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Published: June 18th 2008
Inside a destined bubble of time, I find myself loving Poland far more than the others.
The reason I mention the time bubble is because the reason I enjoyed Krakow SO much has more to do with the people in my hostel than it does the actual city. I will mention my favorite people.
Nicolette- She is from Chicago. I knew this a long time before I actually met her, because the staff told me there was another girl from the US there.
Craig and Chris- They practically live there. Craig (pronounced Crig) is from Wales, and Chris is from Scotland. They've both been there since midmay, and Chris works there now. His official job is to take people out and show them a good time at the clubs and pubs, lol. I informed him that every man at FSU envied his job.
Anka- Sweet girl from reception who went out for drinks with me and Nicolette.
Josh, Allen, and other random boys- Josh was from Australia, Allen from Scotland, and the others were all there to celebrate Craigs brothers birthday. There were 4 random boys.
Alright, so from the beginning- I
left Budapest for Krakow on a night train, a new experience for me. I splurged and got a room with only one other person in the room because I have heard horror stories about night train travel. I waited for the other person to get there for a long time, but the train started moving and still no roomie. So, I layed down, all sprawled out on the bottom bunk, but there was something weird about it. I felt quite uneasy and I didn't know why it was so strange. Then I realized- I was alone! I hadn't been alone in so long that it unnerved me not to have 5 people sleeping in the same room. I got to Krakow around 6 in the morning and managed to find my hostel pretty easily, thankfully. I put my luggage up and walked around for a while but got tired so I went back to the hostel and kind of laid down on the couch. I read some of my book and had just started dozing off when i heard some crazy guy start chatting up the receptionist with a mate of his. I dozed some more and he walked over
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This was important...but I don't completely remember what everything represented...but it was important/with the girl from reception who was showing him something out the window, and I looked up all groggly and sleepy, and he started singing at me with hand gestures. I kind of shrunk back, not in fear necessarily, but you know how whenever you meet someone who seems unnaturally cheerful you worry that there may be something wrong with them. So, then some more people came in, which made me decide to at least sit up so as not to be rude and antisocial. I chatted with a guy from England, and he was quite nice but a bit hard to understand. He did at one point use the phrase "Are you having a laugh" which I must say made my day! I've been waiting to hear someone say that ever since I saw it on EXTRAS; I can check that off of my list of things to do and/or experience in life. Come to find out the crazy man was his father, but he was from Ireland. I grew to love Mr. Ireland. He was just an unusually cheerful person, but incredibley sweet and not in a creepy way.
Finally, it was time to check into the
room, but Anya wasn't sure if it was ready so she went to check. When she came back down the first thing she said was "there is a little problem". Those are the scariest words a backpacker can hear when in desparate need of a place to crash. Turns out that the room I was scheduled to be in was full of messy boys, so they were going to change my room, "And there is a girl from Chicago staying in that room," Anya said. So, I was like "alright, problem solved." Not quite. The new room was full for the next two nights so I'd have to go to the dirty room anyway, so I opted to just go to the dirty room and stay so that I didn't have to switch. So, yes, parental figures, I stayed in a room full of only boys for 3 nights...and survived. The boys were fun and nice so it wasn't too bad, until the last night, anyway, but I'll get to that later. I was the only girl and the only American, and I was okay with that. British boys are more amusing than American boys.
So, at one point
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The little kids show Nicolette and I watched. I was downstairs sitting with Craig and Chris, and a nice girl, Nicolette, started talking with us. I immediately asked if she was from Chicago, and she smiled and said yes. Then I felt I should tell her how I knew that....didn't want to freak out my only ally! We chatted for a bit and then she asked if I wasn't doing anything did I want to go eat...so I went, and we had SO much fun. I felt very comfortable with her, which is surprising becuase we are quite, quite different. We were going to go to a different place for desert but we got distracted because there was something going on in the square. They'd put a stage up earlier and there was a band playing on it. Earlier too, while Nicolette was in the bathroom, a bunch of cars and motorcycles proceeded through the square by where we sat, and some of the cars had a thing that made flames on the top of the cars! I kept thinking that Nicolette wouldn't believe me when she came back, lol. It was so random. But apparently the flame makers were the things used in hot air balloons becausec
they blew a few of them up. They didn't fly them though, they just sat there. Weird choice of decoration. Anyway the music was GREAT. The musicians were all young, but it was the conducter that was the most interesting! He was nuts, lol. He didn't conduct like normal, he looked like he was dancing all crazy like. From the description Craig termed it "freestyle conducting". 😊 After the concert we got desert and Nicolette talked about salsa dancing and tried to get me to go with her that night, but I said how about the next night since I was so tired.
The next day I walked around. I went to the church where Pope John Paul II gave his first holy mass, and walked around Wawel hill, where the castle is. Then I went back and Nicolette and I went out for food again, and in the square that night they had a little theatre and we watched. I should point out something about Nicolette; her parents were born in Poland so she speaks Polish fluently....which definately came in handy, especially during the play that was all in Polish. I don't know what was cuter, the play
or her translations! One of my favorite parts was when the mouse got a little solo and she came out and sang about cheese, of course. She kept saying she didn't know why there were holes in cheese. It just baffled her. She said that the cat always said Mouse put the holes there, but it was a lie! Where do all the holes come from, lol. She just kept asking that, where? It was so adorable. I really don't think anyone enjoyed the show more than we did. We went away skipping, it was great. Then...we went salsa dancing. I was quite shy about it, and not to great, but she was a really good and patient teacher. She taught me a few little things and we danced for a while, then a guy asked her to dance right as we went to go sit. They danced and everyone (all 5 people, lol) who were dancing stopped and watched. They were so good. They realy, really were just so impressive. I felt like I was watching a scene from a movie, lol. Turns out, the boy dances for Poland professionally! He competes in ballroom and ballet, but dances salsa
for fun. He really liked Nicolette, but the poor boy wasn't her type. Lucky for me though, cuz she asked him to "take me around" the dance floor. I objected, but he caught me later while I was dancing by myself. He was also very nice and he gave me some basics. I can say I got lessons from a pro! Lol. It was a blast though! I'm going to take some classes and go to some clubs in Scotland. It was really funny, because I turned to her and asked in a scared little tone "do you think they'll have salsa in Scotland" and she looked at me and was like "well, if they have it in Poland!"
Sadly she left the next day, and I didn't get up early to go to Auschwitz with the American guy I met earlier. I started to go by myself, but then freaked myself out so I didn't go...I went to the mall instead. I know, sounds stupid, but suddenly I couldn't bare to go somewhere so sad and I needed to be cheered up. I was already sad because Nicolette was leaving. I bought a tour for Auschwitz and he
saltmine for my last day, because my train for Prague didn't leave until 10ish and then just wandered around. I sat and read by the river for a while. I finished "Peter Pan" and started reading a little novella by Henry James. I watched Animal Planet with Chris, and learned that when Craig said he played Poker for a living he wasn't actually kidding. Apparently he created a poker program that learns from it's mistakes and other smart computer sciency things. All the boys in my room were going out that night and tried to get me to go but I was looking forward to having the room to myself...unfortunatley they didn't go out until like 1 am, so I didn't go to sleep until like 3 am, mind I had to wake up at 7 for all the things I had planned that day.
The mattress War
I left the light on when I went to sleep for the boys so they could see when they got home. About 5 in themorning I hear people, and see that two of them came home, but apparently one of them had left the group several hours before
the other but they arrived at the same time. He said he'd gotten lost so he ran around for a few hours until he got to some place he recognized., literally, he ran, lol. He kept talking to me, but he was so funny I didn't really mind. Then about an hour after I went back to sleep I woke up to stifled laughing any my bed shaking. I should mention the guy who got lost was the guy sleeping in the bunk above mine. The lauging became unmuffled and the shaking became more intense, so after about 5 minutes I finally turned over to see what the heck was going on! To my surprise I couldn't see anything because there were matresses caging me in. There was a little gap so I looked through it and saw various objects soaring through the air, usually accompanied with a giggle. After it died down a bit and they started talking I piped in with, "what on earth are ya'll doing?" They immediately started laughing again, partly because I said ya'll which they love but mostly because I had witnessed the insanity. Apparently the guy above me left the group about an
hour after they got to the club saying he was going to the toilet, and he just never came back. So, they thought it ony fair to pile all the matresses in the room on top of him when they came home and saw him fast asleep. Then when he didn't wake up they started putting luggage on top of him. I saw pictures later and the stuff was piled about 3 feet hight! It was the strangest and funniest thing. Chris had it right at one point when he said "you'll never forget this". He also kept saying over and over "poor Heather". Poor Heather was right.
But they were all quite funny. Bristish boys are just so much funnier than American boys! It's just absurd. Well, I should say, to my own silly, sarcastic since of humor they are funnier. It gets even better, they actually filmed it, so if you have facebook you can go watch it! I commented on it so it's listed on my profile, lol.
Auschwitz
Well, with such a silly start to the day it seems odd that I went to the location of the cruelest and
deadliest Nazi Concentration camp, but I did. To be honest, it still hasn't fully hit me that I went there. I was so tired throughout the whole thing because of the lack of sleep and the dramamine for the 1 and 1/2 hour busride that it was kind of hard to focus. We watched a short film on the bus, and it was a typical little documentary. The first thing I saw was the snack bar at the museum at the Auschwitz. I got a drink and some candy, and felt kind of odd. It's weird to be so lucky and to have so much in a place where everything was taken from people, even their hair and teeth. It hit me a little then, and then we walked to the little displays and the gravel crunched really loudly beneath our feet and I kept thinking, "this is the last thing so many people saw, and they didn't even know it would be." Walking around that camp was more moving to me than walking through looking at all the stuff in the museum (they have rooms full of stuff behind glass like shoes, suitcases, glasses, and even human hair). People
were told they were being relocated so they brought all of their belongings, and then as soon as they were inside they were stripped of everything except their body and souls, but those were both taken soon after. We walked to the cramatoria. It was all just so surreal. Its so hard to believe that it was all allowed to happen. I have to admit I got a few chills in there.
We got back on the bus and went to Birkenau, which moved me the most. The guide took us into two buildings, the bathroom and one of the bunk rooms. It's so hard to think that people lived in that room. It was a pretty good size, but then she said how many people stayed there, and it was like two hundred or something like that! But she said they didn't mind it in the winter because it was so cold. I looked and there were gaps in between the ceiling and the walls, so obviously there was no insulation. Then, alone, I went to the train tracks where they separated those who were chosen to live from those who were killed immediatey. I sang a couple
of songs. It sounds stupid, but I wanted to do something to bring some sort of cheerfulness there. I felt like it was important to do that for the people who died there and to also show that the no matter how hard the Nazi's tried they can't take away some things. Singing a song felt like it defied the evil that lived there for so long, showing that good always wins. I also sang a little kids song for all the kids who were there. It was weird. I felt like they could hear. I also prayed. Then back on the bus.
The break
During the hour or so break between the two tours I went to get some lunch with Franca, a girl doing the same thing I was. She was very nice. She was from Germany, and as I later found out, she grew up in East Germany! So we talked about that for a while, and it was very interesting. I have to say as an Ideal I do not think that communism is evil, but the applications of it have been. Though, Franca said her life was fine. She admitted that
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Every hour a man comes out with a trumpet and plays a song, but stops mid note. It is in memory of someone sounding an alarm who got killed in the middle. some people had a very hard life under the iron curtain, but personally she didn't feel unfree or anything. Granted, she was only 10 when the wall fell, but still, it was fascinating to hear her take on it. We had cake at a cafe and then went to Subway, lol. Then we went back for the salt mine tour, and got back on the stupid bus, lol.
The Mine [
The mine was.... a lot of walking! It was cool though. I didn't take any pictures, becuase you had to buy rights for photo's and I thought, "food tomorrow, or pictures, hmmm" lol. But it was really neat, there were lots of little statues, but the best two things were the popes statue and the final chapel. The statue of the pope was s0o0o0o lifelike. AND IT WAS MADE OF SALT! I mean I can understand wax things looking real, but salt? That's impressive! The look in his eyes was just spot on, absolutely amazing. The chapel was just incredible too! On one wall there was a recreation of the last supper and it was really detailed. I loved it. And they had these amazing chandeliers
made of salt crystals, but as our breath causes them to dissolve they have to be replaced twice year! Crazy.
Well, I'm absolutely exhausted, so it's off to bed for me. Love you all!
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Colleen
non-member comment
I'm glad you sang :-)