Kraków by way of Ryanair

I’m going to begin by saying that I LOVE Poland. It’s that simple. My first regret of the trip is that we didn’t have more time to spend there. Also, just in case you ever go there and don’t want to offend locals, Kraków is pronounced – crack-of. If you say it like that and manage to roll your ‘r’, you’ll probably score yourself a free shot of vodka…to go with all your 30 cent shots of vodka.

So…we left off in Edinburgh - home of Troy, Haggis and Irn-Bru. Initially we were planning on travelling to Ireland next as, geographically, this made sense. However, whether we went by plane, train or ferry, it was going to cost us £300.00 ONE WAY. EACH. Apparently there was some football game or something…I didn’t really care about the reason because, as far as I was concerned, the only thing I was going to be spending £300.00 on was alcohol, so Ireland was not an option. So, after a frustrating search online, figuring out the cheapest flight back to the continent, we found ourselves heading to the airport and boarding a plane bound for Kraków.

I’m not sure if you are in any way familiar with Ryanair, but they are an Irish budget airline. When I say budget I mean BUDGET; they make Jetstar look like Qatar. Now, if an airline has economical flights, I don’t mind if they skimp on things such as comfort and even service – you get what you pay for. But Ryanair have RIDICULOUS regulations which have NOTHING to do with cost-saving. Take, for example, their rule of ‘one piece of carry-on per passenger’. Initially, this makes sense – one piece of carry-on per passenger. However, the way this is actually enforced is absolutely ludicrous. Firstly, a 10 kg backpack is one piece of luggage, as is a 10cm by 10cm clutch. So if you have one very small handbag, and your wallet in your

hand, think again about boarding that plane – no, you must step aside and let the man behind you with the 10kg backpack board, whilst you cram your wallet into your tiny handbag which can’t weigh anymore than 500 grams. And I saw that happen. I thought that was ridiculous, but it got a whole lot dumber when the man in front of me tried to board with his briefcase and a plastic bag with a bottle of Duty Free whiskey. The Totalitarian Stewardess wasn’t having any of that. ‘Excuse me sir – you cannot board the aircraft with two bags.’

‘Ummm….’

‘We can check that in for you for a cost of £45.00, but you are not permitted more than one piece of carry-on baggage.’ The lady in front of him was sporting a very large bag and, offered to carry it on-board for him. As she went to take it from him, Ms Tyranny started having a coronary. ‘EXCUSE ME – are you TRAVELLING together?’

‘No…’

‘It is ILLEGAL to carry other people’s luggage on-board. Do you NOT KNOW THAT?!’ Everyone in the queue watched on as she took several breaths to visibly calm herself. ‘Now sir, if you wish to check this bag in you can do so for £45.00. Alternatively, you can remove the bottle from the plastic bag and carry it on board yourself.’ WHAT?! So it’s okay to carry the bottle of whiskey on in your hands, but not okay to carry it in a two gram plastic bag? Because that makes perfect sense. Idiots.

Fortunately, I had already been warned of Ryanair’s stupid rule, however, there was no room in either my checked-in backpack, or my handbag for my big camera. Fortunately I am quite creative, and with a bit of work, managed to create quite the faux-baby-bump with my camera bag and tops, resulting in a very authentic looking pregnant sixteen-year-old. I had Kaitlyn closely flank me and obscure me as much as possible from Kimberly Jong Il because I would not have put it past her to demand to inspect my “pregnant” belly in order to ascertain its authenticity and/or ensure the foetus was only carrying one piece of luggage.

Another example of Ryanair’s ridiculousness is their claim of being Europe’s most punctual airline. The reason they are able to make this somewhat false claim is due to their drastic over-estimation of flight times. For example, in a flight between Melbourne and Hobart they would estimate the flight-time as being one hour and 45 minutes when really it is only a 50 minute flight. They would then, inevitably, be delayed a good half an hour but, due to the 55 minute over-estimate, the flight would still land “on-time”. The flight-time between Edinburgh and Kraków is around 2 hours and 45 minutes, but our flight had an estimated journey time of three and a half hours. To no surprise, our departure time was delayed more than a half hour and yet, despite this, as we landed in Kraków six minutes ahead of the scheduled arrival time, this music started blaring throughout the plane. Almost identical to the trumpet at the Melbourne Cup, it was accompanied by a clapping track and an audacious announcement along the lines of: ‘Congratulations! You are a part of another on-time Ryanair flight. Ryanair: the most on-time airline in Europe’. Then the clapping came back in, and 98% of the passengers started clapping along with it. One idiot even wolf-whistled. As we exited the plane, I lazily sauntered up the aisle proudly displaying my TWO items of carry-on baggage. As I passed the stewardesses I gave them a sickly sweet smile and thanked them very much. Sticking it to the establishment.

Prior to arriving, I obtained directions to the hostel and checked out transport options from the airport to the city. The most inexpensive way was by train; the train station was a three to five minute walk from the airport, and trains depart every half hour until midnight. By the time we collected Kaitlyn’s backpack and my shell, it was about 9.00pm when we left the terminal, and it was very dark and a little bit creepy as we started walking. We weren’t too far away from where the station supposedly was when three men standing outside taxis started to yell out to us in English, “No train on Saturday. You must take taxi.” Our shell and pack must have been a giveaway we were tourists. Who’d have thought? I knew that these guys were lying and trying to take advantage of stupid little tourists, but before I could call them on their bullshit, Kaitlyn started to make her way to a cab. I quickly explained to her that these guys were not being truthful and led her away and back towards the train. These men, however, were quite persistent and one of them got into his car and started to follow us down the road. As I mentioned before, it was quite dark and by this point there were no people around. Despite very adamantly telling him that we did not want to enter his vehicle, he kept driving alongside us. Polish and Czech are, essentially, mutually understandable languages, so I clearly delivered a few words I know he would have understood, and we headed back towards the airport where we felt a little safer.

Just before we reached the terminal, we saw a bus and I approached the driver to ask if it was going into the city. Fortunately, it was. We had to buy the tickets from a machine next to the bus stop and this only had instructions in Polish. Despite speaking no English, the driver had been so nice when I shouted ‘MĚSTO?!’ at him and gesticulated wildly at a map, that I asked for his assistance. He was very obliging, but his comprehension of the workings of the machine were about as sound as my understanding of the concept of drinking in moderation. Still, between the three of us we figured it out and soon we were on our way into Kraków. When we arrived in the city, I became aware of one small problem: the directions that I had to the hostel were from the train station…and there was no train station in sight. I asked a few people in the street ‘VLAK?’, and it turned out we were not too far from the station at all. After making our way there, we undertook the simple task of following the directions to the hostel. Except for the part where they weren’t simple. To be fair, the directions probably weren’t that bad, but it was very, very late and we were very, very tired. Also, the hostel’s location was on the corner of Librowszczyzna and Zyblikiewicza Streets – you try pronouncing and/or showing that to a bunch of drunk locals enjoying their Saturday night out.

After a lot of walking around and a few mini-tantrums, we eventually found Librowszczyzna Street (which we may or may not have walked past at least three times before discovering it) and, as we made our way down the footpath, we could see a guy and a girl standing in the distance. They turned out to be Marek and Gosia, two of the people who worked there. And they were standing out the front waiting for us at midnight!! Now, as you read on you will encounter a few comments I make which are slightly negative about the hostel (mainly about the rooms). However, I cannot stress enough how much I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Greg and Tom Junior. It is the best hostel I have ever stayed in and, although the facilities and the heavy promotion of drunken debauchery has a lot to do with it, the overriding element is the staff. As we got closer, Marek bellowed out, ‘Claire Elishka?!’ (as the booking was under my name). ‘Yes…?’

‘We have been waiting for you!!’ Given how excited they were, I momentarily thought they had mistaken our arrival for the Second Coming. Turns out they were just excited to see us, and we later observed that every guest’s arrival is met with an equal amount of enthusiasm. Marek came rushing forward and practically yanked my shell from my back, and they quickly ushered us inside. ‘Where have you come from? It is so late. You must be hungry. We have dinner for you.’ We were completely exhausted, and all we wanted to do was curl up in bed and pass-out. However, they were so lovely, we felt obliged to follow them downstairs. Plus, when have I ever turned down food? As we trudged downstairs, we passed dozens of empty cups and shot glasses, our feet sticking to the ground every few steps. ‘We are sorry it is so dirty. The party has only just left and we haven’t had time to clean yet.’

‘If you want to join the party, we know where they are and we will take you.’ I was about to politely decline for the both of us when I was distracted by the table in front of me. They really hadn’t been kidding about having dinner waiting for us; two plates and sets of cutlery were waiting, with a dozen or so bowls filled with an array of amazing food. Gosia pushed us into chairs, and Marek disappeared, only to reappear a minute later with drinks for everyone: vodka and cactus juice, to be exact. The two sat down with us and asked us all about our trip so far: where we’d been, what we’d liked best, what we’d liked least, where we were off to next, etc., etc…and it was all genuine interest. They wanted to know where we lived in Australia, what we did there, why we’d come to Poland, what we wanted to do in Kraków, whether I was Czech or Slovakian (apparently my name and ‘my eyes’ gave me away), whether we’d met any good looking men yet – I think the only thing they didn’t seem remotely interested in was acquiring any form of payment from us.

Marek went off to grab us all refills and returned armed with brochures and maps. They then proceeded to spend the next HOUR showing us maps of the city, marking on them a multitude of things from ATMs, to cheap clothes shops, to the city’s best ice-cream. They also marked numerous cheap eateries, despite the fact that they provide free breakfast and dinner and, if we ‘happen to be at the hostel at lunchtime, there will be food around’. The whole thing just seemed far too good to be true. I was expecting them to go Eli Roth on us at any moment but, as you can probably gather by the fact you’re reading this, that never happened. (Although if it had, my eyes are big enough to stretch one across two sockets.)

As hospitable and helpful as they were, it was after 1.00am and I was pretty keen to hit the sack. And get my phone from my bag so I could check in on Four Square. As we headed back up the stairs, I enquired as to when they would like us to pay. ‘Whenever’, was the response, as they had two more pressing things to attend to. The first was to "brand" us with fluro orange wrist-bands which we were instructed not to remove until we checked out. Printed on them was the hostel’s name and address, their purpose being for us to flash at taxi drivers or passers by if we found ourselves stumbling through the alley ways of Kraków, or were found passed out in the city’s gutters. The second crucial task was to show us how to work the showers. I was tempted to let them know that, despite most of our population having British ancestry, we do wash in Australia and we are pretty adept at working showers. However, as they showed us the various functions of the showers, I realised that I had never used ones quite like these: lights, music, five different massaging jets, a seat. Coolest showers EVER!

We were staying in a dorm of eight and, due to the rest of the hostel rocking out somewhere in the city, we were able to unpack and get settled without having to worry about waking anyone up. It was pretty hot in Poland whilst we were there (30-odd degrees everyday) and, with a fan quietly oscillating in the corner, we drifted off to sleep. What I imagine was a few hours later, I woke up uncomfortable and completely drenched in sweat. For a second, I thought maybe karma had come after me for my faux Ryanair pregnancy in the form of a surprise birth like my sister, but as I woke up and got my bearings, I realised that there were now six other people in our room, and the fan was no longer working. I assumed that it was broken as it didn’t even cross my mind that anyone would be stupid enough to turn it off in such a sauna-like environment. But, what I was about to learn over the next few days was that a lot of really, REALLY stupid people travel, and the dumbest of the lot were staying at Greg and Tom’s whilst we were.