Mike Conley's Blog

June 23, 5:10AM

At 5:10AM, a huge clap of thunder woke us all with a start.  Groaning,  moaning, and uttering expletives… we tried to go back to sleep, but the thunder storm and heavy rain raged all around us.

And then, eventually, the storm moved off…finally, we could sleep…

…but before it could happen, one by one, our alarm clocks started to go off.  It was time to leave.

Grumbling, lights flicked on, and we headed to the washrooms and showers…

6:12AM

A few people reported that there was some food missing from the hostel kitchen.  Tom and Tara reported half a carton of chocolate milk had been pilfered, and half of Linn’s salami was missing.

Apparently, some of the guests thought we wouldn’t mind sharing.  Or there was a mix up.

Either way, it didn’t improve anyone’s mood.

Not long after, we packed up our stuff, got on the bus, and left Wroclaw for Krakow.

10:27AM

We had been on the bus for a few hours, and I had been trying (unsuccessfully) to take a nap.  I eventually gave up, and I joined in with a bunch of the group who were quizzing each other on Canadian provinces and U.S. states.

It turns out that I know relatively little about Canadian provinces, and next to nothing about U.S. states.  Hmph.

Eventually, we pulled over at a rest stop.  I took the opportunity to try some of the local junk food, and purchased two chocolate bars – a “Corny Big” and a “3Bit”.  They tasted better than they sound.

Tamara also took the opportunity to tell us how the rest of the trip was going to work.  She also lightly condemned the last hostel, which was clearly not to her liking.

While talking about the rest of the trip, she mentioned that she had arranged for us to visit Auschwitz for the next morning.  The group got quiet.  Tamara also said that she had left open the possibility of visiting the Wieliczka Salt Mines after Auschwitz, but that it would really depend on our mood.  We would probably be upset after Auschwitz, and would want to go home and rest.

12:30PM

We arrived at the hostel around 11:30PM, and man, what a difference!  The place was absolutely spartan, the rooms were gorgeous, the views were incredible… we were quite happy, as you can see:

Yes, it was a welcome change.  In case you’re interested, the hostel was called “Cracow Hostel Apartment“.  You can see more photos of the place if you click these words – but having been there, it’s pretty clear that these photos try to make the rooms seem bigger with lens effects.

So we had nice rooms.  But guess what?

Peter got the pent house! The lucky guy got the hostel apartment!  The room was incredible!  It was too bad we were only staying a few nights.

The hostel was particularly awesome because it was in the Market Square.  Here are a few shots of the view from the common room window:

Wow!  (Looks a lot like Wroclaw, doesn’t it?  That’s what I thought, too.)

If it isn’t clear from the photos, it was still drizzling out.  But that didn’t mean we weren’t starving.  After unpacking and cleaning up, we hit the pavement to try to find some lunch.

1:06PM

This was lunch:

And this was where we ate it:

The place was called Chimera.  Interesting concept for a restaurant.

1:41PM

After leaving the restaurant, Tamara took us on a walking tour of the surrounding area:

The rain had stopped, and the air was left dripping with humidity.  Here’s Alexi, not liking the humidity:

In the background of that photo, there’s a church.  That’s the Bazylika Sw Franciszka Z Asyzku XIII W.  Hm.  Maybe I wasn’t hearing right, but apparently there was some stained-glass work by Adam Mickiewicz there…

Here are some shots from the church.  Not the greatest shots I’ve ever taken, but hey – it was dark in there:

I don’t know if Mickiewicz did the stained-glass – regardless, here’s a shot of one of the pieces:

2:07PM

We left the church, and meandered through the streets.

Eventually, we found ourselves at an outcropping called Wawel – home of Wawel Castle, which was to be our next stop.

Here’s a window dog we saw on our way to the castle ramp.  It breaks the narrative, but I can’t resist:

And while I’m breaking narrative, here’s Alex posing in front of a Bauhaus poster:

…and eventually, we found ourselves climbing the ramp up to Wawel Castle:

Here’s a view from one of the castle turrets:

At the castle gate, we bought tickets to enter, and to see the “Dragon’s Den” underneath the castle grounds.  We were stoked.

2:45PM – Wawel Castle

High security.  Metal detectors.  Armed guards.  This place wasn’t taking any chances.  There was a very strict code of conduct in there – no sitting, no leaning on walls, keep quiet, and absolutely no pictures.  So I just took notes.

So I can’t show you what it was like inside, but I can try to describe it:

It was a museum.  Stone and hardwood floors.  Quiet like a tomb.  Marble staircases.  Wooden cabinets, uncomfortable looking wooden chairs, wooden tables…tapestries, beds.  Old paintings.

Tamara told us a story about how when the Germans invaded, relics and artifacts were smuggled out of Europe.  It turns out that some relics from Wawel Castle eventually found themselves holed up with a cloister of nuns in Canada.  Go figure.

Everything was ornate, and gold rimmed.  Even the ceilings were covered in gold.

Oh the hell with it – so I couldn’t take any photos: that doesn’t mean I can’t scrape some from off the Internet.  Here’s what I was seeing, care of this website:

There, that’s better.  I’ve always been a visual kind of guy.

Check out the ceiling on this room:

You probably can just barely see them, but those are human heads carved and painted into the ceiling.  Just staring down.  And one has his mouth gagged.  It was creepy.  Apparently, those heads were carved by Sebastian Tauerbach back in the 1500s.

3:55PM

The castle wasn’t the only thing on Wawel Hill.  Inevitably, there was a church – Wawel Cathedral.

So, interesting theatre connection with Wawel Cathedral:

There was a theatre artist who wanted to do a show in the cathedral.  His idea for the play:  that all of the tapestries and statues would come to life on the night before Easter to demonstrate the resurrection of Christ.  It was like Night at the Museum, but with 100% more Jesus.

Anyhow, that play was called Akropolis, and would eventually be staged by Jerzy Grotowski in the 1960’s. Grotowki’s spin on it was to stage it in Auschwitz instead of the Wawel Cathedral.

Anyhow, Grotowki’s Akropolis caused ripples in the theatre world, and was a shining example of the “poor theatre” that he was striving to achieve.

For the people who don’t study drama, Grotowski, Poor Theater, and Akropolis are a pretty big deal.  I’ve seen a taping of Akropolis a few times…it’s one of the few recordings of Grotowski’s work.

Anyhow, that’s the connection.  We were inside the cathedral where that whole thing began.

4:02PM

Walking through the cathedral.  Once again, I couldn’t take any photos.

Description:  high ceilings, gold, tapestries, stained glass.  Gothic architecture.  Gold alter.  Chandaliers.  Ornate, dark woodwork.  Coffins and tombs.  Sarcophagi.

There was a narrow, claustrophobic staircase that led up to the cathedral bell tower.  It was windy up there, and the bells were absolutely massive.  Huge cast-iron things.  Mother of all bells.  I couldn’t help myself – I whipped out my camera like a gunslinger, and snuck a shot:

Yeah, I know – doesn’t look that impressive.  It’s due to lack of size reference points.  You’ve just got to trust me.

There were tombs in the basement.  Thick marble slabs, stone… there were some disturbingly small sarcophagi too.

The tombs got more modern the farther through we went – towards the end, we saw tombs with the occupants’ firearms strapped to the wall.

Maybe I’ve seen too many Indiana Jones movies, but I couldn’t help feeling that there were probably secret passages all over the place.

4:30PM

Finally, we got out of the catacombs into the fresh air.  We hung around outside, and waited for stragglers.  I took the opportunity to take a photo of some kids who were clearly disobeying the “don’t step on the grass” rule:

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

4:50PM

Remember the Dragon’s Den?  That was our last stop on Wawel. We took a narrow, twisty flight of stairs down…down…deep…down…wayyyyy down into the cave beneath the castle.

It was…a cave.  Kinda underwhelming, but I don’t know what we were expecting.  A real dragon?

The lighting conditions weren’t ideal, so here are my crappy photos of the cave:

And here’s Tom filling up the cave with some dragon presence:

We eventually left the cave.  We took the time to sit, rest our legs, and stare up at this dragon monument that was outside the exit:

The Dragon

Now, I don’t know how the rumour got started, but apparently, every hour, that dragon was supposed to breathe fire.  So the bunch of us stuck around for about 15 minutes, waiting for the fireball.

Evidently, the group of us make enough of a crowd to cause other people to wonder what’s going on, because more people from off the street started joining our group, staring up at the dragon, waiting.

And then the hour came…and went…and nothing happened.

Jiv went to talk to a local street vendor.  It went something like this:

Jiv:  Isn’t this thing supposed to breathe fire every hour?

Vendor:  [Look of confusion]

Jiv:  [Mimes breathing fire, and points at dragon]

Vendor:  [Shakes head vigorously]

Disappointed, the crowd dispersed.

5:35PM

Tamara had led us into the Jewish Quarter of Krakow.

The storm was really threatening now – dark clouds, and rumbling that was closer than before.

Rain started to fall.  It was time to get indoors.  As a torrent of rain started to come down, we found a restaurant, and took shelter.

And then it started to hail for a bit.  Strange.

6:52PM

The restaurant we had chosen was pretty fancy.  I ordered what eventually turned out to be chicken shish kabab.  For the price…not that great.  But whatever, we were inside and dry.  And I was full.

The group was pretty tired at this point.  The lack of sleep from the night before, and the long tour of the day had worn us out.  After we had finished eating, Tamara told us that we had the rest of the day to ourselves.

A pack of us left the restaurant to explore the Jewish Quarter.  Eventually, we found ourselves back in the Market Square, where I promptly ordered myself a lemon sorbet.  I missed the ice cream from Wroclaw, but the lemon sorbet was amazing.  Sonia took the opportunity to buy some zapiekanka.

Have I told you about zapiekanka?  I don’t think I have.  Polish equivalent to a hot dog.  Long half of a baguette, topped with melted cheese and mushrooms, and a long strip of ketchup.  I liked ‘em.

Some of us went back to the hostel.  I hung around the Market Square for a little bit and snapped a few photos:

Here’s Adam Mickiewicz again!  What a guy!

And a giant head:

The very center of the Market Square was a…market.  Lots of little booths selling trinkets.  Religious figurines…amber… a high number of chess boards, which I found strange.

And wouldn’t you know it, I also found some miniature copies of those creepy head sculptures that I’d seen in Wawel Castle!

At this point, I was pretty tuckered out.  I walked back to the hostel, and eventually went to sleep.

We would be getting up early the next day to go to Auschwitz.

Click here to go back to Part 9:  The Halfway Point

I haven’t written about my Poland trip in a while.  And I had just reached the half-way point, too!

It’s the same old excuse.  I’m super super super super super busy, and don’t have time.

New ones will come soon, I promise.  There’s still lots to talk about!  Krakow…Auschwitz…Poznan…Walking with Guerillas…The Rickety Flight Home…

Just be patient.

June 22, Morning

During breakfast, I found out that it was another free day – once more, Wroclaw was our playground to romp around in independently, followed by another version of Hamlet (HAMLET. SILENCE FROM THE BODY by Roberto Bacci) that night.  It was also our last night in Wroclaw – we were going to leave for Krakow early the next morning.

The deal was even sweeter when Tamara handed us a 250z cash-infusion.

So what did I do?  Did I hit the town, and eat at restaurants?  Did I go sightseeing?  Did I go shopping?

Actually, I did laundry.  Yep, I had accumulated quite a collection of dirty laundry at this point, so I stayed back at the hostel, and slammed some dirty clothes into the washing machine.  While waiting for my clothes to get washed, I hung out in the hostel kitchen with Chantelle.

While talking with Chantelle, I learned that a few of the ladies in our group had noticed that men in Poland were a lot more obvious when “checking out” the women around them.  Chantelle told me that a few of them had even felt uncomfortable at times, and that it was almost as if some men wanted them to notice.  I told her that I wondered if it was just a European thing, and she said that she didn’t know.

I also took a time out to play with the Hostel Dog:

2:15PM

With my laundry air-drying on a clothing rack in the hostel, I eventually left to go exploring on my own.

It was chilly, rainy and grey out.  I also wasn’t sure where everybody was – we seemed to be all scattered about.

I eventually bought some postcards and a calling card – I was going to call Em later on that day.

2:55PM

I ran into Tara, Tom, Alex (or was it Alexi? My writing is a bit sloppy), Sonia, Ryan and Jiv at the milk bar we had originally seen during our tour of Wroclaw.  I had something to eat, and then we all left together.

Eventually, Ryan, Jiv, Alex (Alexi?) and I split off and walked through some of the small artisan shops.  We talked with a shopkeep, who told us about a major flood in Wroclaw that had happened about a decade before.  Apparently, flooding in the area was quite common.

We thanked the shopkeep, and left.

4:15PM

Somehow or another, I had gotten back to the hostel, and started writing postcards.  I also took the opportunity to call my girlfriend Em, and tell her how I was doing.

After the phone call, I felt a little Wroclaw-ed out, and felt I needed some downtime to recouperate.  I went into the common room and watched some BBC News.

Finally, I got up, and went out again for something to eat with Tom, Tara, Ryan, Alex, Una, and Linn.

6:33PM

If it hasn’t become clear already, the bunch of us became expert restaurant-hoppers.  Choosing restaurants, however, could be a bit of a chore.  Often, there were times where we’d travel the entire square several times before deciding on something we could all agree upon.

And for that night, the restaurant was a Greek place called “Ready’s”.  This is what my guidebook says about that restaurant:

Paper napkins and plenty of plasticky bits and bobs greet you in what rates as a very poor man’s Sphinx.  Eating is just a means to an end here, with plates of kebab meat, fries and chicken being the core dishes.  You may enjoy Ready’s, but only after a dozen beers.

Maybe it’s my attraction to no-frills stuff, but I enjoyed this place.  I’d eat there again.

In fact, we were enjoying our meal so much that we lost track of time!  We paid our bill, rushed out, and tried to figure out how to get to the theatre to see Bacci’s HAMLET.

7:45PM

After a failed attempt at walking to the theatre, we decided as a group to try to take a cab.  Eventually, we were able to hail one down, but only four of us were able to take it.  After a quick discussion, Ryan, Alex, Una and Linn hopped in, and the rest of us tried to hail another cab.  Tom, Tara and I were doubtful that we’d make it.

8:00PM

Luckily, we were able to hail a cab.  After flailing some arms, and gesturing wildly at our maps, we were able to communicate to the driver where exactly we wanted to go.  I think he knew we were in a hurry, because he floored it.

He pulled up right to the theatre entrance.  We paid, hopped out, and rushed into the theatre.

HAMLET. SILENCE FROM THE BODY Directed by Roberto Bacci

When we got inside the theatre, the show was just about to begin.  There was no seating left, so I sat in the aisle.

The lights came down, and the show started.

This version of Hamlet was spoken in rapid-fire Italian.  There were English and Polish subtitles projected on a surface above the stage.  Half-way through the production though, the English subtitles stopped.  They just stopped coming.

I think this was a good thing though, since it allowed me to focus on what I was seeing and hearing on stage, as opposed to flicking my eyes up to the screen every few seconds to get my place in the story.

So what did I see?  This version of Hamlet had the cast (with the exception of Hamlet himself) dressed in fencing armor – masks and all.  I thought the masks helped them pull off some nice sleight of hand, since it allowed them to “dissappear” characters into the anonymous chorus, and have them re-emerge elsewhere.  Actual fencing was performed on stage as well, which was exciting to see.

The stage was panelled in wood, giving it a very red, and earthy tone.  The major set piece was what appeared to be a large, rusty frame or scaffolding, somewhat like a jungle-gym.  This apparatus was climbed upon, walked through, and even had “drawbridge” doors on either side of it.  It was a neat contraption, though I was worried for the actors safety when they were climbing it at some points, since it seemed to have a very high centre of gravity.  I also wish they had used it more – it seemed to have a lot of potential.

The acting was decent.  I had a conversation with Tom about the show afterwards, and we seemed to agree that this was a pretty “meat and potatoes” Hamlet.  It did the job of telling the story, and it told it pretty well, but nothing blew our socks off.  Tom said that Bacci’s Hamlet was “like a Soul Pepper production, if they had hired a kind-of experimental director.  Pretty strong, but nothing special.”

We talked about Hamlet for a bit, and then walked back to the Hostel.  I hung around in the common area for a bit, and then I went to sleep early – we had to wake up around 5:30AM to get ready for our bus trip to Krakow the next day.

Click here to go to Part 10:  Journey to Krakow, Wawel Hill, and The Dragon

Click here to go back to Part 8:  A Boat Ride, Eating, Videos, AJAX, and More Eating

June 21, 10:00AM (Father’s Day)

After I woke up, had breakfast, and cleaned up, Tamara offered us the opportunity to go on a boat ride down the section of the Odra River that runs through Wroclaw.  I was interested in going, so I watched some European music videos while I waited for the others to get set.

It was going to be Yev, Jiv, Chantelle, Ryan, Tamara, Peter, Alexi, Sonia, Una, and myself on that boat.

A few minutes later,  and we were underway.

11:30AM

It was an absolutely gorgeous day – sunny, warm, and beautiful.  Perfect for boating around Wroclaw.

We chugged down the Odra, and then turned around.  It was very pleasant.

We also took the opportunity to ask Tamara about the racial/cultural tension that we thought we had picked up on the night before.  She told us that she thought it had much to do with the racial monolithicism of Poland.  Not sure if I mentioned this before, but Peter Brook said that the Polish audience was the most racially monolithic crowd he’d ever seen.

The boat trip finished.  We docked, and the group conversation eventually sizzled out until it was just Tamara and I talking, as we all walked down the streets of Wroclaw.  I mentioned how I have never really had the business-end of racism in my face before, and have never had the experience of being the “other”.  Tamara responded by telling me that I was very lucky to have grown up in Canada.  I agreed with her.

Deciding that we were all hungry, the group split off into smaller groups to find something to eat.  The group I was in eventually settled down at a very nice crepe place.  I got a crepe with chicken, cheese, spinach and corn.  Totally hit the spot!

1:43PM

After eating, we had the rest of the afternoon to do whatever we pleased.  As had become custom, we spent our time hopping from restaurant to restaurant, sampling this and that, and watching the locals.  Una, Sonia, Chantelle, and I eventually found ourselves at “Pomazanka”, which our guidebook promised would provide the “widest selection on ice cream, cakes and pastries on the Rynek.”

Sonia had apple cake.  Chantelle had chocolate cake.  Una had marzipan cake. I went for strawberry gelato, and we all decided that our choices were very good.

1:51PM

Had an interesting conversation with Sonia about the gay culture in Poland.  When asked for her impressions, she told me that from what she saw, since Poland is highly religious, it stands to reason that the gay culture is probably carefully hidden from plain sight.  I told her that I agreed with her – at least for Wroclaw.  Warsaw seemed a bit more relaxed.

There’s a lapse in my journaling for a few hours here…from memory, I know I eventually went back to the hostel and phoned my Dad to wish him a happy Father’s Day.

My journal picks up again here:

4:20PM

At this point, I was in the middle of watching one of the optional films for that day – MADAME DE SADE directed by KRZYSZTOF WARLIKOWSKI (yep – the same fellow who directed CLEANSED).  Yikes.  Granted – this was a videotape of a theatre piece, so it was weakened right off the bat.  Anyhow, the camera was too far away, so the audience never got to see the actor’s faces, and the sound was just awful. If theatre is a medium for communication, this video fell way short.  I fell asleep.  Instantly forgotten.

5:26PM

It was a double feature for videos that day – the next video was a version of MEDEA by ANATOLIJ WASILJEW.  It was a one-woman piece…the video was from a presentation that looked like it happened in an art museum.

How to describe this piece?

Two words:  Enraged, and Naked.  Props to the woman for the effort and the work she was putting in.  She was clearly committed, and working hard.  However, watching a naked woman yell at me from a chair for an hour is not how I like to spend my time.  I just wanted it to stop.  If it wasn’t so loud, I’m sure I would have fallen asleep there too.

Video recordings of theatre pieces always fall flat for me – even if they’ve been edited well, and recorded with video in mind.  There really are some things that only live theatre can do.

Why didn’t I leave?  True – there was nothing keeping me in the theatre.  However, I hate leaving bad shows halfway through – I always have this little bit of hope that maybe they’ll save themselves towards the end.  Still, I’m usually let down.

Anyhow, we shook off the two videos, and walked back to the hostel to pick up our tickets for that nights live show:  AJAX, THE MADNESS by THEODOROS TERZOPOULOS.

AJAX, THE MADESS by THEODOROS TERZOPOULOS

Here are some dark and blurry photos of the whole gang getting ready to see AJAX:

AJAX was a heavily ritualized Greek performance/meditation on the Ajax myth.  The show promised murder, guilt, madness, and war satire.

Like I said: heavily ritualized performance/meditation.  It was like a 20 minute mantra that was repeated 3 times.  There were 3 actors, each taking turns leading the mantra, and each putting their own spin on it.

The first guy was my favourite.  Total commitment the entire way.  The mantra involved lots of repeated physical actions, and this guy put his whole body into it.  I knew he was working hard.  How did I know?  Because he was sweating buckets.  And he never swallowed – saliva just gushed out of his mouth for his entire 20 minutes.  The man must have lost 2 litres of body fluid over the course of the show.  It was unbelievable.  I was blown away by the energy and commitment of that guy.

It went downhill for me from there.  The second guy had this highly reflective knife that he kept shining into the audience, and it was really annoying.  By the time the third guy went up, I think I had the mantra under my belt.  It was nice to see the little differences that each iteration had on the last, but it didn’t really grab me.

And the war satire was kind of weak – at least for me.  It almost seemed tagged on, like an afterthought – jetfighter fly-over soundcues, and this image of a processional of coffins.  I think I heard a Roger Waters tune tucked in there too.

Anyhow, it was OK.  Not great, not terrible.  It was awkward for the curtain call though.  The audience gave the cast some real good applause, and they were bowing, and that was fine.  But then they wouldn’t leave.  And because they wouldn’t leave the stage, the audience felt compelled to clap more.  So they stayed.  And then the director came out, and we clapped for him too.  And I could feel the applause dying down, but then they’d come up to centre stage and bow again, and people would keep clapping in an attempt to avoid awkwardness.  It was almost like they were drawing applause out of us, as opposed to letting us give it to them.

Somehow, the vicious cycle eventually ended.  We left.

Saw some interesting sculptures on the street on the way out:

Not sure what time it was, but from the photos, it looked like it was starting to get dark out.

On our way home, some of us decided to get some midnight snacks at the grocery store.  I got some orange juice (a respectable kind, with an expiry date that I felt good about), and some waffle cracker things.  Our shopping finished, we walked back to the hotel to eat what we bought.

While eating, we watched David After the Dentist:

and some more Dave’s Farm.

Then, because we weren’t tired yet, we went to Wizard Hat for an hour or so, and then went back to the grocery store for more midnight snacks.  I got orange filling Jaffa Cakes, and shared them with Sonia.

Finally, we went back to the hostel for the last time that night.  We chatted for a while in the common room, and then I had a shower and went to bed.

Click here to go to Part 8:  The Halfway Point

Click here to go back to Part 7:  An Official Tour of Wroclaw

June 20th – 10:45AM

After waking, cleaning up, and eating breakfast, the whole bunch of us left the hostel to meet a guide for a tour of Wroclaw that Tamara had arranged for us.  As usual, our feet guided us to the market square, and that’s where we met Ella, our tour guide.

One of the first interesting things Ella taught us about Wroclaw was about the market square.  Apparently, a lot of the “ancient” looking buildings around us were actually only a few decades old.  They’d been designed and constructed to look old from the outside and to fit in with the historical look, but the insides were supposedly super-modern.  Part of me found that fascinating, another part was a little disappointed.  Tricked by architecture.

Ever heard of Max Berg?  I hadn’t.  Max Berg was a German architect who was appointed as the senior building official for Wroclaw in 1909.  According to Ella, Berg got caught up in Post WWI “skyscraper fever”, and wanted to  modernize the market square of Wroclaw with epic skyscrapers like the ones in New York.

Anyhow, it didn’t go over very well.  He got one up, and I saw it, and it just didn’t work.  The building itself was alright, but it just didn’t fit in with the surroundings.  This is probably why the buildings around it have been constructed to fit into that ancient style – anything else just looks ridiculous.

Oh, and some irony – the address for that New York style skyscraper?  #9/11.  Go figure.

Here’s a a link to an article about Max Berg, and his attempt at modernizing Wroclaw, if you’re interested.

See this monument?  I’ve been trying to find out more about it.  According to what I heard from Ella (which was kind of garbled, since I was hanging out at the back of the group at this point), the monument marks a horrific event that happened sometime in the 17th Century.  Apparently, an influential Italian priest told the residents of Wroclaw to put to the fire all of their earthly possessions.  So, they built a big fire, and started tossing things in.  And then things got out of control, and 41 Jews were apparently burned there as well.

You’d think I could find some information about this monument somewhere on the Web, but no luck so far.  The closest I could get was St. John Capistrano, who may have been the alleged priest – though Capistrano lived during the 1400s, which doesn’t fit in at all with the 17th Century time frame.  Anyhow, if anyone has some information on this monument, I’d be glad to hear it.

Moving on, we started walking towards the Old Town Hall of Wroclaw.  Nearby were some discolored stones on the road which marked a square:

According to Ella, that square marked where the “mad house cage” was originally located.  People who didn’t behave according to the social standards of the time (drunkards, trouble-makers during mass, women who wore trousers, etc) were put into that cage for the whole market square to see.  Yeesh.

Then we walked into the Old Town Hall.  It has been converted into a type of museum, with roped off areas, info placards, etc.  According to my journal, the insides smelled “like a fishing tackle box”.  Here are a few shots from the inside:

Yev remarked that this next room was creepy because this is where people were sentenced to be hanged:

We walked back outside.

The Old Town Hall is more or less in the centre of the market square.  Attached to it is a restaurant.  According to Ella, this restaurant is currently the oldest restaurant in Europe! Wow!  And guess what – this was the restaurant we ate at while discussing CLEANSED the other night.  And we had no idea that it was so ancient.  Go figure.

We also saw the “flogging pole” outside of the Old Town Hall.  As you can guess, petty criminals used to be roped to this thing, and flogged for the public to see.

After seeing this, we started to leave the market square.  We stopped at a little booth and had some barbequed goat cheese (salty and smoky…not bad).  We also saw another gnome – this one atop a giant finger:

12:05PM

Ella led us towards a tram stop, where we were soon picked up.  It was a really old looking tram – unpadded wooden seats, a wooden floor, and a guy who went up and down the aisles collecting our 3z tickets.

I was lucky – landed one of the few seats!  So did Tara, who sat next to me.  Here she is, after telling me that the parents in front of us should be slaughtered for the haircuts they gave their children:

So, riding the tram, we exited the downtown core of Wroclaw.

I think I’ve remarked about this several times already (if not on this blog, then to others in person), but Poland is interesting because parts of it look like they’re centuries old;  ancient, majestic architecture that just screams history.

And parts of Poland look just like Hamiltion:

Our tram eventually led us to the Centenary Hall.

Centenary Hall serves the same function as the Air Canada Center in Toronto – it hosts sporting events, talks (like from the Dalai Lama), or anything that involves large numbers of people.

Apparently, this building, also designed by Max Berg, got the same welcome that the new ROM got when it was completed in Toronto.  The public absolutely hated it, calling it ugly.  Despite that judgement, here’s a beautiful shot of the Centenary Hall:

We couldn’t actually go inside the Hall, so the visit was really just an opportunity to see the grounds.  Here are a few shots of what we saw:

From what I remember, these fountains were shooting up into the air in various patterns.

As we left the grounds, I could hear Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries start to play in the distance.  Perhaps we had just left before some kind of water show.  We’d never know.

We boarded the tram again, and started heading back down town.

During the ride back, I talked to Linn about web development (she’s a fellow web architect) and also established “Mike’s Nose-picking While Driving Law”, which states:

The likelihood of seeing a solo driver pick his or her nose while idling at an intersection increases with every second of observation.

We also spotted a woman walking a galloping wiener dog, but I couldn’t get my camera out fast enough to capture the moment.

Eventually, Ella led us back to the Wroclaw University that we had briefly visited a few days before.  A few of our group decided to take a break from the tour, but a couple of us decided to walk around the University to see the sights.

First of all, the University of Wroclaw sports some pretty impressive alumni:

Traveling upstairs required a ticket (I think they were only 6z though).  The first thing we saw when we went up the stairs was the University of Wroclaw’s equivalent to UofT’s Convocation Hall.  It was quite a bit smaller, but what it lacked in size, in more than made up for in ornate-ness:

According to Ella, this room was designed with a “counter-reformation” attitude in mind by some Jesuits.  So, instead of being reserved, they went all out with gold and sculpture.  Nice.

1:55PM

We continued up the stairs to see more exhibits:

We saw the 17th Meridian, marked out along the floor as it passed through the University:

We also saw this sign:

According to Ella, the sign said that the University of Wroclaw houses an extensive set of climate data, going back about 300 years.  If any Polish readers out there want to send me an actual translation, I’ll gladly post it.

Continuing up the stairs eventually led us onto the roof.  Once again, a spectacular view from the rooftop of a tower in Wroclaw.  This one had statues on each of its corners – with each one representing a particular discipline:

Law:

Theology:

Medicine:

Mathematics:

I could only take photos of their backs though, since they were facing outwards towards the city.

After breathing in the fresh air, we went back down and met up with the rest of our group.  We finished the tour by going to a “milk bar”, which is basically a no-frills cafeteria that serves standard meat & potatoes meals.  I instantly fell in love with it.  I had a plate of pierogies, and some mineral water, and topped it off with some amazing Wroclaw ice cream.

Once we were done eating, Tamara told us that we were free to explore the city until the shows that night.  We split up into several groups.  I chose to travel with Sonia and Ryan.

We walked back through the market square, and paused to see a busker send some massive bubbles into the sky:

Eventually, the three of us wandered over to St. Elizabeth’s Church.  A wedding was going on inside, and we didn’t want to intrude, but we did find an entrance way to get up to the top of the tower.

A 5z ticket later, we started our climb.

And what a climb.  Something like 300 steps in a dark, spiraling, claustrophobic space.  It didn’t help that there were people coming down as we were going up.  There was barely enough room for one person to go up, let alone two passing one another.

With aching thighs, we managed to reach the top.  And again, what a sight…here are some of the photos I took up there:

Remember those statues at the University?  Here they are, seen from the church tower:

Here’s what it must look like during a fall from the church tower:

And remember the Witches Bridge from this blog post?  Here it is from the outside:

And to top it off, a few photos of me up there:

The walk down the steps was better on our legs, but they were still wobbly once we reached bottom.  We stopped at a restaurant, got something to drink, and then headed back to the hostel.

We hung around the hostel for a bit.  Ryan introduced me to a YouTube phenomenon called David’s Farm. Basically, it’s this guy named David, who does some pretty crazy stuff up at his farm.

Crazy stuff like this:

Want to see a really bad idea?  Fast-forward to about 2:52 into this video.  Yikes.

Anyhow, it was almost time to see that evening’s shows.  That evening was different, because we had some choice in what we were seeing – there were several different “streams” that we got to choose from.  Most of us saw the same stream (as most of the other streams had been sold out), which had us seeing two shows that night.

The first show I saw was called MARLENE DIETRICH. ABOUT BROKEN NAILS, starring Anna Skubik.  It turned out to be a one-woman puppet show, and I absolutely fell in love with it. Skubik had beautiful puppetry technique, and I totally bought that there were two characters on stage.  It was playful.  I really enjoyed it.  It made me happy.

The second show was called SMYCZ.  How do I descibe that show?  It was, to me, variations on a theme, where the theme was “leash” (which is “smycz” in Polish).  It was absolutely mesmerizing.  Total rollercoaster.  The performer, Bartosz Porcyzk, was absolutely incredible – I’d never seen anything like him.  Everything he did absolutely held my full attention, even though I didn’t understand a word, and had to read the subtitles (which didn’t help when he’d go off script and improvise).  He could sing, he could dance, his acting was phenomenal.  His movement was flawless.  His voice, suberp.  The music behind the show was incredible.  The show completely won me over, and most of the rest of us too.  I’d definitely see the show again if I could.

Besides the show website, the best I can do to convey what we saw is show you this “trailer” that I found.  It’s just some of the songs with some still photos, but it’s better than nothing:

Here are a few shot of us after having our minds blown by SMYCZ:

Nothing revs up drama kids like seeing an amazing show.

After the show, a few of us went to Wizard Hat to talk about it.  When we got there though, we ended up spending our time talking about how our presence (as loud, North American drama students) was being perceived in Wroclaw.   Ryan (I think?) noticed that another table had been staring at us, and that one guy looked like he wanted to punch all of us.  That table eventually left.  Maybe we were being too loud and obnoxious.  Poland has certainly been smacked around a lot – maybe they don’t look kindly upon loud North Americans coming in and being obnoxious?

Then we got into a big discussion about European and North American stereotypes.

Jiv said that his darker skin colour had drawn a lot of looks his way.  Tara said something similar.  I said I hadn’t noticed anything for me, and Jiv said that it’s probably because I’m “ethnically ambiguous”, which helps me blend in.  Nice.

I was getting tired.  After an incredibly satisfying day, I left Wizard Hat, walked back to the hostel, and fell asleep.

Click here to go to Part 8:  A Boat Ride, Eating, Videos, AJAX, and More Eating

Click here to go back to Part 6:  A Taste of Total Freedom

June 19th – 10:00AM

This day started out amazingly.  First, Tamara handed us our second 200z installment of cash.  Second, she told us that besides seeing the festival show that evening, the rest of how we wanted to spend our day was up to each of us.

Total freedom in Wroclaw.  Excellent.

So, while chewing on some bread with jam, and playing with the Wrotswog the Hostel Dog, I mentally went over my to-do list:

1. Get an international phone card, and call home
2. Get some postcards to send home
3. Find some souvenirs
4. Do laundry!

So, I slammed down my toast, got cleaned up, walked out into the warm and humid Wroclaw air, and hit the streets with a few others.

As usual, our feet eventually led us to the market square.  On one street, with large stone spheres as dividers, some booths were set up where people were hocking their wares.

There were lots of little knick-knacks, but I actually didn’t see much that I hadn’t seen at other similar markets in Toronto.  I was looking for gifts that were unique to the area, and it took me a while to eventually find them.

Here’s a shot of us checking out some wares:

One highlight was a booth where a German man was selling hand-made wooden puzzles.  He was a good salesman (though I’m pretty sure he was hitting on Linn the whole time), so I bought one of his puzzles.  If you’re interested, and you read German, here is his website.

Here we are trying to solve some of his puzzles:

Very perplexing.

After a bit more shopping about, we decided to get some lunch.

1:10PM

I was about to get my first plate of pierogi since landing in Poland, and I was starving.  After glacing at the menu,  I ordered “pierogi ruskie” (basic potato, cheese, and onion pierogi), and a Sprite.  Linn was upset because the waiter told us that they were out of the meat pierogies, and didn’t have any without cheese (Linn is lactose intolerant).  So, she ordered fries instead.

Her fries showed up.  Our pierogies didn’t.

Something like 30 minutes passed.  Eventually, the waiter came back and told us that they were fresh out of pierogies.   Devestated, and famished for real Polish pierogi, I finished the rest of my Sprite, and we decided to try someplace else.

Ironically, Linn was the only one who ended up getting a meal there.

2:00PM

We found another restaurant that looked good, and sat down.  Unfortunately, there were no pierogies on the menu (was there a pierogi shortage?  In Poland?  Impossible!), so I ordered “penne spinaci”.  It was relaxing, sitting out there in the market square under the tent.  A couple of musicians with guitars and accordions played for us.  We got into a conversation with a local.  It was heavenly.  And it felt good to know that there was no rush to do anything – we could play the day however we liked.

And that’s pretty much how the afternoon went – we’d go to some restaurant, sit down, eat and drink for an hour, and then wander around until we got hungry and found another restaurant.  It was awesome.

It was also during that trip that Ryan and Jiv found what we would eventually name “Wizard Hat” – a bar near the Wroclaw University that sold 5z pints of beer.  This would eventually become one of the main watering holes for our group while we were in Wroclaw.

Here’s why it’s called Wizard Hat:

See it?

After chewing on some of the gummy candies that Tara had bought at some booth in the market, I decided to head back to the hostel on my own to see if I could find a way to call home.

Outside of our hostel was a convenience store, and somebody in our group had told me earlier that I could get a phone card from there.  So, I walked inside, and (after a lot of gesturing) was able to purchase a 20z “card” (really, just a receipt with a code on it).

So, I walked back up into the hostel, borrowed the hostel phone, and after some trial, error, and help from Tamara (the instructions were all in Polish!), I managed to phone home.

And nobody was there.  Nobody was at my girlfriend Em’s place either.  So, I put it on my “to do” list to try calling again that night after the show.

Putting back the phone, I walked into the common room, where the BBC was reporting on events in Iran.  Riots on the streets, total news blackout (except for social media)…our group watched the news in Iran carefully, especially Tara, who had planned on visiting there after Poland.  It wasn’t looking good.

6:13PM

A few hours passed.  There’s a gap in my journal, so I don’t really know what I did.  All I know, is that at 6:13PM, I was in a theater about to see TEBEK-JARAN (“The Stabbing of the Horse”) by the Gambuh Desa Batuan Ensemble; a Balinese troupe.

So how was The Stabbing of the Horse?

Hypnotic.  I found a YouTube clip posted by someone who was recording the show.  Check it out:

It’s really quite fantastic what she’s doing with her body – very precise, very controlled.  It was impressive.  The whole company moved like this.  It was really other-worldly…I felt like some kind of scientist watching an alien ritual.  Quite incredible.

But, at the time, I have to admit my eyes got pretty heavy after about 20 minutes of that music and movement.  I didn’t understand the language at all, and had no idea what was going on even though they’d handed out a piece of paper explaining the story.  Plus, it was super warm in the theatre.  I won’t lie, I had to struggle to stay conscious.

And then they brought out the horse!  Which was awesome – it was clearly just some actor in a horse costume – but it was freaking hilarious.  The horse came out, played with the audience for a bit, and that perked me right back up.

And then they killed it. They stabbed the horse, my favourite character, just as it was getting good.  But I shouldn’t have been surprised – the title of the show was The Stabbing of the Horse.  What did I expect?

Hrmph.  Maybe if I knew more about the culture, I would have gotten more out of the performance.  Oh well,  I gave it my best shot.

After the show, Tamara gave us the option to see a performance of Macbeth.  Personally, I was completely drained from the last show, and decided to head back to the hostel.

Back at the hostel, I successfully called both my parents and my girlfriend Em.  It was good to hear their voices, and totally crazy to think that it was only 3PM back home.  It was like time travel.  My mind boggled.

Eventually, we met up with the people who saw Macbeth – and apparently, it was incredible.  I’d write more about it, except that I didn’t see it.  But according to them,  it was awesome.

After we met up with them, a few of us stopped by a Greek restaurant for some gyros.  We discussed the shows a bit, and I heard more impressions about Macbeth.  After our discussion, we left, and started heading back to the hostel.

We were just walking through the middle of the market square, when all of a sudden, it hit me:  I didn’t have my camera on me.  I’d forgotten it at the gyro restaurant!  I peeled out, and flew back to the restaurant.

The restaurant was empty – it looked like they were about to close.  And my camera was nowhere to be seen.  Finally, the European thieves and pick-pockets that I’d been warned about had struck.

And then the manager came out and gave me my camera back.  I felt like quite a shmuck.

11:52PM

After thanking the manager, I left the restaurant, and ran smack dab into another group of my fellow travelers who had taken a different route back from Macbeth.  They were hungry, and I was up for hanging out, so we stopped at another restaurant.  This one was a fancy Italian place.

Have you been keeping track?  Let’s count how many times I sat down to eat that day:

1. Breakfast at the hostel
2. Failed pierogi mission
3. Penne spinaci, with accordian music
4. Wizard Hat
5. Gyros at the Greek restaurant
6. Fancy Italian restaurant

Holy smokes!

So there we were:  Jiv, Ryan, Una, Linn, and Sonia, sitting at this fancy Italian restaurant, being loud and obnoxious, as per usual.  It took us about 20 minutes to finally realize that we were sitting in a restaurant geared towards romance, and that many of the couples around us weren’t appreciating how much noise we were making.

So we paid our bill and left.

And we went home.  And slept.  I hadn’t bought any postcards, and I still had laundry to do.

Oh well.  Plenty of time for that.

Click here to go to Part 7:  An Official Tour of Wroclaw

Click here to go back to Part 5:  Exploring Wroclaw

Hey all – just a quick note to let you know that I landed back in Toronto safely last night.

Stand by for a deluge of blog updates and photo uploads.  I have plenty of stories to tell.  Just give me a few days.

Note:  Like my last few posts, I’m not yet done processing my photos, and so these posts will probably have more and more photos attached to them over time.

We had arrived in Warsaw around noon, and only had this day to really do any sight-seeing.  So, while some of us may have wanted to clock out and sleep our way into jet-lagged paradise, instead, we made a quick clean-up stop at the hostel, and then hit the pavement and started walking around.

3:55PM Local

One of the first things we saw was a statue of Copernicus outside of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

According to Tamara, there’s a copy of this statue in Montreal as well.  Neat.

Embedded into a pedestal was also a copy of Bernardo Bellotto (known here as Canaletto)’s painting, entitled “The Church of the Holy Cross“.

Here’s the painting:

Not a bad likeness of current Warsaw, either.  Just remove the horse and buggies, add some pavement, and update the clothing.  Smack a coat of paint, and boom: present day Warsaw.

The Info Boxes

Walking down the streets of Warsaw, we kept running into these boxes on the sidewalk.  Not small, dinky boxes – but large boxes for walking into.  We’d go inside, and they’d be like small museum exhibits.

All you Poland history buffs out there, feel free to correct the next few paragraphs if I’m wrong – I’m going on what I read, and haven’t done any independent research on this stuff.

Poland seems to be celebrating 20 years since the fall of communist rule, and that’s what these info boxes seemed to talk about.  They’d talk about significant events, like the Lenin Shipyard strike of 1980 in Gdansk, which seemed to birth/galvanize the Solidarity movement.

Other info boxes had titles/themes, like “Imposing Martial Law” (happened in 1981, thanks to one communist General Wojciech Jaruzelski, which squashed the Solidarity movement).

These boxes were followed by “Help From the West”, and “Giving Back Power”, but we didn’t stay too long to read into them.  We had lots of other things to see on this day.

Embedded in The History of Poland

One thing that Poland seems to have a lot of, is history.  You don’t even have to open a book, or Google it to know that.  Just land in the city, and take a look around: some of the buildings are pretty ancient, and reek history.  Warsaw was devestated during bombing and raids by the Germans during WWII, but the city has done a pretty good job of bringing itself back together.

What else to say about Warsaw…. the style of the buildings, according to Una Ruud, is “Neo-Classical”.  There are also a plethora of churches in the city – every time we’d turn a corner, there’d be another big church.  Lots of devotional history here.

We also saw a monument for Adam Mickiewicz, a Polish Romantic-era poet/playwrite.  According to Tamara, he was a pioneer of Polish Romantic-Nationalism.  You can read up about him here.

Every now and then, while walking along some wall or another, we’d see these white signs, covered in Polish scrawl.  Tamara told us that these signs are indicators that some tragic event took place on that spot.  For example, one of the signs we stopped at was apparently on a site where some huge shooting took place in WWII.  I didn’t really catch much of that particular history lesson – I was dragging behind at that point snapping photos.

Here’s a shot of the sign:

Other Impressions of Warsaw (5:35PM Local)

The whole day, the rain had been on and off.  It’s like it couldn’t decide.  It’d spritz a little here, and then back off…and then spritz a little there, etc.  There were some storm clouds threatening us the entire time we were out, but we didn’t get caught in any torrential downpour.  It was humid out, and the sun would come out of the clouds sporadically.

Two things that suprised a few of us about Warsaw:  the low density (I expected more cramped quarters), and consequently, the massive spaces.  There was a really huge square hidden away in the recesses of Warsaw where we stopped for some coffee/tea.  I tried capturing the size of it with my camera, but no luck.  Peter, a more experienced traveller, told me that he had seen even bigger squares throughout Europe.  I can tell you I haven’t really seen anything like that in Toronto.

Warsaw’s square seemed oriented around this mermaid statue:

According to Tamara, the mermaid is Warsaw’s symbol.

Jiv’s Massive Cat, and Ryan Leaves a Bad Impression

Eventually, we found ourselves at what I believe was the outer wall of the old city.

The wall had various ports for viewing, and perhaps aiming a weapon through.  While glancing through one of these posts, a cat caught Jiv’s eye.

“That cat is MASSIVE.  It’s huge!  It’s like the size of a tiger!  Get a load of this!”

We all gathered into the small alcove to see what Jiv had spotted.

“Jiv…that’s just a normal sized house cat.”

“Are you kidding me?  No way.  That thing is OUT OF CONTROL!”

“Jiv…I could carry that thing in my arms.”

“You guys must be blind.  Look at that thing!”

I didn’t happen to take any photos of the cat, but the general consensus was that this was without a doubt a normal house cat, and Jiv may have started hallucinating.  I don’t blame him.  I think he’d been awake for something like 30 hours at this point.

Still, it was good for a laugh.

Also, while walking past a wall, some lady banged a stick against her window, and pointed at Ryan.  Maybe she was a Degrassi fan.  Or maybe she didn’t like the gait of his walk.  Either way, she seemed upset.

Here’s a video of Alex describing the incident immediately after:

We hurried along.

6:12PM Local Time

The exhaustion was really starting to get to me.

Half-dazed, I followed the group into an absolutely massive theatre in Warsaw (it’s called Teatr Narodowy).

This is a state theatre, and hosts shows from groups like the National Opera and National Ballet companies.  We didn’t get much farther than the lobby (I believe there was a show that night, which we didn’t have tickets for), but I snapped some photos of the interior.

The Monument of Warsaw’s Ghetto Uprising (6:58PM Local Time)

Poland was in bad shape for WWII.  I’m no buff on WWII/Polish history, but it seems pretty clear that things here were really rough back then.  This monument was for an uprising in a ghetto in Warsaw – and eventually I figured out that we were more or less in the location where the ghetto had originally been.

According to Tamara, 500,000 Jews in Poland were forced into this ghetto, and routed here or there – some sent to death camps, some kept here to govern over other Jews, etc.

Here’s a Wikipedia article on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

It was a pretty somber moment, anyhow.  Alex, who is proudly Jewish, took it particularly close to the heart, and lit a candle at the monument while the rain started to pour.

The Rainbow

After seeing the Ghetto Monument, we started heading back to the hostel.  We took a subway ride on the Polish metro (which was, to me, very similar to the TTC).

Chatter had been stifled since our stop at the Ghetto Monument, but was starting to pick up again.  By the time we got out of the metro system, we were back in high (yet exhausted) spirits.

And wouldn’t you know it, a pair of huge rainbows came out to greet us when we emerged:

Along with a pretty cool brass band:

Not a bad end to our only day for touring around Warsaw.

I liked Warsaw.  I wish we had more time here.  But it was time to go back to the hostel, get some food, clean up, and go to sleep.

8:43PM Local

The showers in the hostel were clean, but the temperature was really random.  Alex and I were in separate adjacent stalls, and the whole hostel got to hear us alternately wail, scream, laugh, and curse at the water.  It was apparently pretty funny.  It was also the shortest shower of my life.

The shower got my travel grime off, and also woke me up.  At this point, I began to feel somewhat adjusted to being in that time zone.

We also met Yev back at the hostel, who had gotten chills during the walking tour, and headed back by herself.  Some of us started worrying about getting sick.

10:52PM Local

You’d think we would have gone to bed.

Instead, we went out to a local pizzeria.

At first, we had some difficulty getting in – we’re a large group, with a variety of dietary preferences, and I think we freak out restaurants when we show up all together.

Eventually (thanks to some no-nonsense British lady who translated for us), we were able to squeeze ourselves into a restaurant and order some pizza.

We clinked our glasses together:  first night in Poland.  Pretty good.  The effect of the shower had begun to wear off though, and exhaustion was starting to creep back.  After paying the cheque, we got out of there, and headed back to the hostel.

And conked out.  Hard.  Falling asleep was easy.

June 17 – 4:30AM Local

They told me this would happen.

4AM rolled around, and for some reason, I woke up.  Fully rested.  Bleh.

Luckily, the hostel had free internet access and a PC.  I checked my email.  I wrote some email.  I wrote a blog post.

Then I went back to bed.

It’s a familiar feeling…as I write this, it’s June 20 at 5:25AM, and I’m wide awake.

Oh well.  Something to pass the time.

Click here to go to Part 4:  To Wroclaw

Click here to go back to Part 2: Dazed in Warsaw

Note:  More photos will be added to this post over time, so keep checking back.

June 16 – 6:51AMEST, 12:51PM Local

We had just arrived in Poland (Warsaw, to be exact) from our connecting flight from Frankfurt.  After we landed, we walked out of the plane onto the tarmac, and caught a bus to the airport terminal.

Once we got inside, we had to somehow find our checked luggage.  There was some concern that our luggage may have been lost in the shuffle when our original flight from Frankfurt was moved forward, so we were a bit worried.  If all of our luggage magically showed up, with no fuss, or missing bits, then we were in business.

So we went down to the carousel…and waited…and waited…nothing was moving, no luggage had arrived.  We waited…and then, finally, the wheels started moving.  Bags started pouring out of a chute built into the floor.

Would any of our bags be on the carousel?

It took a few rounds, and some people lost hope – but then the first bag was sighted.  After that, one after another they poured onto the carousel.  There was much rejoicing.

Now that we had our luggage, we had to find Tamara.  And here was the tricky part: as far as I know, nobody had contacted her to tell us that we had taken a later flight.  So, she may have been waiting around for an hour, and then left when we didn’t arrive.  So, we started patrolling the arrivals area…

And immediately found Tamara.  Bless her heart, she hadn’t left, and had been waiting there the whole time for us.  She’d even brought a big green bus with her to take us to our first hostel.

It’s amazing how weary us travellers can get – especially since we don’t do much, physically, while we’re being transported.  All it is, is an exercise in sitting still.  Still, somehow it’s exhausting.  Also factor in that at this point, I’d probably been up for almost 24 hours.

While we were riding the bus, Tamara informed us that the original train trips that had been scheduled into our itinerary had been too difficult to set up, and that she had arranged for the green bus to transport us to where we needed to go.  We officially had a tour bus!  Awesome!

We flew down the streets of Warsaw.  My first impression?  The license plates sure look different.  And most of the advertisements were, understandably, in Polish.  The Stop signs were still in English though, which I found interesting.

It was rainy and gray out.  Traffic flew by.  We were all exhausted.  To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t paying too much attention to the road.  I was really tired.

When we got to the hostel, we all piled out of the bus and unloaded our luggage.  Tamara apologized because we had to walk up 3 flights of stairs with our luggage – but it wasn’t that bad.  At first, the smell of the stairwell discouraged me…it smelled funky and musty.  I was prepared for the worst.

I was pleasantly surprised.

The hostel was awesome.  Freakin’ awesome.  If you’re about my age, think about your ideal apartment.  Now add lots of free food just lying around.  Now add the awesome reunions with Una Ruud and Linn Farley, two other UCDP students that had come from elsewhere around Europe to meet us.  Like I said:  awesome.

If you’re ever interested in staying in Warsaw, I recommend the place that we stayed at: New World St. Hostel.  Very clean, friendly staff, great bunks, great location.  Here is the hostel’s website.

And here are a few photos:

We didn’t have access to the rooms at first – we had to wait about half an hour. But that was OK, seeing as how there was awesome free food just lying around for us to eat:  cakes, freshly picked strawberries (very common at this time of year here, apparently), crackers, bread, etc.  After our long trip, it was heavenly.

While we were chowing down, Tara Gerami and Tom Davis walked through the door, which whipped us into another hyper frenzy.  Tom and Tara are two other UCDP students who had been in Berlin, and were meeting up with us like Linn and Una.  We were exhausted, hyper, dazed, and kinda grungy. I won’t lie – even though I hadn’t done anything physical, I really needed a shower.  I wasn’t alone.

Ever played Monopoly?  Sure you have.  You know how when you pass GO, you get $200?  That’s basically what happened to us.  By coming to this hostel, we had apparently passed GO, and so Tamara dished out 200 z (zloty, Polish currency) for each of us.  Nothing wrong with that.

Finally, our rooms were ready.  I looked inside our rooms – grey bunk beds, foot lockers for personal storage, and nice big windows.  The bunk beds were nice, and were the exact same type that I have at my own apartment. A very comfortable room.

2:52PM Local

After we had settled, we realized that (despite all of the free food) we were hungry for a full-sized meal.  We all trooped out of the hostel, and went to a restaurant just down the street.

Good food.  I had a macaroni, chicken, broccoli, and cheese casarole.  I also took this opportunity to send very short emails to my parents and my girlfriend Em with Una’s iPhone (the restaurant, despite looking like the Three Bears’ cottage, had wi-fi).

The effects of sleep deprevation were really taking their toll.  The jokes were non-sensical.  I couldn’t tell if I was hungry, but I ate anyways.  In my opinion, we were all (understandably) burnt out.

While it would have been nice to just curl up and go to bed (awake for over 24 hours at this point), Tamara advised us that it would be wisest for us to stay up as late as possible so as to not completely screw over our sleep cycle.

So, instead of going back to the hostel, the lot of us hit the pavement, and we started checking out Warsaw.

Click here to go to Part 3:  Our Day in Warsaw

Click here to go back to Part 1: Departures and Arrivals

Note:  As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in a hostel in Warsaw.  It’s 5AM, and the cable to connect my camera to a computer is buried at the bottom of my backpack.  So, while there are photos to go along with this story, they’re going to have to be added later.

June 15 – 2:45PM EST

I’ve been to Pearson Airport in Toronto a few times before, but only ever to pick up some passenger after they’ve come back from a trip.

I’ve never been one of those “departure” people.

Well, today was my day.  And man, it was confusing.

It started off smoothly enough.  My Dad, girlfriend Emily, and her sister Cassie, had brought me to Pearson to see me off.  I was able to get my boarding pass from a machine (which was nice and easy), after finding fellow passengers Reid, Anj, and Olya.  What a relief to see those three, because I honestly had no idea where I was in the airport, and had no idea what was going on.  Pearson is huge, and I was only in Terminal 1.

After our goodbyes, I stood in a line to get my carry-on bags scanned.

That was my first mistake.  Wasted 20 minutes getting to the front of that line, only to find out that I had to go to another line somewhere else in the airport to check my stowed luggage.  So there was some momentary panic while I raced around the airport, trying to find the right place.

So, lesson one:  it’s always OK to ask when you’re way out of your element, and it usually makes things go faster.  I knew this already, but this was a clear-cut example.

3:20PM EST

After some more running around, and a trip along a few moving sidewalks, I made it to our departure gate, where Olya, Reid, and Anj were already waiting.

Eventually, the rest of our comrads showed up.  And now, for your edification, here’s a list of the UCDP people who were flying with me that day:

• Anj Mulligan
• Reid Linforth
• Olya Ryabets
• Jiv Parasram
• Ryan Cooley
• Chantelle Hedden
• Alexi Marchel
• Yev Falkovich
• Peter Freund
• Alex Rubin

After a lot of sitting around and waiting, we board our flight.  After even more waiting, the plane begins to move.

Take-off:  6:00PM EST

Our plane took off at exactly 6PM EST.  We were half an hour behind schedule.  Already, my companions were taking bets on whether or not we’d miss our connecting flight from Frankfurt (not Brussels, sorry!) to Warsaw.  We only had 50 minutes once we had landed in Frankfurt, so it was going to be tight.

Anyhow, we’re in the air.  And I’m excited, of course.  I haven’t been in a plane since a flight to Toronto from Miami in 2004, and I sure as hell haven’t flown outside North America.  This was going to be a new experience for me.

It didn’t take long for three minor disasters to happen:

1. I had packed a bag of mixed nuts/cashews in my carry-on.  To my dismay, when I opened my backpack, I found that the bag had exploded and that my carry-on was filled with loose nuts.  A bunch spilled on the floor, and immediately I began worrying about other passengers who might have nut allergies…all it takes is a whiff, and bam – out like a light.
   

   Trailmix disaster

   Anyhow, Ryan Cooley helped me clean/conceal the mess as much as possible, and I did my best to clean up the mess inside my bag.  Reminded me a bit of this story I had written earlier in the year…

2. The pen I’ve been keeping my notes with started leaking.  Ink all over my hand, and some on my shirt.  Yech.  Luckily, I brought spares…
3. The instructional safety video, which was supposed to be broadcast to the screens in front of each of us, did not work in my row.  It looked like scrambled cable.  Had to crane my neck to see it on someone else’s screen.  Not too bad, but it’s a bit discouraging when the mandatory safety video doesn’t work.

The flight was mostly eventless.  Besides some minor turbulence (which freaked out one of our more sensitive flyers), there wasn’t much to do.  My Dad had let me borrow his noise-cancelling headphones, which were awesome.  I listened to classical music on XM radio while I wrote my notes.

6:37PM EST

Food started making its way down the aisles, and it smelled pretty good…

But then we hit a patch of turbulence.  One of my companions is really not into flying, and so we consoled them while the plane shook around us.  The calming thing was that the flight attendants looked calm as ever, and kept handing out food.

I chose the pasta.  And a Canada Dry ginger ale.

I hear a few of my comrads are already taking advantage of the free beer/wine/spirits on board.  Hilarity ensues.

6:52PM EST

Great meal.  Pasta in tomato sauce, a bun, some veggies in dressing, and chocolate mousse for dessert!  Felt very pampered and content.  Was reminded again of this Louis CK video.

And it’s even better knowing I haven’t paid a cent for it!  Free always tastes better…

7:00PM EST

Around this time, I figured out that the in-flight mapping system wasn’t working, and I had no idea where we were.

I trusted our pilot knew where he was going.

Also around this time, Yev started saying that the shadows were getting longer…the sun was going down…the shortest night of my life was coming.

I’m reminded of a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey – the scene near the beginning (after the ape fights), where a character is flying to a space station.  Our flight feels futuristic.  Maybe it’s the lighting.  Maybe it’s all of the video screens winking at me.  Maybe I’m just over dramatizing it.

Or maybe it was that Phillip Glass music I was listening to…

At this point, I’ve decided that I’m bored, and that I’m going to watch an in-flight movie.  After some deliberation, I choose The Watchmen, which I had already seen, but didn’t mind watching again.

8:10PM EST

It was pretty dark outside our windows at this point.  Yev seemed to think that we were over Greenland, but how she could tell that through all the cloud cover, I have no idea.

I kept watching the movie.

9:15PM EST

At this point, I decided to get up and walk around a bit.  I stretched.  Our trip to Frankfurt is about half over.  So is The Watchmen, for that matter, but I decided to try to sleep instead of finishing it.

11:00PM EST

I had no luck sleeping at all, despite amazing noise-cancelling headphone technology.  I rolled about.  I chatted with my travel mates.  I listened to music.

It was starting to get light out outside.  The sun was coming up.

I don’t think anyone slept that much during the flight.  I saw a few people dosing, but that was it.

I knew that I’d have to stay awake for as much of the following day as possible, so it was a bit discouraging to be unable to sleep.  I pretty much figured I’d spend most of the next day in a daze.

11:20PM EST

Breakfast arrived, and according to Yev, we were flying over land again!

Breakfast is a muffin, yogurt, and orange juice.  Nice.

Muffin was good, but non-descript.  No idea what flavour it was, but I liked it.

When they brought the food, I asked the flight attendant what land we were flying over.  He said he had no idea, but that we would be landing in about an hour.

Maybe if I knew how fast we were going, I could figure out where we might be.

I found it strange that the captain never really addressed the passengers.  Never told us the route, altitude, speed, etc.  Things are changing, I guess.

11:45PM EST

It was almost midnight back home, and the sun was rising where we were.

I had no idea what time it was.  My body felt very confused and disoriented.  I felt like I’d been up all night, and I guess I had been…all 3 hours of it.

June 16 – 12:25AM EST

We began our descent around here.  Phase 1 of our journey was about to end.

Why do all pilots sound the same?  Always with that croaky voice… or maybe it’s the microphones that they use.

Lots of turbulence going down, but it was a smooth landing.

June 16 – 3:15AM EST, 9:15AM Local

I still hadn’t adjusted my watch yet, and that was starting to freak me out.

So, the main event was that we missed our connecting flight from Frankfurt to Warsaw.  We were about 20 minutes too late.  50 minutes is not even close to enough time to get processed at the Frankfurt airport.

Alex explains:

So Frankfurt airport was my first taste of Europe.  My impressions?  Honestly?  Not that different.  I didn’t feel like I was in a foreign place, really – except I couldn’t read any of the advertisements.  Everything else had English attached, so that was nice.

After some chit-chatting with Air Canada, we were booked on a later flight.  There was a lot of running around, lots of in-between-destinations stress, and we almost missed that flight too.  But we made it.

A couple of casualties though:

1. Ryan Cooley left his windbreaker on the plane that brought us from Toronto
2. Reid Linforth lost his watch during the security check in Frankfurt.  That really sucked for him.

At this point, I could really feel how tired I am.  My body was buzzing.  I had been awake since 9:30AM EST, and it was 3:22AM EST at that point.

The plane we took from Frankfurt was much, much smaller than the one from Toronto.  It was only going to be flying for an hour, and it looked like a lot of the passengers took this trip every day.  I tried to nap on the plane, but no luck.

4:08AM EST, 10:08AM Local

We were on route to Warsaw.

We were served some kind of cheese sandwich for our in-flight meal, which was good.  Really wasn’t sure what was in it, and sure didn’t take a picture.  Why?  I was starving.  Scarfed the thing right down.  Hadn’t slept, hungry, grumpy.

There was lots of turbulence in the smaller airplane.  Pretty shaky.  Kinda scary.

I wiped my face with a lemon scented wet-nap to wake myself up, and had a cup of tea.

Eventually, I got into a conversation with the lady sitting next to me about theatre.  She was a Bulgarian business-woman going to some sort of seminar.  We talked about Poland, sight-seeing, and Bulgarian theatre.

And then we landed.

And we were in Poland.

Click here to go to Part 2: Dazed in Warsaw

Click here to go back to the Prologue