Good Lord, What a Week.

Since it's been a substantial while since I've updated you, I'll do this by chapters. I apologize for the delay, but I've been swamped in Krakow and loving every minute of it.

Strangers on a Train

In my last entry, I was on the way out of Kosice; I had just bought my train ticket and waited, sleep-deprived, in the internet cafes and phone booths for the seven-odd hours before my train. The sojourn to the train station was...lovely. My hockey bag has developed a (now duct-taped) hole, one of the wheels is torqued out of alignment, and, in summary, seventy pounds is no fun to shoulder all the way to the train station. But shoulder it I did, and found my train with little issue. I had no idea how spoiled I was. My previous train travel experiences on this trip have either involved new trains or refurbished old ones. I can say with reasonable certainty that this one hadn't been touched since...Brezhnev. For instance, I went to the bathroom. The light didn't work, the water didn't run, and after peeing in the cold dark, I stepped out of the rest room and looked to my right to see the train door gaping open into the deep and quickly passing Slovakian night. The train was close to empty, and I had a compartment to myself, which initially excited me, until a small unwashed and ill-kempt man in a uniform came to my compartment. He checked my ticket and was amicable enough, but explained that there was a problem with my baggage. I was pleased with how much I understood, and he said I had too much luggage. One ticket buys you one baggage space. It made partial sense, but A) it had never been a problem before, and B) there was no dearth of seating or storage space on this particular train. When he waffled on how much the "penalty" was going to be, I became suspicious. It ranged from 900 SK (about $36...more than the price of the ticket itself) to 300 SK (about $12). I told him I was just a poor student, and I only had a hundred crowns ($4). He put on a pensive face and gave it a moment's thought. Then he put on a comically exaggerated expression of "Well, I'm not supposed to do this, but..." and said that would be enough. I asked him if everything was in order. He replied "good for you, good for me." I asked him for a reciept; he shook my hand. Protest would have been futile, and he probably just wanted a little vodka or a pack of cigarettes. In the end, I just approached it as a small fee for a language lesson. Congrats, Josh! You just gave your first bribe!

Despite my 48-hour deprivation thereof, sleep was a nonentity on the train. I didn't want to incur further fines for laying down on the seats and exceeding my space allowance. At the border my Russian actually did me some good. The border guard spoke no English, and he had a few questions for me. Instead of being irritated, he just seemed relieved that I could understand him. The train trundled on into morning, and I...well...I stayed unfortunately awake.

Getting Settled

I arrived in Krakow in pitch dark, but I found my hostel with ease, and discovered immediately how much I would like it here. I saw the sign that said "check in at 14:00" and my heart sank at the prospect of going another eight hours without sleep. Kasha (receptionist extraordinaire), however, said "you look very tired, though, so if you'll put your luggage in the luggage room, you can go ahead and take your bed now." The hostel didn't accept cards, though, so my more immediate need lay in finding an ATM. I walked down to the bridge and saw the castle, Vavel, in the half-light. Though I was tired and beteeshirted in the 45-degree weather, I braved the cold and watched the sun rise over the castle. It was magnificent; the barest fingers of dawn pried my slouching lids open and cleaned the cobwebs from my cortical corners with ample dexterity. (God, I'm imagining what a whole entry written in that style would sound like...you'd need hip waders to read a paragraph.)

I returned at 6:15 and slept the sleep of the dead. I went out to get dinner and beer, and that was plenty of activities, by my estimation. As a sidenote, this place (Hostel Yellow) is heaven. Free breakfast, comfy beds, great atmosphere, free laundry, wonderful staff...for $11/night. If you're in Krakow, stay here. I got fantastic homemade pierogies and fried them up myself with a dill, cucumber, and tomato salad. Pavel, another receptionist, tells me that I should be a pierogi chef.

Poland 101

The next day consisted of a walking tour, over the course of which I learned some interesting things about Krakow, like the legend of the dragon Smog, who reputedly devoured virgins and livestock in medieval times (but then again, don't we all). This deflowerment and devourment displeased prince Krak greatly, so he put forth a decree that the hand of his daughter would go to whomsoever could slay Smog. Needless to say that,following said proclamation, the dragon had no shortage of crunchy knight snacks to supplement his regular diet of virgins and sheep. This all came to a screeching halt when the archetypal "little guy from circumstances" concocted a plan, which, of course, was to stuff a sheep with sulphur. I know that would have been the first thing to come to MY mind. The dragon ate the brimstone in sheep's clothing, and it made him so thirsty that he drank half the water in the Vistula and popped. All I could think of was the prospect of seething masses of dragon flesh all over Krakow. Here endeth the lesson.

Maybe sometime I'll tell you why saint fingers taste like sulphur.

The tour was full of colorful stories. We went to the window from wence then-cardinal J.P. II would preach to Polish youth about maintaining faith under the iron hand of Communism. We also went to and town square, the Schindler factory, and the Jewish Ghetto. The last two were good (though insufficient) introductions to the next day's activity.

The Worst Place on Earth

I went to Auschwitz-Birkenau with a Californian and an Australian the following day. Auschwitz was depressing and thoroughly awful, but bearable. The experimental gas chamber and Dr. Mengele's first office were the worst places, though. The room with a glassed-in 30-meter by four-meter by two-meter enclosure containing two tons of victims' hair (the raw material for cheap fabric) really gave me an idea of the scale and the absolutely indescribable horror that tainted this remarkably beautiful Polish countryside.

What surprised me most, however, was that Auschwitz I was the comprehensible part. We walked the two kilometers to the much larger sister camp, Birkenau. When I saw it from a quarter-mile away, a chill ran through me and I just stopped walking, as did my companions. It took a minute to process Birkenau's size: two square kilometers of bunkers and death facilities that at any given time housed 90,000 inmates. I walked in and couldn't think of anything. I was reaching for some kind of consolation, or explanation, or solace, or anything at all, really, but all of those things were conspicuously absent. I sat down at the corner of the first gas chamber that was built specifically for the purpose of murder, as opposed to being a converted air raid shelter, and cried for what felt like twenty minutes, although I'm not very sure. The thing that kicked me in the chest was no longer the size, but the ruthless, inhuman efficiency of the todmacht. I considered the horrifying fact that the camp did not birth itself. Someone was paid to design it and implement the plans. The structure was fearfully symmetrical, designed to assuage panic and crush even the merest vestiges of hope. I won't say anymore, just know that any description I have attached to Birkenau carries not even an angstrom of adequacy in comparison to actually being there. If you're ever in Krakow, it is my opinion that you have an obligation as a human being to go, pay respects, and learn whatever you can from the senselessness of it all.

A Day of Rest.

I woke up the next day feeling emotionally disemboweled. Though the events of the day preceding broke something inside me, I felt something else growing in its place: a dawning understanding of the human capacities not only for evil but for good as well. To keep myself from having a mood the color of gunmetal for the rest of the week, I took the day out and went skating all over Krakow in search of hockey rinks, and discovered that hockey is far from plentiful here. I'm going to improvise in the coming week and do whatever I can to find some inline options. I've even sent some emails out on roller hockey forums in hopes that A) someone will speak English better than I speak Polish, and B) that someone will be interested in my interest. More on that as it develops. I also learned that skating on cobblestone bears absoutely no resemblance to fun.

When I was up until 6:30 AM for reasons that defy rational explanation (I was playing scrabble on the internet and talking to my parents online...decidedly not rational behavior at that hour.), I heard American voices, discussing a visit to the Wieliczka salt mines. Since I was dazed and loopy, I decided it would be a stellar idea to go and talk to them in my compromised state. And so I did, and found my weekend travel companions. It was really refreshing to meet Americans who are in Eastern Europe to do more than drop off the face of the planet to order the whore sampler with a side of absinthe.

We went to Wieliczka two days later, and it was remarkable. Hundreds of kilometers of rock salt tunnels and caverns underlay the town of Wieliczka--in fact, if the mine collapsed, so would the town; hence they stopped salt extraction in 1996. Only two kilometers are open to the public, and those two, in addition to having details on the history of salt extraction, also had lots of statues carved out of solid salt. Many were also illuminated from within. It was amazing, especially the chapel, where reliefs of the annunciation and last supper dominated the walls, while the most recent addition, the larger-than-life statue of Pope John Paul II presided over the underground analogue to the narthex. For positive reasons this time, it really defied description.

The UNH kids and I became as close as people can be after only having known each other two days, so the next day we all forayed to Zakopane, a mountain town near the Slovakian border. I'll post the link to the pictures as soon as I download them to facebook, which won't happen until I find internet that is more satisfactory, but suffice to say that the only place I've ever been that rivals Zakopane for mountain beauty is Switzerland. And Poland is a hell of a lot cheaper. We rode the gondola up the mountain for an astounding view of the Tatras, and saw a cow with what appeared to be five-gallon udders. The poor girl was in dire need of milking. Then we played on a ropes course before it was time to go home, which we did. It was perhaps the best weekend of the trip so far, and I have Allyssa [;-)] Randy, Kirsten, and Marissa to thank for it. So thanks guys.

In conclusion, Poland is stellar, and in the past week I've seen everything from the awful to the amazing, and I honestly like it that way, as long as I learn from everything I encounter. So far, so good, on that front.

And today I'm doing my penance for being so woefully out of touch with the rest of the world. Since it's taken me the better part of the day to write this epic saga of a week in the life, I'm going to try to have a format shift: more, shorter entries. Tell me which you would prefer, and do remember to comment!

Happiest he's been in a while,

J. Brandon Harris