A Tale of Two Roommates

I found it
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Ok, well actually it's a tale of three roommates, but two are traveing together so I'm going to group them and then it works well with the title.

So here's the story. Two days ago I had was sharing my room with a solo traveler. He was uncommunitive, but I figured that was just his way. The next day I woke up, went out and was about the city for a couple hours. When I returned he had checked out and my towel was gone. I thought maybe housekeeping thought we were both checking out and turned it in to the front desk. No luck. This guy stole my towel!I wasn't happy about it of course, but in the grand scheme of things there are worse things that he could have taken. After hanging out in the city during the dayand enjoying an excellent kilbasa that night I went to bed. At about 1:00 a.m. I heard knocking, but figured it was the room next door. More knocking, a very determined knock. I opened up the door, sure enough there was someone standing there. He was wondering where my former roommate was. Apparently my towel thieving roommate had borrowed this guys outlet adapter and had left without returning it. I am hoping at some point along the thieve's trip karma catches up with him.

entrance to the church/hermitage
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The next day I walked to Los Wolski. It is a park area where there is a zoo and a hermitage. I wasn't interested in the zoo, but I did want to check out the hermits. The walk there was seven kilometers, I could have taken the bus, but I had nothing but time on my hands and felt like going to a hermitage should be more of a journey than just hopping on a bus. It took me about an hour and a half to get there.

Now visiting a hermitage might not seem very interesting, but this group is a little different, even for hermits. There motto is "even you will die," and they keep the skulls of there predacessors with them as a reminder. There is a rumor that they also sleep in coffins but from what I've read it is not true. I had to wait about a half hour with three women and another man for the gates to be openned and for us to be allowed into the church. The priest who openned the gate said something in Polish. None of us understood. Then in clear English he said "no women." It felt a little strange to walk in as the women were turned away. The priest asked if I spoke Polish and I replied English. Then he asked about Spanish. I was pretty excited, he was the first person I met who didn't speak English but could speak Spanish. We had a short conversation, if I would have known I was going to have the opportunity to talk to him I would have had more questions. I'm sure he would have been happy to answer them, considering his surroundings he probably doesn't get to talk that often. I wandered around the church for a little while and then went undergroud to see the crypt. The priests of this order are buried here for 80 years and then they are removed, their remains disposed of, except for the skulls.

the crypt
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For some reason I expected it to be bigger, which really was silly, because the number of people who are interested in living this way is probably pretty limited. I also spotted two hermits moving about the church, but obviously there was no contact.

When I got back to the hostel I had two new roommates for Spain. One guy had really good English, the other was ok and so we conversed in both languages, but mostly English. We went out for a drink and then they picked up the tab. Totally unexpected, travelers are a lot who pretty much always take care of their own bills, but very nice, and a nice change from the towel thief.

That brings me to today. Which was fairly productive. I  bought new floss, found an adapter for the electrical outlet (essential since my camera battery died yesterday), but could not find a towel that was up to my standards. Consequently and am left with my bandanna as my alternative. Hopefully I will find something worthy soon.