Poland

Poland has always pulled at me for reasons I'm only beginning to grasp. Maybe it started with those accents -- I could listen to Poles talk all day long. Luckily, I'm seeing it goes deeper than that.

I left the Netherlands on the evening of April 27 aboard a night train -- a trip that proved problem-free. And I really liked it. Since I was sleeping much of the time (minus the 3:15 a.m. passport check), the 13 hours went very quickly.

Just as I was getting ready to make hostel reservations, I heard about a couple of websites that allow you to search for people in the towns you plan to visit who are willing to host you in their homes. Sounds great! Save a lot of money (8 nights is a lot, even in hostels), meet some locals, and take a minor risk with your life! What's to lose?

So, yeah, a little nervous. I contacted a dozen or so people in Warsaw and Krakow. This is when I found out that May 1 and 3 are holidays in Poland, so everyone takes a 5-day weekend. Many of the people signed up on these sites are travelers as well, so they take advantage of such time to, of course, travel. Many responded that they couldn't host me, as they would be out of town. I was starting to lose hope.

A few days before I left, I heard from Marcin in Warsaw and Szymon in Krakow, both of whom said they could keep me for the nights I needed.

I wasn't expecting much. This is all out of the goodness of their hearts, so the bare minimum is really more than enough. Just a little space on the floor, access to a shower, permission to use the microwave.

These guys were great. Marcin met me at the train station. He took me to various site around Warsaw, including Wilanow,



to the top of a tower to view Stare Miasto (Old Town),



the Umschlagplatz (the platform from which the Warsaw Jews were loaded onto the trains and shipped to concentration camps),



the monument to the ghetto heroes,



the roof of the Warsaw University library (from which you can see Warsaw like this:),



Lazienki Park (which is home to:),



and the Palace of Culture and Science.

He also prepared some traditional Polish food for me, gave me his room, and accompanied me back to the train station when I was ready to go to Krakow.

Szymon met me at the station in Krakow. Szymon is a theatre student (studying dramaturgy), so we had plenty in common. He took me to watch a scene from Hedda Gabler that his classmates were performing, and to a performance of The Maids by Jean Genet. Of course, these were in Polish. I didn't enjoy the Hedda Gabler scene at all, but actually loved The Maids even though I couldn't follow the story through the words. He let me stay at his place even on the night he wasn't there, and even though I accidently locked his roommate out of the flat.

Warsaw and Krakow are very different cities. I liked Krakow a lot better. Warsaw, having been entirely destroyed in the war and the uprising, lacks atmosphere. Pretty much everything we see there is barely 60 years old. You just can't get a feeling from it. Except in the former ghetto, where a couple of the apartment buildings still stand -- and people still live in them.