Travel : Wroclaw : A few unexpected

This weekend, we took the train to Wroclaw, the chief city of Silesia region located north west of Gliwice. I was excited because every Pole promised it was a very pretty city with the river Odra ran through it. The train ride was awful because it was completely packed with people; Marcin M. looked at us and said, “You know, this is very typical in Poland!�? We took turn standing and sitting at the entrance, where people getting on and off, with me and Sedef leaning against the toilet door near the entrance. There was one lady who needed to use the toilet where we sat and headed toward us, but Sedef held the door while telling her, “No, someone is inside mamm!�? Normally, I am not this mean but at such chaos time, I had no second thought about the possibility that the poor woman might pee in her pants. Oh well! Life! Life! Life! I am just a person in her early twenty; I can afford to be inconsiderate and mean and love every darn second of it.

Panorama painting

We went to see the famous Panorama Raclawicka (Panorama of the Battle of Raclawice), an enormous painting 120-meter long and 15 meter high depicting the defeating of the Russian army by the people near the village Raclawice.
For a few years, panorama painting was a phenomenon in Europe and North America, but died eventually because of the arrival of cinema. There was a group of Polish-Americans wanted to purchase the painting and had it shipped across the Atlantic, but failed.

Rynek

The structures of the square market were extremely, how do I say in layman term: cute; they reminded me of colorful dollhouses at souvenir shops. I felt that I had just entered a live color box.
I forgot to ask Sedef for their architectures, but I found out later that they were from the 18th century, and there were plenty of similar buildings in Gliwice, which I forgot or decided not to look since they were too close too home. Who cares too much in paying attention so close to home? Colorful and animated looking buildings are very typical in Poland, as I will see them again and again in almost every city I visited; Wroclaw happened to be the first.

Town Hall

The second object caught my attention as I walked further into the center was a majestic church-like Town Hall, a symbol of Wroclaw within the last seven centuries. You could never imagine that this magnificent royal building which strengthens the status of city as a major trading center was once a one-story junk constructed up during the time the Mongolian Tatar ransacking the city as well as rest of Central Europe. (Will give a bit of history of the Tatars very soon.)

At 12 o’clock, I heard a trumpet from somewhere, and I followed Marcin M. toward the east side of the town hall to catch the glimpse of the trumpet player. It took me quite a while to finally see the tiny figure of him in the tower on the top of the hall. Marcin M. told me that if I noticed, I would hear the sound from the trumpet was stopped sharply at the very end. So he started telling me the story behind it. During the fighting days, there was a person who stayed on top of this building to look out for enemies. When he saw them marching near, he would play the trumpet so that the town army could prepare. One day, while playing, he was shot through neck by an enemy’s arrow and fell dead before finishing the tune, and that made the trumpet sound stopped suddenly versus smoothly as heard from live-till-the-end performers.
Today Wroclaw, Krakow and other cities still follow this tradition, playing trumpet when the clock strikes 12, and tourists if notice will detect a sudden stop and some of them might ponder why.

I figure I should brief a bit about the Tatar so that you could have a clear picture of who they are. Since I don’t have the knowledge, I will simply copy/summarize the information from my guidebook, “The rough guide to Poland.�?

The Tatars

Early in the thirteenth century, the nomadic Mongol people of Central Asia were welded into a confederation of tribes under the rule of Genghis Khan. In 1241, the most ferocious of these tribes, the Tatars, came charging out of the steppes and divided into two armies, one of which swept towards Poland, the other through Hungary. Lightly armored, these natural horsemen moved with a speed that no European soldiery could match, and fought in a fashion as savage as the diet that sustained them-raw meat and horse’s milk mixed with blood. On Easter Day, they destroyed Krakow, and in April came up against the forces of the Silesian ruler, Duke Henryk the Pious. Henryk’s troops were annihilated, and a contemporary journal records that the “terror and doubt took hold of every mind�? throughout the Christian West. Before the eventual withdrawal of the Tatar hordes, all of southern Poland was ravaged repeatedly—Krakow, for example, was devastated in 1259 and again in 1287.
Within a generation, however, the Tatars had withdrawn into central Russia ceasing to pose a threat to the power of central Europe. By the late fourteenth century, they came under the sway of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a vast eastern empire which later linked to Poland. These Tatars helped Poland-Lithuania armies defeat the Teutonic Knight in the battle of Grundwald, and granted the eastern land under King Jan Sobieski.
Today some six thousands descendants of these first Muslim citizen of Poland are spread all over the country. Though thoroughly integrated into the Polish society, they are distinctive for both their Asiatic appearances and their faith.

Because Teutonic Knights is mentioned in the above paragraph, I will tell their history also.

Teutonic Knights

They are one of the three military-religious orders which emerged from the Crusade. They were founded in 1190 as a fraternity serving the sick, the order combined the ascetic ideals of monasticism with the military training of a knight. Politically their main aim was territorial conquest, especially to the east which with their religious zealoustry already established in Palestine.
Recognized the common enemy, Poland and Luthiania joined forced and defeated the Teutonic Knighs at the battle of Grunwald, however let them retreat in peace.
The Grand Master converted to Lutheranism, dissolved the order, transformed into duchy. Politically, he had to accept the King of Poland as overlord but he had full internal jurisdiction, which allowed for the adoption of Protestantism as its religion. This turned out to be a crucial step in the history of Europe as the Duchy family formed a power base outside of the Holy Roman Empire.

I will stop history here. If I continue, this will be non-ending entry because to explain A, I need B, to explain B and need C and D, so on and so forth; you get my points don’t you?

Back to the present

We sat down on the steps in front of the Town Hall to listen the street performer who was singing “Sweet Home Alabama.�? He had this typical nasal earthen vocal of American singers which made me wonder whether he was from America. Rob and I gave him two zlotys. We even discussed whether we could ask him to perform a song by Neil Young, “Heart of Gold�? particularly. But we had to follow our group so we just waked away after dropping the coin on his guitar case.

Ripped off

We split into two groups for lunch; other group chose a familiar Sphinz restaurant::since when I opt for anything familiar, so I went with the other group to a German restaurant. After a while deciding I picked the cheapest dish I could find on a menu, a BBQ pork stick for 8 zlotys and a bowl of beet root soup, one of the best authentic soup of Poland. You should try if you have a chance. The food was excellent except for my BBQ pork; I didn’t like it very much. There was a group of Polish army brats sitting on a table next to us, drinking, eating, and talking very loud. Marco, with his usual anti-military, anti-American except for McDonald smirked and said, “You see, this is so typical Americans. They follow the American style.�?
We were all happy eating our food; at least I was until the check arrived. I had to pay a swooping 35 zlotys for my BBQ pork, as stinky as it was. The thing was I totally forgot that here they sold thing by grams, so 8 zlotys for 100 grams, but my BBQ pork was 450 grams. And of course, they didn’t have smaller meat. It made more sense if they didn’t have a smaller fish since you couldn’t really aim to hook an exact 100 or 200-gram fish, but this was dead pig. How hard it was to cut and slice 100 grams worth of pork into a stick? Hmm there was something I could never fathom when it came to these Poles. We argued with the waitress and later Basha who was Polish told us that the waitress gave us some information for a cheap student restaurant since, “this is the center you know, and everything is expensive!�? Marco turned red, “What? They ripped us off and now call us cheap? What?�?
So, you ignorant cheap tourists, remember to look for the GRAM beside the food.

Sweet, Tea, Rob, old friend’s memory, and personality (say waaat?)

For the past couple of months, I developed this unusual habit of looking for a tea or coffee shop where I just sit down and have a cup of tea or coffee. Wroclaw and Rob, in a lot of way, introduced this pleasure into my life.
Rob is a kind of philosophical rebellious wandering type. He doesn’t like to follow order, always has to find some objections to orders and rules. Much later, Sedef told me that while growing up, Rob had to try really hard to get attention from his parents because they focused their energies and time on his brother who was weak and sick at the time. In a way, his upbringing had a lot to do with his sort of different-from-others personality. But this is how it works isn’t it? My native country has this saying “Parents bear child, God breeds personality,�? and I think they still believe it till this day, and worse they believe that the child sometimes develops those strange behaviors himself or herself. Oh my Lord! Eh! Personality is a combination between genetics and environment, internal attributes and external factors; meaning there are certain hard-coded wired bit and information inducing certain behaviors that can’t be changed and the remaining behaviors formed and reinforced over time by interaction with the external world consists of contact with close/immediate/distant people and degree of exposure to of frequent/sporadic/rare environment. Good Lord! All I want to do is describe my friend Rob.

Despite Rob’s constant announcing, “I don’t care,�? he really did do a lot for other people. He and Mariana had a showdown one night when she asked him to move the table for us.
Mariana: “It’s a man’s job to move stuff for women.�?
Rob (low voice): “It’s a man’s job to tell a woman to f..k off.�?
Mariana (to me, Sedef, and Marcin M.): “What? Did he say f..k?�?

They became instant enemy since day one and the very best of friends as days went by. Who would have imagined that my controlling hardheaded Mariana and also stubborn rebellious Rob would cry the day Mariana left Poland to go back to Ukraine? I asked him if he liked to hook up with her, and got the immediate scary shrug, “Oh no!�?

Rob had this characteristic, which resembled that of one of my Ohlone College’s friend who was laid back and liked to be indulged in the “good life�?—maybe a little too much. What do I mean by “good life�?? “Good life�? means take a step back to enjoy life a little: to drink a cup of tea while other drink a paper cup of soda, to really taste the bite of food on your tongue instead just shove it into your mouth, to sit back and look others hurry, to read a book not for school requirement, to miss one or two deadlines you set for yourself, to say “nah I don’t have to do that�?, to do things that bewilder others and sometimes even yourself. By the way, that Ohlone friend of mine, a bright student, a high school Jeopardy finalist, a promising engineer major suddenly graduated with a Comparative Literature degree. We talked for the last time before he went to China to teach English, pursuing the “good life�? I figured. He is the only one guy I know who writes stories and poetry while others study and code, sings Schubert’ lieder when others rap, dyes hairs green while others gel hairs soft, bikes when other drives, and sells hotdogs when others applies for internships.

Rob insisted in trying cheesecakes, being that we were very close, Sedef and I chose to stay at the square looking for cheesecake shop while others in our group returned to the hostel to rest, shower, and prepared for the night at the pub. Actually, I was dying to see some other attractions suggested on my guidebook: the “Hansel and Greitel�? house, Baroque houses, other churches, and–I don’t know–the more the merrier. But then, I told myself, “Maybe I don’t have to see those places since there will be many places I can’t ever see. Instead I will sit down talking to my friends, looking at others, and seeing how the evening go by.�? I had this small cappuccino, some cake and an ice-cream cone at a round plastic table, under an umbrella next to a group of Gypsies singing openly in public. It took us quite a long time to conclude that they were Gypsies. .

I think from that moment on, I too am at ease when I feel like I am being over indulged with the “good life.�?

Orange Hostel

We stayed Orange Hostel, nicked name “Spooky Place�? which I didn’t know until later when I had to be in my room by myself at night. As we met in front of the building, the girls informed me that there was a scary man with long white hair tottering around the hallway. I asked them what room he was in, and Nejma said, “The room next to my room.�? Oh yah, Nejma and I were roommate. How about that?
From then until my leaving the hostel, I constantly had this spooky feeling bathing myself in a share shower place, being in the room by myself, and walking all the way to the end of the hall to fetch the others.
On the next night while walking around in the city, we were informed that there was a bomb exploded in Prague, somewhere near the center, where the other group was at the moment. People pondered whether this was another terrorism act. I remember my asking the group, “they should have bombed Warsaw as they threatened they would instead of Czech Republic. What did Czech ever do?�?

Train back home

The highest point of this trip was the train ride home. It was uneventful for the first hour. Friedl and Basha were teaching each other Dutch and Polish as I snatched Friedl’s book “The horse whisperer�? to examine whether the movie followed the book. Before I could open my mouth to comment anything, Friedl rounded up her eyes, “No don’t tell me the ending!�?

Our train broke in the middle of nowhere, and we all had to jump off to change to other train. It was already hard to step down to the platform from the train because of the height; it was now even harder to jump off into the ground filled with big rocks with a heavy backpack on the back. This was when I thought of the Vietnamese who sold stuff at train stations and had to jump on and off while the train running. It’s amazing how they manage to do that. I also remembered the physics lesson on seventh grade; the teacher used the people who jumped running trains as example to show us how to jump without hurting ourselves. I acted like an idiot choosing my position, deliberated which direction should I face before I jumped so I wouldn’t hurt myself. Eh, I knew the train was not moving at all.

There was a guy who stayed at the door entrance to hold our hands and lift us up. We all managed to take a quick picture in the middle of the train change-over event.

We had to get off this train at some unplanned station. To our surprised, the big train which carried the freaking people from the Woodstock rock concert in Gdansk, a city near the Baltic sea, was also here, and the conductor for this train waved us in and gave us a free ride back to Gliwice. Oh holy god! I would never see any dirtier, stinkier, and weirder-looking people like these. People with monthly-washed hairs and ragged clothes. They very much resembled the hippies and the homeless Berkeleyans I saw once in a while sauntering the street; the thing was I never saw that many together as a group. The two-story train was packed with the Rock fans with very intimidating appearances, but they turned out to be cool to us. One drunk guy took out a small knife and carved away the train signs and plastics. The conductor saw but could do nothing. Seem like these sorts of behaviors were expected in such occasion.
Rob kept making a sound with his tongue feeling sorry for himself for not going to this concert instead. It would have been fun I think.

I sat on a staircase behind two guys sitting at the train doorstep with their feet hanging out in the air. It was chilling, but it was a good chill from the fresh air blowing inside through open doors into the train which was going really fast. There wasn’t much to see as the train passed by an unimpressive landscape of the South Silesian; the unattended woods, the coal and dirt carrying trains, the gray and ugly inhabited buildings, and the smoke from the industrial plants of Katowice.

6.30.04

Travel : Gliwice : First tour of the city

Marcin M.

Marcin took me to exchange money for my first month rent and food. The last meal I had was a hotdog yesterday morning in Prague. I drank less than a bottle of water for almost 15 hours and fulfilled my daily requirement of carbohydrates from Sedef’s breads and glucose from Rob’s sweet (sweet was the term for obviously sweet junks: chocolates, candies, and cakes.) So food and water were urgent for me to get this morning. Marcin lent me the money to buy mushroom bread and a bottle of water from a store for my breakfast before going to the bank to exchange money after learning that the street Kantor didn’t do traveler checks. With money in our pocket, we went to another store to buy grocery. The food was extremely cheap. I also bought a kilogram of small strawberries on the street for three zloty from Marcin’s suggestion. My back was very sore for carrying a bag load of unevenly divided foodstuffs.

During our walk to the market, I learnt from Marcin that Poland didn’t exist for a hundred year during the 18th century when Germany and Russian fought for control of Poland. Ukraine, Latvia, and part of Belarus used to belong to Poland.

Lunch

Roberts came back from work, and we went to the office to meet up with Gerhard and Tomek for lunch at Sphinx, a very nicely decorative restaurant with food amazingly affordable. I had a bowl of Egyptian vegetable soup and “shoarma�?, a dish with shredded Polish vegetable and grilled pork. The soup and the vegetable were okay, but the pork was amazing.
They had some special flavor to it, which I couldn’t pinpoint–like I could if it was the familiar food cooked by my grandmother. I sucked big time trying to be a food critic, but I think the Egyptian soup had a familiar taste to that of Indian dish. After lunch, the guys went back to work as Sedef and I went shopping at Reserved Clothing store, which supposed to have cheap clothes, according to Tomek. I didn’t know clothes were exceptionally expensive here in Poland. I thought coming to Eastern country, I wouldn’t have to spend as much money on clothes nor food. I made a huge mistake by packing for my travel after work and not for my stay. I ran out of clothes already. Have nothing to wear tomorrow, and all my clothes are like junks.

Sphinz restaurant on the right

Sightseeing

Most of the Polish girls were thin and good-looking. I think under Asian eyes, all blonde hairs and blue eyes are pretty anyway. It was difficult to find a clothing size that fitted me because most of them are American size 6 or less. I bought a shirt today for 29 zloties, which was the cheapest shirt I could find. It was somewhat trashy for me though, bright and tight. Although I like to flaunt my body once in a while, I refrain myself from do it on a daily basis. “Won’t be able to wear this red top to work, that’s for sure.�? I told myself.
I wore this trashy shirt to work the next few days as I couldn’t keep up with doing my laundry four times a week.

On my walk back to our dorm, Sedef pointed out buildings and taught me how to recognize their architectures. Today I learned a little bit about Gothic, Cubism, Elictic(?), and Renaissance. Gothic architecture has buildings with rose windows, high pointed top with the idea of reaching high and being closer to God.

German architecture has lines between each story and the windowpanes are obvious to observer. Cubism is self- explanatory because everything looks like a cube. Elictic architecture is a mixture of everything, for example the building we see today is a mixture of Gothic and Renaissance. I mumbled jumbo like a parrot, but after a few days, I knew I would forget everything.

A typical Church near my dorm

Evening

I came back to my room, washed my only good white shirt and listened to the learning Polish tape for a while before crashed to my bed and slept. I mixed up the meeting time and was late for my meeting with the group at the Euro pub, where they hang out, drank beer, and watched the soccer match between Portugal and Netherlands. This was the first match I watched the whole season. I’d heard good things about the Portugal and how they were compared to Brazil with their attack strategy. Their coach this year was also a former Brazilian coach. Netherlands was always one of my favorite team, but I had to agree that Portugal played a better game. They had more chances of scoring and their win totally deserved. Some guys bet that Czech would win the championship this year, as they were the only team to win all four prior matches. I went against them and rooted for Greece, which I didn’t know about nor liked; whoever lost will buy the other person a glass of beer. I had a feeling that I would lose, but this was soccer, you could never tell.

On the way home, I found out from Sedef that Turkey was similar to European countries although the primary religion there was Islam. It is because Turkey separates the government and the religion. There is no religion in the government, so the laws passed have no trace of Islam teaching, unlike in Iran and Iraq. People can drink and eat pork. Women don’t have to cover their heads. They just choose not to.
“I know drink is a sin, but I drink anyway,�? she said, “but I don’t do sex, I’ll wait.�?

Perhaps she will change my mind about Turkey; she already did, I think. Well, she’s from Turkey, so she knows more about the country than me or anybody else. Quan, Bich, Tanya, and any other people who I talked to were very afraid when I mentioned Turkey, but they are just like me, uninformed and afraid of the Muslim nations. I will ask her more about Turkey, but I believe that I’m not afraid about the country as I did before.

6.30.04

Travel : Prague to Gliwice : Nice strangers and information

Last minute Prague and unsuccessful Asian match-making

I woke up at 6 a.m., ready to walk around again to take a lot of pictures from the scenery we saw last night, mainly Charles Bridge. I was lost and it took me quite awhile to get to the same bridge. I didn’t understand why we had no problem finding it last night; it seemed like we were taken right to it by accident. There were a lot of model cows on the streets that led me to believe cows held some sort of symbolic gesture for the Czech; I forgot to ask why. I got to Charles Bridge, took lots of pictures and headed toward the stall market to meet Denise and Anna for breakfast. I lost and found myself walking in circle for following signs that I convinced myself that I saw them last night; in fact the same signs were everywhere in every alley. Certain that I would not be able to find the meeting spot; I walked back to the hostel to gather my stuff. On the way back, I went to an Internet cafe to check for my train schedule, to see if the Gliwice people sent me any last minute update, and to let my parents know where I was. I was very surprised to get an email from Tuan Anh, my friend from the first grade. Our families maintained a good relationship during our time growing up because he was a very good student, my mom’s second favorite after me, and I was his parents’ son’s teacher’s only daughter. He was on a business trip and currently stayed at a Resident Inn in Milpitas. How coincident? He came to America to advise on technical project of the company and to research whether the company could open an office here in the United States. I gave him my parents’ contact and emailed my dad about his arrival. I don’t think my mom know beforehand. She would be very happy to see him again after eight years. One thing you should know is that our parents were trying to hook us up, a modern form of arrange marriage. The problem was they couldn’t settle down on which boy for me since his parents wanted me for his brother instead of him—in an Asian tradition, it’s better if the elder gets married first. After a chain of unsuccessful of communications, I was switched back to my friend. Well, it seemed like fate didn’t work out to our parents’ advantage because the day he arrived in the US was also the day I took my luggage to San Francisco.

Train to Gliwice

The train station was only five-minute walk from my hostel, but I had a little problem as it started raining, and my luggage was once again killing me, unfortunately not softly with its sweet melody. I met an American couple from Atlanta, Georgia at the train station who was in the city at the time the Czech soccer team played against Denmark and won 3 to 0. They said they were so scared thinking that the Czech team might lose and wouldn’t imagine what might happen. Fortunately, the Czech won the match, and it was a huge celebration at the Square. The couple was quite nice and friendly, so I ignored the last remark they made at the station, “English is such an important language, I thought they should put people who know something here.�? I absolutely agreed, but somehow their remark reminded me of Michael Moore’s opinion about the Americans in his book Dude! Where is my country? He says a lot of negative things about American—you know how Michael Moore is right?—one of which is how they don’t try to learn another language. Who can blame them? When we speak the most important language, why bother to learn another? I had the same attitude too before I left the States, “Nah, they will speak English there,�? despite my best friend Tanya’s warning, “Thuy, I was there, they don’t speak English a lot.�?

The train was quite comfortable. I dozed off for three hours before realizing the girl sitting next to me spoke almost perfect English. She was a PhD student going to Krakow for an interview with a college professor. Our conversation ranged from Czech-Slovakia breakup, its aftermath, her marriage to a Macedonian whom she met while studying in Chicago, and her feeling toward the “fakeness�? of Americans.
After the breakup, Czech improved while Slovakia fared for the worse because Czech was more industrialized and Slovakia focused solely on agriculture. Olga, her name, did not support the break up because she had many relative who lived in Slovakia prior to the breakup, and now their lives were not so good.
Sometimes, I have no idea of what is going on in the head of hot shot politicians, but I can’t never think of a single benefit for breaking up a country into pieces. Territorial pride maybe is too big of a price to pay for a stagnate economy. Then, I thought how lucky that Americans, despite a lot of their silliness, never want independence from the federal government no matter how much they hate Bush or Clinton. This is possible now for Californians, led by her mighty Terminator Governor, marched through Nevada cleaning all the gambling money, took a red eye to Texas taking control over the oil industry and finally arrive at Washington D.C. demanding state power. How can the mortals in D.C face against the one and only one immortal Terminator?
Sorry for my again B.S. I really try to be professional and only state the fact, but sometimes I can’t help myself. I had a B.A in B.S in one of the best liberal school in the country.

Now about the American fakeness, to Olga, the Americans smiled and hugged a lot, but they were not necessarily sincere. I totally understood. When I first arrived to this country, I was so impressed by the natives’ niceness. They had such warm smiles, soft voices, and helped us with everything. I even brought this subject up when Bao and I chatted and he asked me what did I like about the Caucasians. I told him I liked the white people because they were nice and helpful while Bao was impressed by their love and commitment to science research. Throughout the course living in America, however, I realized it was not always the case because it was—how you say it—customer service skills, one of the top requirements for the job market. Don’t get me wrong however; I really like America and her people. I believe that living here and having met a lot of people not from my background has brought a lot of changes in me, for the better, of course. People say that I changed and be too Americanized. For a couple of years back, this would hurt me a great deal, but now I don’t really care about others’ opinion about me anymore. Traditional or americanized, it’s just a matter of uninformed opinions.

Olga was knowledgeable, liked to talk about many things, and listened to every things I had to say. We said yes and nodded our heads to each other a lot but I knew for sure we didn’t necessarily understood everything was being exchanged between us. An article I read a long time ago has a very interesting point about the Vietnamese: they say yes and nod a lot, but that doesn’t mean they understand nor agree with you; it just means that they heard what you said. Interesting?

Arriving in Poland

I arrived in Poland without anybody checking my passport or any paper work at all. Actually, there was a Polish guy who stopped at each cart to check our paper. I couldn’t find my passport when he came so he asked Olga what passport I carried. I heard her say something about American, and the guy left and never came back again. Both Olga and I got off the train at Katowice to catch our train to Krakow and Gliwice respectively. I missed my train for standing in the wrong platform because I read from the arrival instead of departing schedule. If it weren’t for a man who spoke a little English, I would have stand on the wrong platform until the cow came home or in Polish custom, until the pig came home. I should have run around looking for information and asking people, but I was dead tired with my backpacks; I couldn’t possible pick up my fee. I will mention this again and again until this concept sinks through my clay head: no more heavy bag. Cindy you idiot you!

On the way to Gliwice, our train was delayed because of a fire on the train in front of us. What I understood at the time then was our train was on fire and would stop indefinitely. There was nobody in the neighboring car and only three passengers including me, one guy who spoke English and informed me about the fire, and a woman who spoke no English at all. He got off the train and signaled me to follow him since this train would stop and would not go anywhere. What would you have done? Stay in the burning train deaf and dumb or follow the only communication you have? I’d choose the latter which I did. This nice cutie bought me a tramp ticket and paid for my taxi ride because I had no Polish money in my pocket after turning down my offer to exchange my last $20.

Travel checks proved useless so far. I wasn’t able to use them and their exchange rates were lower from hard currency. US dollars would mean a lot especially when I starved and had no money buy food on the train. I was dropped of at the University campus, near the playground and tried to locate some help. The kids who were roller blading pointed, looked at me, and laughed. I must have looked funny with my black head, Asian features in this white skin, light hair, blue eyes dominance. I asked for direction from two Polish students, and they turned out to be extremely helpful because they contacted Annia G., found out where I would live, and took me to my dormitory. The guy was reserved while the girl was over zealous. They spoke English with me and asked me to go to the pub with them, and I agreed. They stayed downstairs to wait for me to take a shower and go to the pub with them. But Marcin M. came into my room, so scared for afraid of losing me. We came down and told the couple that I couldn’t come with them because I had to meet the people in my group. I promised to help them with their English to repay them, but I didn’t think I would meet them again.

I met Sedef from Turkey, Robert from Ireland, and Gehard from Germany, the three people who arrived before me and we chatted until midnight.

Dummies:
1. When I supposed to meet someone, I should just stay in that place and wait for them instead of going around like that. Although I got to the right place, I wouldn’t be that lucky next time.
2. Have more than one contact number
3. Always make sure know where I will stay (get the address) and not rely that I will meet the people who will take me to my place.
4. Have the local money. What do you think, duh? Try to exchange at the train station after getting off the train although the rate might be lower.
5. Pack lighter or use a wheeling luggage. It makes sense for me since I’m here to stay for duration of time.

6.29.04

Travel story : The conversation near the chimney

“Lucas, please come inside!�?

“I’m waiting for my mom. I spotted smoke from down below. Every single time when smoke flowed there, another group of people arrived here. I asked them the reason why they came, and they said something about human cruelty. Aunty, what is cruelty?�?

“Means when you commit a bad thing toward others without reason, and the people you committed the act to incapable of defending themselves.

“Last month, I pushed the girl Milan fell-down and made her cry, so then I was cruel.�?

“But you did not mean that, didn’t you. Did she make you mad?�?

“No, I just liked to push her fell-down because she stuck up.�?

“How she stuck up to you?�?

“Oh, no actually she never stuck up to me, I didn’t like her face too much. She was a bony girl and I hit her, it meant I was cruel.�?

“But Lucas, the most important is that you still have your soul, my dear!�?

“What is soul? There is one soul like one nose, two souls like two eyes, or many souls like candies like somebody gives me souls?�?

“No Lucas, nobody can give you soul because it is created by you and only you.�?

“By me? How come I don’t know?�?

“Because you are too young now and don’t pay attention. Soul is sometimes small, sometimes big, sometimes average, sometimes larger than you.�?

“So I am only cruel when I don’t have my soul, for example when my soul runs away playing and forgets to come home?�?

“It’s not like that either. Although your soul runs away and not with you, but it still exists somewhere. Cruelty means evil, when soul is dirty.�?

“Oh, we can wash the dirty soul in a bucket of water. If it still is not clean, we dump soap into the bucket.�?

“Dear, soul cannot be washed by water and soap, when you get older, I will explain more. But assume that soul can be washed by water and soap, not everyone can remember washing it and forget as time goes by like you and me sometimes forgot to wash our white shirts.�?

“But I don’t think anybody cruel, everybody is basically good!�?

“What made you think so?�?

“Sister Anne told me so. She wrote in her diary,

It’s difficult in time like these: ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seemed so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people truly good at heart.�? (1)

“Probably so. Perhaps, the Dutch has different view from mine. By the way Lucas, did you and Anne steal flowers again? You smell like lily and your star (2) is filthy with dirt.�?

“No aunty, this scent is from the flowers my mom gave me and you also.�?

“What? Your mom arrived here?�?

“No, I saw her near the chimneys, where we, sister Anne and others came from. I don’t understand why mom cried. Mom laid the flowers down near Lucas and you and she cried. The people standing nearby did not look happy either. Lucas don’t know why mom did not wear her white shirt with blue stripes (3) because she knows Lucas likes that shirt a lot. Lucas don’t like black shirt. Does mom cry because Lucas cruel and Lucas’ soul left?�?

“Your mom cries because Lucas is not with her anymore, and she cannot visit you at the moment.�?

“So can you take Lucas back to the chimney to see mom? Lucas’ soul ran away and came back, just like Lucas wants to come back to mom.�?

“But my dear, during the course of your life you will encounter many situations when you have to move on with your life, you will arrive at new places, meet new people, create a new life. What you no longer have, you will think about them as nice memories that make you smile, and you like Anne will always remain the most beautiful things to all who have known and loved you.

“Aunty, next week is my birthday. I will continue with my life minus three years.�?

(1)Anne is Anne Frank who wrote “The diary of Anne Frank�?
(2)The star of David
(3)The flag of the Jews has white background with blue stripes

When passing the display window storing all the suitcase of the people in this camp, our guide pointed to a small one, with names, birth date, arrival date, and the leaving date, said, “when the boy arrived, he was only two, and he stayed here less than a year.�? I don’t remember the name so I call him Lucas, a popular Polish name.

Poland-Auswitchz- The bloodiest killing field of the Third Reich

6.16.04

Travel : Krakow : The city and catholic nuns

We took a bus to Wavel ( http://www.krakow-info.com/castle.htm ) castle, twenty-minute bus drive with a Krakow IAESTE local committee’s member, who also guided us the night before to Loch ness pub. The castle looked almost the same as those in photos and movies I saw when I was a little kid. I should be more exciting, but I guess I was too old now to jump up and down spotting a castle in real life. There were tall, thin, metal rods on top of dome shape roofs grew out from green, leafy trees as we looked at it from across the lake flowing in the middle of the city. The castle became more and more real as we approached nearer and nearer with long ascending path to the fence like gate which top was a concave down parabola. There was some man who dressed in custom from King Arthur time and greeted everybody who was walking by. There was some mixed up with the time, so we had to wait around for an hour and we used that idle time to sit around and rest.

Hanging in the front of the castle were a huge and long bone discovered 500 years ago. Our tour guide said that they were mistaken for dragon’s bone when they were first discovered. Later, people determined that the bones belong to huge animals actually existed in Poland. Our tour guide introduced us to many exhibits in the castle, but I was so tired and her voice was in sync with my sleep frequency so that I dozed off on and of and couldn’t able to hear a lot of thing she said. One of the high point of the tour was our climbing the wooden stairs to the bell tower which housed a giant bell. People believed that if you touched the bell while making a wish, then that wish would come true. One of the princesses who lived in this castle came up here and rang the bell when she missed her boyfriend, and the boyfriend came home and they got married.

We left the castle and walked to the nearby Jewish neighborhood to sightsee and to get something to eat. The neighborhood wasn’t as solemn as I expected it would for a typical Jewish community. There were a few restaurants, and they were all fairly expensive. We finally decided to eat a restaurant near the corner of the street. The cost of almost every dish was at least 17 zloty, though only roughly equivalent to five dollars, but in Poland, this was very high because even the Polish people who came with us complaint. There was some mixed up in the order and the model-look-alike waitress whose dress revealing her bras argued with us about the order, insisting that it was us who were mistaken, not her. This reminded me of the importance of customer service skills in America and the motto Customer always right. The food was quite good though besides our complaint that it was too small.

We left the restaurant and walked to the Square Market. I’ve been here almost three times now but I still liked it because the atmosphere was captivating. We divided into groups after setting a meeting time. This time, I chose not to be in-group so I could freely did what I wanted which was walking around aimlessly. The first thing attracted me at the square market were the traditional Polish music performers. They were a five-member band and sang the same song over and over. In my opinion, the music was excellent. In fact, music comes to me very naturally. Almost all kinds of melodies are pretty to my ears. That was then I thought up a personal project I would like to do in the future. I would carry with me a digital recorder and record traditional music or any interesting and lovely melody I heard in every country I go to. This will be a wonderful experience. So far, I’d have magical musical experiences in Prague, the first European city I visited, where I passed by a violinist playing Schubert’s Serenade and Dvorak’s violin concerto; at the Wieliczka Salt Mine (http://www.krakow-info.com/wielicz.htm), where I was guided toward a small man-made underground lake and at that moment from nowhere Chopin’s piano piece, Opus 10, whispered and gradually the sound became higher as I approached near the lake. Dimmed light flickered every one minute. I was completely at awe. In darkness, in gloom, 64 meters underground, immeasurable altitude of delight, amid constant noise, amid supreme silence, I couldn’t speak a single word and felt happy again (this part should be my piece about Salt Mine, but I don’t think I’d have time to write it).

I followed six nuns who walked like schoolgirls on the street of Krakow square market. Three of them were quite young. One of them teased a little girl across the street and walked as if she was dancing. They all looked very curious, pointed here and there and turned and laughed with one another. The way they behaved, I don’t think they were from Krakow. They reminded me of nun Maria from The sound of music and Whoopi Goldberg from Sister Act part when she and other nuns sneaked out of the church. The main thing that attracted me to them was their uniform. The color of their dresses was brown instead of black as in America and Vietnam. They also had knotted ropes around their waits. The uniform was interesting to watch because I only saw them in movies before. I decided to follow them and left when they entered a Kebab restaurant. Isn’t that appealing, Catholic nuns eats food in a Muslim restaurant? With what’s going on around in the world these days, when human lives are wrongfully wasted over fighting to determine whose god is mightier, whose religion is superior; when basic human rights are intensely violated because of decision making based solely on, “Hmm, look at the Bible, God told us so and so.�? So, for a brief moment, the religious difference disappeared when the representatives of the two most opposite, most conflicting group in the religious spectrum met in harmony at a very small place in a very small street of Krakow.

I’m neither Catholic nor Muslim, and sometimes things happened that forced me to form biased opinions and harsh judgments about these two religions. The fact is I’m living at the moment in a deeply religious Catholic land and met and been helped by many people who are the very products of this highly hospitable country. One of my very closed friends I made here is Sedef and later Diren, who were Muslims from Turkey.

Our group returned to our dormitory at 5:30 p.m., packed up and ran to the train station to catch our train back to Gliwice at 7 p.m. This was a fast train so the seats were more comfortable than those in the ones we usually rode on. I felt a bit stuffed because there were seven people in my compartment. I looked out of the window for a while to get some air and to see the scenery. The people were sleeping (of course, they took the train on a daily basis, so this was no biggie for them as it was for me). The train stopped so often despite it was a fast train, and people in my group started complaining. We stinky creatures luggaged through the square market in Gliwice led by Tomek who wanted to go dance at a pub. Everybody groaned because they wanted to go back to dorm, not another pub. Finally we walked home because no one was in the mood for drinking nor partying.

My roommate wasn’t home. I learnt in the morning that she might have gone back to Ukraine for her sister’s wedding.

6.15.04