Kraków, Krakon

Saturday we left Budapest by bus for Kraków, Poland. To get there we had to drive through Slovakia. Border crossings still take a while (for non EU citizens), because the new EU countries haven’t joined the Schengen Agreement yet. That night we got a tour of the medieval city, saw a few of the hundreds of churches in Kraków and had dinner in a Georgian (the country, not the state) restaurant after acquainting ourselves with the new currency, the zloty. After dinner we went for a walk and found a hole in the time-space continuum. Or we got disoriented and ended up somewhere we weren’t expecting.

Sunday we went to Auschwitz-Birkenau: definitely the most depressing place I’ve ever been. I’m not even sure what to say about it here. I stood in one of the gas chambers where so many innocent people were murdered. The bus ride home was very quiet: we were all too tired and sad to say anything, so we slept. Had we not had that nap, we would have been miserable for the rest of the day. That night two of us went out for ice cream, and on the way back to the hotel we stopped in a Polish grocery store. I bought black currant cookies, black currant hard candies and black currant jelly. The black currant everything and the breakfast at the hotel in Krakow were definitely two highlights.

After dinner we went for a walk and found a hole in the time-space continuum.

Monday we had two lectures about the Polish perspective on the EU. To get to the first, we had to ride our juggernaut, monstrosity, behemoth of a bus up a steep and winding hill, thus blocking quite a bit of morning traffic. When our bus driver realized he had driven too far, he masterfully turned around and managed to force several small cars and trucks to back into the snow, so we could continue driving. Unable to continue up the small, steep driveway to the Institute for Strategic Studies in our bus, we were forced to walk up the hill. The girls in their heels were not happy. That afternoon I stayed in the city and visited a department store in search of a tie. Whereas everyone in the food industry spoke English, salesclerks in the men’s department did not. Each time I was asked if I needed help (I think?), I asked whether they spoke English or German. One time when the answer was ‘no’, I just held up a tie to my neck and said, “Tak? Nie?” (yes? no?) The answer was ‘tak’, so I bought it.