Przystaneky w Polska. Days 4-10

“Oh sorry, I don´t think we can help you”

I pretended I didn´t hear. I waited a couple seconds.

“yeah, we only have one bed.”

HALLELUJIAH!!! Because I am such a loser and I was in Krakow alone, I only needed one bed at the hostel! 

I booked the bed, planning to be antisocial while there. I have no good explanation for this desire, I guess it was probably because I was so pissy and had not showered in a while; surely no one would want to be around a whiney smelly girl. After I showered and got some tea, I couldn’t resist initiating conversation when I heard a girl name next to me speaking with an American accent; there are a scant number of Americans in Eastern Europe. Kristin was from Seattle, and an aspiring fiction writer; I was totally fascinated by this and asked her a million and two questions. Together, we met an Australian girl, Vanessa, taking a gap year to teach English in Poland. Later, Kristin lent us her German friends and we all hung out in the hostel kitchen drinking Polish beer and playing Loopin' Louie (CHILDHOOD WAY OF LIFE IN THE MOLLOHAN HOUSEHOLD. I flipped out when I saw it). Our drunken revelry caught the attention of some more Aussies, Kathryn and Anthony. I have a very vague idea of what time I went to bed that night, but I do know I did so having failed in my attempt to be antisocial.

New Years Eve set-up (lifted my spirits on the walk to the hostel with my 15 pound bag)

Kristin and I at Mama's Hostel

I uncustomarily woke up late the next day and headed to the Jewish quarter, toured some synagogues, attempted (and failed) to find the old Ghetto walls, and visited Oskar Schindler´s old factory, which is now a museum. The Museum was very informative and I liked it a lot… until I realized there were 2 more floors to see. As the Spaniard on which I was eavesdropping said “es bueno, pero hay demasiado” (it´s good but there is too much).

Krakow Opera House

Oskar Schindler's Factory


Jewish Quarter, Krakow.

City Hall of Krakow (I think)

Cloth Hall- basically the oldest mall in the world

Main Market Square

Main Market Square again

By 5pm, I was semi-starving, so I tried out some Polish kielbasa in Main Market Square and it did not disappoint. When I went back to the hostel and used the computers, the guy next to me looked SO familiar, so I guessed I had met him the night before among Loopin Louie and Zywiec beer. I went to my room to nap and this familiar guy was coincidentally in the bed next to me. I tried to paid no attention, but it was difficult. We woke up from our naps at the same time and he finally said “Do you go to BU?”

YES! I was so excited that I was not crazy.

“Yeah! I thought you looked familiar!”

“Uh, no actually. I just, well, you are wearing a BU Central shirt”

Oh. Right. Why I am such an embarrassing disgrace?

I figured out I met him at a party over the summer and had a mini-conversation, none of which he remembered. A very unfortunate characteristic of mine is that I remember almost EVERYONE I meet, details of their lives included. I think I freaked this kid out quite I a lot when I told him he was a pre-med major with an older sister, and that he was possibly from New Hampshire. This first unfortunate characteristic goes with Shelagh-vice #2: I forget to hide my extensive knowledge/memory about the live’s of these people I remember (whether I was drunk during said meeting or not, I will pretty much always remember). So, long story short: I enlisted this kid to be my friend.

We went to the kitchen for the hostel’s free champagne and met up with the aussies I met the night before. We quickly realized the champagne would not be sufficient, went around the corner to get a liter of vodka and quickly finished it. Then, we went to the main square to see Kelis perform her one popular song. From what I remember of the countdown, it included an indistinguishable collection of screams, people yelling in Polish, English, German, and Portugese, among other languages.

Krakow at Midnight 2011 (taken by Anthony)

President of the Polish government stopped by (taken by Anthony)

I woke up the next day and sat around with my new friends for hours in the kitchen until we went to lunch and got hot chocolate at Café Kafka, a super cute café across from Mama’s Hostel. While every trip to a bar is not necessary to mention, I feel I must include that this particular night I met a guy with the most ridiculous profession ever. He is a professional poker player (mostly online, but he did spend some time living in Vegas as well). He has the craziest life of anyone I have ever met and we had one of the most intense conversations about life I have ever had.

Before dinner with Vanessa, Kristin and Dave (from Kristin's camera)

Cafe Kafka (from Kristin's camera)

Vanessa, Dave, Kristin and I at Main Market Square on New Years Day

On Sunday, I planned to go to breakfast and Aushwitz with the Aussies, but got super lost on the way to meet them. Fail. I went on the later tour instead. A Jew going to Aushwitz is some serious business, so I previously decided I would not talk to anyone. I would be mournful, contemplative and silent. This plan got a little foiled when I saw that David (my fellow BU New Hampshirite) happened to be with the same group, but in the other van.

“We just saved your life” the guy sitting next to me said when we got on the bus.

He sort-of did, since I wouldn’t have been able to go on the tour if this guy and his friend hadn’t joined at the last minute, causing the tour company to add another van. I looked over, nodded, smiled, and turned to face forward a again (remember, this was the commencement of sad-Aushwitz time, not new friend time). I then realized how good-looking this guy and his friend were. I could resist, though. Then, they started speaking French. Plan: absolutely and positively foiled. Their names were Mat and Nick, both of them were 25-year-old civil engineers from Quebec City. Yay for meeting people under 30!

I was having such a great time talking to these guys on the 90-minute ride to Auswhitz… then we got to Aushwitz.

First, we went to Aushwtiz II, saw the remnants of one of the gas chambers, one of the bunks, the grounds, and learned a lot about who exactly was in Aushwitz-Birkenau and from what countries they were from.

Remnants of Gas Chambers destroyed by the prisoners

Aushwitz II

Monument to those who perished in the Gas Chambers with a special passage
written in 21 languages, all of which (except the English translation) were spoken at the camp


Aushwitz II

After that, we went to Aushwitz I, where political prisoners of war were kept. It now serves as a historical site and museum. The guide told us that whenever someone escaped, ten inmates were killed as a punishment (and warning for anyone who wanted to escape in the future). She told a story of one group of men chosen to go to be gassed. One man, Franciszek Gajowniczek, started screaming and pleading for his life, mentioning his wife and children. Father Maximilian Kolbe (taken to Aushwitz for helping to hide several Jews) offered to take his place and the guards miraculously obliged his request, leaving the Franciszek eternally grateful and in complete disbelief. It is supposedly the only time anything like that ever happened at a death or concentration camp. It was the singular example of kindness the tour-guide mentioned, so it inavoidably stuck out in my mind. She was a perfect tour-guide; she spoke with a heavy polish accent and her voice and demeanor were everything they should be… mournful, furious, sensitive, thought-provoking.

Aushwitz-Birkenau. "Arbeit Macht Frei" Work brings freedom.

Shoes of prisoners that the Nazis did not have time to send back to Germany 

(so a very minute percentage of the shoes previously owned by the prisoners)

We watched a movie about the liberation on the way back and it was the most disturbing part of the whole visit, showing real footage of the dead bodies at the camps, completely emaciated. Even the survivors looked like skeletons with skin stretched across their bones. I am not at all squeamish, but there were parts when I had to look away.

The guys invited me to dinner with them, so we went to a polish place and I got some MORE pierogi. The bromance these two guys had going on was the most adorable thing I had seen in a long time. I quickly fell in love with both of them. I was so grateful at how willingly they adopted me as their third wheel (I like to think it was a tricycle situation, though. The three wheels felt right). After dinner, we napped, got some Vodka at an Alkohole (yes, that is what they are called) and finished it a little too quickly. We finished the night at Zinger, a well-known bar in Krakow where people start dancing on the tables at about 2AM. I spent the night pretending to be the fiancé or girlfriend of Mat and Nick, on a rotating basis to keep preying girls away. I am not quite sure why they wanted to keep them away, but I was happy to be of assistance to my fellow tricycle wheels. 

I had to say good-bye to them the next morning and after spending about 24 straight hours with them (somehow without any pictures to show for it), I was pretty upset that they had to leave (and that I had to do some solo touring). The prospect of seeing my friend Matt, from my fall program in Madrid, later that night made me feel better, though.

I lived and died by these (and Pierogi) on my trip. They are basically
huge bagels that cost the equivalent of $0.50

During the day, I went on a tour of the Krakow Salt Mine (which took about 45 minutes to get to), a mine that continuously produced table salt from the 13^th century to 2007. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw David (yes, the BU guy) coincidentally in the tour van as well. This was getting ridiculous.

The salt mine was cool, if not a little cheesy at the beginning, with models of men showing how the mine functions. The most interesting part was learning about the salary of the miners in the middle ages. They were paid relatively well and received salt bonuses, which, in the middle ages, didn’t make you fat, it made you a status symbol (weird!). The guide said salt was much like how we perceive gold today. At one of the meeting areas, I heard someone say my name and immediately got excited (because, honestly, when you have a name like mine, you don’t assume the person is trying to get someone else’s attention). It was my friend Matt! We only had a second to talk, but we had already planned to meet later that night, so it just made me that much more excited to see him a couple hours. I hope you still get as excited as I do about these chance encounters.

Going down to the mine... and Dave's foot.


Made out of sand and I AM sure because I pseudo-licked it.

I met up with my friend Matt and his cousin Kristen and we went to a restaurant where I had… more pierogi (it’s so delicious and cheap!). After dinner, we went to the Krakow House of Beer to hang out for a couple of hours. I can’t even make a joke about how fortunate I was to have been in Krakow at coincidentally the exact same time as my friend, Matt. I had such a great time reminiscing with him about the past semester and getting to know his cousin.

Matt Walsh!!!!!

Sure, we look happy here, you should have seen us POST pierogi


Lovely establishment

I woke up the next morning to catch my train to Warsaw to meet up with my friends Klaudia and Magda, two Polish girls who worked with me as camp counselors in New York in the summer of 2009. They picked me up at the train station then we went to Magda’s parents’ house and ate… NOT PIEROGI! We actually had steak tartar (I guess it is not as much of a delicacy in Poland) and citronowka (cheap, but delicious lemon vodka). Later that night, we went to ‘Sketch’ to have delicious strawberry cocktails. They showed me old town, the remnants of communism (and the stories behind a lot of the building and statues) and their university. We went to a typical standing bar for cheap vodka and blackberry juice to end the night.

Klaudia and I with our delicious cocktails

This is what restaurants look like in Warsaw. No joke

REUNITED AFTER 2 EXCRUTIATING YEARS APART!!!

Because Magda had class, we woke up early Wednesday morning to go to their school. Klaudia and I had coffee and went to “Center of Knowledge” with her friend Ola. It was basically the Museum of Science in Boston (Re: enjoyable and made you feel like a kid again). We met up with Magda and more of their friends that night to go to W Oparach Absurdu, a VERY bohemian bar in the artist district of Warsaw with mismatched furniture (including separated old movie seats), candles everywhere and a generally hipster vibe. I had my first “warm spiced beer” there… it was ok. After that, we botelloned in the freezing cold in a park with our new friend, citronowka. We went to a club that night that can be best described as a dirty rave-like atmosphere. It was completely crazy and I loved it.

Really cool hippy/artsy bar (not my picture)

Klaudia and a whole bunch of vodka


Polish kids at the most freezing botellon ever

Magda and I and our accidental team uniform... woops.

As Klaudia was driving me to the airport the next morning, I could hardly believe I had to leave her and Magda, not to mention Poland in general (I had been there for 10 days). I was really starting to love the country and I was even picking up some of the language (Thank you, Magda and Klaudia, for being the best teachers and hosts in the world and forcing me to say inappropriate things in Polish to your friends!)

At the airport, some silly Wizz employees thought they could get me to pay to check my bag, but they failed. I walked proudly past them, with my Turkish rug, laptop computer, sweatshirt and camera- all stuffed into my winter coat. WIN. As I waited at the gate, I prepared myself mentally for the 2.5 hour flight to Gothenburg, Sweden, the 8 hour layover in it’s one-room airport, and the 2 hour flight from their to London. Oh, and the 80 minute bus ride to the center of London. Dear lord, the things I do to save money.