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Published: September 3rd 2008
Interesting Poland fact #2: Polish is a surprising easy language to pick up, providing you have seven tongues, are already fluent in Russian, and have, in fact, lived in Poland your entire life.
Leaving Warsaw, Invading Krakow
We all have those moments in our lives. Those moments where you and whoever you're with look at each other with a mutual understanding. You look at each other, and you can tell you're both thinking exactly the same thing. And that thing is: "Maybe somebody laced that shisha we were smoking last night with acid, and that's why it looks like the entire main road has become a field with 8ft blocks of ice on it." On our way to the train station, Matt and I had one of these moments.
What made this moment unique, however, is that we weren't tripping, and we still have the box of grass to prove it! That's right: a Polish woman actually gave us a free box of grass. Since that life-changing moment, the box of grass (which we have affectionately named "BOGski") has replaced Edde as our traveling companion, our friend, and our brother. Sorry Edde.
Anyhoo, we're still not entirely sure what the purpose of this grass/ice thing was. The woman mentioned something about global warming though, and the display did make the point that, when ice is outside in 31 degree heat, ice does indeed melt :-O Thanks, Poland!... Tholand...
So, BOGski in hand, we made our way to Krakow. Realising it was going to be a long walk, we decided to get the train instead. I continued my tradition of making good first impressions on foreigners by skillfully placing my 15kg bag on the shelf above our carriage's heads JUST close enough to the edge, so that after about 10 minutes it fell off, crushing 3 members of the carriage. I guess it was bad on the whole "moral conscience" front (not to mention laundry bills), but, on the plus side, more leg-room!
In Krakow, we turned up at a hostel that put the 'ow' in 'Krakow'. But not a painful, oh-my-god-there's-a-hole-in-my-leg 'ow', but a Michael Jackson, check-out-how-goddamn-funky-my-shoes-are! 'ow'! Seconds after handing over our precious gold to the receptionist, we were sat chatting to a room full of awesome people and were actually served tea. TEA! Sure, asking for tea the moment we turned up somewhere didn't do much for breaking the English stereotype, but this woman found our weakness, and that weakness' name was Earl Grey. Or PG tips. One of the two.
That night we went out with the hostel to try Polish pancakes, or, as we have renamed them "solid pieces of grease". And not grease as in the movie, either. This is not a bad thing, however: it was like cheesy chips times four hundred and eight thousand six hundred and twenty three (point five), not least because we got to eat them in a room in a pub that genuinely had a bed in the corner. After drinking a few cheap beers, we all headed back to the hostel, where we played drinking games with an Aussie and two Kiwis who lived in London. Well, I say we "played" the drinking games, but these were Australian drinking games, which essentially means you have to guess the card, and if you're wrong, you drink, and if you're right, you drink, and if you're wrong but close, well... you get the picture.
"If you don't laugh, you'll cry"
We figured that such an awesome and happy start to a stay needed to be continued in a like manner. Accordingly, we awoke early the next day to visit Auschwitz.
It would be a disgrace to the memory of too many people to even begin describing the actual place or tour in the biggest centre of bullshit since the Aegean stables, so it will be left untouched.
We did manage to get the sweetest deal on the bus there and back, however. Seriously, the chairs were nearly big enough to sit in, and there was nearly enough of them for all the people on the bus! The air conditioning nearly worked, the lights nearly worked, and even the window was occasionally opened for very brief periods. Considering what we were about to see/had just seen though, we didn't really think we could complain...
That night, the hostel were offering to take people out for shisha, and, never ones to turn down free shit (or free shisha, for that matter) Matt and I gladly accepted. But, we were also the only ones who accepted. So, the receptionist took us to a club that was rammed full of 4 people (including the 3 of us and the bartender) and bought us a shisha pipe and a couple of beers (which totalled about half of what we were actually paying to stay at the hostel. Did I mention the hostel was awesome?) After chilling with the receptionist for a fair while, Matt and I stuck about the club to enjoy the wondrous view of the typical, drunken, loutish, English, male football fans who seem to infect every city in the world. Twas a chillaxed night though, and a cheap one. It was no Great Extravaganza, though. Never yet, Socrates.
The Curse of the Tardis
The next morning, once again, Matt and I were up and about before 9 o'clock. Seriously, two days in a row! What kind of holiday is that?! If anyone ever says traveling is a walk in the park they should be hung, drawn, and quartered (and the drawing should be sold to them at an extortionate price). It's more like a walk up a mountain. In fact, that's EXACTLY what yesterday was like. BUDUM TISH.
So yes, for those suffering from extreme slowness (or Edditis, as it is known in the business), we got up early to go up a mountain. We caught a bus to the Polish/Slavakian boarder, at which point our guide (the owner of the hostel, an awesomely friendly guy named Slovic) refused to let us go any further until we had visited a duty free off liscence in Slovakia, with the express purpose of buying absinthe, which is illegal in Poland. So, we strolled over the boarder (completely literally - we even did the "now I'm in this country, now I'm in this country!" dance that seems to be universally known, but only seems to show itself at invisible lines) and entered a building that was made out of pure dreams. Within 43 seconds, I had run in, examined the alcohol selection, and bought a bottle of rum, a bottle of whiskey, and a bottle of absinthe.
As it turns out, climbing a mountain whilst carrying three large bottles of alcohol is not quite as simple as climbing a mountain without carrying three large bottles of alcohol. Who'd have thought? For similar reasons, climbing a mountain whilst carrying 5 books, several important documents, pens, an MP3 player, an elephant, an angry Chinese man, and three large bottles of alcohol isn't quite as easy as doing it whilst carrying a water bottle. Luckily for us, the elephant died on the bus and it was the Chinese man's day off, but it still wasn't easy. Within minutes, Slovic took pity and offered to carry two of the alcohol bottles, and then continued to stride miles ahead, along with our other companion, a cool London bobby from New Zealand called Glen. Or, to give him his Polish name, Colin. Matt and I struggled along behind, spurred on only by the promise of absinthe at the top of the mountain.
It was more than worth it. At the height of our travels, we came to the VALLEY OF THE FIVE LAKES. I hesitate to put this name on the internet, because it's almost certainly trademarked by some fantasy novel or other, but this valley was AMAZING. Even more picturesque than watching Jess getting crushed by a particularly beautiful tree, it would have been literally breath-taking if we had had any breath left in us.
A beer, some absinthe, and some awesome hot wine later, we walked down the mountain, much to the protest of our feet. After what seemed like hours, but was actually hours and hours, we got to the bottom, and got back to the hostel for 10 o'clock.
By this point, it seems we had decided that, if we were gonna fuck our feet over, we were gonna fuck them over good and proper. So, having a met an awesome bunch of Aussies at the hostel, we went out to the pub and had an stupidly fun night debating Aussie rules football, chipmunking racing, and, naturally, travelling.
The End
Today, we have pretty much taken the day off. Having spent a fair few hours wandering around and exploring the amazing streets of Krakow, we figured our feet would soon be guilty of homicide if we kept treating them so badly. Since then we have just been in the hostel, hence the reason this blog is so stupidly long.
Tonight, we leave for Budapest. The Great Extravaganza, as of yet, remains elusive.
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Niall
non-member comment
Rock on
Keep shining, crazy star diamonds! When do you anticipate reaching the extravaganza?