A Typical Blog Post About My Trip to Krakow

My roommate Alisa and I arrived in Krakow on a Friday afternoon armed with our wits and a cheese knife. Although his CouchSurfing profile had 14 glowing reviews, we became a bit wary of our host when he sent me a text welcoming us officially to his “Playboy Mansion! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 ”

-___-

When he opened the door there were soothing 90s jams floating through the sleek, updated flat. He stood there in chic jeans, a polo, and a cleanly pressed black blazer. He told us he had just been reading his biography on some 1960s business tycoon while laying out on his terrace. Under a very June sun. Even though he’s Mexican, I didn’t think he needed the warm blazer for this. We stood panting in the hallway, loaded down by 10 lb. backpacks, purses and sweat which was more than glistening from our brows. In these few moments I think he sized us up for being uninterested in doing anything in his flat except sleeping. If my firm handshake didn’t convey the message, then my previous day’s text replying that we were not looking for a Playboy Mansion but more just a Motel 6 should have.

After taking in our disappointing presentation, he proceeds to show us to our room where a red leather love seat awaited us.

“It will change to a bed,” he explains. “Oh but let me just get this massage mattress out of the way.”

He whisked away this suspiciously “left-behind” massage mattress to another room.

After attempting to freshen up a bit, we found our host in the kitchen to say adios before heading out to explore the city. In a span of about three minutes we manage to learn that he loves Donald Trump, is going to be the next Ambassador of Mexico to Poland, and refers to himself as the Great Gatsby (or rather, ‘everyone in the apartment complex’ calls him that).

“You know I am this Great Gatsby because I have all the best parties. See on my terrace? We party very hard here, the neighbors want to be invited but I say, ‘Ahh no!’ – but they call me Gatsby.”

I don’t know if Alberto read anything beyond the decadent parties in Fitzgerald’s novel, but if he had he’d maybe know that Gatsby is not somebody to emulate. Gatsby dies. Face down in his own pool, sad and alone. I hope Alberto finishes the book one day and realizes.

We are polite but brisk in our lingering and soon manage to procure keys to the flat to allow us total independence. After a few more minutes of hearing about how much we are going to LOVE Poland, we set off to see the sights.

Krakow is small and easy to negotiate. The architecture is strongly reminiscent of Prague, but the people a lot friendlier. When we nearly broke a tram ticket machine more than one stranger waiting behind us offered assistance (albeit they had some skin in the game).

The main square is dominated by a market hall (Cloth Hall) that looks so Moroccan I might have even believed I was in said country – until I went inside and saw a myriad of fur vests and hats for sale, plus a lot of gaudy crystal. Also it’s technically a Renaissance building but hey, I didn’t major in architecture.

The square was listed by The Project for Public Spaces as the best public space in Europe due to its lively atmosphere. Though I hate to admit it, the square was indeed a bit nicer than Prague’s – if only for it’s greater number of benches. It certainly wasn’t because of the street performances, which Alisa and I found laughably tragic when compared to the stuff happening on the street in places like London and Paris.

On our walk home in the evening we had the local experience of running into someone we knew. Who else but Alberto, of course! Oh joy. On his arm a lady friend who giggled at his every word. She was more than surprised to learn we were his houseguests – ‘I told you I had guests, remember?’ (We are fairly certain he did not in fact inform her.) He invited us to join them but we bowed out, too exhausted to take on our very chatty host.

Grateful for some time in the flat alone, we got ready for bed and Alisa had her first encounter with the Spaceship Bathtub. Alberto’s bathtub was like a time machine, ready to fight intergalactic enemies off while simultaneously washing you head-to-toe. It had a rain shower, a handheld shower head, six body shower heads positioned to massage your back if you sat on the seat, and some weird massaging contraption that I can’t even begin to describe attached to the inner wall. The contraption contained an array of buttons to command the tiny spacecraft and dark tinted glass to of course protect you from the sun’s rays when you’re out zooming through space.

Alberto and his lady returned to the flat a while later and proceeded to have a very audible political discussion in the kitchen where he praised Trump some more, condemned Obama as the world’s worst criminal (along with the rest of the American government), and declared that Putin has been an amazing leader for Russia.

It was no surprise to me to also hear that he apparently never wants to marry. I was glad the girl he was with knew this, since she didn’t leave until the next morning.

During breakfast we listened to Alberto rave some more about the wonderful country of Poland. Not that I have anything against Poland or would question any Pole’s national pride, but to find an outsider – a Mexican at that – so completely enthralled by this city…well it was amusing to say the least. He must have listed half a dozen things that Poland is the best in Europe (if not the world) at: #1 water, #1 economic growth, #1 competitive salary, #1 quality of life, #1 country with virgins over the age of 24… Who knew? (Nobody actually, because we googled it all later and found no such data to back up his claims.)

Through whatever business it is he owns that allows him to read biographies on his terrace on Friday afternoons, he has apparently managed to make a great many connections with the Mexican community in Krakow. He even writes for the Mexicans-in-Poland digital journal – “a very prestigious journal” serving all Mexicans all over Poland! All 1,000 of them! But it’s very prestigious.

“The Mexican community here is strong though. I am friends with them but we is not so close. They all are married and have the children. The wives, they are bossy. They say to their husbands: You cannot go to this Alberto’s parties. You will be influenced badly. So I guess they don’t like that at the Mexican events I come with different girl every time you know? Ha ha – it’s good for me though.”

“Oh ha that’s inter-”

“Alisa, are your parents conservative or liberal?” Alberto cuts me off to finally ask us a personal question.

“Oh well, my parents don’t really like politics that much. They don’t get very involved in it. Actually my mom can’t even vote.”

“Trump is going to do great things, they should really vote for him.”

“Actually,” I speak louder. “Alisa is half-German, as in her mom is German. So her mom can’t vote,”

“Oooh……So this one time I went to Ukraine to meet a girl I met on the internet. Well I tried to, but I didn’t have a Visa so I couldn’t get in. So then I thought to go with some friends who was driving to this country. I think, ‘Hey I can maybe sneak in through this car’ they won’t notice me. We go to the border with some police and they ask for my passport and I say, ‘Hey I’m Mexican, I thought I can go here like is no big deal you know?’ I act so like I don’t know these rules. They say I still need this Visa. I say, ‘Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am??'”

Alisa and I laugh but exchange horrified ‘is he serious?’ glances.

“So they says I still need some Visa so I say, ‘Hey buddy. I will have to pay some money for it right?’ And they say ‘yes of course you must.’ So I say, ‘Well what is better to pay this money to some government where you don’t even know where the money goes or we can just take care of it right now?'”

More horrified exchanges across the kitchen. Alberto is too involved in his story to notice.

“But the guy he said, ‘I will give you one chance to walk away now.’ Ha!! I think, let me get Uncle Putin to handle this. Ha ha ha…!”

After escaping unaccompanied for our second day in the city, Alisa and I walked to the castle grounds. They were simultaneously majestic and indistinguishable to the countless other European castles. After obligatory castle selfies, we explored the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz. This area was once a thriving Jewish district until WWII when it was destroyed. During communism the area deteriorated and became quite dodgy. In the 90s it was rediscovered and revitalized. So naturally today it is of course full of hipster coffee shops. A lovely area really. Krakow in general was full of cute stores and atmospheric restaurants; a nice change from the typical Czech restaurant which designs its style around whatever beer sponsors it.

We ate at one of the central restaurants in Kazimierz called Ariel. There we tried berdytchov soup, a beef and vegetable soup with honey and cinnamon, and beef pierogis, the traditional Polish ravioli-like dish. Both were incredible.

That afternoon we headed to a park outside the center to the south. We had read there was a “mound” from which to see a nice view of the city. However upon approach, we discovered this was actually the molehill from which people often make mountains – it was enormous. We calculated the energy-to-elevation ratio insufficient and settled on a butt rest instead. After Alisa proved she can put her feet behind her head, we trekked east to another park where a beautiful quarry-turned-lake awaited. The water was a gorgeous aquamarine that my camera disappointingly could not capture, but we enjoyed the view nonetheless. We even got a view northwards to the city, at which point we realized the view we had missed earlier at the mound was probably nothing to cry over.

Circling back north and nearing 30,000 steps, we eventually returned to the old city and picked a charming patio restaurant for dinner. The free fresh, warm bread they served brought tears to our American eyes. It was a wonderful place with a forgettable name.

We were proud to see that it was nearly 10pm by the time we finished dinner. Not because this seemed very European but because Alberto had told us he was having friends over that evening and they usually partied hard. This invitation was like a looming shadow of peril that hovered over our entire day as we tried hard to think of ways to avoid any interaction with Alberto’s friends or his wild party.

When we finally arrived at the flat, we were overjoyed to see it was only Alberto there with another – a different – lady friend. Apparently Alberto’s friends had partied too hard the night before and missed their train. We feigned regret over not being able to party with them and quickly slunk off to bed. Though not before Alberto made it clear that he and his lady friend would like to use the Spaceship Bathtub bath later on. Ick.

Before we drifted off to sleep on our postage stamp half-mattress, we were entertained with some more of Alberto’s musings.

“The girls [us] brought me these beers.”

“That was nice of them.”

“No, I deserve these beers.”

…

“You know Poland is the place to be right now. It’s now part of THE BIG FOUR!! It’s so great, this will be the biggest thing to happen to the world. THE BIG FOUR!! So its Poland….Hungary….the Czech Republic anddddd Slovakia!! They’re going to be huge!!! THE BIG FOUR!! Watch out for them!!”

….

“You know Alberto,” says Lady Friend Numero Dos, “Americans they have the American dream. It’s a great thing.”

“Ah who cares about the American dream? I’m living the Polish Dream! Come on! THE POLISH DREAM!!”

….

In the end, Alisa and I never found the Polish dream, but we did go to Auschwitz the next day to remember the millions murdered who probably really did have Polish dreams. I won’t say much about Auschwitz because there’s nothing I can write that can fully convey what this kind of visit feels like. It’s something you really ought to do at some point in your life though.

There was one part of the tour where we saw the prison cells for those condemned prisoner among prisoners. There were a few different types of cells, but the worst was the suffocation cell. You can try to imagine, but honestly I don’t think you can. They would take up to four prisoners and have them stand nose-to-nose together in this basement. Then they would build a wall, brick and mortar, directly around the four people. No room to sit, no room to even take a step. They would die standing up, in total blackness.

When our tour guide told us later that only 5% of Nazis were tried and even less given the kind of harsh sentences deserved my initial internal thought was, ‘They should all be put in that suffocation cell and sealed up to die!’ Though this is a perfectly normal human reaction to have, I remembered that God loved the Nazis too. Not the Nazis as a whole of course but the Nazi as an individual. His capacity to love us is even big enough to forgive the people who built those suffocation cells around innocent men and women. Which may be just about the only positive reminder you can take away from Auschwitz.