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today the glitterbomber is... |
2002-05-19 last night was a fun night. juley, katrina, will, amy b, and i met up at the brewery for a belated birthday festivity for amy b. i had lost track of time and ended up getting there almost an hour late. well, that and the fact that i seemed to have driven there by way of ohio. i always find the longest ways to get places. it was a nice get-together, despite the horrid jimmy buffet cover band jamming away in the corner. i had to leave early, though, because i was meeting one of the ladies from bust at a bar on the other side of the city. i was a little nervous at first (new people! argh!). i had a good time, though, and didn't get home until three. yeah, you read that right. i stayed out late. i am such a wild child. actually, i am proud of myself for going into a bar by myself to meet someone i've never seen before. this is not something i normally do because i am shy shy shy. i'm glad i did it, though. i know i keep promising/threatening to write an update about poland. how to sum up my trip? it was fun, unexpected, relaxing, and exhausting. marcin and iwona were wonderful hosts who made us feel right at home. we stayed at their house...it was in a very rural area, complete with cows, pigs, and chickens. it was very beautiful though....fields of yellow canola, mistletoe growing high atop tall trees, storks hovering in the fields. we went to a lovely park the second day and saw bison, white deer, and lilies of the valley growing wild. we toured a cool castle, too. we explored and shopped in ostrow, marcin's town, and his mom cooked us a delicious, huge dinner. for two days, amy and i went to krakow. we took the train all by ourselves. might i mention that we don't speak polish. well, except for a few choice words, such as those for "whore," "fuck off," and "evil bitch," we don't speak polish. luckily, marcin helped us start our journey, and we made it to krakow safe and sound. that city is so pretty! so much interesting architecture...we saw another cool castle and pretty churches. our hotel was from the twenties, and was quite a palace and art nouveau-y. i loved it. we toured the salt mine at wieliczka. it was spooky-cool and beautiful. the tour was in polish, so amy b and i came up with our own interpretations of everything. somehow, we ended up with a german/russian tour group on our way to the elevator. i didn't think it was possible to cram ten tall russians and us into a tiny elevator. apparently, it is. we got lost a lot in krakow. we spent a lot of time wandering around. at wieliczka, a toothless man was yelling at me in polish because i couldn't find the bus stop to go back to krakow. i had caught a bad cold by this time, so i was not amused. on the way back to ostrow, the train "broke," in the words of the conductor. he was in the middle of punching our tickets when the train stopped. suddenly, all the other conductors ran down the hall yelling "oh fuck" in polish. when our conductor finally came back, he said, "train broke." "how broke?" i asked. he just smiled. great. we just happened to be in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. we made it back to ostrow without having to evacuate or switch trains, thank god. we had dinner at an evil cafe in krakow. i think my pierogi were poisoned. our waitress seemed to hate us. we waited a very, very long time for our bill. the entire time we were waiting for it, the waitress was alternately staring at us and flipping through the pages of a magazine. we just had to laugh. until later that night, when amy and i both felt like we were going to throw up. another amusing tale: on the way to ostrow from the airport, we saw about four skimpily-dressed women before we realized they were prostitutes and not just waiting for the bus. there was an interesting night involving too much vodka and one taxi driver who offered to take us to a brothel and another one who accepted one of my altoids after iwona told him that they were "american." culture shock: they put ketchup on pizza in poland. i mean, all over it. i still can't figure out the purpose of putting ketchup on something that already has tomato sauce on it. it doesn't make it taste better, that's for sure. amy b and i are already talking about going back to poland. we had a great time. *** quote of the day: beth e.: what's going on over there? *** np: pet shop boys "it's a sin" (oh yeah) |
