Kraków - Everyday I'm Shuffling

Previously: despite Ryanair’s incompetence, we made it from Edinbrugh to Kraków. And despite our own incompetence, to our hostel, Greg and Tom’s, which kind of turned out to be the best hostel ever.


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.

Kaitlyn was just waking up when I got back so I told her I’d meet her down at breakfast before I contracted Candida from just sitting on my bed. I made my way down to the kitchen and found Marek sitting there, looking a little worse for wear. He was half-heartedly pointing out various breakfast things to me when suddenly he sparked right up. ‘I LOVE this song!’. ‘This song’ was LMFAO's ‘Party Rock Anthem’. Since arriving in Prague three and half weeks earlier, I estimate that we had heard that song at least one hundred times. We then heard it at least 100 more times throughout the duration of our stay at Greg and Tom’s, and three of those were before Kaitlyn appeared downstairs. Marek really, really liked that song. We had decided to do the free walking tour that morning, so after breakfast we grabbed our stuff and headed out to try and familiarise ourselves with the city, Marek wishing us a good day with a little bit of Party Rock to see us through.


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).

The highlight, for me at least, of the tour was seeing the “sights” of Pope John Paul II. Poland is completely nuts for the former Pope, statues and pictures of him adorn the city the way posters of Stephen Kernahan used to adorn my room. The tour employeed the term “the sights of Pope John Paul II” which I believe was a bit of a stretch, but it was, nevertheless, amusing to watch an extraordinary number of Poles (and possibly tourists) pose outside some random old building (where the Supreme Pontiff apparently slept) with a painting in the top window of PJP in his heyday and have their photo taken. Keep in mind the photographer would have had to stand about 300 metres back from the building to be able to get both the subject and Popey in the shot. After this we walked up to Wawel Hill to see Wawel Cathedral and Wawel Castle. Everything I know about these landmarks of the city I have since read in books because, as Silent Bob mouthed information about them, I started to doze off in the afternoon sun. After this came the other highlight of the tour - its conclusion.

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 first stop on the pub crawl was vodka tasting! Now, although I drink a lot of vodka, it is the one thing which I cannot shot; tequila, absinth, agwa – you name it, I can shot it…provided it is not vodka. However, Polish vodka is very tasty and, it turns out, very shottable. The place Marek took us to was apparently his favourite place to drink in Kraków, and was very un-touristy. He also appeared to be excellent friends with the barman, which would work very well in our favour. Now, our $5.00 pub crawl fee was supposed to include four shots of vodka at this place: everyone had six except for Marek and I who had eight. Here is a tip: even if he won’t stop singing LMFAO loudly and off-key into your ear, sit next to the guy who is in charge of the alcohol. When we first arrived everyone, including the dumbass bogans, seemed to suddenly realise there were three girls and thirty guys. It literally went like this: everyone stopped abruptly at the threshold of the bar and waited for Kaitlyn, Kitty and I to pick a seat. As soon as we looked like we were committed to a specific chair, elbows flew and it was like a rugby scrum. I ended up with Bogan 5 on my left, but with Marek on my right, so they kind of cancelled each other out. At least, the extra vodka from Marek cancelled the bogan out. Just.

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.

I didn’t even bother to sit back down at the table. Instead, I grabbed my bag and told Marek and the girls I’d be waiting outside. It was around this time I started to really feel the effects of my eight shots (coupled with the beer I had been drinking at the hostel). Marek, however, was well and truly feeling the effects of his imbibing. ‘WE PARTY ROCK! YEAH! YOU ARE THE CREW THAT I’M REPPING. ON THE RISE TO THE TOP NO LENNON OR ZEPPELIN! HEYYYYY!’ (To this day I still say ‘No Lennon or Zeppelin’ in a tribute to him.) And so we stumbled our way to stop two: the beer hall. In summary: 50 litres of beer for all of us to share. By this point I was having quite a lot of trouble shaking Bogan 5 who was trying to impress me with the fact he works in the mines – this certainly impressed me more than the fact he ‘hasn’t even been thinkin’ bout the missus and littlies since I left home,’. Wow. What a turn-on.

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.)

After this conversation went down, I told Kaitlyn I was too sober and needed a drink. Of course, I wasn’t sober at all, but my lack of beverages at the beer hall had me believing all that vodka was out of my system. It only took two vodkas and some ridiculously strong cocktail to make me realise I was still, in fact, very not-sober. I remember going up to the DJ and requesting "Party Rock Anthem" for Marek (and our entire group shuffling like bosses), I remember talking to Nice Guy and us both contemplating pretending to be New Zealanders for the rest of our travels, just in case people we met along the way had met any of these guys prior to meeting us. And then the next thing I remember is sitting in a gutter, leaning up against Ned while he simultaneously fed Kaitlyn a chicken kebab and me a felafel. And then he walked us home. I don’t remember this, but according to eyewitness reports, it was more of a “walk Kaitlyn, carry the stick-midget” situation.

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.