Auschwitz-Birkenau

Okay. I ummed and ahhed about posting anything about Auschwitz for several reasons, primarily because any musings on the experience will not in any way fit in with the tone of the rest of my tales. However, upon reflection, I decided that there are a number of reasons why I should definitely write something. First, and possibly foremost, for catharsis as, even after all this time, my visit still plays on my mind a lot. Also, I suppose it demonstrates that there is more to my travels than drinking and nicknaming people. Furthermore, because I strongly believe that everyone from my generation should visit Auschwitz (a blanket-statement I will address in a second), and yet obviously not everyone will have the opportunity so, at the very least, they should read about it. I’m not arrogant enough to think that a short blog entry about my own visit will in any way function as a piece of informed text on the subject, but perhaps it will prompt people to want to read more. 

When I say that everyone of my generation should visit Auschwitz, what I really mean is that everyone should have the opportunity to visit a facility like Auschwitz or a site of genocide; be it another Nazi concentration or extermination camp such as Belzec or Treblinka, the Killing Fields in Cambodia, or Kigali in Rwanda. Why? Well there are countless reasons ranging from education to remembrance but, ultimately, it is to put things into perspective. A phrase, a thought-process I frequently use is “it’s all relative". Often, yes, it is all relative, and comparing your own circumstances or predicaments to others’ would be a futile exercise. However, there are occasions when saying “it’s all relative” is simply a cop-out.

As I write this, I am suffering from a cold. It’s a bitch of a cold – my head hurts, my throat is on fire, and I’m fairly sure my eyeballs are about to burst out of their sockets and shatter the computer screen. And yes, I could easily argue that “it’s all relative” because it would be pointless to compare my cold to, say, having chemicals injected into my uterus to glue it shut, because you can’t compare a cold to that, and because I feel freaking miserable. But that’s just it – my cold isn’tan excruciating sterilization experiment, and while I may feel poorly because of it, it isn’t causing me agonizing pain and increasing the chances of a premature death. Still, I’m going to continue to feel sorry for myself, and I’m going to continue to Tweet requests for flowers (which people are going to continue to ignore), because I have a horrible cold which is making me feel like shit… and it’s all relative, right? Wrong. Or, at least, I think it is wrong. Myself and people my age have had it easy. We whinge and moan when we can’t get 3G connectivity, or we have a 9.00am lecture at uni. I say “we” – you know you’ve done it. At least once. And that’s because for our generation, these are things to moan about. And this makes us incredibly fortunate. And this is why we should all have our comfortable, undemanding, blessed lives put into perspective so we can properly appreciate them.

People might disagree with me on this notion. Whatever, it’s a personal opinion. I also imagine there are people who would question why I would look so far afield when, in Australia we had the degradation and eventual destruction of an entire race through the genocide of Australian Aborigines. I have several answers to this, many of which would probably showcase my naivety and ignorance of Australian history, but the most relevant response is that Nazi-occupied Europe is my heritage. Auschwitz is somewhere I have felt the need to visit for a long time. As I imagine is the case with many people whose family survived World War II and the Nazi-occupation, I have for a long time felt an obligation of sorts to go to Auschwitz. Whether this “connection” informed my experience in any way, I do not know, but it is the reason I found myself there, and it certainly caused many a pause for reflection.

I’m not going to make this a fact-filled essay, but a little bit of background for those who don’t know...

Auschwitz, the German name for the Polish town Oświęcim, is about 70km from Kraków. Auschwitz was originally built as a Polish army barracks, and the camp at Auschwitz was initially established in 1940 to house Poles who had been arrested by the Nazis after the invasion in 1939. However, by 1942 it had been developed and extended into an enormous complex of camps, three on or very near the main site - Auschwitz I, II (Birkenau), and III (Monowitz) - and a further 35 sub-camps. No exact death toll is known, but estimates put the deaths at somewhere between 1.1 and 1.5 million people, most of whom were deliberately, methodically gassed to death and then incinerated.

We took a tour from Kraków because, during the summer months, you must be part of a tour group to gain admittance to the site (whereas in the quieter winter months people are able to wander the site on their own). The bus trip took around an hour and a half, during which they played the same film which is screened at Auschwitz for visitors. A combination of footage from the camp and footage filmed in the first moments after its liberation, the harrowing images certainly set the tone for the visit. We first arrived at Auschwitz I, the original camp, which housed prisoners, was the location of medical experiments and is the site of Block 11 (a place of extreme torture) and the Black Wall (a place of execution).

The day we went was incredibly hot, sunny and slightly breezy – essentially the perfect summer's day. Honestly, my initial impressions were that it was really quite picturesque, beautiful even. That I could even think that probably sounds exceedingly sick and depraved, but the initial moments didn’t present to me anything like what I had been expecting. Considering how harrowing the experience did become, I am grateful that I did visit there on the day I did, in the conditions I did, but I do sometimes wonder how the experience would have been if I had gone in the dead of winter, with snow and a biting wind. I daresay it would have been very different. Despite these first impressions, walking under the “Arbeit macht frei” sign sent shivers down my spine.

Auschwitz I is almost perfectly preserved, and what little restoration work has been done is very clearly labelled. The site functions fundamentally as a museum and as well as the aforementioned Block 11 and Black Wall, you will see the following very literal sites: the electrified fence, the roll-call square, crematorium and gas chamber. As well as these there is the permanent exhibition which includes, amongst many things, photographs, documents, prisoner garments, prisoner bunks and items seized from prisoners. Our tour group was led by a man who would have been about my age. He led us through the camp and through the many rooms of the exhibition at a very rapid pace, all the time firing off statistics and numbers relating to the camp’s operation. He was incredibly clinical in his delivery (which I imagine you would have to be in order to do that job), but the hurried, detached nature in which he reeled off information, coupled with the sheer scale of the exhibits we were seeing, made it all that much harder to process. You would think that being confronted with seven tonnes of human hair which had been cut off the corpses of women in the gas chambers (and was to be used for things such as being turned into socks worn by Nazi soldiers) would elicit a barrage of emotions, but it didn’t provoke much of a response from me at all – at the time, that is.

When we visited the Holocaust museum in Berlin, I was incredibly emotional, and I had expected to feel even more emotional at Auschwitz. And yet, all I really felt was numb. A quote which is usually misattributed to Stalin – to the point I am actually unsure as to whose words they are – probably best sums up how I was initially feeling: ‘The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.’ It’s a controversial yet fascinating quote I had always considered merely another example of such dictators’ batshit lunacy, but I find myself almost agreeing with it now – not as a demission of large-scale death, but as an accurate observation of a person’s inability to comprehend that level of loss and destruction.

The tour then took us to Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, which is about three kms away. I had done a lot of reading on Auschwitz over the years, seen a lot of photos, and I always knew that Birkenau was big, but I was absolutely stunned by the sheer size of it. Birkenau was the real “killing centre” of the Auschwitz camp, and it was here the infamous “selections” took place as people arrived into the camp by train. Almost three quarters of prisoners were executed upon arrival at Birkenau, and to stand by those train tracks was another of those truly harrowing moments.

Unlike Auschwitz I, Birkenau was mostly destroyed by the SS in the days leading up to the arrival of Soviet forces. A few of the original barracks survived, and original materials were used to reconstruct a few more, however mostly it is a 425-acre grave site. I found Birkenau a lot more confronting than Auschwitz I. In a way I cannot explain, from the moment we stepped through the entrance, I felt as if fear, powerlessness, pain, suffering and sadness were all palpable; I genuinely felt as if I was surrounded by death. 

We were taken to a few of the barracks and to the ramp where the selections took place, but otherwise we were free to wander around on our own. I cannot tell you how long we were there as I had no sense of time whatsoever. In the same way I was at Auschwitz I, I was momentarily taken by the – and I hesitate to say it – beauty of the greenery. And yet, it didn’t take long for me to look past the green grass and the flowers, and see the crematorium and realise that it was ash from the bodies burnt in there which had fertilised the grass and made it so green. A realisation which left me feeling nauseous and yet, strangely, faintly heartened.

The whole way back on the bus to Kraków, I slept. That night, and even the next day I still felt quite numb towards the entire experience, but eventually I started to feel troubled and even distraught, in a way I expected to from the outset. To this day, the images still play on my mind. It is one thing to learn about what happened, but I don’t think you can truly appreciate the atrocities from simply reading about it in a book or watching a documentary. The horror can never be entirely conveyed, but Auschwitz stands as a chilling monument to human idiocy, malevolence and senselessness, and it will stay with me for as long as I live.

Kraków– Have you seen my USB?

Previously: the ultimate Australian bogans were schooled in the differences between nightclubs and death camps, I discovered that I can shot vodka, and a Javier Bardem-lookalike rapidly became less like the Spanish heartthrob, and more like the psychopathic hitman he played in‘No Country For Old Men’.

As became habitual in this hostel, I woke up feeling like I was in the tropics - only this time a beach as, coupled with the sweat, I was covered in what felt like sand. The sweat was, of course, courtesy of the "bread sauna" masquerading as our dorm, but the gritty substance covering my body was courtesy of the remnants of the giant packet of biscuits I had devoured when I collapsed into bed hours before. I didn’t actually remember this, but Kaitlyn informed me that, after being essentially carried to bed by Ned, I made him rummage around my shell because, ‘I simply cannot even contemplate slumber until I have eaten some biscuits’. At least I am an articulate drunk. It was quite late when we awoke and, by the time I had washed the biscuit beach from my bruised body, breakfast would have been well and truly picked-over, so we decided to cut our losses and hit up the supermarché.

Having not had to pay for food since arriving in Kraków (with the exception of the early-morning kebab), we quickly discovered that, while the local grocery stores are resplendent with grog, unless cured meats are your thing, they’re not awash with food. So we decided to embark on the semi-ambitious trek to hit up the Carrefour. If you aren’t familiar with Carrefour, I feel sorry for you. They’re a chain of hypermarkets across Europe and Asia and…welI I was going to describe them as Costcos where you don’t have to buy in bulk to save, but that is a horrible description which doesn’t make any sense. They are HUGE, have everything you could ever want, are dirt cheap and, perhaps best of all, have the greatest slogans of all time. I first became aware of Carrefours' ridiculous phrasing years ago when I was in France and, since then, have become an avid Googler of their campaigns. (How on earth am I still single?) I used to think that, given they originate in French, the translation might be what makes them so bad. It’s not – they’re ridiculous in every language. My current favourites are “It’s good for you”, “Energy Wise”and “Nobody does better than the first” (because that makes sense). The Polish one is quite amazing also: “Positively every day”, which I guess is significantly better than “Negatively some days”.

Anyway, we spent about an hour in the Carrefour browsing the aisles and filling our baskets (and scribing the signs so I could translate their slogans), eventually heading back to the hostel. By the time we got back, most of our pub crawl crew had emerged and were nursing sore heads and guzzling water downstairs. Javier was the first to speak, asking us if we’d ‘had a nice walk’. I can only assume he followed us at some point. Creep. We joined everyone and commenced the always-enjoyable Morning After Debrief. I was particularly looking forward to this one as there were several hundred minutes of my night unaccounted for. Unfortunately, no one else was much help in this department. Robert Downey Asshole commented that he left us all dancing when he departed the club with ‘A stunning Polish lass’. I think he said this because he wanted us all to know that he left with a woman (who I still believe was as real as Pamela Anderson’s boobs), however it backfired because it gave Kaitlyn a chance to call him on his assholery regarding her dancing. ‘I wasn’t dancing.’

‘Huh?’

‘You said you left us all dancing. But I wasn’t, because according to you I “can’t dance” and I’m “fat”.’

‘Ummm…’

‘That’s what you said – that I’m fat, can’t dance and,’pointing at me, ‘my tits are smaller than her’s’.

‘Well that’s true! They are.’  IDIOT. Even Ned looked at him with an expression of disdain.‘Look, I tend to say the opposite of things. So, if someone is ugly, I say they’re pretty.’ Logical. ‘Look. I just wanted to bring you down a peg.’

‘Why? Why did I need to be “brought down a peg”? It wasn’t as if I was telling everyone how hot I am, or what an amazing dancer I am.’

‘Everyone needs to be brought down. Even you.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Even so, what you’re saying is that I’m not fat, and I can dance?’

‘No, you can’t dance. At least, not as well as me. But mum and dad made us all take dance classes when we were younger, so it’s not your fault I’m better.’ Foot in mouth.

Speaking of one body part in another, this was about the time Scorsese and Dick-to-Face appeared. Lucky for us, he had not forgotten his promise of showing us an “awesome” clip he had taken the night before. 'Youse all ready for this?'

‘Not really.’ And nice to know your grammar is just as terrible when you’re sober. I don’t think a person with an IQ in double-digits could ever be ready to experience a visual depiction of “Dick To Face”. It really is the most literal “thing” ever, and still to this day, sometimes when I close my eyes I can still see Dick hovering over some poor man, his appendage agonizingly sharp and well-lit thanks to Scorsese’s practised camera-work and his iPhone 4’s camera.

‘Isn’t that SICK?!’ He obviously meant "sick" not in the literal sense, but as a synonym for "tremendous". I was honestly able to agree that it was, indeed, very sick. Literally. “But this is NOTHIN’ compared to the shit I got this morning. Youse are gonna DIE.’ Certainly possible, yes. Apparently the two of them along with Yeast Infection went even harder than the rest of us on the crawl and hadn’t arrived home until around eight o’clock that morning. While I assumed this had given them hours and hours to seek out faces to “dick”, it turns out they actually have a few other skills in their repertoire. Not surprisingly, this one also involved them dropping their pants, but it had a somewhat karmic end from which I must admit I derived a sense of satisfied pleasure.

‘We was in the square this morning and there was this hobo passed out near the clock. We was gonna try to Dick-to-Face” him, but he (Dick) was scared he was gonna catch something from the dirty hobo.’ Somehow, I think the “hobo” was just as likely to catch something too. ‘Anyways, we didn’t do it.’ Shame.‘But we did do something!’ Yay.

‘We realised it was like mornin’ and people were everywhere walkin’ to work. We couldn’t really Dick-to-Face them, but we could Dick them.’ I was going to point out that ‘dick’ isn’t actually a verb, but I realised they were unlikely to appreciate a discussion on the syntax of modern English. I am unsure whether Dick loses interest in dropping his pants when it doesn’t involved hanging it in someone’s face, but in the video he seemed not overly interested, and instead we were subjected to the naked bottom half of Yeast Infection. I have to give props to Scorsese here, because, despite the gratuitous nudity, the clip was first-class. In broad daylight in the middle of the town square, Yeast Infection drops his pants as several people walk by. Suddenly he mistakes one for a cop (it was actually a garbage man) and, takes off running. Only, in his inebriated state (one could argue he is dumb enough to do it sober), failed to pull his pants up first. So he starts running but only makes it a few metres before he trips, tries to right himself, and he nearly does, only to stumble into this huge pile of garbage bags where he ends up doing a spectacular backwards somersault and skids a good six metres across the concrete on his bare arse. And keep in mind this is a square dating back to the 13th Century – no smooth, sealed concrete here, people. Slapstick and naked men (with the exception of Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale) are not things I go out of my way to watch on film, but I watched this clip at least a dozen times. I haven’t even noticed The Other One (Bogan 4) sitting there, but his quiet observation of ‘Sucked in,’ reinforced that he was definitely my favourite.

While we were watching the clip for the sixth time, Yeast Infection hobbled his was into the kitchen. I thought he might be a little red-faced over the whole incident, but he squeezed himself onto the couch in-between Kaitlyn and me and watched with as much enthusiasm as the rest of us. ‘I haven’t seen it yet. Is it good?’ His reaction coupled with his vigorous high-fiving of Scorsese suggests that it was one of the proudest moments of his life. ‘Fuckin’ stellar, mate.’ Then, without any warning whatsoever, jumped up off the couch and dropped his pants, showing us all his “battle-wound”. I never hated being short more in my life that at moment, where my eye-line was perfectly matched up to his very bare, very bloody, very disgusting arse. Fortunately, the pants went back up pretty fast because, “We gotta get going. Off to that place today.”

'Where?'

‘That one youse were talkin’ ‘bout last night. Ost-witch’

‘Auschwitz?’

‘Yeah. Goin’ there with my shorts rubbing on this thing–at least I’ll be feeling the same kinda pain what those guys felt.’ Yes, because a self-inflicted buttock-graze is definitely comparable to starvation, forced labour, infectious disease and medical experiments. My GOD. And with that, they were gone. (In case you were wondering, Bogan Daddy was absent as he was ‘upstairs Skypin’ his missus’. Small mercies.)

We had to take our leave not long after, as we were going on the Jewish Walking Tour. Turns out Ned, RDA, Kitty and a new guy, who had just checked in called Matt, were also heading there. So was Javier. Surprise, surprise. Unlike the walking tour of the old city, this one was excellent. The district of Kazimierz was, hands down, my favourite part of the city, and we ended up heading back there a few times throughout our stay in Kraków. The tour took us to several synagogues (of which only one is still active), the Jewish Ghetto and Schindler’s Factory. I’m not going to write much about the tour because, as fascinating as I found it, it was incredibly sobering, and completely out of place being discussed here. While we were on the tour, the guide pointed out several places in Kazimierz which she considered might have been of interest to us later, including a bar which was nicknamed "Narnia", as you actually had to go through a wardrobe full of coats to reach the tables. We obviously tapped that one for future exploration. Javier was mighty keen to pencil in an exact time to explore, but we left it up in the air.

The tour was really quite long, and we didn’t end up getting back to the hostel until dinner time. Our arrival coincided with the arrival of The Bogans. Auschwitz was discussed, but I am not going to write about any of their comments as most of them lacked any decency whatsoever. Having said that, it was during this conversation that I came to realise these guys weren’t trying to be arrogant, obnoxious bigots – they were merely gross, juvenile guys who simply didn't get it.

The next day we were going to Auschwitz and, given that we were going to have to get up around 5.45am in order to make it to the bus in time, we had intentions of an early night sans-alcohol. Instead, we decided to walk into town after dinner for ice-cream. Ned and Robert Downey Asshole had an early train to catch, and decided to join us. I was more than happy to spend time with Ned as I loved him, but RDA’s presence was less than desirable. Having said that, he was on his best behaviour, and I would estimate only 50% of what came out of his mouth was rude and insulting. (The other 50% was narcissistic, but it was an improvement.) We returned home as the pub crawl was leaving, running into Javier who had apparently spent the last ninety minutes wondering where we had gone. ‘I would have come with you!’ This is why we didn’t tell you where we were going. Unsurprisingly, Kaitlyn and I found ourselves in a completely empty "bread sauna" at the early hour. Looking forward to a decent night sleep we crawled into bed and set our alarms for 5.45am.

However, it was not my alarm which woke me up, instead a Goddamn solar eclipse. At least, that’s what I thought it was when I roused, only to realise one of our roomies had come back in and turned the main light on. Looking at my phone I realised it was only 1.30, so I rolled over and tried to get back to sleep. That’s when I became aware of an irritating female giggle. Kaitlyn and I were the only girls in our dorm, so my interest was momentarily piqued. Just before the light was turned back off, I managed to get a glimpse of the trespasser, and recognised her as an American girl I’d seen around.

I didn’t really care that she was in our room (it’s a hostel…and people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones), but I DID care that she was being so freaking loud. Especially because she had a reallyirritating voice – think Janice from Friends crossed with Fran Drescher. ‘Oh my GOD! It is soooooo hot in here.’ Then leave. ‘Ohhh!!!! Are you on a TOP bunk?! I think I’m too drunk to get up there! Hehehe.’ Then leave. ‘Oh! There are people in here.’ Yeah, and we’re trying to sleep. LEAVE! She wasn’t even trying to be quiet, even after she made the Sherlockean observation that there were people in the room. To his credit, the guy did try and get her to be quiet…and not just with his hand, if you know what I mean. Yes, this was my first experience of hostel dorm sex. (Regrettably, not my last.)

The girl was loud when she was talking, so you can imagine she wasn’t exactly quiet in the throes of passion. At first I was thinking, ‘It’s okay, just let them do it, and go back to sleep,’. This is hard to do when it sounds like there’s a sumo wrestling match going on and one of them is in the midst of a heart attack. Still, I let it go. When I checked my phone and saw it was 2.00am, I started to toss around as loudly as possible, hoping they would suddenly remember there was someone there and just STOP ALREADY. Nope. Also unsuccessful was my coughing. When it hit 2.30am I was done, and turned on the light next to my bed. I sat up, and looked over, and the two of them paused mid….the two of them paused, looked at me, and then got right back to it. Seriously. What I still find mesmerising is that not one other person in the dorm was aware of this. Each and every one of them slept through it, including Kaitlyn who was on the bunk directly below them.

It took me a long time after that to get back to sleep, but I swear I was just drifting off when I was again awoken by something which wasn’t my alarm. Again, it was a voice, only this time a male one. You know when people – usually drunk ones –are trying to be quiet and “whisper”, only their whisper is no softer in volume, simply of different tonality to their loud voice? Well that is exactly what this guy was doing. He went up to one guy in the dorm and shook him awake, ‘HAVE YOU SEEN MY USB?’

‘Huh?’

‘HAVE YOU SEEN MY USB?’

‘No?’

‘OKAY.’ He then reached up and shook awake the guy on the bunk above. ‘HEY. HAVE YOU GOT MY USB?’

‘What?’

‘HAVE YOU GOT MY USB?’ Guy number two also hadn’t seen the USB. No worries, maybe guy number three had. ‘HEY! HAVE YOU GOT MY USB?’

‘HUH? WHAT? NO.’

‘HAVE YOU SEEN MY USB?’

‘NO. PISS OFF.’ Not evenly slightly discouraged, he tried guy number four.

‘HAVE YOU GOT MY USB? HEY!!’Guy number four was proving hard to rouse. More vigorous shaking. ‘HEY.MAN. HAVE YOU GOT MY USB?’ Number four did not have his USB. Next, he came over to me and started shaking me.‘HAVE YOU GOT MY USB?’ I had several things I wanted to say, including the fact he probably didn’t need his USB at five in the morning. Instead, I stuck with the obvious, ‘I don’t know you.’ He stared at me for a second.‘YEAH. BUT HAVE YOU SEEN MY USB?’ The guy on the bunk above me told him in no uncertain terms where he could stick his USB if he were to ever find it. Then it was Kaitlyn, who told him similar things. I’m not sure if he tried Shaggy and Janice, because I astoundingly managed to fall back asleep.

The next time I woke up was to my alarm. As we made our way out of the hostel to walk to the bus, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised to find Javier shadowing us. ‘Oh! We all going together! This will be fun.’ As with the Jewish walking tour, I am not going to write anything here about Auschwitz. I will be writing about it, because it’s part of our trip and something I want to write about and feel I should. However, it doesn’t fit in here in the middle of this.

That night drinks were definitely in order, but a small group of us decided a pub crawl didn’t really seem appropriate, and instead decided to head to Kazimierz. Over dinner at the hostel, those of us who had been to Auschwitz were quietly discussing our reactions when, with their typically impeccable timing, the Bogans came in. Yeast Infection quickly realised there were people who hadn’t seen his graze and immediately dropped his pants and shoved his butt into peoples’ faces. ‘D’ya reckon it’ll get infected?’ There were several new faces in the room, and Scorsese wasted no time in showing them all his back catalogue, while Dick eagerly explained the “rules” of Dick-to-Face. Not one to be left out, Yeast Infection decided to regale the newbies with tales of his various sexual exploits. ‘Yeah. There was this one chick in the Indian Ocean. She was loving it, but salty water stings like a bitch, ya know?’ On that note, our group headed to Narnia, doggedly avoiding Javier who seemed eager to come.

And that was Kraków. Only one other thing of note happened before we left. As we were checking out the next morning, Yeast Infection came swanning past reception wearing nothing but a towel slung low on his hips. I’m not entirely sure why he bothered with this piece of modesty as everyone there had already seen everything underneath. Repeatedly. He came over when he saw us. ‘Where are youse going? Are you guys leaving?’ Genius.

‘Yeah…we’re off.’

‘Oh! Well come ‘ere then.’ His arms were outstretched and he was coming closer. I was thoroughly confused. ‘You weren’t gonna leave without giving us a hug, were you?’ Yeah, actually – we were. I’m not quite sure when, but sometime between the graphic retelling of the story which gave birth to his name, and examining the bleeding graze on his butt under duress, we kind of grew to sort of like each other. So it was a lovely sentiment. Still, I no-rinse sanitised the shit out of my body afterwards.

Next time: An overnight train takes us to Vienna. Overnight trains are horrible.

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.

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.