an epic in poland part i
saturday, i let myself sleep in because I was really jetlagged. I was supposed to go to the Salt Mines but I accidentally fell asleeep after deciding not to reset my alarm at like 8 and we were suposed to be in the Dizzy Daizy lobby at 9 so we could leave. I woke of my own accord at like 11 am and decided to piss away the day so I slept by myself until about 3 p.m. then I think I woke up a little angry at that point because I’d spent an entire day doing nothing but I felt really refreshed and finally adjusted to the time and couldn’t really hold that against myself.
I sat in the Bling Bling lobby for a few hours and some Americans came. One was a girl who was from a rich part of Seattle but was studying in new York or about to start law school there anyway. She was kind of a bitch. I mean, she probably meant well, but I”ve found that a lot of American travellerse are little spoiled kids who are used to blowing mom and dad’s money as lavishly as possible. It’s unfortunate, too, because this is the portrait of America that most foreigners see. She babbled on about her journey and suggested the best and worst things about the entire world while talking about how her clothes were being just thrown out now that her trip was close to done so she didn’t have to carry them back. Augh!! She was speaking with this boy John from Stanford born Seattle about this when I finally left to take a phone call from Joe.
Honestly, it was phone calls from Joe that really kept me sane in Krakow. I spent a lot of it pretty terrified and depressed but it wa good to have a familiar voice when there were no faces available. He left at 12 CST/7 Polish time so I returned to the lobby and talked to some new American arrivees.
The new people were Sukyeong from South Korea and Jeff from DC born OC. We talked about travel to Russia which Jeff had just completed, and then Daniel and Maja who go to school at ELON in NC but were originally from Costa Rica and Poland-Boston repsectively joined us. They had also just been to Russia. John from earlier came back and we decided to go eat with Petter, Pehr, Sara, and Kim from Sweden so all of us except Jeff went to this little restaurant by Club Prozak and ahd pizza and beers (I had cokes) from 9-12.
I’m convinced that British and Scandanavian people are some of my favorite non-Americans. They seem to be just very enjoyable to be around and good conversationalists. When we went out, we had wonderful talks or debates about how Swededn isn’t a very nationalist country and most people there consider themsleves European before Swedish which is pretty fucking rad.
It’s interesting to me because even though I consider myself a global citizen, it’s undeniably through the lens of being an American. We also debated health care which Maja was very much in favor of socializing in the US. I am too, but it was interesting to hear the view of the Swedes who I think simultaneously take their UHC for granted and find important flaws in it. I wish the conversation could’ve continued but it moved to the topic of lawsuits in the U.S. Dan and Maja thought that we should cap emotional damages but Joh and I Pointed out that a lot of the cases they cited were really hyped by the media. Tehir view on media is a little hypocritical I think because they say that American media fails to perform its job but simultaneously they take the media’s word on some issues (lawsuits) as fact. I was enjoying the debating becuse it’s so engrained in my blood but Dan started to get a little frustraed so we moved on to something else.
After dinner, John, Kim, Sukyeong and I made plans to meet everyone else at 9 a.m. to go to the Salt Mines an then we went to a disco. We tried to get in to Club Prozak but you had to be 21, I am 19 and Kim had no ID. We ended up at alittle underground club nearer to our hostel. This club also had the 21 rule but the guy at the front said it didn’t apply to girls and I convinced him that Kim didn’t need ID. The club played mostly American rap which I found helped to cure my homesickness by being both familiar and bad at the same time.
Sunday, we went to the Salt Mines which were amazing. I’m not kidding. They’re cooler than anything else I’ve seen here I think. The mines are naturally occurring rock salt that has been mined adn the miners have made really great sculptures in the leftover salt (or maybe it’s just salt they decided not to mine). They have statues of Copernicus, several Polish folk scenes, and a huge chapel that took 3 miners 65 years to finish. It’s phenomenal. I have lots of pictures of it even though a photo pass cost 10 zl.
After the mines, it was rainy and I had to take a train to Kielce and a cab (50 fucking dollars!) to the camp because the only bus timetables I’d found were wrong. Fuc k. I was really frustrated by the time I got out here and spent the whole cab ride saying Our fathers and opening praying to God. I said “God Bless You” to the driver when I got out. I meant “Than you for not killing me.” Ugh. That part of my day is the most afraid I’ve been in my life, I think.