The Krakow Cast; Malopolska Curtain Call

Once again I find myself shamefully tardy at updating this damn thing. You have my sincere apologies.

The hostel has been populated with an even stranger cast of characters than usual. Apparently an entire Orthodox Belorussian geriatric ward broke free of their cages to go on a tour of Krakow. A sundry collection of some forty babushki and dedushki between the ages of 65-80 arrived and stayed two nights. Deprived of Russian speakers as I am, I was delighted to have a captive forty of them. We talked poetry. Talking poetry with Slavic people, especially in their own language, invariably leads to a bottle of vodka being opened. A bottle of vodka being opened leads in turn to Josh singing "Vecherni Zvon," "Katyusha," and Cheburashka's birthday song in a Slavophilic Mitch Miller singalong (sans bouncing ball, sadly). Yes, that's right. I got decently (as in I maintained decency) hammered with Belorussian ancients. When they sang the Soviet National Anthem, however, I sat out. Something about it just didn't sit right with me. They went to bed and I spent the rest of the evening celebrating my youth by introducing the receptionist to the wide and wonderful world of dead baby jokes. What a tasteful creature I am.

Two days later there was a similar jailbreak, only it was a daycare kennel this time. Forty-odd children between the ages of 8-11 stormed the hostel and left a dirty wake of candy wrappers, gummy carpets, and discolored sheets, though I suppose it's equiprobable that the drunk Belorussians were involved in the latter respect. I kept being grateful for my capacities of social restraint, for the temptation to lean over the very littlest child and go "HEY KID, YA WANNA BEER???" was great indeed. I compromised with the devil on my shoulder by listening to a lot of Guns n' Roses at high volume; that seemed sufficiently deviant.

If I were to make a western about the characters I've met in this hostel, it would be called The Young, the Ancient, and the Bizarre. We've reviewed two of the three, but old and young are simple, because they're factual descriptions of people. Bizarre, however, comes in every flavor of skittle man has ever conceived.

Let's begin with the Finnish steelworker who never stopped being obliterate drunk as long as I saw him. He asked me and a couple of my acquaintances "where...you are from?" at least five times each, and he had considerable difficulty finding his own country on a map. These things fall far short of a b-double-e-double-r-u-n, beer run to the corner store with this gentleman and my Polish friend Radek. We found our beer and lined up at the register with due speed, but in the time it took me and Radek to check out, the Finnish fellow had changed his already impaired mind three times on what kind of intoxicant to purchase. We waited a bit on the other side of the register until he had change-of-heart number five, which prompted a rather stern-looking security guard to tell him he didn't need anything else to drink. I saw only the beginnings of the sloppy and heavily language-barriered argument that ensued. After about thirty seconds of his ridiculousness, Radek and I disavowed all knowledge of his existence. The night was not over, however. He stumbled in an hour and a half later, looking quite the worse for wear. I was on the internet playing my scrabble moves (as is my heathen custom). He waited about two minutes before sitting next to me and making rather unsubtle displays of impatience, which culminated in the best English he could muster "is...not just...for you." I told him politely in English and Russian to be patient, which met with a series of mumbled Finnish oaths, probably inciting me to do things that are not just lewd, but physically impossible. I'm uncertain whether or not he understood Russian, but I told him that I appreciated his suggestions, and then followed with my own catalog of Russian unrepeatables.

Then there was the Polish man in the bunk above me who awoke every morning promptly at five, turned on the light and paced loudly around the room for exactly fifteen minutes before putting on pants and going back to sleep.

There's also the strangeness that borders on something more sinister. Lastnight I was walking with an acquaintance to get a midnight snack. We walked past a bus stop where a youngish street drunk was sleeping on the bench...or so it seemed. We walked past and I noticed he was following us and gaining on us, though the straight line eluded him. He oscillated about three feet left to right for every six feet of forward motion. He approached me on my left side, but picked an extremely unfortunate location: there was about four and a half feet between him and the wall of a closed vegetable kiosk. He grabbed the sleeve of my coat with his right hand and balled his fist with his left. Without hesitating, I tucked my shoulder under his chin and used both hands to knock him headfirst into the steel grating on the kiosk front with a hit that would've made any NHLer proud. Who says sports don't have applicable skills off the field of play? At any rate, he dropped to his knees groaning and clutching his head. My acquaintance and I, though shaken up, went to the store as planned and, needless to say, we took the long way home. On my return trip, I noticed with relief and from a distance my assailant was back at his bus stop bench, so he can't've been hurt too badly. Maybe he'll think twice next time, but regardless, it was easily the scariest moment of the trip. Hopefully it stays that way. *knock wood* I'm just happy all parties escaped reasonably unhurt.



In more cheerful news, hockey is great here. There's a nice variety of skill levels, and only the really offense-minded talented showboat players don't know how to pass. Some things never change in that respect, kinda like the way I'm an above average skater and about average at everything else. We'll hopefully improve that in time. I've played seven games now, and it really irritates me that I'm running out of time here. Each change of city means another Iditarod leg, and another roll of the dice as to whether or not I can find a team. From where I sit now, it almost seems unlikely that I'll find a cast of characters as kind, interesting, or, at the very least, as entertaining as the cast I've found here, both in and out of the locker room. Krakow, I shall miss thee.

My year is 25% over, as of today, and as I thumb through my journal, it already astounds me how much I've learned and grown. The profusion of options before me continually boggles my mind, though my time is short and I must sally forth to buy this weekend's train ticket.

do widzenia!

JBH