Perusing PCV: Eurotripping, cont'd

train from Warsaw to Krakow

I made it safely back to Washington, DC this past Thursday and somehow managed to get through a full Friday work day without any jet lag! Here are my final updates from Krakow and Prague, again with positive and negative highlights.

Krakow, Poland
-/+ Didn't leave a lot of time to buy tickets for our train from Warsaw to Krakow, so while my mom stood in an impossibly long line, I tried to buy tickets through a self-service machine which had no English option. I am extremely proud of myself for getting through the system almost all by myself in Polish, especially when I had to make choices between options that looked like "vmkelra;jfiew," "qreowfvkldasjf," or "vmkljfwow." I admit, some nice businessmen helped me choose the number of seats, but I still am quite proud.
+ Were very willing witnesses to a nice English bloke's Stag Day. For those who haven't had the privilege of seeing one of these, it's the British equivalent of a bachelor party which often involves dressing up a to-be-wed friend and parading him through a large city, embarrassing him as much as possible along the way. We found this lovely boy doing cartwheels, lunges, and handstands in the central town square.
+ Very, very pleasant city that was totally walkable from one end to the other. I can see now why people say it will be the "new Prague," but I actually think it is the much better laid out city of the two.
- Would have loved to experience the bars and clubs here, since it seemed to be a very active, young social scene. From what I could see, the city as a whole seemed many times younger than Prague.
+ Finally got a Doner Kebab, which my friends from studying in Spain know all about! I love these things, which are basically the late night food/meal on the run of choice across a lot of Europe.

congrats on your marriage, dude.

part of the town square

the Wawel Castle, from the river

Also visited Auschwitz-Birkenau which is about an hour bus ride from Krakow. I don't think "highlight" is the best way to describe it, but it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience that I am thankful for.

Prague, Czech Republic
+/- Once you start shopping, it is very hard to stop. Between the two of us, I think my mom and I bought 12 pashminas.
+ Got to see an awesome art exhibition of Mucha and Dali, two artists that I actually have a lot of interest in. Bought four postcards of Mucha's series "the Four Arts" that I plan on framing.
+ Took a great tour that included a boat ride down the river
+ I just do not understand how the food is so cheap. Two three-course meals + bottle of wine was like $40.
- My struggle to find meals not involving mushrooms and red meat continued. And my mom tried two local dishes (goulash and something else) that she didn't like much.
+/- On the recommendation of a friend, we spent our last night eating at a microbrewery and doing a beer tasting. The light and dark lagers, wheat beer, and special of the month were good, but others were absurdly offensive to the senses. Top of that list was nettle beer which was bright green and tasted like grass, followed closely by a coffee flavored beer. Sour cherry and banana were okay.
- Had a run-in with the transportation authorities. Mom and I were confused by the "system" of paying for tram and metro rides, so decided to play the foreigner card and just walk on without paying, which is what the majority of people appeared to be doing. Problem is that fare enforcers can come on the trams and trains and ask to see your ticket. We had been warned in our hotel packet to be careful of people imitating these authorities and that if you are approached by someone, you should ask to go to their office instead of paying them right there. We guess we made ourselves easy targets by looking at a map and speaking English, because we got approached on the tram by a guy with a small badge in his hand. I calmly told him that we would rather go to his office to pay, and he argued a while with us and wanted to just bring us to an ATM. Obviously this made us more suspicious, and when we followed him off the tram thinking we were going to his office only to end up at an ATM, we were not feeling good about this at all. He had the same superiority complex issues of security guards in the States and our conversation there included him calling me "woman" and repeatedly telling us that "You're not in the States anymore. This is the Czech Republic. I speak English pretty good, yes? You understand me?" Eventually a Czech guy by the ATM was brought into the conversation and verified for us that "this guy is not trying to fuck with you, he's real and you have to pay him." So we paid our ~$70 and continued on with our lives. Mom turned back as we walked away to see if the guy approached the transportation guy for half of the money or something, but nothing of the sort happened.
+ The city in general was gorgeous and was so well preserved compared to what we saw in Lithuania and Poland, since the city was not significantly damaged during WWII.