXCITING FOR ME!!
Travel Tip:
Ok...so some guided tours are worth it...
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Kazimierz
Today Pawel was kind enough to play tour guide with us!
We walked all around the Jewish quarter which is called Kazimierz. King Kazimierz is well liked by Polish Jews because he was the first Polish King to invite Jewish people to come live in Poland (around the 14th century I think). His nickname was Kazimierz the Great and he is on the 50 zloty bill. In the Jewish quarter, we went to the Old Synagogue. It was really very pretty. Everything in Poland, but especially sites related to Judaism, has such a long history. This synagogue (which by the way was a refreshing change from churches and cathedrals!) was not destroyed in WWII but was used as a horse stable. After the war, its function was restored as a religious building.
Then we went to the Jewish cemetery. That was very strange because most all of the tombs are very old, and the tombstones are HUGE. They are giant slabs of cement on them that are placed very close together. Also, they do not appear to be arranged in any kind of organized fashion, they're just all over the place. No neat rows or anything. The tops of the graves were covered in grasses and weeds - it looks like nobody takes care of the cemetery at all. There were very few flowers, but many tombs had rocks on them. Apparently, I'm not sure why, this is common to do for Jewish graves. It started out as just putting a special white stone on the tombs, but nowadays people just put normal looking rocks on them. There are also little lantern like lights at the base of some of the graves. Most of these peoples' relatives though have moved away from Poland so I think that's why most of the graves (which as I said are all mostly old, pre-WWII) look unvisited. It was maybe the most dilapidated looking graveyard I've ever been to. Then there was a somber moment when I heard something like a crack and something a little like a squish. We realized that Pawel had smooshed a snail, enjoying to damp pavement all sprawled out of its shell. He completely smooshed the poor thing on accident, broken shell and snail goo now in a messy, sad pile. I get really sad when animals die. It always makes me sad when living things have their lives cut short. :(
Then Pawel helped us to order zanipanki (sp?). It is sort of like an open faced baguette with layers of warm food on it. I ordered one with salami, cheese, and chives. Little did I know, that in between the bread and the melted cheese (i.e. the first layer of the ... thing) was a secret layer of mushrooms. Then on top of the cheese was the salami, followed by cut up chives, ketchup, and sliced pickles. It was really weird! To get the mushrooms off (no, I did not eat them) I had to peel back the cheese with everything else on it and meticulously get all the yucky pieces out. Pawel loves mushrooms and he made me feel a bit awkward - like it was my fault or something - for not liking them. I tried many times to explain that I just don't like them, I'm not that mature yet ... :)
After lunch, we headed back to Pawel's apartment. Since we've now seen the Jewish quarter, the Wawel castle, and the old city/main square area, there doesn't seem to be too much else to do in terms of walking around and sight seeing. So for the first time our whole trip, we literally just sat inside his apartment for hours. It was productive I guess, and the weather was poopy outside so it was nice to have some down time. Eventually, it was time to eat again and then head out to a club.
We went to two bars and had some Polish beer. The second bar had a dance floor and I actually danced (read: had one too many beers). I'm sure I looked positively awful. I have no clue what time we came home, but I slept like a rock!
So far Poland is interesting because it is the most challenging country we've been to. We're close to our halfway point, the weather is gloomy, we can't pronounce/understand anything, and the history is depressing. It is a very different experience but I am so glad we worked it into our trip.
Sorry, no little fun ending things...
We walked all around the Jewish quarter which is called Kazimierz. King Kazimierz is well liked by Polish Jews because he was the first Polish King to invite Jewish people to come live in Poland (around the 14th century I think). His nickname was Kazimierz the Great and he is on the 50 zloty bill. In the Jewish quarter, we went to the Old Synagogue. It was really very pretty. Everything in Poland, but especially sites related to Judaism, has such a long history. This synagogue (which by the way was a refreshing change from churches and cathedrals!) was not destroyed in WWII but was used as a horse stable. After the war, its function was restored as a religious building.
Then we went to the Jewish cemetery. That was very strange because most all of the tombs are very old, and the tombstones are HUGE. They are giant slabs of cement on them that are placed very close together. Also, they do not appear to be arranged in any kind of organized fashion, they're just all over the place. No neat rows or anything. The tops of the graves were covered in grasses and weeds - it looks like nobody takes care of the cemetery at all. There were very few flowers, but many tombs had rocks on them. Apparently, I'm not sure why, this is common to do for Jewish graves. It started out as just putting a special white stone on the tombs, but nowadays people just put normal looking rocks on them. There are also little lantern like lights at the base of some of the graves. Most of these peoples' relatives though have moved away from Poland so I think that's why most of the graves (which as I said are all mostly old, pre-WWII) look unvisited. It was maybe the most dilapidated looking graveyard I've ever been to. Then there was a somber moment when I heard something like a crack and something a little like a squish. We realized that Pawel had smooshed a snail, enjoying to damp pavement all sprawled out of its shell. He completely smooshed the poor thing on accident, broken shell and snail goo now in a messy, sad pile. I get really sad when animals die. It always makes me sad when living things have their lives cut short. :(
Then Pawel helped us to order zanipanki (sp?). It is sort of like an open faced baguette with layers of warm food on it. I ordered one with salami, cheese, and chives. Little did I know, that in between the bread and the melted cheese (i.e. the first layer of the ... thing) was a secret layer of mushrooms. Then on top of the cheese was the salami, followed by cut up chives, ketchup, and sliced pickles. It was really weird! To get the mushrooms off (no, I did not eat them) I had to peel back the cheese with everything else on it and meticulously get all the yucky pieces out. Pawel loves mushrooms and he made me feel a bit awkward - like it was my fault or something - for not liking them. I tried many times to explain that I just don't like them, I'm not that mature yet ... :)
After lunch, we headed back to Pawel's apartment. Since we've now seen the Jewish quarter, the Wawel castle, and the old city/main square area, there doesn't seem to be too much else to do in terms of walking around and sight seeing. So for the first time our whole trip, we literally just sat inside his apartment for hours. It was productive I guess, and the weather was poopy outside so it was nice to have some down time. Eventually, it was time to eat again and then head out to a club.
We went to two bars and had some Polish beer. The second bar had a dance floor and I actually danced (read: had one too many beers). I'm sure I looked positively awful. I have no clue what time we came home, but I slept like a rock!
So far Poland is interesting because it is the most challenging country we've been to. We're close to our halfway point, the weather is gloomy, we can't pronounce/understand anything, and the history is depressing. It is a very different experience but I am so glad we worked it into our trip.
Sorry, no little fun ending things...
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Pawel - CS #14
I awoke at exactly 6:04 AM, paranoid that because it was daylight I had somehow missed my stop in Krakow. Never fear, we weren't due in to Krakow until 6:30 AM. SO early! I roused myself and got my few belongings together. Pavel (pronunciation as best I can understand = Paveau, kind of like French in my mind though he claims it's not) told us to not move from the platform. So we got off the train and stood on the platform....for literally 5 seconds before Pavel came up to us and said hi! A fantastically smooth CouchSurfing transition, given that it was SO early in the morning and Laura was quite delirious from not sleeping (among some other things, perhaps).
Pavel took us to a bus station where he bought us tickets, since we have no Polish Zloties yet, and we bused to his neighborhood. On the way to his flat he stopped by a bakery to get us some breakfast, which we later found out were breads with poppy seed chunks in them. Once at his flat, we ate our breads while he served us tea. Pavel is 19 and a university student, thus you can imagine the heroic feat of him waking up so early to pick us up at the train station!!! It was extremely kind.
After that, Laura went to bed and I stayed up to try and finish blogging. This took a while due to the fact that Pavel is perhaps one of the most conversational hosts we've had yet! And I mean this in the best way possible. That is what CouchSurfing is all about, talking, learning, and sharing. It is really very endearing how eager he is to learn about us and to communicate with us. He lives with four other university boys but everybody knows he has the best English; He works so hard at this language. He also really wants us to help him by correcting grammar and pronunciation, which we are more than happy to do. Usually I feel badly, like I am offending somebody, if I correct their English. This is because A) I can understand 99% of what they say, even if it's not perfect, and B) Their English is INFINITY times better than my knowledge of their language!
Anyway, I got into many interesting discussions with Pawel which were lots of fun. Eventually Laura woke up and we were hungry. At this point it felt like we had been up forever, but really it was only around 1 PM. We set out with Jacek (pronunciation: Yaht-sikh) who is Pawel's roommate who is also involved in CouchSurfing. Jacek is funny because his English is quite good he is just self-conscious of his speaking to the point of being terrified to speak to native speakers! But really, Laura and I are so easy going, and even if we couldn't speak the same language we would find a way to communicate with body language and pictures. Anyway, we understand Jacek just fine and I think throughout the week he will become more comfortable.
He first took us to a milk bar which is something Poland is known for. They started when Poles were not allowed to drink alcohol, I think, as a place to eat and drink (non-alcoholic beverages) and gather. Now, they are seen more as fast, cheap, good, traditional food suitable for people of all ages. It was lunch time so the place we went to appeared to be quite popular. We got fried pork with potatoes and cabbage. I also got some fruit juice...no idea what fruit was actually in it (in chunks at the bottom) but it was sweet and delicious. So Polish!!!
I keep getting comments about being like a Japanese photographer - which is embarrassing because Asians in general are made fun of SO much for incessantly taking pictures!! I'm not like that, I promise!!
Also, before I forget, we are the first native American English speakers these boys have heard! I think that is so cool. They know what we sound like from movies and TV shows, and they know English from studying and meeting British people, but they had never heard our 'accent' before. I thought that was pretty cool to be the first. And, they are pretty knew to CouchSurfing. Pawel only joined 5 of 6 weeks ago and already he has been hosting people every week. I am so happy to see more9 people get involved and begin hosting people so often and be so engaged in the wonderful CS project.
After food, Jacek took us all around the old city, through the main square, to the oldest university, past the town hall, to the church where the Polish president's funeral was just a short while ago, to the place where the president is buried, and to the old Wawel castle. It was quite a lot of sight seeing for one afternoon! We may have seen some other things too that I am forgetting, especially because pronunciation is so difficult for me here.
Pawel and Jacek essentially traded places as Pawel was done with classes at University at 4 PM and Jacek had class soon after that. Pawel then took us to a great brewery where we had some good Polish beer. We sat there and chatted with each other for about an hour and a half. It is always such a pleasure for me to get to know knew hosts.
Then we went grocery shopping for dinner. Pawel was nice enough to actually make dinner for us! All we had to do was sit around and talk to his roommates...Before dinner happened though I helped Pawel correct grammar etc. on his CouchSurfing profile which was lots of fun. I only feel badly that I can't explain why some things are right and some things are wrong, I just know it since I'm a native speaker. While we sat around, I used Laura's language mini-dictionary and practiced Polish sounds/words/phrases. Even though it seems impossible I really do like to try. The boys laugh at me every time I say anything though :) One of this roommates was playing 'DJ' and was taking song requests. I had him look up Death Cab for Cutie (a great Seattle band) to share some of our wonderful music culture with them!
Dinner was not traditional Polish, but fantastic nonetheless. After that, we were all kind of exhausted from not sleeping, sleeping very little, waking up early, walking around town all day, etc. The boys helped us plan out our next few days in Krakow, but I will tell you all of those things as they happen...
Accomplishments:
Made it to Poland.
Travel Tip:
I think a mini language dictionary is very helpful so that you can get to know key words and phrases in the native language of the country you are visiting. I am excited to keep practicing! Trading English lessons for Polish lessons sounds good to me :)
Pavel took us to a bus station where he bought us tickets, since we have no Polish Zloties yet, and we bused to his neighborhood. On the way to his flat he stopped by a bakery to get us some breakfast, which we later found out were breads with poppy seed chunks in them. Once at his flat, we ate our breads while he served us tea. Pavel is 19 and a university student, thus you can imagine the heroic feat of him waking up so early to pick us up at the train station!!! It was extremely kind.
After that, Laura went to bed and I stayed up to try and finish blogging. This took a while due to the fact that Pavel is perhaps one of the most conversational hosts we've had yet! And I mean this in the best way possible. That is what CouchSurfing is all about, talking, learning, and sharing. It is really very endearing how eager he is to learn about us and to communicate with us. He lives with four other university boys but everybody knows he has the best English; He works so hard at this language. He also really wants us to help him by correcting grammar and pronunciation, which we are more than happy to do. Usually I feel badly, like I am offending somebody, if I correct their English. This is because A) I can understand 99% of what they say, even if it's not perfect, and B) Their English is INFINITY times better than my knowledge of their language!
Anyway, I got into many interesting discussions with Pawel which were lots of fun. Eventually Laura woke up and we were hungry. At this point it felt like we had been up forever, but really it was only around 1 PM. We set out with Jacek (pronunciation: Yaht-sikh) who is Pawel's roommate who is also involved in CouchSurfing. Jacek is funny because his English is quite good he is just self-conscious of his speaking to the point of being terrified to speak to native speakers! But really, Laura and I are so easy going, and even if we couldn't speak the same language we would find a way to communicate with body language and pictures. Anyway, we understand Jacek just fine and I think throughout the week he will become more comfortable.
He first took us to a milk bar which is something Poland is known for. They started when Poles were not allowed to drink alcohol, I think, as a place to eat and drink (non-alcoholic beverages) and gather. Now, they are seen more as fast, cheap, good, traditional food suitable for people of all ages. It was lunch time so the place we went to appeared to be quite popular. We got fried pork with potatoes and cabbage. I also got some fruit juice...no idea what fruit was actually in it (in chunks at the bottom) but it was sweet and delicious. So Polish!!!
I keep getting comments about being like a Japanese photographer - which is embarrassing because Asians in general are made fun of SO much for incessantly taking pictures!! I'm not like that, I promise!!
Also, before I forget, we are the first native American English speakers these boys have heard! I think that is so cool. They know what we sound like from movies and TV shows, and they know English from studying and meeting British people, but they had never heard our 'accent' before. I thought that was pretty cool to be the first. And, they are pretty knew to CouchSurfing. Pawel only joined 5 of 6 weeks ago and already he has been hosting people every week. I am so happy to see more9 people get involved and begin hosting people so often and be so engaged in the wonderful CS project.
After food, Jacek took us all around the old city, through the main square, to the oldest university, past the town hall, to the church where the Polish president's funeral was just a short while ago, to the place where the president is buried, and to the old Wawel castle. It was quite a lot of sight seeing for one afternoon! We may have seen some other things too that I am forgetting, especially because pronunciation is so difficult for me here.
Pawel and Jacek essentially traded places as Pawel was done with classes at University at 4 PM and Jacek had class soon after that. Pawel then took us to a great brewery where we had some good Polish beer. We sat there and chatted with each other for about an hour and a half. It is always such a pleasure for me to get to know knew hosts.
Then we went grocery shopping for dinner. Pawel was nice enough to actually make dinner for us! All we had to do was sit around and talk to his roommates...Before dinner happened though I helped Pawel correct grammar etc. on his CouchSurfing profile which was lots of fun. I only feel badly that I can't explain why some things are right and some things are wrong, I just know it since I'm a native speaker. While we sat around, I used Laura's language mini-dictionary and practiced Polish sounds/words/phrases. Even though it seems impossible I really do like to try. The boys laugh at me every time I say anything though :) One of this roommates was playing 'DJ' and was taking song requests. I had him look up Death Cab for Cutie (a great Seattle band) to share some of our wonderful music culture with them!
Dinner was not traditional Polish, but fantastic nonetheless. After that, we were all kind of exhausted from not sleeping, sleeping very little, waking up early, walking around town all day, etc. The boys helped us plan out our next few days in Krakow, but I will tell you all of those things as they happen...
Accomplishments:
Made it to Poland.
Travel Tip:
I think a mini language dictionary is very helpful so that you can get to know key words and phrases in the native language of the country you are visiting. I am excited to keep practicing! Trading English lessons for Polish lessons sounds good to me :)
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