Adventures Overseas 9/16

These sixteen updates will be the condensed and often more erratic version of my adventures overseas, comprised of the updates that I sent home to my family at the time.

Author's Disclaimer: The following were written when I traveled overseas with my sister. They were the short and sweet version of what was going on in my daily journal. Often, I watered things down so that our parents wouldn't know how scared we really were or how bad a hostel really was. We didn't want to scare them. Also, I wrote these updates on my iPod, and in the interest of authenticity, I haven't edited or changed the formatting much. This may be less to do with authenticity and more to do with all those darn buttons I'd have to press if I edited it all. Anyway, there are plenty of little typos to go around I'm sure. I'm sorry. They bug me, too.

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Update 9: October 19 – FRIDAY

Look at me go. Exactly a week after I last wrote. You’re welcome.

Last time I wrote, Sister and I were on our way to Krakow; now we have moved in to Vienna, where we booked a nice 5-night stay at a hostel that doesn’t make us gag. Every single thing about this hostel is better than the last place. Generally, we try to stay positive (in a kind of negative way) by telling ourselves, “The next hostel could be worse!” It’s like a rancid carrot on a stick that keeps us appreciative of the less rancid carrot that we already have.

This time, though, as we were packing up to leave our rancid hostel in Krakow, we were pretty confident that it actually couldn’t get worse. There were people on park benches, snoring peacefully away, that looked comfier and cleaner than we felt. And more dignified.

I’m not complaining, really. I didn’t expect anything better for the glorious price of... (drum roll).....

... 4€ a night!!!!! (Plus an extra 1€ to get sheets and blankets).

But it was still comical. When they said it came with a kitchen, what they really meant was that there was a kettle (which, I might add, some brainy feller had put tea bags right into). The ‘kitchen’ also included a fridge (more on that black hole later) and a countertop, and just down the hall from that was a little nook in the wall that had a sink. There was no way of cooking food, or even heating it, unless you wanted to pour boiling tea over some ramen noodles.

On the counter by the fridge in that glorious kitchen, there endured, for three of the five nights we were there, a chunk of brown bread. As it aged, someone was picking off bits of the crust. By the third day, it was reduced to a small, crustless lump, sitting on a plate with some leftover juices from a tomato. That was the free breakfast that was advertised, I suppose.

There were four toilets, though, so that was good; we never had to line up. These bathrooms can be briefly summed up by describing them by their most prominent features. There was the one that had a heater that had a knob that didn’t work; no matter how you turned it, it just got hotter in there.

Then there was the one that locked me inside of it. I only used that one once. I had to call for Sister. She helped me after she finished taking a video and peeing herself laughing.

The third one was behind such a new-looking door that we didn’t even know it was a bathroom. Then Sister ventured in and suggested that it was not worth going past the new looking door. For once, I heeded her.

The final bathroom was the best one, as long as one remembered to open or close the great big window as the situation called for.

You may think, “Why is she describing the bathrooms??” Or, “Doesn’t she think that’s too much information?”

To which I would respectively reply, “Because they’re an integral part of a hostel environment.” And “No.”

I’m just keeping it real here, folks.

Now, I mentioned a black hole of a fridge before, and I better elaborate now, or I’ll forget to, even though it still makes me really mad.

So, when we first got to Krakow, we had put a bag of oranges in the fridge and ate through them pretty fast. Our last one, though, had gone missing; Sister attested that she’d seen one of the front desk guys eating it earlier. I was annoyed at this, but I thought, whatever. It wasn’t technically marked, and the scrawny guy kind of looks like he has scurvy anyway. Besides that, I suspect the hostel is front for something else, being that the front-desk guys are constantly blaring either music about weed, instructional videos about weed, or educational segments on weed, so as long as it’s just an orange they’re pinching, I can live with it. (This reminds me, Canada has officially legalized weed. Wow. Congrats).

However.

Sister and I bought a package of oranges on our last evening in Krakow. We wrapped them in duct tape and VERY CLEARLY MARKED THEM before putting them in the fridge.

Even though we left AT SIX IN THE MORNING!!!!! we packed up to discover that OUR ENTIRE BAG OF ORANGES WAS GONE!!!

I am still mad. I went up to the front desk and peeked around, trying to be sneaky. I had to be sneaky because the front desk is where Front-Desk Guy sleeps - on the little shelf between the top countertop and the floor. Sometimes he also sleeps on the kitchen floor. I prefer it when he’s on the counter. It’s weird to have a preference about such things, but now that I’ve stayed at that hostel I do.

Anyway, I didn’t see our oranges.

Rasta Vegan was the name of the place, so if you’re ever looking to stay somewhere that is both slightly more expensive and slightly dirtier than a subway station bathroom floor, look it up.

Just don’t trust the fridge honour system.

Anyway, I should tell you a little about the actual beautiful city of Krakow, instead of going on about the hostel that stripped away at our hygiene and sanity.

So. We got to Krakow on Friday at approximately very late at night. We got pretty turned around just trying to get out of the mall/train station/coach station that we were dropped off at, but we did eventually find our way to the street that the Rasta Vegan was supposed to be located on. All the other hostels were marked, so we decided to venture into the one that unhelpfully promotes itself with a red sign that said, “Hostel”.

Of course, that was it.

We went to bed, exhausted by the day of traveling, even though we literally just sat and slept on and off in discomfort the whole time.

Anyway, Saturday morning we fled the mire and took refuge in a coffee shop down the road, planning our next move. It worked out that we could take public transit down to the Salt Mines and get a tour at 2:00 in English. It’s a good thing we got an early start on his plan, because it took us about two hours to find our bus stop. It ended up being down a side street from the main one. This was an instance where Sister had to think clearly, because I was losing my cool. In fact, by the time we found the bus, all of my cool had gone, and I spent the short ride recollecting myself.

Anyway, the Salt Mines were beautiful! 10/10 would recommend. When my Uncle Keith (who is paying me to use his name here because he’s a big fan) told me about them, I actually thought that some Christians had sneaked into an old, salty cave and carved out a statue. Turns out, there’s about 250km of mining tunnels underground and the highly Catholic Polish peoples carved statues and had chapels made down there. Polish people are cool.

The tour was really beautiful, and our tour guide mentioned that they celebrate Mass every Sunday in the largest chapel.

We’re not going to have a lot of opportunities to onto Mass in a salt mine, so obviously Sister and I got up early the next morning and attended Mass there! The words may have all been in a language we don’t understand, but Jesus is still Jesus, and that chapel was still beautiful, too!

On Saturday after the mine, we just found a grocery store and gathered some food that didn’t require cooking. On Sunday, we still had a whole day ahead of us, so we wandered through central Krakow.

Turns out, Poles are pretty serious about church. There are a pile of churches in the small city centre, and Sunday is not the day to tour them. They all seemed to be celebrating Mass all day, and were packed full! It’s pretty great to see people of all ages being very intentional about their faith!

We ended up seeing more of the markets than the churches, but we got other opportunities to duck inside the churches.

On Monday, we took a bus up to the Auschwitz Memorial Museum. I can’t really put to words the kind of inhuman atrocities that are remembered in that place. Something that struck me was how quickly it was recognized that the camp needed to be kept. Survivors of the prison worked to open it to the public as early as 1947. They recognized the importance of ensuring that future generations would remember.

After that tour, we only had time for a bit of wandering back in Krakow before it was time to head back to Rasta Vegan again.

Our final full day in Krakow, we went to Kosciusko’s Mound, which was a memorial to a Krakowian freedom fighter, put together by townspeople, who hailed wheelbarrows of dirt in and made a big pile. A mound, in fact. Then some army turned it into a fort, and then I think the same army tore down that fort... it’s a whole big thing. Poland was occupied a lot. Anyway, it offers a great view of the whole of Krakow.

After that, we were tired, so we took the only bus offered to get out of there. We didn’t know where it was going, but at least we didn’t have to walk there.

As it worked out, we only had about a mile of walking to get to the hostel from where the bus stopped, and were able to take in some of the churches that we hadn’t seen yet along the way.

That night, after a short respite, we decided that we were craving pierogis. Sister googled, “cheapest place to stuff yourself with pierogis,” and we were off.

The pierogis were delicious. Even though we chose the ‘bacon’ option for a topping, which is not bacon as we know it, but was melted bacon fat drizzled over the dish with some crunchy bits of more fat, they were still pretty scrumptious. Sometime in the course of Krakow, I also had a pork knuckle, and that was the best thing I’ve had since sliced bacon (bacon as Canadians know it). If you ever have a chance to try pork knuckle, you just need to get past the fact that it’s called a knuckle, and then you need to eat it. It’s scrumptious. Or, ‘scrum-diddly-umptious’ as my cousin Nixen might say (he, too, is a big fan and would pay me for mentioning his name if he wasn’t too busy being a pro badminton player).

So yeah, that was Krakow.

Oh wait, one more sketchy thing about Rasta Vegan. Sister and I were sitting in the lobby (which is kind of the kitchen, too, since it is all in one small space), and people were coming in to check into the rooms they’d booked (and made a deposit for), and the front desk guys were turning them away, as they’d overbooked! It’s a real good thing that we were there (or, more specifically, that Sister was there), as they almost STOLE MY BED!!

Of course, if they had stolen my bed, I perhaps would have slept more comfortably on the street. At some ungodly hour of the late night that could also be described as the early hours, our roommates came crashing in and proceeded to loudly figure out how to deal with the two girls that had been assigned one of their bunks. I am. So. Glad. That. Was. Not. Me.

I did have to be half awake for it though, so I’m still not thrilled.

ALSO! One of my roommates seemed to have the plague, if the plague is the one that makes one cough apparently uncontrollably until it sounds like one is gagging. If that is the plague, then I must assume they had the plague from approximately very early a.m. to roughly the time we just gave up on sleeping and left that place.

We were both pretty bedraggled that morning.

Now, onto Vienna, and there won’t be such hostel rantings this time, as this is an infinitely more pleasing place to stay!!!

Walking into our Vienna hostel was like taking that first breath of warm spring air after a cold snap in March. It was a moment that said, “You made it! The worst is over!”

Of course, even though spring is nice, it does bring bugs. Don’t panic, there aren’t bed bugs here (that we know of yet) (*scratches nervously*), but there are these big, weird beetles that buzz loudly and hit the lights. I am not a fan. It’s such a shame, because this dorm room is really nice, and the washrooms are quite nice, and the kitchen is pretty nice, but those bugs are horrific to me.

But Vienna is glorious!

We stayed in the first day, even though we’d gotten here by 3pm. We went to a grocery store nearby and did some stockings up for the week, since we’re staying for five nights. We bought a ready-made lasagna because we hadn’t eaten much all day, and the hostel really only had a microwave. We thought it would make a few suppers worth of food.

Nope.

Over the course of the evening, we ate the entire thing as we planned out some of our stay in Vienna.

And then we ate some weird pink cakes I found. Turns out, they have alcohol in them. I guess that means I’m eating them all since Sister doesn’t take anything stronger than a Shirley Temple.

Thursday was our first day out in the town! That was my planned day, so the first order of business was the morning exercises for the Spanish Riding School! We watched the riders just do their basic everyday training and exercise routines with the Lippizaners that the school is famous for. It was neat, and now I have some indoor riding arena design ideas to take home. Hint: there will be chandeliers.

After that, we went to the Hapsburg palace! There, we decided not to go in, but to go instead to the Hapsburg art history museum.

If you don’t know the Hapsburg’s, you should look them up! They ruled much of Europe from around the 1200’s right up until the last man stepped down in Austria, 1918.

They’re a big part of the reason that parts of Europe are so traditionally Catholic (“who’s king, his god” and all that). They also died out because they kept trying to keep their wealth and power in the family and so they’d marry cousins or uncles. This resulted in the famous ‘Hapsburg chin’, which looks like a massive underbite. From the art we saw today, with the paintings and busts, I would say the Hapsburg chin was a definite feature in the family.

This has been a brief European history, sponsored by My Brain. If you want something that’s more accurate and in depth, you can find that at your nearest Google search bar.

By the time we’d finished wandering the seemingly endless twists and turns of corridors filled with priceless artifacts, it was time to make our way back home.

For supper, we ate the smokies we’d bought the other day. I don’t know if it was because we were so hungry, but those smokies were the best things ever. They were cheese-filled, but the fake cheese is better here than in Canada. Maybe it’s even real cheese. I don’t know. That would be mind-blowing, but it was so much better.

We also ate Camembert. Because cheese is great.

Today, I let Sister sleep in late because she has a cold. She will not stop whining about it, so the longer she is comatose, the better.

Today was her planning day, and we chose to be roughly one hundred percent misguided by the internet for approximately the whole day. First, we wanted to attend d a youth orchestra performance at a concert hall because we were told they played for free in Fridays. The ticket lady looked at us like we were pretty much the least educated schmucks she’d ever seen. I can’t really argue that we weren’t, either. She informed us that she knew of nothing of that sort that went on. In other words, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

The next disappointment was when we were looking to pack Vienna’s cultures of cafes, music, and sachertorte all into one by going to a cafe that had a piano player and ordering sachertorte. (Sachertorte is some sort of cake that Vienna is famous for. They even celebrate a Sachertorte Day!) We discovered that the cafes that do this don’t start until later in the evening. Also, these cafes are fancier than I would have imagined. I’m talking doormen in bowler hats. I’m talking waiters in bow ties. I’m talking crystal chandeliers in high, arched, stone ceilings.

And I’m talking Me and Sister frump level 2000.

Anyway, the promise of sachertorte may eventually tempt me into the great café halls, but it didn’t today.

Anyway, we ended up looking around at more churches, buildings, and shops. We found Karls Kirche and wanted to go in, as it was a very grand church, but didn’t want to pay for a ticket. Instead, we went to a market for a while, then came back to the church for Mass, at which time, they let you in for free.

Pro-tip: they can’t charge you to go to Mass.

Even though the plans went awry, it was a nice day. It seems that every street in Vienna has beautiful architecture, statues, or fountains. It is a very beautiful city. Also, they have water stations in the parks here! This is such a relief, as I can’t count the number of times we have needlessly stopped for coffee or ice cream just to get our water bottles filled. Unfortunately, they do not have free toilets, so there are still some logistical issues.

The church we went to Mass in was indeed very beautiful inside. There weren’t many people there, and most appeared to be tourists, judging by the lack of uniformity. We tried to follow along with the people who looked like they knew what they were about. There was a Sister (a religious one, not like my Sister) in front of us, so we figured she was a safe bet to watch.

After Mass, we tried again to find a music cafe. One we had mapped out wasn’t playing music, and the other one had a line up.

We went back to the hostel and ate carrots and hummus and cheese and crackers.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, we will get sachertorte.