Eurotrip part 3

The train to Krakow left Prague at 2 and somehow took 7 hours, despite maps displaying the distance as shorter than Berlin to Prague. A combination of a slow train and all-too-frequent and lengthy stops at insignificant Czech cities (or Czech points, as you will) contributed to this snoozer of a train ride, particularly because we were engulfed in darkness for the majority of the trip. My left contact cracked during the ride, and I neglected to bring a spare, so I was a cyclops for the rest of the night and spectacled for the remainder of the trip. So we arrived at Krakow around 9 and experienced a brief moment of panic. Because there were likely multiple Krakow stations, we weren’t sure where to get off. We knew we wanted to be near city center and were scared to stay on the train for another stop and then find ourselves in another Polish town, but had a feeling that the first Krakow stop would be on the outskirts of the city, because so many passengers were remaining on the train. With no instructions in English to guide us, we got off anyways and asked the first person we saw whether we were close to city center, and were extremely relieved to hear an affirmative response. So we get off the platform and somehow find ourselves in a shopping mall buzzing with Christmas Cheer. It’s always odd when your first sight of a new city is a shopping mall, and I’m not sure what kind of train stations in the US are directly connected with major gallerias, but both Berlin and Krakow seem to enjoy intertwining transportation with consumerism. We debated on our train what the Polish conversion rate was, and somehow settled on 7:1 euro, based on our plane ticket receipts. So after wandering towards an ATM, both of us took out large sums of upwards of 500 Polish Zloty (pronounce that correctly and I’ll give you some). Then we made another one of those treks towards our hostel that invariably involves getting lost 2 or 3 times. This one was a little bit easier because Krakow is defined by its city square, which Wikipedia tells me is the largest medieval town square in Europe at 200 by 200 meters.

Arriving at the square, I discovered this figure to be a bit deceiving because a large, World Heritage cloth hall which used to house a major trading bazaar sat in the center of the square. So while the square was still massive, it wasn’t 40,000 m² of open space and in that regard, isn’t even the biggest square I’ve been in this year ($10 to the first person who knows what that square would be, no joke). Like many other squares we’ve come across on this Eurotrip, this one was also decked out in Christmas Cheer, with a flourishing Christmas market that looked just like the ones in Prague and Berlin, and likewise smelled excellent. Now the hostel we booked here literally called itself the World’s Best Hostel, as ranked by Hostelworld.com for multiple years. In fact, the hostelworld description suggested that we were booking an unusual hostel. So we were extremely excited and curious – would there be elaborate carpeting, down pillows, sexy staff, complimentary saunas or a hilarious interior décor? I personally expected entrance shots.

The Flamingo, as this legendary hostel called itself, was actually totally undeserving of its award. I mean the place was nice and spacious and clean, altogether a pleasant hostel, but there was a complete dearth of anything epic. In addition, the hostel had just one set of room keys, so we had to return it when we left the hostel, which kinda irked me. The only reason behind its reputation that I could come up with was its thorough social calendar, with free hostel-led pub crawls every day. There were signs everywhere that said something like, “Party with your staff members!” So it was clearly a fun place and we decided we’d take them up on it the next night. Anyways I know no one cares about the hostel, so on to the city.

We headed out for food, and despite numerous kebab or sausage joints, we wanted to take advantage of the exchange rate and get a good meal, so we popped into a restaurant off the square. Somehow it was 10:30 at this point and the place was empty and unexpectedly formal. The waiter clearly thought that Diane and I was an item and really created an awkward mood. But anyways, we’re taking a look at this great menu and then see Euro prices next to the Zloty, and realize, oh shit…the exchange rate was not the 7:1 that we had thought, but was instead a humble 3.75:1, that really brought us down to earth. Suddenly, the restaurant seemed very expensive, and we were staring at hundreds of dollars in our wallets. Note to future travelers: don’t make that mistake, look up the exchange rate.

After dinner, we decided to walk around but not actually do anything. It would be the only night in the trip that I did not drink, and we ended up getting an early start to the next day, which was well worth it. Krakow really had a different air to it that I can’t quite put my finger on, but it didn’t quite feel like Western Europe. The town square was certainly a cool sight, a bustling space of stands, vendors, performers and odd promotions (two guys dressed as beer mugs walked around with a sign that said “FREE BEER”) surrounded by ancient and beautiful buildings, including two towers and a cathedral. I read a children’s book a long time ago called Trumpeter of Krakow, which I forgot about until I was on the train towards the city. This book talks about a trumpet player who plays a tune from the top of the tower every hour but cuts out in the middle of the melody. The book explained this cut off as an homage to the trumpeter who was playing with the Tartars invaded this city, who stayed true to the schedule even though the city was being conquered, and was struck in the throat by an arrow during his performance and thus abruptly cut off. This legend is apparently made up, but it is true, as I heard firsthand, that the trumpeters cut off the melody, which really does create a jarring ending. The cloth hall in the center of the square is also quite a sight. One can appreciate both the simplistic beauty of its design and its historical importance, as well as take something out from it as it is still a trading center, nowadays selling cheap souvenirs to tourists like me.

We then headed out to Krakow Castle, not really knowing what to expect. What we found was a walled complex rather similar to Prague Castle, with an actual castle building next to several other buildings that were once connected to the royalty. This includes a far less impressive cathedral and several buildings that are now museums. While I’m not an expert on Polish architecture, these buildings all felt Polish, with an interesting color blend that you just wouldn’t find further west. One of the museums that we checked out held lots of ancient weapons and armaments, and I made a quip about how this armor was worn by a soldier killed by the Tartars, this sword was used when the Russians conquered the Poles, and this crossbow was used in vain against the Austrians, and this cannon was involved in the loss to the Prussians. Oh Polish military history, they should be so thankful for the French. Well anyways the castle was really pretty.

We lunched it at a place recommended by our hostel. We were searching for something cheap and authentic and were directed to the perfect place: a hole-in-the-ground restaurant that styled itself after traditional Polish home eating. The place had large tables, where people sat cafeteria-style, and pumped out delicious and inexpensive dishes such as potato pancakes, Polish sausages and other authentic stuff that I can’t remember…I had an absolutely terrific meal, even thought it clogged up two of my remaining seven arteries.

Afterwards we split up to shop for a bit and spend our outrageous amounts of Zloty. I saw a ton of dragon souvenirs because apparently, Krakow was built on top of a dragon’s lair after a man named Krak slayed a dragon by feeding it a poisoned goat. Somehow, that legend has led to a dragon being the protector of Krakow. Well nearly every shop sold these bright green stuffed dragons, which while adorable, look way too much like Barney. Dragons are very meaningful to me, because I am born in the year of the Dragon along with my father and my athletic idol (Bruce Lee). On top of that, the best Magic card I ever had was a dragon, and if I could be one fairy tale creature, it would undoubtedly be a dragon (with a leprechaun coming in distant second). So I really wanted to buy some sort of dragon here, but all I found were cute useless toddler toys. I wanted a dragon that could defend Poland, not befriend my Beanie Babies. Well I soon learned that there was an actual bronze dragon near the Castle that we had managed to miss, and I told Diane that we had to go back there. Unfortunately it was twilight by the time we reached it and discovered that while this dragon, at 15 feet tall and claws that could cut bone, was pretty bad ass, it was possibly the biggest tourist trap we’d seen all trip. The dragon clearly had no historical significance, and was put there to impress little kids, evident by the fact that it breathed fire every few minutes! I was actually snapping a picture when the fire began and now I have that sweet picture.

The rest of our night was rather uneventful, including a trip to the old Jewish quarter of the city, which was really cool but extremely sketchy at night. Apparently a factory owned by Schindler was in the area but if we saw it, we didn’t know. We got back to the hostel and prepared for another pub crawl, hopefully as exciting as our Berlin one. Well, this pub crawl differed from that one in both cost (much cheaper) and Americans (much fewer). It was cheaper because the hostel supplied us with several bottles of cheap, Polish vodka and basically forced us all to kill them. The event ended up being an organized pregame, where the staff members, mostly Polish, got their Polish friends over to drink on the hostel’s dime. While everyone could speak English, they generally didn’t, and between occasional stints of effort to get to know my Polish hosts better, I spent most of the time talking to the two Australians and one other American. The American was another “character,” who at 19 and sporting Napoleon Dynamite glasses, was one of the youngest and goofiest people I have met in Europe. He had been studying Armenian in Armenia, hadn’t entered college yet, and was in Poland for a few weeks with absolutely no clue what he was doing. So every 15 minutes or so, we’d say the Polish word for “cheers” and take a shot of vodka with our cheap plastic shot glasses. What begun as an interesting cultural blend of a pregame turned into an absolute shitshow when the
pregame entered its third hour and I lost count of the shots. I started making derisive comments about fluffy-ass dragons and suggesting we go “Pole dancing.” We did eventually make it out to a club/lounge where the music was loud, techno and Polish, which if you’ve ever gone clubbing with me, you would know that I was less than thrilled. In addition, this so called “pub crawl” ended at this first club, which really kinda takes the crawl out. Luckily the beer was cheap there, so another glass or two of that made sitting there listening to my cohorts jabber in Polish a little bit better. I think I was taught 15 Polish words that night and remember just the one for “thank you.” Luckily this club was very close to the hostel and we were able to stumble back just fine.

Diane was quite hungover the next morning, it was actually kinda funny. We departed for the train station/mall but got confused by the crazy setup and ended up missing the train to the airport. We bit the bullet and took a $30 cab ride, and after getting past some immigration officials who meant business (they didn’t want anyone to slip through the kraks), we were en route back to Dublin. I was just exhausted from the trip, oversaturated with Christmas Cheer, alcohol, fried food and medieval architecture.