Getting by in Poland

This is Rhys, still in Poland. I like it here, but I don't think it's my future home. The fact that everyone here is reasonable and un-pretentious is a plus in some ways, but it also means that there are fewer artists and interesting people. I used to haughtily look down on pretentious people from my lofty, exclusive mountain of non-pretentiousness, but thanks in part to a stirring defence of pretentiousness Nicole gave me a while back, I've come to almost admire it a bit. Would "Who is Jim Holt?" have come into existence without a certain amount of pretentiousness somewhere on someone's part? Probably not.

Nicole should be back in Prague by now after a life-altering adventure in Vienna, but you wouldn't know it from reading this blog. Nicoooooole! Wheeeeere areeeee youuuuu?! I'd like to harp on the absurdity of how often we've blogged here in backwards Crackow while Nicole never came within 200 metres of the internet in futuristic Vienna, but having a free computer with internet at the doorway to our hostel was kind of a big factor in that. What if Nicole came back to Prague completely different? Could she be a murderer now, or an architect, or an insane fan of Motzart? I'm actually kind of scared to go to Prague and find out. What if she tries to kill me and Rachel, or tries to re-build our apartment in the Baroque style, or makes us listen to Mozart's 9th over and over until we get sick and have to jump out the window? For now I am safe in Krackow, full off a banana, marveling at all the synchronicities in mine and Rachel's thoughts. Here's a blog entry that she wrote about being in Poland. I couldn't agree more with her version of the events:

I'm sitting right now in the lobby of the hostel Rhys and I are staying in in Krakow, Poland. Sad that we change the K to C in English, huh? It looks so much nicer in polish, complete with the little hat over the o...if only I knew how to do that on this keyboard.
Right now The old man behind the desk is arguing with an old woman with a fur trimmed coat. I think it is a joke argument though....they both keep pausing to laugh.
A lot of people wear fur in Poland. Yesterday I saw so many to-the-floor orange and gray dead oddities draped over people's shoulders that I wanted to cry....
But besides that, Poland is tops. This is my mother land. I can't deny it, I'm Polish. Well, I'm a mutt, but I'm more Polish than anything else....25%.
Growing up in America, Poles are subjected to a lot of jokes about their culture. So are lots of other cultures, but I mean, come on, the Poles have it rough. There are volumes and volumes of Polish jokes! We get picked on more than the blonds!
In grade school and junior high, everyone was Irish, and I always wished I was Irish too. I'd lie and say I was Irish, and the listen to the kids tell their Polish jokes in the playground. What was wrong with Poland? I wondered. My grandma was from Poland! She spoke Polish....she didn't seem stupid...
Yet, as a result of this early experience with shame in my people, I've always sort of hidden my Polish heritage, even until today.
Why still? Maybe I'm just used to it. If you were to ask me what I 'was,' even a few weeks age, I would play up my Italian roots, mention the small bit of Scottish and French I've in me....but somehow always leave out the Polish.

How do you get a one armed Pole to fall out of a tree?
Wave!

No more of this though, folks. I have become an ocean of Polish pride in the last 24 hours. Poland is a beautiful place. Riding in on the train just as the sun was rising is one of those experiences I will never forget as long as I live. We passed a tiny village full of cottages fit only for a midget race, complete with a church in the center, also to scale. We passed huge industrial centers, spewing gray smoke into the pink sky. As far as you could see was green green countryside.
But Poland isn't just looks, although all the people (at least the women, since I can't tell if men besides Rhys are attractive) are quite nice looking. This is a country with a rich culture and a very sad history. Poland has been taken over and stomped on for hundreds of years. It's relatively fresh as a nation in its current incarnation. This government has only been in power since 89, when Communist rule ended. As the travel guide said, now is a great time to go visit "a nation rebuilding itself." Krakow is the only Polish city that's architecture was completely spared by the bombs of war, and it shows in every step you take down every street.
Go Krakow. Go Poland!

Today will be our second full day here. We took the night train on Saturday night and got into the city at 5 in the morning. The train was 9 hours, and neither of us slept all that much. We walked off the train tired and cold (its freezing here, about 28) and with no idea how to get to our hostel. A rather intense looking girl with gray hair gave us directions from the train station, and as it turns out we were only a few blocks from the station. Once at the hostel we were informed that our room wouldn't be ready until eleven.
"We're so tired! Is there anywhere we could sleep?" I asked.
Why yes, there was, said the cute Polish girl behind the counter. We ended up being able to sleep in another room for four hours until our room was ready.
We have our own room with four beds. The hostel is designed like a co-op should be, with lofts and tiny staircases, and everywhere odd mirrors and paint jobs. We have a queen size bed in a huge loft that takes up half the room. I hope to take some photos of it, and perhaps inspire JR back at Royal to assist me in creating a similar structure in my own room. The hostel also has free breakfast, free tea and coffee whenever you want it, and cute Polish girls who will tell you where all the rock concerts and vegetarian places to eat are. Yesterday we were told about the "most important bar in Poland," but have yet to go there. I wonder if she literally meant to say important, or if there was some other meaning she was searching for. I love language....

After we settled into our room, we walked around the city for hours. We saw the famous castle, wandered into many churches, ate popcorn, went to a carnival and then an English language bookstore where they were having an open mic. The mid 40s man running the open mic sat in a circle with its younger attendees, and kept reading his poems since everyone else was to scared to. He even read a really bad poem and told them that if they didn't start reading. he'd subject them to more torture.
After that, we went to a grocery store, bought chocolate, olives, and bread, and then stumbled across a Mexican food place. We found it because a man was dressed in a hilarious mariachi outfit and dancing around outside of it. It didn't work on most people, I guess, because we were the only people inside.
Mexican food in Krakow is funny, and the guac was the fluffiest I've ever had. We got appetizers, meals, dessert and a beer for about 15 dollars American. Krakow is pretty cheap.
Today we are going to see Auschwitz, and then maybe to an indoor go-kart arena in the south of the city.
I must sign off now and eat my lovely free breakfast. Hope everyone is doing well in the states....