Bratislienna

The next Thursday, October 31, I began another great voyage! This time, to the twin cities of Bratislava and Vienna. Skipping out on Halloween to take the overnight train for a weekend of double cultural enrichment? Oh how very adult of you, Richard.

I got to Bratislava around 5:30am, while it was still dark out. The walk from the train station to the Old Town is down this creepy, dark hill with a bunch of trees looming overhead. I remind you, this was the tail end of Halloween night. Have you ever been lost in a foreign, medieval city with ghoulish people stumbling out of the buildings, vomiting, and mumbling in an unknown tongue? 'Cause I have.

Then, just as the drunken ghouls start to dissipate, all the little elderly Slovakians emerge to go to church for All Saints' Day. This happens right before dawn. Quite a bizarre experience.

I wander around another hour or so (hauling my little suitcase over the hilly cobblestone streets) until a café opens up, where I can look online to find my hostel. This one is called Wild Elephants Hostel.

I spend the next day and a half exploring the city and tasting its cuisine. My favorite things were the old streets, the sheep cheese, the blue church, and this guy:

Bratislava is a very pretty city that is quite manageable, since it is not very big. Plus, it is ever-so-close to...

Vienna:

I get there via train. It takes about one hour from Bratislava. I check into my new hostel quite effortlessly. This one is called Wombat's City Hostel - The Lounge.

What better way is there to celebrate my arrival in this grand city than by eating a giant plate of wienerschnitzel and drinking a tall Austrian beer? The beer here, though, is about 3x the price of the beer in Bratislava. This makes my head very sad, but my liver very happy. At the restaurant, I met a nice American guy named Vijay, who was staying at a sister hostel to mine. We went back to his hostel for a bit to hang out at the bar, meet some people, and play pool. I turned in early, though, so that I could get in a good, full day of sightseeing the next day. I would meet up with Vijay a week later in Kraków, though, when he would come to visit. Funny how this tends to happen!

So the next day (Sunday), I explore the Inner City. F'ing gorgeous. Anyone who's been to Vienna knows the feeling of emerging from the Stephansplatz metro for the first time to this epically huge cathedral looming overhead. It rained pretty much the entire time I was there, but that's OK, since Vienna is one of those cities that shines in the rain. Anyway, I do the Vienna thing by hanging around in cafés, eating pastries, and strolling through the city.

At the Belvedere museum, I saw the impressive Klimt collection, including... The Kiss!

Ding! Ding! Ding! New life accomplishment!!

Richard, you have now completed the College Dorm Room Challenge by seeing, in person, the four most cliché college dorm room posters:

Renoir's Boating Party - The Phillips Collection - Washington, DC, USA

Van Gogh's Starry Night - The Museum of Modern Art - New York City, USA

Monet's Poppies Blooming - Le Musée d'Orsay - Paris, France

Klimt's The Kiss - The Belvedere - Vienna, Austria

Your Prize: A four month supply of Adderall and the complete works of Kurt Vonnegut!

Congratulations!!

After my weekly Sunday night Skype session with The Mom, I took another little stroll through the city. As I was walking down the main drag in the Inner City, just after the rain had cleared, I passed this street piano player playing a booming, amplified waltz. It was absolutely perfect. Mesmerizing. Walking solo through a rain-polished Vienna with a thundering waltz behind you. I wandered around, scoping out the city's grandiose buildings and tasting an Original Sachertorte, before ending my wondrous day.

The next day, I explored Vienna's big market, The Naschmarkt, took a tour of the city, and drank beer by the Danube.

I then took the overnight train back to Kraków and, yes, made it to my 8:15am class on time.

Three cities on the Danube in 10 days! Call me Attila Baker!

Lost In Trans(atlantic)lation

The fact that English is spoken everywhere you go, particularly in countries that do not have a "global language" of their own, can be a blessing and a curse for anglophones.

Plusses: Yay! We can travel wherever we want with minimal preparation! We hardly ever get in communication-based jams. We can even find employment wherever we go, since our native language skills are in high demand.

Minuses: We are disincentivized to learn new languages and often seem arrogant and uncultured. Even if we try to learn the local language, natives often approach us speaking English, decreasing our opportunities for practice.

The best perk of being a native anglophone traveler is by far the ability to recognize all of the amazing translation errors or misunderstandings.

I was reminded of this when writing my recent blog entry on my trip to Budapest.

Right next to my hostel was a sex shop called "Bad Sex Shop." Officially my favorite sex shop name in the world.
The owners of the shop likely have an advanced, but not excellent, understanding of the English language. I've concluded this because they clearly understand that the word "bad" can mean deviant, kinky, or risqué when used in a sexual context. "Oh you're bad." Their English proficiency is not deep enough, though, to know that this is not the case when "bad" is used in tandem with the actual word "sex." Using "bad" and "sex" together does not mean "kinky sex." As any native English speaker knows, it just means... bad sex. So every night I would burst out laughing when I walked by this place en route to the bars.
"Have you tried their new product, the sweat-stained nightshirt? Or the greasy-skin body oils?"
"No, but I'm just hooked on their male-softening pills."
"Oooh! Crying baby background music! Just what I need to get in the mood!"

Here are a few wonderful examples of translation failures from my street, ulica Tomasza, in Kraków:

This drink has so much energy. Someday, maybe they'll carry drinks that give you energy.

Exotic Travel? Spicy Travel? No thanks. I'll be taking my trip with Vanilla Travel.

Diamond: The Most Luxurious Gentlemen's Club

The most luxurious gentlemen's club in Kraków? In Europe? In existence? Without any further specification, we must infer that this is the most luxurious gentlemen's club that has ever existed anywhere.

And then there's this.

If you aren't aware, Warsaw is an inland city.

Budapest

The date is Wednesday, October 23 and as of now, Kraków is my only sample of Central Europe. So since I have an extra-long weekend this week, I decide to take the overnight train to Budapest. I go to the train station, buy a ticket, and hop into a sardine can of a sleeper car. I don't mind it much, but I feel quite sorry for the Dutch guy in one of the bunks opposite me.

I arrive in Budapest early Thursday morning and check into this obscure hostel called Tiger Tim's, across from the beautiful Nyugati train station. Rule #2 about hostel names: they usually involve some random animal.

My favorite thing to do when I first arrive in a new city is to get lost on foot, so that's what I did. In the afternoon, I took a free walking tour and learned all sorts of cool facts, like how Budapest used to be two separate cities, Buda and Pest. Also, it turns out the city's name is actually pronounced "Budapesht" - who knew?

I felt like a boss, carrying 20,000 units of the local currency in my pocket.

That night, I went on a boat party on the Danube with some of the people from the hostel. Here's a picture of us with the Hungarian Parliament Building in the background. Yes, that is the real Parliament building. It looks like a superimposed image because only the façade that faces the river is lit at night.

Building the world's largest parliament building? Easy.

Lighting the damned thing? Not so easy, I guess.

Nationalities in the picture: Danish, Hungarian, Australian, Australian, Australian, Australian, and Australian. Australians consist of 0.3% of the world's population, but 87% of the people you meet while traveling through Europe. True fact.

A friend of mine named Tas (also Australian), whom I originally met at Greg&Tom's, had been traveling throughout Europe for the previous few months and had been using Kraków has his base of operations. He decided to meet me in Budapest on Friday, since he'd had fond memories of the place. We spent the afternoon at one of Budapest's world-famous thermal baths. It was nice, I guess. Basically just a warm swimming pool. Anyway, here's a picture of the gang from the hostel when we went out that night:

Tas is the blond guy in the middle-back who looks way too happy. If you ever meet him, ask him the story of his friend who had stayed at Tiger Tim's two years prior. Left of him is Tim, the weird hostel owner. Matt and Andrew, the Australians on the back-right, visited me when they went to Kraków the following week. Great guys!

Anyway, that night we went to a "ruin bar" to sample the Hungarian nightlife. Ruin bars - one of the trademarks of Budapest - are pretty much what they sound like: bars built in building ruins - typically from WWII. They were probably the highlight of Budapest for me. Historical significance, beauty, and fun - all in one!

The next two days consisted mostly of market-shopping, cuisine-sampling, and exploring. Saturday night I went to a "Spa Party" at the thermal baths - basically like going to a bar... in the water! Sunday, I saw the world's biggest synagogue. It was... big. Finally, filled to the brim with goulash, Tas and I returned to Kraków on the overnight train, in time to get breakfast on Monday and make it to class.

I had now been to another Central European city. Though two is hardly a reliable sample size to assess a region, I now had something to compare to Kraków. Budapest was a great city, but it reaffirmed my confidence in the choice of Kraków as a home.

The Way Of The Polish Master

I should probably tell you a bit about my studies, as they are the main reason why I'm here (or at least the main excuse for me to be).

My university, Uniwersytet Jagielloński - or Jagiellonian University in English - was founded in the 14th century and is one of the top two (along with the University of Warsaw) universities in Poland. It is something like the 20th oldest school in the world and the 3rd oldest outside of Italy, Britain, Spain, and France. It consists of the original building, the main building, and a scattering of others.

The original building, the Collegium Maius, where Copernicus did his studies, is in the heart of the old town. Nowadays, it's mostly used for ceremonial purposes and as a museum.

The main building, or Collegium Novum, is just around the corner. It's quite pretty at night!

And then there are a bunch of other buildings, offices, and classrooms scattered throughout the city, but largely concentrated in the Old Town. Here's a picture of my class building in the Main Market Square.

My master's program is called Transatlantic Studies. This essentially means US-Europe political and cultural relations. Transatlantic Studies saves you some breath, though. It's a two year program taught in English that is composed mostly of international students. My year has nine people: One Turk, one Indian, one Chinese, three Americans, and three Polish/Americans. Doing my studies this way (coursework in English while otherwise being immersed in a foreign language) is ideal to me, since it lets me fulfill my fantasy of lingual and cultural immersion without adversely affecting my studies. My classes are Monday-Thursday, which gives me extended weekends for travel!!! Related blog posts coming soon.

My classmates (minus Gloria, who's taking the picture):

One interesting bit is that we share our building with the American Studies program, taught in Polish. So here is an Anglophone group that largely consists of Americans studying Poland side-by-side with Poles studying the US. This past Thursday they threw a Thanksgiving potluck and invited our program. They made a valiant attempt at mimicking the American tradition, but were slightly off. The only Thanksgiving-esque dish was a turkey leg. There were many other American (but not very Thanksgivingy) foods like pigs in blankets and silver dollar pancakes. Good effort guys!

I am also taking an introductory Polish language course that the university offers for foreign students. I think my Polish is coming along quite nicely. I highly recommend having a pretty teacher when taking any intensive language class. It definitely incentivizes hard work. Jak masz na imię! Herbata Zielona! Bardzo dobre!

I listed my courses in my first post on this blog. Throughout the next two years, I'll be taking various seminars and lectures, culminating with a thesis. If you come up with any rad thesis ideas, don't be shy to throw them my way!

Arriving In Kraków

So after landing at Kraków Airport, I took a bus to the city center - accomplished by my one word of Polish ("cześć," meaning "hi") and many expressive hand gestures. I was booked to stay at a hostel in the Old Town, while I looked for a place to live. After getting severely lost on the quarter-mile walk from the bus station to my hostel, I finally made it.

There are many things that all hostels everywhere have in common. The rowdy gap-year Aussies who start drinking at noon. The destructive group of alpha Brits. The elusive Argentinians who only come out between 2 and 7 AM to drink maté. The confused Asian traveller who doesn't speak any English. The white guy with dreads. The guy who was supposed to be there for a weekend, but never left. But my favorite universal hostel truth is the name. Every hostel in the world has an English name that just barely doesn't make sense. This one - that was to end up playing a large role in the development of my life in Kraków - was called "Greg&Tom Beer House Hostel."

Dazed and hungry, with my feet aching in their cowboy boots after having hauled my luggage over uneven cobblestone for a half-hour, I was warmly greeted by a beautiful Polish receptionist who got me set up in my temporary home: a 16-bed dorm. Finally able to relax, I went to the attached pub for a beer and a meal and was waited on by two gorgeous waitresses. I was starting to discover, but had yet to fully realize, that there were more beautiful women than pigeons in Kraków. And there are a lot of pigeons in Kraków.
Every room (plus every shower and bathroom stall) had two lighting options: regular and neon. There was a pub-crawl every night that involved pregaming at the hostel before visiting 2-3 bars/clubs. The guests were lively, the staff engaging and fun. I figured I was morally obligated to party every night, so as not to let down my countrymen (being the only American most of the time). I couldn't be boring in front of all the nationalities that surrounded me, c'mon.

So for the next two weeks, I spent the days seeing the city's sights, the afternoons searching for a flat, and the evenings dancing and making a fool out of myself.

**Side Note: Anyone with reservations about traveling through Europe should abandon them. Hostel life is very inexpensive ($10-$30 a night, depending on the country) and meeting people is a breeze. Everyone in your hostel is traveling in order to broaden their horizons and many are traveling alone, so you'll never be by yourself in a city unless you want to be. Plus, every hostel I've ever been to has been run in English, so knowing the native language isn't even necessary (though a few words in the native tongue can go a long way to befriending the locals, particularly in countries that speak less widely spoken languages). Extra incentive: you know someone who lives in the heart of one of the coolest cities in Europe... unless you're a random creeper who has stumbled upon this blog.

Anyway, with my classes fast approaching, I needed to find a flat. After some gems that got snatched up before I could get my hands on them, I found a pretty good place only a few blocks from the hostel (see earlier blog entry). I needed a roommate, though. Fortunately, there was this one Australian guy who had been staying at the hostel a couple of weeks longer than I had. He had originally intended to be in Kraków for two nights, but enjoyed his experience so much, he extended it numerous times until he fell in love with a Polish girl (can't really blame him for that) who worked at the hostel and decided he wanted to stay long-term (see paragraph 2 of this entry). He needed a place to live, so bingo! Roommate.

When we settled in, we threw a parapetówka, or Polish housewarming party. I was insistent on making pierogi for the party. Behind that is a story for another time. In attendance were the hostel staff, friends we had made there, and some of my soon-to-be classmates, whom I hadn't yet met. Among other housewarming gifts was our pet goldfish, Kacza.

Make friends in Kraków: check
Find a place to live: check
Start my studies: ...

1st Stop: Paris

So let's rewind back to September. After finally compiling the mountain of paperwork necessary to study in Poland and enjoying a few wonderful send-offs with friends and family, I was off to Paris for a six-day tryst with my favorite city before continuing to Kraków.

I stayed at a slightly-grungy, but very charming hostel in the Latin Quarter, around the corner from where I had lived for a semester two years earlier. My agenda was to see the few sights that I had missed out on in my previous stay (Versailles, The Catacombs, Palais de Tokyo, and a neat fondue restaurant called Le Refuge des Fondues), hit a couple of my old favorite spots, and see some old friends.

Mission accomplished. I did all that, but didn't really take any pictures of the sights. You want to see a picture of Versailles? Go to Google Images and type in Versailles. There'll be 100 billion better pictures than I could have taken. Besides, it was raining when I went. By the way, one of the coolest things about Paris is that almost all of their museums are free for students. Incidentally, one of the coolest things about the University of Maryland is that their student IDs don't have an expiration date.

If you're ever in Paris, go to Le Refuge des Fondues in Montmartre. It's a riot of a fondue place where they serve wine out of baby bottles and seat everybody on long, communal, Viking-style tables. That's all I'll tell you. The rest, you'll have to discover for yourself.

Here's a photo of me on the streets of Paris with some really cool people (Slovenian, Kiwi, Aussie, and Canadian) that I met at my hostel:

If you've never had a drunken night on the streets of Paris, put it on your bucket list.

Lastly, here's a poster at one of my favorite watering holes in Paris (where they still remembered me!):

On Monday, September 16, I said adieu to Paris and hopped on an EasyJet flight to what was to become my new home: Kraków, Poland.

Welcome To The Piekarnia

Now on to my living arrangement. I live in a neat little third floor (well, fourth floor by US standards) flat in the Old Town, just a couple of blocks from my classes.

It is on the corner of Tomasza and Krzyża streets. You can refer to the map in the last post to see where this is.

The apartment is a "two bedroom" that was probably originally envisioned as a one-bedroom with a living room, but was modified to squeeze in that extra profit once the iron curtain was lifted and Kraków became more of a global city. My roommate Alasdair sleeps in the proper bedroom, while I sleep in the bedroom / living room. This arrangement works out rather well, since he has a girlfriend, so he needs the extra bedspace, while I'm taking classes, so I need the extra table space. I'll explain later how I met this fun Aussie ex-military, wayward-travelling 19-year-old. For now, let's look at some pictures of my place!!

Hallway: Kitchen straight ahead. Closet on the left. Bedrooms on the right.

My bedroom: Single bed. Fold-out couch (so come visit!).

Table. TV for watching Star Trek.

 Kitchen: Yup. It's a kitchen.

Bathroom: Shower. Sink.

Bathroom: Bath tub!

View from my kitchen window.

Sorry, no picture of Alasdair's room, since he and his girlfriend are currently sleeping in it. They both had overnight shifts last night at the hostels where they work, so they'll probably be sleeping all day.

And here's a picture of me pregaming at my apartment with a couple of my friends, Giff (left) and Alisha (right).

Now that you can envision my living situation, when you think to yourself at night "I wonder what Richard is up to right now," you can picture me lounging on my couch watching Star Trek, cooking pierogi in my kitchen, doing shots of wódka (vodka) with my friends, or... bathing.

More to come soon!

-Ryszard Piekarz

(If you haven't gotten a feel for crazy Polish spelling yet, that's Polish for "Richard Baker")

Cześć From Poland!

Cześć everybody! Welcome to my life in Poland. I know it's a little late, but I'll try to catch you up on what's been going on so far. I'll start with a brief description of my current situation, then recount my adventures of the last two and a half months.

I'm nearly two months into my master's in Transatlantic Studies at Jagiellonian University (Uniwersytet Jagielloński).
I have two lecture/seminar classes: Cultural Studies and World Politics
Two lectures: Biotechnology and the Politics of Perfection and USA, Russia, and China: The Modern Struggle for Eurasia
And an introductory Polish language class: A1 Polish

My classes are located right in the heart of the Old Town (Stare Miasto), on the Main Market Square (Rynek Główny).

If you look at this map, they are on the northwest side of the center square, in between Szewska street and Szczepanska street (care to pronounce them?).
Here's a link to the Google Maps view:
https://maps.google.pl/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

Here's a view from my third floor classroom, taken by one of my peers: