The Wild East

"The beer tastes like Heineken mixed with home-brew"

2nd day in Poland
Poland seems a step down from ex-Czechoslovakia. Somehow it looks a bit scruffier, looks vaguely threatening, and the air is swarming with mosquitoes.
It seems more westernised than Slovakia.

We get the last room in the hotel Polonia (expensive 200zl= £33). I get some money out from a cash dispenser in a subway (thankfully it doesn't swallow my card!) and a kid of about 12 starts speaking to us, and makes a clumsy attempt to follow us.
There's a stall selling food. Taylor wants a hot-dog. I stride up and order something in Polish, expecting to be given hot-dogs. She gives me a strange look. She turns her back on us, and starts fiddling around with chickens on a spit.
I presume she is just tending to them, deliberately keeping us waiting, as seems to be the game people play on customers here.

A few minutes later the order is placed on the table......2 roasted chickens! As we don't have any knives or forks, and very hot it's difficult to eat. MT naws at it for a few minutes before getting fed-up and going off in search of something else.
While he is gone, I sit and eat my chicken, and I notice an attractive blond girl in a very short skirt, standing about 10metres away. I presume she is waiting for her boyfriend. A few mins later 2 more come along, when it becomes obvious they are prostitutes.
A skin-head in a suit, with mobile phone takes one on each arm and walks off. I sit and watch proceedings.
When Taylor comes back they've increased about 5-fold. I consider attempting to use a phone, but girls are standing outside them. They look broken anyway.
There are some aggressive looking men hanging round as well. It's probably time to go back.

Sun20 August
As this is 3-star hotel (Polish standard) we're given the privilege of breakfast. There is a selection of various ham and cheese. Disaster soon strikes. As I'm pouring a second glass of orange juice I notice that a bowl is stuck to the bottom of the jug. I'm just thinking that the bowl could fall off when- CRASH! The bowl smashes all over the floor.
Silence descends over the room. The German and Irish tourists look at me. I apologise to the hotel girl, who says "it's OK".

We get out on to the streets of Krakow, and walk towards the castle, past the occasional drunk sprawled out on a bench.
Poland is about the 4th biggest consumer of alcohol-per-person in the world (After Russia, Romania etc.) about 5 times higher than Britain (I read somewhere). A moderately large queue has built up, so we check out the old town first. We buy some Soviet badges.
The seller keeps pointing at Mark, and talking to us in Polish. It's difficult to know if he was discussing the merits or disasters of communism. Or he's probably asking if we are communists.

There are pirate CDs, computer software, videos all being sold. Windows 98 is being sold for about £5. We go back to the castle, stand in a queue for more than half an hour to get some tickets to go in the museum, and Dragons cave, and other attractions.
On the way back Mark nearly gets run over by a Larda which jumps a red light. The traffic rules seem to be: drive at pedestrians to make them run out of the way, and only stop at red lights if you feel like it!

We go and look for somewhere to eat, which takes us 2 hours. We walk to the suburbs, but the few existing places are either closed, or extremely dark and murky.
The area looks a bit run-down, so we head back for the centre. We get a beer and pizza for 15zl(£2.50). The beer(15%!) tastes like Heineken mixed with home-brew! We go back to the hotel. Later I go out and attempt to buy some drinks, and a phonecard. I stand in a queue for 15mins to be told "Nie".
There are no 'ladies' out tonight, apart from possibly one, standing near the underpass…

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