Hockeython and Other News.

I love Krakow all the more now that I've found a place to play. It amazes me what a little web research and a few emails in drastically simplified English will accomplish. I was rooting around on a couple of Polish amateur hockey forums, and my knowledge of Slavic word roots enabled me to piece together a contact in Krakow. I sent him an email, and to my great surprise, he wrote me back to tell me about a hockey game every Friday night at a small ice rink. When I say small ice rink, I'm not kidding. Some of my Batesville readers will recall the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that was the winter outdoor rink by the White River. I certainly do, because I volunteered and helped out (read: skated for free) for the duration of the rink's existence. For my non-Batesville readers, the Batesville rink was roughly 1/3 regulation size, the ice was in deplorable condition all the time, and on rough days, the place was absolutely choked with a teeming throng of people joyfully falling on their asses with the novelty of it all. This place is an improvement: it's 1/2 regulation size, and they do run the Zamboni. The rink is basically in a barn, and most of the windows are cracked if not broken to pieces. It is, in other words, totally broke-ass. But I had more fun there than I have anywhere else on the trip so far. I showed up an hour early and had to gesticulate wildly at the security guard before he let me in. Said gesticulations included hockey stick movements, complete with swishing noises, the number ten, for ten o'clock, and pointing at my bag and saying "heavy, heavy" in every Slavic language I knew. I had a nice long chance to warm up, and then people started coming in. My teammates came from a variety of backgrounds and skill levels; some were retired pros, some had only been playing a couple of years. It was a great mix. When I started this year, I made a master checklist. On that checklist was "score three goals in any game." Well, I can check that off, but perhaps I should revise that to "score three goals in any game with a goalie." I got six last night, but it was open net, so big whoop. Granted, the net was only 3' wide by 1'6" tall, so I suppose that provides something of meritorious circumstance. Everyone was really friendly and eager to get to know me, how long I'd been playing hockey, what I was doing in Poland, what my family was like. The questions were neverending, and everyone seemed just as happy to practice their English as I was to work on my fledgling Polish. Then it was gametime. The rink staff was really laid-back; we paid for an hour, they let us play for 2 1/2. It was a war of attrition, and I was one of the last eight standing. I returned, spent, to the hostel to indulge in one of the greatest pleasures after any struggle: a beer in the shower. And today I feel like a million dollars (approximately 2.6 million zloty.) I have a roller hockey game this Wednesday, and another ice game next Saturday.

The other story is not quite so overwhelmingly positive. I met a girl from California this week. She has been in Europe for a year, and we had one of the most unfortunate conversations I've yet had with one of my fellow countrypersons. Countrypersons. Somebody slap me.

"I just don't understand why nobody speaks English here. I mean, in Budapest everybody speaks English. You'd think these people would understand that nobody speaks their language outside their little country, and they'd learn something everybody could understand"

After pointing out that there were over sixty English schools in Krakow alone, and that 80% of any foreign-language learning section in any Polish bookstore was devoted to English textbooks for Polish speakers, I also mentioned how the Slavic language family worked, and since fifteen-odd countries speak Slavic languages, the Slavic people can mostly understand each other, though perhaps not perfectly. Hungarian is related to...Finnish. Talk about linguistic isolation. She just didn't get it, so I put it another way. I thought I'd press the Californian button and play the migrant worker angle:

"So you think these things about Europe, but don't you think that Hispanic migrant workers should make at least a token effort to learn English?"

"Well, yeah, of course."

"Don't you think that's kind of...contradictory? Hypocritical, even?"

"But America is different."

"How, exactly? We're no better than anybody else, and I actually think if yours is the prevalent view, we're pretty much just culturally benighted and selfish."

After I explained what "benighted" meant, she rolled her eyes and said "whatever." It just blows my mind that someone can go to so many places and seen so many things and still have come away without learning anything about how the world works or how America really fits in. From my journal:

"God, the fact that this girl EXISTS makes me livid. The idea that someone can be exposed to other cultures so long and still have the cultural sensitivity, sophistication, and awareness of a sessile fucking bay scallop infuriates me to no end. ARGH."

Now I suppose you have a small idea of why I don't just publish my journal verbatim. Blog has more polish, less vitriol.

As promised, more, shorter updates from the Eastern front are forthcoming. Hang tough, keep reading, and COMMENT!

Give me enlightenment or give me death,

J. Brandon Harris