The Not So Strange(r) Hostel in Krakow

American Beauty is playing on the wall sized projector big screen as I type this. I seem to be the only American in this, the Stranger Hostel, though walking the streets of Krakow today I have seen quite a few beauties...

I chatted with this 24 year-old engaged French mec (guy)who's a translator, Mathieu, for the entire plane flight from Beauvais to Katowice. He's a grad student in Polish in the university here in Krakow, the 2nd oldest university in Central Europe after Prague's, and which claims Copernicus among others as alumni.

We got in to Krakow at 10 pm, ate Georgian Kebabs (we're not talking ATL where the playas play), and he offered me a place to crash for the night, given the fact that I had no idea where my hostel was. As for his place, let me just say that he has a coal-powered heater... literally, he was shoveling in charcoal bits to try to warm the room. I'll put up some pictures when I get back. Also of note, the apartment had been owned by a Jew, up until the Holocaust, and then after the war until 1968, when the climate for Jews here again became unhospitable and the tiny remainder fled to Israel and the US. What Mathieu discovered behind a painting on the wall above the doorway was two Hebrew words immaculately written in red paint. Now Mathieu, although he is the most devout young Catholic I have met so far in rather athiest France (he is Parisian with Polish parents and technically I did meet him in France tho Im now in Krakow), he has a surprising interest, knowledge, and admiration of Judaism. He took a course in Hebrew and another in Yiddish, and even has a yarmulke in his apartment, though ironically he bought it from a Palestinian.

But he could not figure out what the words on the foyer meant tho he could read most of the letters. Together, we've decided that it is: Shalom Aleichem, which is common in songs and prayers. Sadly Im not 100% sure what the phrase as a whole means.

This morning, after oatmeal, nescafe, and cookies, he helped me locate my hostel...

Since, I have spent the day wandering the streets of the Stare Miasto, the old town, Wawel Castle, the church and cathedral where the current Pope John Paul cut his teeth as a young priest, bishop, etc.

I then went to Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter, had pierogi at the quaintest lil place (pictures to come), and then a kawa (coffee) at this world-themed cafe, recommended highly by Ethan, on accounts of its global bend, and more importantly for him, the incredibly cute girl who he remembered worked there.

That gets me to my next topic on this post. Ethan, a born huckster, entrepreneur, and regular gadabout, is working on his own plans for world domination, tentatively titled the Global Scene, which echoes my own vague notions of Travels Unraveled. We'll see what develops...

The First World Kawa

Oxidized and occidentalized,
Krakow has rusted a bit less than the rest,
And is on alert to advertize.

Passé are jokes that disparage Polish mental size,
Though the miscarriage has yet to be borne under by abortion's rise.

Carved out between St. Petersberlin's prying eyes,
Heavy-handedly I've dealt with our foremost Iraq allies.

"Alexander [Shuvnesky] of Poland, I'm outclassed and I apologize,
But you've been thoroughly Americanized."
"[Jankouyay], the prez replies, "but whoever relies on 'ize' rhymes
and inversing tenses and times, his own mouth should be cauterized
Before he can speak, let alone patronize."

The Remedy

Thanks to a drug cocktail consisting of nighttime tylenol, sudafed, centrum, washed down by copious amounts of...
tea, I have beaten this cold into submission.

All the while I have been just having a blast with these French kids, cinemaphiles, vrai Bordelais, (true Bordeaux people), they have a joie-de-vivre like you wouldn't believe.

I'm just trying to find the rhythm of these Gaulois who live in the spot where the Gironde splits into the Garonne and the Dordgone, (Bordeaux itself means water's edge, a translation that takes a different shape in the following poem). I'm also biding my time till my aforementioned trip, and I have the assorted feelings that come with the thought of traveling to the barren tundra of Poland alone, in the dead of winter. HAHAHA!

I don't know what else to say, so I thought to include a poem that I'd written a couple weeks ago, tentatively entitled:


Bordeaux Blues

Here, the rain-slicked streets have skid marks,
Not from the tires’ cries, but from the hot between Pomeranian thighs,

O where the riverbanks are bored,
And the quai’s okay,
Where banal is banal
And offal is eaten
The ducks are forcefeedin’
And a minute is all that the snowfalls.

And wine will be drunk unless you’re someone
Whose odds seem to be St. Emilion to one.

You could say a malaise has struck the Bordelaise,
But they are only those who carry it.

Until the American comes in, with his eye contact and grin,
Riding his flaming liburdy chariot,

It’s a hybridized culture, lionized but by vultures,
I would much rather be the one to bury it.

Succumbing

I am officially sick, looks like there was no avoiding it after all. When you're packed in next to throngs of coughers on the tramway, staying out 2 late, and walking kilometres and kilometres in the cold, it's bound to happen.

Oh well, time to regroup, and I guess as Freud would say, withdraw some of my object libido back into ego libido, that is, if our pysches look like pseudopods anyway.

But I'm super digressing, dont even know why I just typed that, becoming delusional must be a symptom of my illness.

I'm in the computer room here at school, and just trying to keep myself together. It's not unbearable, just a general ache, sore throat, complete exhaustion...

I hope you are all healthy in this frigid Feb and had wondeful Jour de St. Valentin!

Let's see, as for updates, I'm gonna try and see the opera this week, if I can get tickets. Tosca's Puccini, c'est fameux, je pense...

No bball pour moi today. Maybe a french movie with the American and French crew, the two are mingling well.

A bientot,

Joël (silly French dots)

Extended Plans... (I overuse ellipses)

Once again, in l'informatique at school, with some time to kill.
There seems to be a grip of la grippe going around at the moment, and le rhume is a-roaming, basically that means I'm trying to avoid the flu and a cold, although this computer room doesn't seem the best place to do that.

I ended up not going to the Absolut Lounge the other day for the Franco-American exchange, choosing to sleep instead, but tonight there is some sort of degustation meet and greet between us California kids and the Bordeaux-Los Angeles club here in Bordeaux, though itll soon be renamed the Bordeaux-USA club. Now at this wine-tasting, I've been told it will most likely be us 20 year old Americans speaking French to 40 year old grenouilles (frogs) who will respond back in Ingleesh...

Now for the fun part, I have a break that begins on Thursday Feb 24th, and ends Sunday March 6th. My two week obsession with going to Morocco has subsided, and old ideas have resurfaced. What's gonna go down now:
Feb 24: Train a Grande Vitesse de Bordeaux à Paris, sleep in Paris, stay with
Ethan (vagabond friend), and see Dave Minc (housemate at Berkeley)

Feb 25: Fly from Paris Beauvais airport à Katowice on Wizzair, take 1 hour bus
to Krakow, Poland, all by me lonesome

Feb 26, 27, 28, March 1: Krakow and surrounding areas, including a day at
Auschwitz-Birkenau, and just exploring, Wawel Castle etc.

March 2: Fly at noon from Krakow to Dortmund on Easyjet, take train from
Dortmund to Amsterdam, where I meet back up with Dave and Greg Sherman
(from U. Michigan)

March 3, 4, 5: Amsterdam with me two chums.

March 6: Train from Amsterdam à Paris à Bordeaux, at which point I collapse
from exhaustion!!!!!

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that throughout, havoc will ensue.

Jolus

The Good Kind of Tired

Right now I'm just waiting around until my basketball class/practice begins...
I am in settling in to la vie quotidienne, daily life here. Last night had dinner with French friends, these really superrrrrcool (roll that R like a reél Français)people from my film classes. Great conversation although certainly not without the occasional linguistic blunder on my part, delicious food and a steady flow of wine.

Today, in my histoire du cinema class, the professor expounded upon the French fascination with cooboys (they cant say cowboys) and Westerns in la système Hollyoodiènne...

Then after lunch, it was Baudelaire's Fleures du Mal, Flowers of Evil... one can see why it was censored in its day!

Now basketball soon, and then later tonight, a rendez-vous between French and American Students at L'Absolut Lounge (under the thin veil of Political Science Students discussion) but you all know how college kids will be college kids.

I hope everyone is well, and Ill be sending round some personal emails soon.

Joel

Fragments

Starting to settle in a bit. In class, the teacher talks to some imaginary attentive class while the students laugh at him to his face and chat amongst themselves.

There are mini-breakthroughs though. Im going to have dinner on monday with three French people on Monday, Lily, Tsipi (short for tziporrah), and Remy.

I talked awhile before my basketball practice/class started with this guy Shik, who comes from Senegal. The universe expands...

Joel

Hmmm, technical difficulties

To log in:

name: jesmith@berkeley.edu
password: bolus41


Im gonna switch to another site after this though...

LINKS TO PHOTOS

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