The Wedding Crashers

The adventures of Brooke and Emily have begun, and our first stop was Wroclaw, Poland, or should I say, third world Europe (pronounced vrost-waf). I have never been to Poland before, since Germany is a safe haven for me on this continent, and I surely was in for a shock. Leaving from Berlin on bus, there was no question when we entered into Poland because the roads immediately turned from great to worse, as our bus bumped up and down for the rest of the ride. When we finally got to Wroclaw, we had ridden on a bus for almost 5 hours with a few questionable stops…

I’m almost positive, unless you’ve been in Poland before, that you’ve never heard of Wroclaw, but don’t feel badly, neither had I until Brooke showed me an article her dad gave her about the city from the New York Times. It raved of beautiful buildings in a new up and coming cultural, university centered city not too far from Berlin. (It was actually German territory at one point, going by the name Breslau). Listening to Brooke swear by the New York Times, I said ok when she said let’s go and for the first twenty minutes of our time in the city, all I could think about was how stupid I was for my complacency. Just like they say never judge a book by its cover, I’ll say, never judge a city by its bus station.

We got off the bus, with only a map in my Lonely Planet book, which was not terribly descript. Immediately we searched for aid from various people around the station, including those at information desks, but the only person who seemed to want to talk to us was a small boy begging to give him money for a loaf of bread. All Brooke could really say was, “we’re not in Kansas, anymore.” What a shock that no one spoke English, no one would smile at us, and when we were looking for help we were generally just snubbed. When we finally found a taxi stand, more than willing to pay whatever we needed (though, we knew it wouldn’t be much) to get to our hostel which we knew couldn’t have been that far, the driver assured us that it was 100 meters away and pointed us in the right direction, still not in English, but in German.

Following his instructions and what we had from the hostel, we found our way there in no time, only to find a HUGE door with a buzzing system. Once buzzed in by our hostel, we walked into a big, big foyer that was a little sketchy, only to walk up an even more sketchy two flights of stairs. But, when we got into Babel Hostel, we were pleasantly surprised. It was clean, safe and pretty homey, to be honest. Definitely one of the better hostels I’ve stayed in, and we were able to check in when we got there, which was also a blessing. Realizing how hungry we were and that the wireless was not compatible with our Macs because apparently no one in Poland has them, we set out for dinner.

On our way there, we were really just laughing about how questionable our visit to this city was going to be. With trams that look like they will just collapse into pieces if it stops too fast, and dank gray cement apartments buildings with parts crumbling off, we were just in awe. After a not so long walk we found ourselves in what was more like what we had signed up for… A BEAUTIFUL old town square called Rynek, with pedestrians, old gothic style buildings, shops and restaurants. Also, right there was an outdoor viewing for the World Cup, not unlike some in Germany, and a mini-soccer arena where it looked as if beer leagues were playing each other, posing as the different countries in the WM.  We decided on a Spanish restaurant, hoping the menu might have been more navigable, but were totally wrong, yet settled on some pretty good and filling food. But, as we were finishing a man came up, kind of behind me and started talking to us. From the angle I was sitting, and the state of his clothes I had initially thought he was like a bus boy for the restaurant and was telling us eat everything on our plates. I was SADLY mistaken, as he actually was wanting to eat whatever was left of our food. Good, Mueller, mistaking a homeless Polish beggar for a Spanish restaurant bus boy; he even tried begging in German to us, which lasted almost 5 minutes. Finally, a VERY kind couple sitting a table from us, shooed him away, but why didn’t our waitress do that for us?! The couple told us, that it’s pretty common, and after reading about Poland in my Lonely Planet book, it made more sense they’d approach us… 98% of the Polish population is ethnically Polish, and apparently it’s pretty easy to tell that we were not, and are automatically targets.

We, however, recovered from a semi-traumatic experience and went on our merry way to walk around, what Brooke affectionately calls, Polski. Primarily, the goal was to see the university and churches, as there are so many, churches not universities, that is. Little did we know that Saturday July 10, 2010 was a very popular day for Poles to get married. With a few stops in between, we managed to enter or pass by at least a half dozen GORGEOUS cathedral style churches (random fact: 80% of Poles are devout Catholics, and the line between church and state within the country is practically invisible), three of which had weddings going on that day. After we sat in on our third wedding, we walked around enough to find the location of the reception as well! We decidedly chose not to also crash the reception, considering we were certainly not dressed for the occasion, and we were sweating like creeps. Literally, we’re talking mid-90s with exactly zero clouds in the sky.

This is exactly why our three stops in between walking around were for ice cream, wading in the city moat, and a nice cold drink. The first and last are fairly self-explanatory, but I’ll elaborate on the second a little. Dating back to the old, old days of Wroclaw, the city was surrounded by a moat, for protection. It is mostly still there, though I believe it’s dried up in a few places, and Brooke and I found a little mini-beach among a park. We probably spent almost a half hour just wading in the nice cool and relatively clean water, which was exactly what we needed among all the heat.

On our way back to our hostel for the evening, we made a stop in a shopping center, where we wanted to buy a couple groceries for our travels the next day. We literally waited in the check out line for about 25 minutes and when we got to the front, the lady told us she couldn’t check out the fruit we wanted because you are suppose to weigh it in the fruit area. Oh. One of those things that you just have to learn as you go, I guess. But all was not lost because we still managed to get gum and cheerios… clearly staples in any good American’s diet. Getting back to the hostel, we just crashed, too hot and tired to do just about anything. But, made a game plan for the next day to make sure we were going to see what we wanted.

First we started off by heading to the train station where we bought our tickets to take a train from Wroclaw to Krakow, which is where I am right now. Thanks to the receptionist at our hostel, we were able to easily get our ticket, because she wrote down everything for us to just hand to the person at the counter. Great. The only creepy thing about that whole experience was the old man standing 5 inches behind me waiting in line. Apparently Poles have a very different idea of personal space, and we were really freaked out by how close he was standing… Something you never really think about in America, that is, how much space we like for our own. Then, we walked over to the old Jewish quarter (though, no more) looking for a synagogue, which we never found; we did find a couple other Jewish institutions. Then, we went to St. Mary Magdalene’s Church to climb one of the two towers with a bridge connecting them, to gain a grand scope of the city. It was most definitely a gorgeous site. After this, we grabbed an ice coffee and went toward a famously large indoor 360-degree mural, but got there too late for the tour that we could have and wanted to take. Oh, well.

This tardiness was partially due to our stopping to bond with a couple gnomes (or dwarves) that are placed throughout the city. The reason I say it could be either, is because we have read in a couple different places that there are 70 tiny gnomes and 150 tiny dwarf statuettes throughout the city. We hadn’t seen any our first day, but found a couple the next, and naturally needed pictures with them. Once I have some better access to the internet, I’ll figure out which they were…

And now, we’re sitting on our train to Krakow lasting a little over 5 hours. We are mostly comfortable sitting in a first class car, which cost a whooping $15. Yes, that’s right, $15. Now, when I say first class, I am not talking about fancy swivel chairs with constant customer service, I’m talking about, by our standards, just a little below our second class. But, anyways, Poland is CHEAP, which is a nice break. For instance, as we were trying to figure out where to go for dinner yesterday, we asked the opinion of the receptionist and he told us where the students eat, called the milk bar; it’s basically cafeteria style, from the Soviet era. But, then he said the most expensive meals were in the center where we did end up eating, and when we asked how much expensive was, he said around 10 Euros. Let me be clear about something, 10 Euro is NOT expensive for a meal here in Europe when you include drinks. Even then, I think mine was under $10. Needless to say, even though it’s gaining strength, the Polish economy has a long way to go before the EU allows them to adopt the Euro.

All in all, I’m really glad we went to Wroclaw. It’s a little different than what I feel Krakow is going to be like, for a lot of different reasons. This city is certainly someplace people live more than visit.  My first impression of Poland was not the greatest, but I’m starting to realize that that’s how I start in most cities: apprehensive. Once we got more into the heart of it, and gained familiarity, I was truly enjoying myself. This does not go without saying that there definitely seemed to be more run down places than not, especially after being able to get up high and see the scope of the area more. And we’ve certainly had encounters with strangers who try talking to us, or get money or food from us. Only people our age seem to be able to speak English, which is probably what makes me the most uncomfortable… I’m not used to not being able to pick up anything from the local language, which is what I use to try and break barriers. And I feel, with the people here, we certainly need SOMETHING to help break the barrier. Ultimately, I don’t feel like we just crashed weddings for our visit, but that we kind of crashed the city, not encountering any other Americans. What an experience to see a Pittsburgh kind of city rather than a Philadelphia kind of city. 

Anyways, more to come from Polski… we’re here for three more days!