Poland - Cieszyn, Krakow and in between

Last weekend, I went to visit Sarah in Poland.

She lives in Cieszyn, Poland, right on the border with the Czech Republic. The train station is in Cesky Tesin - the part of town where Sarah lives is in Poland.

It was great! Apart from the INSANE winter storms that battered Central Europe (20 cm of snow, -15C...) on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, it was wonderful. I just ended up wearing 3-4 layers of clothing everywhere I went.

It was so refreshing to see Sarah! So wonderful! I really wish we could have spent more time together, but because Poland does not celebrate the Immacualte Conception (at least as a national holiday where one would get out of school), Sarah had to work on Monday. Which led me to Krakow for the rest of my weekend...

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home (doof) and will thus have to wait for Sarah to send me the ones she took to share any pictures with YOU (my unknown virtual audience whose existence I take for granted). In  the meantime, I'll just tell you what happened.



Friday -
I get on a train to Vienna right after school. It is snowing like mad, and I realize - as the train pulls up - that I have left my camera on my desk in my apartment, and if I go back and wait for the next train (in one hour), I will miss the train that goes to Krakow (and through where I need to transfer to get to Sarah's) in Vienna. So, I suck it up and figure I'll just buy post cards.

In Vienna, I find the train I need, initially confused by the fact that the prompter in the train station says "Warsaw" when I need to go to Krakow (in Poland, the trains are very, very bad). Nevertheless, this is my train, and I get on it. Inside, there is a young man (Austrian) about my age. I figure I have nothing to lose by sitting with him (better than screaming children, which I so often get on the Salzburg-Wien commute which passes through Amstetten). This young man falls asleep within twenty minutes of the train taking off. Soon, I find myself doing the same.

Hours later, I am awakened by his cell phone. On the other end is his girlfriend. They begin their conversation in German, but soon switched to English. Presumably because her German is not very good. I pick up a Polish magazine thrown into the cabin by a conductor (or train staff member - pick the term you will) and "read" it (i.e. look at the pictures). The young man, now in full conversation with his girlfriend, tells her, "I wish you would stop being such a bitch."

And then she retorts something. And he asks, "What did the doctor say?" and I think, Oh my God! This is just like  Hemingway's short story Hills Like White Elephants! I am in the midst of a conversation where two people discuss an abortion, but neither is willing to say the word! My life is a novel! And then he placates her by telling her he will do all the cooking. When he gets there in six hours.

And she continues. And he says, "Yes. There is another person in the cabin. Yes. She's a woman." And he looks at me. I hide behind my Polish magazine. "Yes," he says, "but she's nothing special." To which I want to scream or say some witty remark which will sear him. Yet, I do not. Because my first thought is, He thinks I don't know English! And, well, what's the point in being nasty? I won't ever see him again, and we still have four hours together in a train.

But then, once he finishes his conversation, he leans over and expects me to talk to him. He asks me if I speak German, which I do. And he asks me where I'm going. I tell him. He asks me more questions, and I reveal I also speak French. He whips out his French homework and asks me to take a look. What the hell? I figure I don't have anything else to do, so I help him.

Then, a Czech guy come into the cabin. He doesn't say anything at first, just eats a sandwich and reads the newspaper. Then, the food cart comes along, and both of them order a cup of tea. The Czech guy and the Austrian guy start speaking in English. And then the Austrian guy turns to me and translates what they had just said into German! This, I thought, is too rich. From the innocent gesture of picking up a magazine, the Austrian guy assumes I am Polish! So I play up the facade as well as I can. Plus, if I told him I was American at this point, he might feel bad about what he said earlier. Or he might not, which would be worse. Problem is,  the Czech guy reveals he is in a Ph D program in Polish literature. So...if I say anything, I'm toast. Fortunately, I think I fooled them both. Well, probably just the Austrian.

I make it to Sarah's in one piece. It is snowing and freezing, and I haven't been this happy to see a familiar face in a long time.



Saturday - 
Sarah and I wake up at the crack of dawn to make it out to Stramberk, where we have reserved "beer baths" at a spa and the ruins of a medieval castle. We end up taking four trains to get to a town 50 km away from Sarah's town - and it takes us 3+ hours...well, welcome to the Czech Republic! The train system here rival's Italy's. And Poland barely has a train system.

So, once we get to Stramberk, we end up following a school group into town. Which was the best of all possible plans...from the train station the way into the town is anything but straight forward. Problem is, we follow them to the salt mines rather than the castle...oops. We backtrack to the town square and ask in the information center. We walk up to the castle and run into...the Czech version of St. Nicholas and the Krampus (see left)!

The Krampus, for those unfamiliar, is St. Nick's evil sidekick - the one you get when you are bad. In Austria, bad boys and girls are beaten by the Krampus. In Poland, their faces are just smeared with coal (to humiliate, I suppose, rather than to beat and humiliate...oh, Austria!) In the Czech Republic, I guess it's a mix between the two. Some boys were posing for a photo op to be "beaten" by the Krampus-thing. When Sarah sends me the pictures, I can share...

After the castle we went to the spa and had our "beer baths" which were delightful - except for the beer. I'll  put it this way: they soaked us in beer (well, a skin remedy made from hops), and then they gave us beer to drink. I am just not up for drinking beer in the bath, in the middle of the day, I guess. I was sort of afraid to get drunk...and then drowsy...and then drown. Sarah didn't make much of dent in hers, either.

After our baths and our "relaxation time" (i.e. pass out after too much beer time), Sarah asked about getting massages...because she had wanted a neck massage. Well, I figured I might as well get one, too, if I could, because otherwise I would just be bored waiting...and, really, who could turn down a massage? So, we go to the other building (had to get dressed and slosh around in the snow) and there is one masseur - very Czech. He asks us to strip down. And, I guess, he was only offering one type of massage: full body.

Well...we did have a catch. The last train to leave Stramberk (for the night) was a bit after 5pm. Meaning we had to get to the train station by then or stay the night in Stramberk. It's a nice town, but not that nice...and it was after 3pm at that point. The masseur promised us it would take 75 minutes for us both. So we strip down, and get massages...

not me

At first, he tries to talk to us, but his accent (and word choice) is far too confusing to actually hold a conversation. We get across that we are American, and from Chicago (true for Sarah, not for me) and are teaching (she in Poland, I in Austria). He asks other questions which we sort of evade (out of confusion) and then he just goes at it. he switches between me and Sarah. And for my back, he whips out this vacuum suction thing - because my back is so bad (?) and afterward, he tells us that he is a medical masseur and had a degree and a certification and everything. And Sarah and I both have horrible back problems which we need to have checked out - go to a spa at least once a month - and if we don't we will both be cripples by the time we're 30. And we should have told him about our back problems before he started. He needed time to assess our backs if we were doing more than just a relaxation massage. Oh, and to add insult to injury (that vacuum thing), Poles are cockroaches. The Czech are far superior.



Sunday -
Sarah, Linnae (the other American teacher living next door to Sarah) and I head to Krakow. Again, we must wake up at the crack of dawn and catch a bus to Krakow. I get a nice snooze in on the bus, despite frozen feet and no interior heating. We make it to Krakow around 10am and I can't help but thing JESUS CHRIST, IT IS F%$#ING COLD HERE! Indeed, I feel that Poland most reminds me of North Dakota. And, yes, I have been to North Dakota - in December, even. I have relatives in Fargo.

The nicest thing about Krakow is that the downtown is so small, everything is really close. The train station is right next to the main square, and so is my hostel. After we take care of business (drop my stuff off at my hostel and Linnae figures out where her hostel is - for when she stays in Krakow overnight before traveling down to Italy for Christmas), we wander around the square.The Christmas markets are up, and so Sarah, Linnae and I wander around and get a snack. There are these pieces of hot smoked cheese available - a Krakovian delicacy, I told - and some hot punch thing. I am all over this, as my fingers feel like they are going to fall off. The cheese is delicious (served with cranberry (?) or other berry jam). It reminds me of cheese curds and Wisconsin!! And then I take a swig of the punch. It is a mixture of tea and vodka (yech!) and I drink it all because I need to do something to numb the cold. Sarah told me she was poisoned last year by this same combination (by which she meant she also found it disgusting). I think you have to be Polish to truly enjoy the vodka-tea thing.

After that, we went to the English bookstore a few blocks from the main square. I bought a book entitled Cafe Europa, which I am incredibly excited to read. I also found a novel based on the life of Frida Kahlo, but I didn't want to buy too many books and not read them...I have a bad habit of doing that...so I only bought one book.

We went to lunch after that. Sarah and I had mulled wine (much more my style than hot tea and vodka) and Linnae had a glass of white wine. I had a yummy but bizarrely Polish Greek salad. Sarah had apple strudel and Linnae had a sandwich. Afterward, we went to the Krakow National Historical Museum to check out the nativity scenes that are a Christmas tradition in Krakow (see right). They are really awesome little things made mostly out of colored tin foil and sometimes porcelain figures, wood, other things. There is a contest every year in three categories: small, medium and large. Some are artistic statements, some are done by school children, and most of them are somewhere in between.

After the museum, Sarah and Linnae had to catch the bus back to Cieszyn (unfortunately) and I was left to go back to my hostel alone. Where, despite the mega party going on for someone's birthday, I went to bed early to recover from my vodka-tea hangover.


Monday - 
I tried to go to a museum, but, like most everywhere else, all of the museums in Krakow are close on Mondays. Which I figured from Prague. And this made me glad I decided to stay until Tuesday, when I could actually go to a museum. I was most interested in the National Gallery or other art museum.  I am very curious about Polish art.

Anyway, I ended up walking around the Wawel castle (closed for the season, so I could not get in) and the Jewish quarter. Which is mostly concerned with Auschwitz and other Holocaust paraphernalia, which I am not really interested in. I really see no point in making a tourist attraction out of millions of people's suffering and all that. I avoided Auschwitz like the plague, for one because I would be outside all day in freezing temperatures in the dead of winter, and it would be, well, sacrilegious to snap a bunch of photos (well, OK, no camera for me, but still...) and I just think it would be full of bad vibes and completely depress me. But I am interested in bagel shops...plenty of those in the Jewish quarter.


That evening, I went to a Chopin concert, one of those things that's advertised in hotels for rich British and American, etc. tourists. But the price was good - 50 zloty (the equivalent of 10 euros) - and I love Chopin. And I had nothing better to do. I loved it.



Tuesday - 
I attempted to go to the National Gallery/Museum in Krakow to learn about some Polish history and see some Polish paintings. Unfortunately, it was closed, moved, or something equally bizarre. There was one gallery open - the antiquities! So, since I was already at the museum, I paid the 6 zloty to go in to see the very small but comprehensive collection. They had a bit of everything: Assyrian, Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman.

After the museum, I went to lunch. I walked around until I found a vegetarian restaurant that serves "traditional" Polish fare - sans the grease and pork products! It was good. I had cheese and potato pirogies and a salad that was sort of like coleslaw, but...not.

After lunch, I made my way to the English cinema off of the main square. The weather was still awful, so I figured I'd rather do something cultural than just sit in the hostel - might as well have stayed home. So, I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part I  with Polish subtitles. I liked it. Having read the books but being a little old to be a part of the HP craze, I liked it. And, well, perhaps to be expected, I had this painful bout of homesickness that lasted for much of the film - I started crying at the beginning - and I think it just reminded me of my sister, or Christmas, or something. I really haven't had any homesickness in Austria, and I'm going home for Christmas anyway. But Harry put me over the edge, I think. Or, Dobby did. I don't want to spoil the end for those who haven't seen it...I have a bad habit of doing that anyway.

After Harry, I went back to the hostel and watched some good old Polish MTV - former East Bloc Cribs is definitely not up to par with American Cribs. A good portion of one episode was devoted to the contents of this pop star's refrigerator and bath tub in her apartment in Warsaw.

Wednesday -  
Home again, home again, jigiddy-jig.