Despite being completely wrecked from the previous day’s travel, I awoke very early in the morning, probably because I was stewing in a pool of my own sweat; without the aid of flotation devices I am surprised I didn’t drown in my bunk overnight. I realised that with everyone still asleep, I could while away plenty of time in the über awesome showers without interruption. And this is exactly what I did. I sound significantly better singing in the shower when accompanied by a professional singer and a backing track. I also look a lot better in the shower with mood lighting artfully reflecting off various surfaces and distracting from my naked body. When I walked back into our dorm, I almost passed-out at the aroma: essentially it smelled like a bread factory. You know that shop, Bread Top? You know that sweet, yeasty aroma that threatens to suffocate you whenever you walk past? Well that is what our dorm smelled like. I guess six men baking in a 40°C room with beer leaching out of their pores will have that effect. It was vile.
You may or may not recall me mentioning that I LOVED Kraków. Loved, loved, LOVED it. It reminded me a little bit of Prague before it became as touristy as it is today. The centre of the old town, where our tour was meeting, is the town square, Rynek Glówny w Krakowie. Dating back to the 13th Century, it is the largest medieval town square in all of Europe, and is home to two impressive city sights: Sukiennice (Cloth Hall), and Kościół Mariacki (St Mary’s Basilica). It is also home to approximately five billion pigeons. Seriously, pigeons are an endangered species in Venice when compared with Kraków. Despite the plethora of pigeons, it is still beautiful, and we had a great few hours wandering around. Unfortunately, the tour was not nearly as enjoyable. The tour was supposed to leave from outside Kościół Mariacki at 11.00am. We thought we’d get there a little earlier to maximise our chances of scoring the best possible tour guide, but there turned out to not be much point because the tour guides didn’t bother turning up until well after 11.00am. I can obviously blame my lack of punctuality on being Eastern European.
It quickly became apparent that at
least half of the English-speaking tourists in Kraków that day had also decided
to do the same tour, and this was the first problem. The second problem was the
guides themselves, who seemed to think we were all engaged in a game of Chinese
Whispers. Advice From an Objective Foreigner: The best tour guides are those
who have better voice projection than Harpo Marx. I find the protracted
introductions on these types of things tedious at the best of times, but given
that these guys were already running late, I found it particularly irritating.
I don’t give a shit what you had for breakfast, but it seems you are going to
insist that I find out that, and your star sign, and divulge my damned life
story to you before you will tell me what that building to my right is.
The two guides this day seemed
particularly fond of the old group bonding, and so it began, asking how many
Americans, how many Brits, how many Australians, etc., etc. Apparently Kaitlyn
and I couldn’t possibly be Australian because we weren’t wearing thongs. They
were back at the hostel with our kangaroos and surfboards.
As always, there were two people in
the group who weren’t one of the ten staple nationalities and, as always,
rather than ask these people where they were from, the guides insisted on
taking it in turns to guess. ‘Brazil?’
‘Russia?’
‘Colombia?’
‘Ukraine?’
Greece?’
‘Denmark?’
‘New Zealand?’
‘Netherlands?’
‘Scotland?’
‘Mongolia?’ (Seriously.)
‘Hungary?’
They turned out to be from
Switzerland, which they actually bellowed out in between ‘New Zealand’ and ‘Netherlands’.
With that sorted, we were able to get on with the tour.
They split us up into two groups, one
English-speaking and one Spanish-speaking. Given that less than a dozen of the
eight thousand of us spoke Spanish, this seemed ridiculous. And despite the
fact that both guides were irksome from the outset, we ended up with the one
who had made the hilarious crack about thongs. Joy. The tour itself was…well in
all honesty it was freaking boring. I have no doubt it would have been a lot
more interesting had I been able to hear any of it, but due to my auditory
powers not being those of Clark Kent, I was lucky to hear one word per
sentence. Considering the tour went for almost three hours, we didn’t really
see all that much. The square was glossed over, and we were shown Planty Park
and the Medieval City Walls so quickly that I cannot tell you a thing about
them. So, instead of even trying to pay
attention, Kaitlyn and I spent our time commentating on the people around us.
And by “commentating”, I mean “deriding”. When we weren’t partaking in
constructive criticism about our fellow tour-goers, we were perving on Javier.
Javier (not his real name) was an absolute dead-ringer for Javier Bardem. At
least from a distance. At one point, Kaitlyn and I jostled our way into the
pack so we could get up close and personal with Javier, only to find he was not
all that much taller than me. Well, he was obviously significantly taller, but
he was also way smaller than the real Javier (and, arguably, any male over the age
of fourteen).
We spent the next few hours wandering
around ourselves until late afternoon when we headed back to the hostel. We
were due for a big night out and, given it was a Sunday, the hostel’s pub crawl
seemed like a good way to go. Plus, Marek was running it that night, so we knew
that we’d be in for some hardcore Party Rocking if nothing else. I think we
were only about halfway down Librowszczyzna Street when the honeyed strains of
LMFAO could be heard. Sure enough, as we walked in the door, Marek hollered out
over the music, ‘SHUFFLE!’ We shuffled our way to the bread sauna where all six
of our roomies were already chilling. We all chatted for a bit and ascertained
that three of them were travelling together and were sick – had been in
hospital sick. Given that our room was fundamentally a life-size petri dish,
this wasn’t the best news.
Next thing I know I’m waking up,
apparently having dozed off sometime between Pinging Kaitlyn about which one of
our roomies was hottest, and Tweeting about the attractiveness of our roomies.
I am not a napper, and I felt absolutely rotten when I woke up. I contemplated
rolling back to sleep but, upon hearing Marek out in the hallway, ‘PARTY ROCK
IS IN THE HOUSE TONIGHT, EVERYBODY JUST HAVE A GOOD TIME!’, I realised there
were better uses for my pillow. Also, it was almost 7.30pm which meant free
dinner, and all that straining of my eardrums earlier had made me ravenous. As
we made our way down to dinner, we passed Marek. ‘MAAAATTTTEEESSSS!’ (He was as
fond of that word as he was of LMFAO.) ‘You coming pub crawl with me tonight?
WE GONNA MAKE YOU LOOOOOSE YOUR MIND!’ Already losing it, Marek.
Upon entering the kitchen we were
greeted with the sight of Javier chillin’ with a whole lot of guys - turned out
he was staying at our hostel. It also turned out there was a major female
deficiency at the hostel - Kaitlyn and I were the only girls in the entire
room. At that point in time, with the exception of Javier, each and every one
of them was Australian. And, with the exception of a handful, they were all the
vile Australians who travel and make all other nationalities hate Australia. We
ate dinner but still had an hour or so before the pub crawl left, and there was
no way I was going to be able to tolerate some of these people sober, so we
accompanied two of the more palatable guys to a bottle shop around the corner
for supplies. These two guys were called Ned and Robert. Ned was actually called Simon, and I’m about
60% sure Robert’s name was really Mick. However, Ned looked identical to my
friend Ned, and Robert looked a lot like Robert Downey Junior.
The four of us returned to the
hostel, trailed by Javier who, for the next four days, wouldn’t leave us the
hell alone. As we walked back through the door we were greeted with a ‘WE JUST
WANNA SEE – YOU SHAKE IT NOW!’ We shook our way downstairs and proceeded to
drink a few beers, our little corner of the hostel quickly establishing itself
as the cool corner. The four of us (five including Javier) were joined by a
couple of really nice guys, and we were having a lovely time until the bogans
decided to crash our party. It is next to impossible for me to properly
describe just how contemptible these bogans were, but I will try. In fact, this
conversation might help me out. Kaitlyn was engaged in dialogue with Robert,
and I was talking to Ned and another guy (whose name I cannot remember - which
is further proof of why we nickname people, as that way we remember their names),
about Auschwitz - a heavy topic when you’re getting ready to party, I concede,
but the two had returned from there that afternoon. Part-way through the
conversation, this group of five particularly obnoxious bogans came and
gate-crashed the discussion. For the moment, I shall refer to them as Bogans 1
through to 5.
Bogan 1: ‘What youse all talkin’
bout?’
Nice Guy: ‘Auschwitz.’
Bogan 2: ‘Huh? What’s that?’
Bogan 1: ‘Is that the club we’re
going to tonight?’ Face palm.
Ned: ‘No, it’s…’
Bogan 3: ‘Nah man, it’s that place
we’re going to tomorrow. Ya know, the death camp.’
Bogan 2: ‘Ohhhhh….ya mean that Hitler
thing.’ Yes, yes. “That Hitler Thing”, dumbass.
Bogan 1: ‘So have you guys been? What
was it like? Is it really cool?!’ I was tempted to respond that it was about as
cool as the breeze flowing between his ears, but I hadn’t actually been yet so
I left that one up to Nice Guy and Ned to respond to.
Nice Guy: ‘It’s not…. “cool”, no.
It’s, well it’s quite hard to explain.’
Ned: ‘You do know a little bit about
it, yeah?’
Bogan 2: ‘Nah. I know nothin’, mate.
Not into history much, ya’ know. I’m more of a live-for-the-present kinda guy.’
Bogan 1: ‘I went to the Communism
museum in Prague. That was sweet as, bro! I got to hold a gun! Is it like that?’
Nice Guy: ‘Ahh...No…’
Me: ‘No. No, it’s not like that.
Firstly, because that deals primarily with the Iron Curtain and certainly not
with the Holocuast.’
Bogan 2: ‘Holla – holla’. Seriously.
Me: ‘Seriously? Okay. Ahh…and
secondly, you don’t pose with guns at Auschwitz. You…I give up.’ I was done.
Bogan 4, meanwhile, was still trying
to figure out how to open his beer with the screw-top lid, while Bogan 5 sat on
a stool next to me and stared down my top. Before these idiots could continue
with their inane commentary, a very attractive Asian girl in a very short skirt
came down the stairs, slipping on the last one and literally landing in Ned’s
lap. ‘Hey! I’m Kitty.’ It was quite the entrance, succeeding in Bogan 5’s
vision vacating my chest and taking up residence on hers. Kitty was from
Toronto. She was hilarious. Before we had a chance to chat, the lights went
out, the music started, and Marek dramatically appeared halfway down the
stairs: ‘PARTY ROCK! YEA! Whoa! LET'S GO! PARTY ROCK IS IN THE HOUSE TONIGHT.
EVERYBODY JUST HAVE A GOOD TIME! MAAAATTTTTEEESSSSSS! PUB CRAWL IS LEAVING IN
FIFTEEN MINUTES. I MEET YOU ALL UPSTAIRS. EVERDAY I’M SHUFFLING!!!’
With the exception of drinking more
so I could tolerate a night with morons, I was ready to go. So Kaitlyn and I
sat upstairs on the couch next to Marek as we waited for everyone else to join
us. Every time a new person appeared they had to ‘SHUFFLE!!!’ Most people gave
a cursory little movement except for Robert, who seemed to quite fancy himself
as the next Shufflebot. Marek managed to get in three more full rotations of
the song before the fifteen minutes were up. Nice Guy commented that this was
significantly less than the number from the previous night.
The vodkas which we sampled were
flavoured and tasted more like liqueurs than spirits; the hazelnut tasted like
Frangelico, the coffee like Tia Maria, and so on. Somehow, Marek twice ended up
with two extra shots and, after promising him that the shots would make my ‘booty
move away like I was on the block’, they were all mine. When Marek got up to
organise another round of shots, one sneaky guy stole his chair. Spanish, he
appeared to be a friend of Javier and somehow came to the conclusion that
because Javier was across the table (unsuccessfully) hitting on Kaitlyn and
Kitty, that gave him the right to put his hand on my thigh. Incorrect. Between
him and Bogan 5, who was equally as handsy and lecherous, eight shots of vodka
really wasn’t enough.
Thankfully, Marek soon let us know we only had ten minutes left, so I took the chance to excuse myself to the little lady’s room. As I came out, Javier was standing there. I assumed he was waiting for the bathroom, but he was in fact waiting for me. ‘Oh, there you are.’
‘Yes…here I am.’ Before he could
further start ruining my Bardem fantasies, Robert appeared behind him - Robert,
who looked even more Downey-Junior-like out of his boardies. Unfortunately,
although he had initially presented himself as quite charming, the bogan effect
of the hostel seemed to be rubbing off on him. And so he started speaking as if
Javier wasn’t even there. ‘Well hi there.’
‘Hi.’
‘So. Be honest with me. On a scale of
1-10, what are my chances?’
‘Chances of what?’
‘With you.
‘Sorry?’
‘Look. You can see the ratio here. Us
guys are 10-1. I’m staking my claim early.’
‘Your claim?’ Wow.
‘Look, before you answer, just
remember you aren’t gonna get a better offer tonight. So take a moment to think
about it.’ And that is how Robert became RDA – Robert Downey Asshole.
By some small miracle, Marek managed
to navigate himself and us to the beer hall, where we had tables reserved which
was lucky because the place was packed. The girls and I managed to find our way
to a table with Marek, Ned, Nice Guy, another nice guy…and RDA. Still, at this
point RDA was significantly better than most of the others. I had one drink of
beer and I think this was the point where all the alcohol hit me. Kitty
couldn’t find the bathroom so I offered to go with her. Javier, who was quickly
turning into Kraków’s very own Thor, decided to accompany us…..accompany us
right into the women’s toilets. ‘Pretty sure you’re not allowed in here.’
‘Oh it is fine. It is Europe.’
‘No, seriously, get out.’ He wasn’t
shifting, so I stood there awkwardly "fixing" my hair, while he
chatted away next to me about the fact that his ex broke up with him recently
and left him broken-hearted, so
he’s come on holiday to - and I quote
– ‘sleep her out of my system’. And again, wow. These guys really knew
how to talk to women.
When we got back, the tables had kind
of merged, so it was near impossible to escape Bogans 1-5. However, the ensuing
conversations did manage to yield them each names. (Bogan 5 had, at this point,
already become BD – Bogan Daddy.) When I sat back down, everyone was talking
about how hot the rooms were in the hostel. I joined in, noting that our room
smelled ‘a lot like a bread factory’ and ‘very yeasty.’ Bogan 1: ‘I had a yeast
infection once.’ Okaaaay…. ‘Yeah. Thrush of the mouth.’ And stop right there.
Oblivious to everyone else recoiling, he went into detail. ‘Yeah, I was with
this chick. She was a dirty, greasy Italian. Anyway, I went down on her and
ended up with thrush of the mouth.’ He went into a lot more detail, including
visuals, of the ensuing conversation with his doctor. And that is how Bogan 1
became Yeast Infection.
Bogan 2 (Dick) earned his nickname
when he told us all about his and Yeast Infection’s favourite past-time. ‘It’s
called “Dick-to-Face”.’ Call it morbid curiosity, but I had to know.
‘What exactly is “Dick-to-Face”?’
‘It’s awesome.’ I have no doubt. ‘When
one of your mates is passed out or sleeping, you drop your pants and put your
dick in his face.’ Nothing has ever sounded more awesome.
Bogan 3 joined in, ‘It’s so great.
You have to get it on film though, otherwise it doesn’t count. And you get
bonus points if it’s a stranger.
I’m usually the cameraman. Actually,
I got this great one last night. Youse all will love it. It’s the BEST! I’ll
show youse all at breakfast.’ And that is how Bogan 3 became Scorsese.
Bogan 4 actually seemed to be a nice
enough guy. I didn’t hear him say a single word that night. Sure, he laughed at
the explanations of“dick-to-face”, but he was certainly less vile than his
friends, and he wasn’t incessantly pinching my butt like Bogan Daddy. In fact,
he was comparatively so nondescript, that he never earned himself a name -
instead, we occasionally referred to him as ‘The Other One’.
After the beer hall we headed to the
third and final stop of the crawl: the club. That night, it was ‘Prozac’. To be
completely honest, a lot of our time at Prozac is quite hazy. Kitty left early
on, leaving Kaitlyn and I alone to battle for ourselves. Javier got his ninja
on hardcore, materialising in front of you right when you thought you had
finally lost him. After the beer hall, RDA really didn’t seem comparatively
bad, but he was determined to be an ass none the less. We’d been there for…well
I have no sense of time from that night, but long enough to hit the DF. He
comes up to Kaitlyn and I, and this is the conversation – verbatim: to Kaitlyn,
‘You’re fat and you can’t dance.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘And your tits are too small.’
Pointing at me, ‘Even her tits are bigger that your’s and she’s a
stick-midget.’ Apparently RDA didn’t take too well to us both rejecting his
advances. (Can I just say though, I kind of love the term “stick-midget”. I
give you all permission to refer to me as that from now on.)
Next time: A USB is lost, Javier watches us as Yeast Infection shares more about his sexual exploits, Javier watches us as we bond with nice, new arrivals, and Javier also goes on a tour of The Jewish Ghetto.
