a visitor from Berlin... it was a fatty weekend

Circa December 2008: "You're studying in Berlin, I'm studying in Wroclaw?"  

"Oh, then we're neighbors... eastern europe adventures!"

My friend from Chapman, Nick Nader, visited me in Wroclaw this weekend, it was a lot of fun and much needed, but made me a little homesick for my southern cali homies.

Nick arrived and we wasted no time getting some DELICIOUS pierogi ruskie.  Nick asked me previously if there were any gay clubs in wroclaw and I was skeptical, Poland isn't known for its social tolerance after all, but alas, we found a list of several clubs right in the area, brilliant!  Oh yeah, and we ate bueno chocolate, it was way bueno.

So, after some pre-drinking in Olowek with some other students, including the Germans we hit up a jazz club called Rura, I've been dying to see live music.  There was a Polish James Brown cover group that was actually not bad, it was fun, but we wanted to hit up the gay scena, surpisingly enough we were able to get about 10-20 kids to go with us, finding the club wasn't too difficult, but then when we arrived...

NO ONE was there.

Literally, one guy, who I think was just friends with the bartender.  So, we had enough people to start our own party, so to speak, but lesson learned: no homo scene in Wroclaw.

During the day we saw some sights including, but not limited to the MOST POSH pizza hut in the world.  Pizza hut= Olive Garden in Poland, I had the gourmet chicken wings.  We visited the Polska National museum in Wroclaw which had an AMAZING contemporary art exhibit.  The kind of contemporary art that nightmares are made of and vice versa. If I visited there on any kind of drug I would most certainly be traumatized.

We had a ambrosius dinner at Akropolis, this fancy greek restaurant in Rynek.  Probably the most tender lamb I've had in my entire life, oh and the spinach feta, to die for.  We polished off a bottle of red wine and set out into the night.  Meeting up with the Germans, we were on a mission to find a "squatter" party.

Anna had met some squatters in a house and went to a party in the house last week when I was in krakow.  There was supossed to be a party this evening so we set out with a intersection and a sense of adventure.  30 minutes later, no avail.  We asked several people, well mostly the Czech people did because they had the best Polish, they all seemed helpful and assured us it was close, which was why we continued and continued and continued.  This very drunk guy said he knew exactly where it was and offered to show us where that was, but not before saying something quickly to his friends in Polish, before they parted.

sketch.

We were in such a big group though that I wasn't too worried, although large groups in panic are some of the most dangerous evils.  This guy never lured us from the main road because we were too divided, now some of us wanted to go some didn't, the Czech girls kept asking random people on the street.  We were fucking cold by this point so decided to just head to Rynek.  

Went to a typical club, I talked at length with this polish fellow in cargo pants, who confessed that I was the first American he'd met in Poland.  It's a very weird feeling to realize that you are the sole representative for an entire country in the immediate eyes of an individual.  A lot of the Polish people I've met, although their English is usually pretty good, they have qualms with the euphemisms in the language.  The don't appreciate how indirect English is, which in reality I don't either, I think I'm just so used to it.  The indirect sugarcoated nature of our speech in formal and casual dialogue is what makes us English speakers, specifically Americans, so awkward.  I may just notice this more though because most of my conversations involve introductions, meetings, although this Polish girl that I know decently well had a similar discrepancy while speaking to me, she wasn't sure if it was out of place to compliment my hair.  Anyways, tangent!

NIck and I returned to olowek at 5am and finished an entire bag of paprika chips!  We skyped our mutual friend Blake and decided we should sleep at least 2-3 hours before going to the train station.

I miss Nick, he is lovely. :)

Things that i miss about America

-skim and/or 2% milk 

(the milk here is thick and commonly not refrigerated and sweet)

-Dryers 

(Oh my God, my clothes are stiff, and furthermore smelly, especially my socks)

-My mere

-My homies.

-My car 

(which is no longer my car)  :(

-Working

(strangely enough, spending money without making is stressful)

-Microwaves/Ovens

-House Parties!  (clubs and pubs are fucking tedious)

- GOOD coffee.

-Wireless internet

- film school :le sigh:

-Mexican food!

-white rhino

-oh and just a minor one, but kindof important: KNOWING WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON AROUND ME.  

in olowek, you don't ride elevator, elevator rides you.

Erasmus life: 

Every monday, special party at Gravatacia (club not 20 meters away from dorm for stumbling capabilities)

Every wednesday, special party at "No Name Club."

Weekend: Travel?  or... you guessed it, drink in Rynek.

Friday (piatek), no classes, holy day of rest in Polska.

Sunday, nothing is open, holy day of rest.

I know it will be different once actual classes start, but this is so drastically different from my Chapman "life" that it's frustrating that I'm not more prolific.  That's my own choice, but somehow I'm never bored...

Last monday I was on my way to super special Gravatacia party with my German friends, they're from Hamburg and Munich.  Anna and Simon from Munich, Julie, who I learned was a model today, from Hamburg.  We were with three others, in the elevator we started beat-boxing... of course... and decided to jump as the elevator was about to land, half of us in the elevator partook including myself and then it...stopped. 

In between floors, seven people in an elevator no bigger than a broom closet.  I try my cell phone, no reception, we start to yell, at first I just think people assume we're drunk, which we are, but are in need of help  none the less, so?  we wait.

10 minutes: This is all the jumpers fault.

15 minutes: Let's take our coats off.

20 minutes: Fuck it, I'm sitting down.

30 minutes: Let's play "I'm mad about, I'm sad about, I'm glad about,"  

Julie "I'm mad at the jumpers...."

40 minutes: My buzz is wearing off...

45 minutes: Yell? no.. they know?  I hope so...

50 minutes: SALVATION!

A polish man comes and literally pries the elevator doors open with a wrench like tool, we're in between floors so we have to jump up a bit.

That elevator rode us dirty.

So happy to get outside in the cold, we run to the club and I fall on the icy stairs and bruise the hell out of my thigh.

KRAKOW even a clock that is not moving is right two times a day.

I need to see this city again.  I really didn't like my hostel.  There were a group of intensely obnoxious americans there, visiting from their studies in Warsaw.  Maybe seeing groups like this makes me more self-aware... in a good way, as always it makes me realize why certain prejudices exist.  We walked around with the only guy from the group, who was keen to dispatch from the group.  I felt intensely bad for him, this was him primary company for the next four months, sounds like an amiable reason to become a self proclaimed loner.  Met more Australians and as usual am perplexed how they all seem to have enough money to travel so much, I cannot fathom.

I left the whole weekend disillusioned, feeling like I'd been sucked into a hellish microcosm against my will and spat back into the Krakow train station, where my companion and I were fucked out of tickets.  

We got the tickets at the station, ordered in Polish, the price seemed large, and of course we couldn't get the student price because of the documents, always with the goddamn documents.  the woman at the booth asked us to pay in exact change, which in this country is pretty common, and you cannot buy tickets with credit cards for whatever fucking reason.

We get on the train, which is delayed half an hour.  By the time we get our tickets checked we're about an hour into the 4 hour ride.  "this is reservation, not ticket!"

"what.. that's all she gave us."

"no, here we have two, one is ticket, one is reservation..."  

"she only gave us the reservation slip..."  fuckfuckfuck.  Well, you can buy a ticket now on train... ummm "I only have 20 zloty on me."  The conductor takes pity on us.  I NEED to learn this language.  :grrr:

The city though was beautiful regardless, it snowed almost nonstop though, which made me again, very grateful for my boots, other travelers don't seem to value their footwear which seems crazy.  I went to a few minutes of mass in rynek, St. Mary's, amazing church, but no pictures.  I liked the Jewish quarter, went to a nice bar there, had some really good vodka.  It was pretty touristy in general, lots of bad kebab and pizza places.  I wouldn't recommend polish pizza... at all.  I was glad to be back in Wroclaw.

Orient Yourself: In which Our Young Hero is Locked in the Toilet.

This is the direction of your school.  This is where the super fun club is with special erasmus parties.  This is the alphabet. Dzien Dobry, jablko, prosze. 

toilets= WC

milk bars aren't just for dairy beverages.

Have you forgotten how to tie your shoes yet, or unlock a door because apparently I have.

I had a walk around Wroclaw, difficult to motivate this sometimes in the cold.  Saw the tower of Saint Elizabeth, several dwarves, met a classmate's polish girlfriend, we went to get tickets for Krakow that afternoon and then to the mall to get some food.  We all went to use the restroom.  I choose the one closest, which was a single, which seemed weird to begin with.

Queer lock... hmmm, wait, fuck, how do you unlock this lock?  I happen to be in the airtight maximum confinement stall... shit, no ones going to come in here because its a single.  Turn left, turn right, push up, pull down... it has to be broken

In Poland you don't lock door, door locks you.*

Ten minutes later a woman comes in, of course she doesn't understand me even if she can hear me.  My friends are waiting outside by this point.  The woman must have told them there was some girl banging on the door... kindof rude...

They come in, we try a few things... no go.  Justyna goes to get a security guard, first of all "why is your friend in the employee bathroom, why can't she understand me..."

"Turn two times to the left."

Burning face.

Stupid Foreign girl.

*applicable to inept.

The Lost Days

The next three days or so were a pleasant introduction to the zloty, which has a current exchange rate of 3.5 to 1 American dollar.  I could just go around converting prices at the supermarket all day.  I've been living in two of the most expensive areas of the US for my entire life, so this really does excite me.  I meet my flat mates, a Chinese and a Turkish girl.  They're nice, but it's a little difficult to communicate with them.  It's difficult to meet people in this dorm because although it's large with close quarters, the layout reminds me of a housing project.  Two rooms adjoining kitchen and bathroom completely cut off from the other sects of the floor.

I read quite a bit.

I meet another American student, Klinton, but through facebook, not the chancing grace of dorm life.  As far as we can tell we're the only new students who've arrived thus far.  I confess that I've seen Rynek, but haven't been out to bars, so we waste no time departing with my roommate, Nicole.

Polish bars=  American 90s pop music + high alcohol content - gay people (apparently they don't exist here, like dryers.  Nicole lets us in on some of the perils of Olowek, such as a lack of dryers.  In fact, I'm starting to doubt that the country as a whole believes in them, they're like fairy creatures.  Even if they do exist, what's the point right, we could just let our clothes dry in the fresh sub-freezing Wroclaw air.  We're also warned about the showers of puke every morning from the balconies.

There's also a lock out time, 2-3 in the morning, I don't know, just to fuck with you.  Trams stop running at 12 and start up at 4, so you either have to come in early or stay out late, fair enough, there's night buses too.  Due to this fact we decide to leave around 12am, but since we started at about 7, our mission is rightfully accomplished.  I leave some drunken facebook messages, eat potato chips over my computer and pass out.

I dream of orange juice and wake up to drink some, and then some more, and then some more, until I have to projectile vomit from the kitchen to my toilet.  I became that girl, fuck, maybe I should've just used the balcony, then atleast i wouldn't have to sop up the orange vomit.  Note to self.

Wroclaw, Poland (you're saying it wrong)

I was suffering a monstrous hangover when I left for the airport, as you can see, not my finest moment... previous night's makeup and contacts... I'm not proud, I just can't fathom why at this moment I decided an image was necessary, 

I've been doing a horrible job visually capturing this journey, but it just tends to pull me out of the moment, and I hate looking like a tourist, which I feel I can usually avoid until I open my mouth.

I arrive at the airport, take the 1 hour business flight, receive no special ambiguous sandwich and arrive to see the girl that contacted me, Natalia.  I also see a girl with a UNIVERSITY of WROCLAW sign and figure I better go back because the university could have sent her, they did indeed, Ola.  With my two guides we arrive at Olowek, "Documents, we need your documents!"  

Starving and desperately needing a shower we find my room, which my roommate is occupying asleep.  As it would be rude to make my guides wait for me to shower, we forge on to the local....mall?

Capitalist blow out. KFC, McDonald's, Sephora, Forever 18.  I expected it to an extent, but being in the place almost makes me forget that I'm in Wroclaw, until I order.  We go to a fairly nice restaurant and we all order the same meal.  My guides confess that Polish guys aren't that cute, the Spanish students are better looking, but usually stupid, among other invaluable tidbits. I'm a little bamboozled with the amount of food on my plate and reasonably irked by the fact that my hosts are finishing theirs without a problem.  I confess that I think my stomach has strunk... "oh, how nice for you."  

I get the food to go, which serves as my substanance for the next two days.  Visiting the polish super market, I'm surpised to learn that you have to pay for your plastic bags, so everyone just brings their own.  The plastic bags also sport green recycling symbols which Natalia explains are a recent addition that don't make the bags any better for the environment.

I meet my roommate, a graduate student from Boston-- meeting more Bostonians in europe than the US... sign?  I've always wanted to live there, but I've never been there.  At this point I'm a little delirious and I clunk out for the count.

A night in WARSAW

Departing Rome Fiumicino i was ridiculously proud of myself for saving 60 euro by not checking my huge backpack (on loan from Jason Gran, quite useful I'm trying my damnedest to not make it smell by the end of the trip :/).  On the plane I was without a doubt the only non polpolska speaker there, so I tried to keep under the radar.  I was given a sandwich with a piece of white cheese, half a piece of lettuce and some unknown red sauce/spread.  It wasn't too bad, but then again I was really hungry.  Upon entering the Warsaw airport I wasted no time in exchanging some euros to zlotys. The exchange rate was 2.8 zloty to one dollar, which seemed fine from what I read on the internet.  Then this woman came up and looked at the line of us (four people) are exclaimed,

"What is this?  The exchange rate is dreadful!  You can find thousands of these all throughout the city!"  I thought she may have known someone in the line but did not, we all sortof looked at her blankly and she scoffed away.

I flagged down a cab, that was a mercedes incidently, I showed the cabbie, with the most sunken in cheeks I've ever seen, the address to the Oki Doki hostel, "Oki Doki?  Oki doki!"  His brief look at the address made me nervous.  Maybe I'd watched too many 20/20 specials or maybe the words of Father Rich were coming back to haunt me, "well... you could get kidnapped," but I was fucking terrified.  Every scenario ran through my head, I have no idea where he's taking me, I know its in the city center, no one knows where I am, I looked at his ID picture, it looked like it was from the 1940s, no identification number... shit...  I kept my backpack on, ready to leap out of the car at any moment, are these automatic locks, I tried them out, I think I was making him nervous, he motioned for me to take my back pack off, no thank you.  We made it to the hostel and the cab fare was reasonable... I'm just a little neurotic.

I'm shown to my room by a nice polish girl who has the same eye makeup on as me, hahaha.  I'm in the all pink room, 3 bed female dorm, meet a roomie, she's already going to bed, has to get out to Krakow tomorrow early, I take a look at the map, Old Town is fairly close, I decide to give it a go.

Surprise, surprise, though, 10 minutes walking by myself in the dark and I convince myself that someone's following me, by this point I think I'm actually the one freaking the locals out.  I'm changing my gait, then my path, hiding in doorways waiting for people to pass, looking generally pissed off.  I reach a square.  

Warsaw really is a rather ugly city.

Return to the hostel, go to the bar, just miss the happy hour special, but beer's very cheap here anyway.  I meet three Aussies, they've only been here a day.  I deal with the initial shit for being an American, "So how embarrassed are you about Bush?"  They make me say works with A's so they can hear my Chicago accent and eventually they convince me to go out with them.  We try to find a few places, I actually speak the most Polish out of all of us which is sad, ask a hooker for directions, which is not successful.... eventually we give in and go to the Hardrock Cafe, most expensive place in the area most likely, but  it's still far cooler than any of the Hardrock cafe's I've been to in America, maybe because i can drink in them now, I don't know.

This hardcore band is going on, not bad...  by this time I'm about 3 beers in, still fine... but honestly Polish beer must have about 1.5 amount of the alcohol content, go to another bar, then another... It starts to hit me, we're at a club type place, the local dance is pretty hilarious, lots of head bobbing it seems, go to a place with a cloak check, brilliant, and around 3:30am stumble back to the hostel.  I have to wake up in about 6 hours to catch my flight, I'm golden.

This is where Firenze becomes a blur. Italian chicks can't dance.

I went back to my room finding two new roommates, a girl from Sydney, Fiona and a girl from Turkey, Fatima, they both had been traveling for about two months and were pretty worn out. I spoke to my other roommate from Melbourne and he told me about a bunch of good pubs past the river (past the tourist area). Amy came by and we (Fatima and Fiona) all went down to the bar in the hostel. We split some wine and watched the Big Lebowski, at most points I was the only one laughing, even the smiley Argentinian girls failed to find some humor in it. At the bottom of the bottle Amy and i decided to depart to the bars. As it was dark and we were going into the native part of town we decided to try to keep our Americanism hidden as much as possible. We spoke in broken French and Spanish whenever we passed groups of Italians, no one bothered us, but these awesome bars that the Melbourne boy was talking about where no where to be found.

After about 45 minutes of walkuing we finally stopped in a pizzeria. The Italian boy at the counter was flirting with Amy rather shamelessly, he made us a heart shaped pizza. Suave... pretty suave... he directed us to some local bars that would not have a lot of Americans, great. We went to one called Moya first, which kindof sucked, stuckup locals, bad music, high chairs, blue ambiance. We made our way to a club called "Twice" that was playing some decent hip hop. Although I wasn't thrilled about the ten euro bacardi and coke the atmosphere was much better.

Amy and i hit the dance floor, where it became abundantly clear that Italian girls couldn't dance and Italian guys pretty much just want to touch your crotch. I don't know if they're so vain that they're just afraid of getting sweaty or if they just naturally have no rhythm, but the chicks were pretty lame. It pretty much just meant more dance partners for Amy and I. We stumbled out around 3, I had to wake up early to check out and catch my train, and I still hadn't heard from Katie.

About 25 embarrassing pictures and a bruised hand later Amy and I parted ways at the first floor of the hostel, I was glad to meet my temporary partner in crime, but now I had a whole slew of things to worry about, which somehow concluded like this:

enter room, note on door from nick "sorry, you can yell at me when i get internet"
dickhead, pass out cold, makeup still on, phone dying wakes me up, thank god, still drunk, pack belongings, check email, no word from katie, shit, train leaves in 30 minutes, check out, book it to station, grab a water, ask porter for train location, train delayed, okay calm down. get on train, 40 minutes in "im on the wrong train!" but its still stopping in Rome, whew, listen to polish on ipod, dzien dobry, mr. Lif, gives me confidence, arrive at Termini, get on the train, back hurting, feet are sore, get to Cipro, now what?

All I have is Katie's address and I know that she's off the cipro stop. fuck. ask the metro attendant, via massimi? there are two via massimi's! maybe take the 907 bus? then what? okay, panic panic. i ask the driver, he pretends not to speak english. fucker. Oy... ask a young girl, she speaks english great, im still speaking in my phony english accent, im so hung over, she goes to loyola too! perfect, she directs me to a bus stop, which i can't find, so i take a cab. The taxi takes me to this gated area... only 10 euro, great. Where the hell is this building.

Katie told me everything is in one building and that there is a porter who will ask for an ID, NO VISITORS ALLOWED... AT ALL. So, I better not get caught. I wait outside the building... don't see anyone... I have this really loud red backpack on, dead giveaway I don't belong...but where to put it... the courtyard seems pretty safe, I take out my most valuable possession and put it in my purse. Enter the building, I can't ask the porter where she is, I walk in casually and find the dorm rooms, they has names on all the doors, brilliant. Katie had one of the most generic names in the world, not so brilliant! I knock on every door with a Katie or Katherine, no avail. I follow some voices to the dining hall, I can't get in, but I glimpse a girl, she looks framiliar from Katies facebook pictures, i ask her if she knows where she is, "oh yeah, I'll check in the dining hall..." and we are reunited and I finally get to take a shower!!!!

Firenze in 24 hours

It's very doable if you're a fairly fast walker, but my feet were getting tired and I was pretty much sore all over. I took the train from Rome with Amy and stayed at a hostel called Plus Florence, which kindof reminded me of a senior citizen's home for frat and sorority kids, very clean though, and a fairly cheap bar. :)

First night, I got ahold of a friend from chapman who's studying in Florence, Nick, and told him to meet me at the hostel. I waited in the lobby for about an hour and contemplated how disgustingly dependent on my phone I was. I started talking to this Austrian girl who started divulging her misunderstanding of Men, she asked me if I wanted to get a beer, but alas, I was still waiting for Nick. Eventually I left a note for him at the front desk, pathetic, and went down to the bar. I started talking to this girl from Missouri who apparently was staying at the hostel for an entire semester with a group studying. She invited me to go out to a pub with them.

Some of them were pretty nice, but by the time we walked to the Irish pub (the Fiddler's Elbow) I realized we'd be disregarded as obnoxious Americans. I got a Guiness and started talking to people about lucidity... typical. I noticed this table of three Italian guys kept looking over at us, not entirely with disdain. When I went to the washroom they invited me over to their table. This is where I truly discovered the disdain of language barrier. By this point I was wondering where Amy was and really just wanted to leave, the bar was lame and mostly had older people, not to mention overpriced beer.

Amy woke me up the next morning, we had breakfast with this Australian girl who refused to wear shoes in the building. Right on. We asked if the Italians were rude to her as well because she didn't speak Italian, she said that on the contrary they usual gave her discounts for being Australian. I decided to speak in an English or irish accent from this point on in this country.

I went out and saw the David statue with Amy and snuck two pictures despite the guards watch. I didn't realize it was so huge, breathtaking really. The musical instument museum was pretty cool as well, I think the Smithsonian collection is a lot more impressive, but these were all Firenze instruments. I walked around for the rest of the day enjoying the city, Amy and I decided we needed to get drunk together this evening to celebrate the end of our travels together. I still hadn't gotten ahold of Katie though (who didn't have a cell phone either) and was planning on staying in her dorm for the rest of my trip, starting with tomorrow, her birthday.

I didn't get to see the Uffitzi, but I was already starting to trip on the amount of money I'd spent. All in all it was a great day in Florence, but I most certainly would not want to stay there for a semester.

Italian Bus System

Amy and I decide to go to the National Museum in downtown Rome, it's something to do, it's getting dark and neither of us want to waste our first day here. I get an email from Katie Bates saying that she can't meet me until tomorrow night because she has a bunch of homework. Amy has been studying in Leon, Spain so her Spanish is quite good, which is close to Italian, so brilliant, we attempt to use the bus system, calling it a system is generous.

You cannot buy tickets on the bus and the driver offers no other explanation. We discover that we have to buy them at the metro station and get on the bus. We watch to figure out the system. No one stamps their ticket... hmmm.... The bus doesn't stop unless you hit a button a stop in advance... fair enough... but we cannot read the street names because its getting dark and they're conveniently hidden on the buildings.

We ask an old woman who speaks only Italian, no spanish, a little french? I try to communicate... she sortof understands, she tries to help us, a man butts in and pretty much tells her she's wrong and they start fighting. Luckily Amy has a map and we get off at somewhere that looks kindof right. We find it twenty minutes later.

Lots of statues with broken appendages, some cool frescos, and an entire room of a recreated painting that makes you feel like you're in a tranquil park. We get back fine and feel a sense of accomplishment? We decide to take on the biggies tomorrow. I need to sleep.

Gypsies

My first attempt to go out in Italy by myself, consorting with locals and I get burgularized. Gee whiz, I feel so worldly.

I go into this little cafe near my hostel, it's a combination bar (cafe's are called bars, bars are called pubs) and eatery. I speak English to the extremely attractive worker, I think he understands me, but pretends not to. I order some vino russo and this breaded chicken dealy that is suppossed to come with potatoes. There is an old woman working there, who I swear must I have seen atleast three times in Rome since then, but I figure they all just look the same to me. She motions for me to sit down, which I don't realize costs more than standing at the bar, which most of the Italians do, while downing espresso. I sit with my back to the bar, big mistake.

This younger guy comes in with his moped helmet. I put my jacket on the back of the chair next to me. Big mistake. It's obvious to me that the guy knows the old woman, even though I don't understand what they're saying. I get the food with plastic utensils, which break when I use them on the chicken.

The guy goes to pay for his panini and drops a whole bunch of change, a lot of which falls by my chair. I don't immediately go to pick it up because it seems invasive. The woman comes out from behind the counter and helps him pick it up... which seems weird. I pick up a coin and give it to him. He makes some sort of sign, puts his hands up like he's giving me a high five. I smile, what the fuck. He does it again, distracting me. I finish my crappy meal, pay and leave. I still have my passport as it is in my nifty concealed pocket on the inside of my coat. I think I have everything. Seems normal, I go back to my hostel, none the wiser.

A few hours later I'm getting ready to go out with this American girl (from Boston) that I met at the hostel named Amy and notice that I can't find my coin purse. Fuck. It was in my pocket. I check all my bags. Nowhere to be found.

The old bitch must have taken it out of my pocket when the shithead was distracting me with his hands.

Fucking gypsies.