Wiwa Krakow!

Dobry wiecor, (good afternoon)

Just spending another lovely day walking amongst castles and cathedrals!

Yesterday I toured the Wawel Castle, the southern anchor of the old town, and on a sinuous curve of the Vistula river. The castle has survived numerous invasions and occupations. The Austrian's even turned the cathedral into a military barracks! The castle walls are completely intact, and set you high enough to see greater Krakow, including a unique building that houses around 5,000 pieces of Japanese art and sculpture. The river has glass smooth pathways along both sides of it, and people walk, ride and rollerblade along the shores.

Near the dawn of Krakow (10th C), a man fought off a vicious dragon who lived at the bottom of the hill. The dragon was always eating sheep and lovely virgins. Damn dragon. Mr. Krak (Crac) had the wonderful idea of stuffing a sheep with sulfur and feeding the dragon with it. The dragon took the bait. He swallowed it whole and ran to the river and drank and drank and drank. Not too much longer, the dragon began to explode this way and that, and the villagers were greeted with a tremendous fireworks show-and poof, dragon no more! Kill a dragon, and you get to name your town!

Today I got to move in one day early to my flat, just north of old town and about 10 minutes walk to my school, of which I start Monday. I'm sharing the well furnished flat with 2 women who just finished the course and fly out tomorrow. They said it was very difficult, especially if you don't have any prior teaching experience. Oh, boy. My flat is huge. It has 2-3 bedrooms, 2 baths and a huge, odd looking kitchen, bisected by this mass of spaced out 2 by 4s in an odd geometric pattern. It really kills the space for socializing (which would be possible, it's so big). We also have a pigeon living outside the back bedroom, and it's nesting 2 babies! All the time in publics settings and seeing pigeons everywhere, I never saw a baby pigeon--so that was the real reason I flew all the way to Poland!!!btw, the two babies are small and yellow. Connie, from the UK/Germany said they were itsy bitsy before and yellow like lil' chicks. My guess is they'll be outta there within a week looking at their movement and size...My new flatmate, Andrew, will be moving in later tonight, too. He's also from the UK and he's 23 years old. I think he's fresh out of college from somewhere. Maybe I can get some study tips from him since it's been awhile!

Food: The food here is excellent and everything is amazingly fresh. They have Salat bars, Milk bars, bars , cafes, restaurants and, of course pubs.Salad bars are almost just that. Since most meals are pretty meaty in Poland, these places provide lighter fare, which is almost always entirely vegetarian (wegetarianski). My first salat bar experience providied me with a stuffed red pepper, a pea filled crepe, a thick cheese filled crepe, spinach quiche and all washed down with striking green Nettle Juice. Really! All of it was good, but the pepper was best. The juice was pretty refreshing with a light sweetness to it, nothing like the usual spirulina/superfood fare. Just don't swallow the last drop...ick. Cost me about $2.90.Milk bars: the next step up in weight. Called this because milk is used in so many of the ingredients. Obviously a place to go if your bones are weak! They have a mix of meat and veggie fixins. Also pretty cheap.

Bars: just that. They serve booze and beers and maybe some nasty sardine concoction to wash down the vodka. no thanks.

Restaurants: these are the normal places you'd expect to eat like in the states. You sit, you get served, they pamper you a bit, you get the check, and this is the one place where you tip the staff-but nowhere else?! Full menus and drinks, but Polish restaurants close early, Italian kitchens stay open late...haven't figured out why yet.

Pubs: Pubs didn't exist at all in Poland until the 90's. They mimicked the Irish and British theme, almost to a T. Almost all the names are from those countries. In fact, there has been such a boom in pubs, there are over 400 in Krakow alone-more than any other city in Europe! Oh, most close sometime between midnight and 6 a.m.

Discos: They're here, too. Haven't ventured there yet...probably won't until Warsaw since school starts soon...plus I don't disco. :-(

Relative to the homefront, apparently breakfast isn't a big out of the house meal. Some salat bars offer crepes and such, but nothing like we're used to. Every other restaurant doesn't open until 11:30 or even 4 pm. Guess I should go to the store soon...

So, other interesting things of note:
Fashion

The rain stopped and the city morphed into a massive, rolling urban fashion show! A few things where Seattle and Krakow differ: (This goes for men and women, but mostly women-the men here aren't as fashionable as I've seen in other parts of Europe)

Pink: Pink reigns in Seattle, on the young and the old, some tight, some short, some not. Here, pink is kind of in, but it's usually a darker shade, and a bit more formal atire (usually), i.e. a bit more tasteful, still not as overbearing as the states...they also don't put obnoxious phrases on their shirts here...though I did see a black one that said Mango on it (like Portugal, Mr. Steffens?)

Tattoos: Seattle wins again. You can't walk half a block in almost any neighborhood of Seattle and not see at least one tatoo-arms, neck, back of the shoulder, top of the butt, around the navel or on the calf or ankle. After two days of glorious weather here, they exist, but only a few a day.

Piercings: Chester Pierce wins! (Seattle). Same story as above. If there are any piercings, it usually only in one unique spot. I'm sure London differs a bit.

White: OK, for some reason, white, see-through pants are in. Fortunately, most of the women have the bods for it. But a few don't...

Sunglasses: Very few people wear them, surprisingly. Though there's sunglass shops everywhere.

Therefore: Eye Makeup-I've seen some of the most garish mascara recently, but it's usually on the young set.

Hair: Most styles are fairly short, men and women. The only other long haired men I've seen are usually from other countries, though not necessarily USA-usually Italian, Spanish or even Indian. Women more often than not have several shades of color to their mop. A few are outrageiously red or pink, or jet black.

Pants: In Greece and Italy, locals never wore shorts. That made it very easy to find other Americans there. Here it's a bit different. Young and old, locals and tourists do wear shorts, but still not of the numbers of Americans that do/would. Manpris (Men's capris) are in here, too. Guess I should have picked up that pair at TNF...

Skirts/shorts for women: One thing that stuck out from my trip along the High Sierra on the PCT was running into trainees for the British Army. The military had flown them to the states to hike the entire John Muir Trail to get their butts in shape (a nice sort of boot camp, eh?). The crew was mostly men/boys but there were a few girls. And they all wore short short shorts and their buns hung out the bottom. WHY?!! Well, some of those Brits are here, too! Doesn't anyone tell them that's offensive?! Plus a sunburn there has got to hurt! Same story, young and old, skinny and not.

There's so many accents it's hard to say who's from where. There are definitely a lot of Germans and French. There's few Spaniards, Italians and Brits. I've definitely heard some Russians. Oh, the Japanese are here, too. And they harrass little girls for their pictures. There are a few Americans here. Apparently, a few of the students in my upcoming class are Americans who already live here in Poland...Hopefully they'll have some solid Visa tips for me before my tourist visa runs out!

OK, someone is smoking too close to me to handle, I'll finish soon.On a related note, I've seen fewer smokers than I expected. And when people do smoke near any of the plazas or cathedrals, they're always good about putting out their cigarettes in designated spots-atop metal garbage cans, where they're cleaned regularly by local street cleaners (who also clean up right away after the horse drawn carriages). I think it's more of a social thing here where they smoke a little bit during the day, and a helluva lot at the restaurant/bar/disco when a drink is in hand. Hopefully my roommate doesn't smoke.

I'm getting good at saying: Nie mowie po polsku! and Czy pani mowi po angielsku?

Milo mi!
Jeronimo!

!btw, if you'd rather not get my Poland Spam, just let me know. I'll just let you know when it's up and running on my website so I don't flood your inbox.