Old meets new in Wawel Castle museum, Krakow
Friday, March 11, 2005
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Recap (If I can) Wreak Havoc (I must)
TIME FOR SOME SPRING CLEANING ON THIS BLOG: Right below this latest update, which chronicles the second half of Krakow but not Amsterdam, I have uploaded a series of pictures from the first month and a half of my stay in Europe, organized by the fact that they were all taken in France, and they have been posted in roughly reverse chronological order... Bear with me please. Ok, so what's next: notes from the Netherlands sandwiched by Poland photos and then A-dam ones... And as the great appliance salesman from Carlson's says, thanks for listening...
Round 2 Krakow—
Sunday February 27th: Returned to Kazimierz with a group of 8 German girls and their unfortunately lone male companion Sebastian, all of whom I befriended at the Stranger Hostel, and together we saw the oldest synagogue there which is now a heritage-y kind of museum. The historicization of the Jews in Europe seems nearly complete… we are almost a fairy tale people there. Weird seeing my own customs and not so distant cultural past on a platter, and sharing the dish with some college kids just like me, except whose grandfathers warred against mine, and whose elder elder fifth cousins baked mine in the ovens…
Later that evening, we all went to Stalowe Magnolie (Steel Magnolia?) a très classe jazz club in the French style, and saw the prototypical Polish duet, a lead singer with soulful pipes to match her stunning beauty, backed up by a balding but young, buzz-cutted brute, an ex-KGB henchman on acoustic guitar, whose skilful fingers now plucking guitar strings once held the garrotte wire for back-alley stranglings.
Monday February 28th: Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow, where everything is made of NaCl, including chandeliers, statues, chapels, recreations of Da Vinci’s Last Supper, etc. Miles and miles of underground passages, a UNESCO declared hyper-priceless place (pronounced eepehr, the French put it in front of everything, kinda like super, it’s not formally called that by UNESCO, just a bit of French info). Salt was so valuable back in the day, it would be like if there was a oil museum under the sea where everything was made from crude…
In the evening, rendez-vous’ed with Mathieu again, who took me to a KLO (Krakow locals only, what up Malibu) bar, where we ate like Polish kings, on Bagis, which costs about a buck-fifty for 250 grams of your finest sauerkraut and sausage, complemented by stale bread and .5 liters of Zwyiec Beer, can’t they just call it a pint? Ironically the crusty older set who were the establishment’s true patrons didn’t get give me any dirty looks for speaking English loudly like we Americans do, but one did hassle Mathieu a bit, even though he lives in Krakow! Poor kid (he’s 24) already has enough frazzled nerves after being mugged with two friends the week before. Also, the bar (the name of which I never learned) came complete with its own Goldstein (my former deadbeat landlord from Berkeley). The clone even walked into the bar with his own bizarro version of Dino, a dog retarded simply by the constant contact with his master.
Tuesday March 1st: AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU
I still don’t know what it was supposed to make me feel, and I will never be able to process it fully. Everyone should go there. There are no words I can say to explain to you, and I don’t want to, or can’t be, a guide to Holocaust genocide. I will put up some photographs of the cold -14° Celsius day when I was there during the 60th anniversary of the camp’s liberation.
Wednesday March 2nd: En route to Amsterdam,
from now on to be referred to as A-dam, Blog post forthcoming…
Round 2 Krakow—
Sunday February 27th: Returned to Kazimierz with a group of 8 German girls and their unfortunately lone male companion Sebastian, all of whom I befriended at the Stranger Hostel, and together we saw the oldest synagogue there which is now a heritage-y kind of museum. The historicization of the Jews in Europe seems nearly complete… we are almost a fairy tale people there. Weird seeing my own customs and not so distant cultural past on a platter, and sharing the dish with some college kids just like me, except whose grandfathers warred against mine, and whose elder elder fifth cousins baked mine in the ovens…
Later that evening, we all went to Stalowe Magnolie (Steel Magnolia?) a très classe jazz club in the French style, and saw the prototypical Polish duet, a lead singer with soulful pipes to match her stunning beauty, backed up by a balding but young, buzz-cutted brute, an ex-KGB henchman on acoustic guitar, whose skilful fingers now plucking guitar strings once held the garrotte wire for back-alley stranglings.
Monday February 28th: Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow, where everything is made of NaCl, including chandeliers, statues, chapels, recreations of Da Vinci’s Last Supper, etc. Miles and miles of underground passages, a UNESCO declared hyper-priceless place (pronounced eepehr, the French put it in front of everything, kinda like super, it’s not formally called that by UNESCO, just a bit of French info). Salt was so valuable back in the day, it would be like if there was a oil museum under the sea where everything was made from crude…
In the evening, rendez-vous’ed with Mathieu again, who took me to a KLO (Krakow locals only, what up Malibu) bar, where we ate like Polish kings, on Bagis, which costs about a buck-fifty for 250 grams of your finest sauerkraut and sausage, complemented by stale bread and .5 liters of Zwyiec Beer, can’t they just call it a pint? Ironically the crusty older set who were the establishment’s true patrons didn’t get give me any dirty looks for speaking English loudly like we Americans do, but one did hassle Mathieu a bit, even though he lives in Krakow! Poor kid (he’s 24) already has enough frazzled nerves after being mugged with two friends the week before. Also, the bar (the name of which I never learned) came complete with its own Goldstein (my former deadbeat landlord from Berkeley). The clone even walked into the bar with his own bizarro version of Dino, a dog retarded simply by the constant contact with his master.
Tuesday March 1st: AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU
I still don’t know what it was supposed to make me feel, and I will never be able to process it fully. Everyone should go there. There are no words I can say to explain to you, and I don’t want to, or can’t be, a guide to Holocaust genocide. I will put up some photographs of the cold -14° Celsius day when I was there during the 60th anniversary of the camp’s liberation.
Wednesday March 2nd: En route to Amsterdam,
from now on to be referred to as A-dam, Blog post forthcoming…
Sunday, February 27, 2005
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."
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."
Sunday, February 20, 2005
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
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)
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)
Thursday, February 10, 2005
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
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
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
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
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
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
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
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
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Hmmm, technical difficulties
To log in:
name: jesmith@berkeley.edu
password: bolus41
Im gonna switch to another site after this though...
name: jesmith@berkeley.edu
password: bolus41
Im gonna switch to another site after this though...
LINKS TO PHOTOS
Copy and paste into new window, if you dare.
http://www.ofoto.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=41795619706&view=edit&rnd=6305690
http://www.ofoto.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=41795619706&view=edit&rnd=6305690
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