Getting to Poland is quite easy. You get on a single flight to Warsaw, it arrives at your destination. Only problem I had was as soon as I arrived in Warsaw, I immediately got brought over to a small (I can't state the smallness enough) Cessina called "Seneca II" to bring me to Krakow. Apparently I wasn't good enough for the first Seneca, I had to settle for a more mediocre moon. Every wind gust forced the plane to dive about 5 feet or so. Usually I fly so smoothly, so this jarred me. Anything I experienced in my entire life, any song, TV show, piece of History, friend, came to mind as I tried not to freak out in this mere shell of a plane. Thankfully it lasted only an hour, and as the trip had a meaningful purpose, rather than being some pseudo-bohemian messing around Southeast Asia for no reason. That purpose did actually get fulfilled, so I'm glad that my suffering helped ease the suffering of another. Ying and Yang, I guess.
Poland felt wonderful. In only one other country have I been mistaken as a native resident (England), so every time I did anything people spoke to me in Polish first. My location lie in the center of town, I could basically wander wherever and never get lost. Whoever set up the city over the past several hundred years did an excellent job. Completely clean and comfortable weather, with so few of the communist traces that Tajikistan had in abundance. Also, the US dollar still wielded a small edge there, unlike almost everywhere else on Earth (though again, Tajikistan was much cheaper).
My favorite part of the beautiful location had to be everyone out at all hours. No one ever seemed to be inside at any time. So many cyclists flying around, I almost got hit about 8 times walking around the riverside. Never before did I feel so comfortable, excluding my complete inability to speak Polish. I could walk around in Manhattan for hours, no one would ever ask me for directions. Within a two hour period, about 4 different people did. Including the English.
Now normally, I love the English. However, Krakow must be their Cancun. The jackasses that abounded must have been deported there, that's how bad they acted. An example: "If that cunt ever got pregnant, I'd have to punch her in the twat" referring to his girlfriend. Very nice, jerk. The beer there also ran quite strong, and by about 1 or 2 I was quite cheerful. People still sat around the main square, which just spread out over an unreasonable amount of space. You know Union Square? Guess what, that's not a real square. Krakow's got a real square, go see for yourself. An enormous amount of history everywhere, and unfortunately I did not have enough time to explore it all. Even the castles within the city, I continually missed seeing them.
Thankfully I was close to several major universities, and seeing nuns with their habit threw me back a couple of decades. Krakow stayed modern, yet had some of these random throwbacks to a much, much earlier time. Hopefully next time I'll get to spend more time with it.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Tajikistan Day 4 & 5
Day 4 & 5
I woke up feeling very unpleasant. The day before I had been invited to a wedding, but I declined. Instead, I spent the day touring around the city by myself. The city itself isn't as bleak as you'd think. Rather, a collection of Russian architecture and infrastructure surrounded the place. The amount of investment put into the country by the Soviet empire made the people there not particularly resentful of the Russian presence, even now. Most of the Germans (from World War II) had left following the fall of the Empire, but if you drove out far enough you'd find them.
An abandoned amusement park stood not far from my hotel. After exploring the immediate area around where I was located, I went to it. People looked at me as if I was an abnormality, like a Russian waxing nostalgic over the loss of the territory. I needed to be outside, already I had begun sweating badly and losing my appetite.
In the park you saw a derelict ferris wheel, complete with its little booths lying all over the ground. Gaudy colors fading fast, and right near the park a family lived in the park's railroad car. Lenin stood above all of it, growing increasing irrelevant and looking less steady. I've heard in most Soviet republics they toppled those statues, or removed them. In Dushanbe they kept it around, like some sort of reminder. Their feelings weren't as angry as in the rest of the former territories. Most of the people these assumed I was Russian, and didn't see any fault with it. Everything there looked like it needed updating, but would continue to last, in its last breaths. The New Year Decorations (already bad they were out in the fall) were from several years ago. No one seemed to mind.
Finally my cabbie arrived and drove me to the airport. He made gestures that showed the food made him sick as well. Then he tried to gauge me for the ride, which I fought as best I could. Hard to do that when he's bigger than you and can simply fuck you over by dropping you off in the middle of nowhere at 3 am, to fend for yourself among all the feral dogs running around.
The airport consisted of the most bizarre collection of people ever. Among them were various overseas exchange students leaving the country for the first time, a Jamaican (?), spooks of Eastern European and American extraction, and, of course, armed soldiers. The soldiers remained shocked that I bought so little during my stay.
A German sitting next to me on the plane didn't find it unusual. She laughed when I said I went there on business. Some Aussies were on the plane too, again making me believe they are far over-represented around the world, and they make no sense. I spoke to her in German, she spoke to one of the overseas students in Russian, which he conviently spoke in addition to Tajik and broken English. Originally from Yugoslavia, she taught languages in Hamburg. Her favorite country was Burkina Faso, which she loved dearly. The colors, the amount of food they gave her, simply the raw feel of the place made her go wild. She'd been to most of the world on a pathetic salary, sort of having no responsibility whatsoever. In exchange, people were free to crash in her apartment.
That was the flight to Turkey. The flight from Turkey to New York ranks as one of the worst experiences in my entire life. A couple that could not have annoyed me more sat across from me, drinking too much and spooning, kissing, etc on the flight. Fucking annoying jackasses, they stood stay far away from me, in some unknown tacky suburb where they can brag to their friends how they went to Turkey that one time and stayed in a resort. Of course I do the same thing with my trips, but they tend to have a bit more style.
I woke up feeling very unpleasant. The day before I had been invited to a wedding, but I declined. Instead, I spent the day touring around the city by myself. The city itself isn't as bleak as you'd think. Rather, a collection of Russian architecture and infrastructure surrounded the place. The amount of investment put into the country by the Soviet empire made the people there not particularly resentful of the Russian presence, even now. Most of the Germans (from World War II) had left following the fall of the Empire, but if you drove out far enough you'd find them.
An abandoned amusement park stood not far from my hotel. After exploring the immediate area around where I was located, I went to it. People looked at me as if I was an abnormality, like a Russian waxing nostalgic over the loss of the territory. I needed to be outside, already I had begun sweating badly and losing my appetite.
In the park you saw a derelict ferris wheel, complete with its little booths lying all over the ground. Gaudy colors fading fast, and right near the park a family lived in the park's railroad car. Lenin stood above all of it, growing increasing irrelevant and looking less steady. I've heard in most Soviet republics they toppled those statues, or removed them. In Dushanbe they kept it around, like some sort of reminder. Their feelings weren't as angry as in the rest of the former territories. Most of the people these assumed I was Russian, and didn't see any fault with it. Everything there looked like it needed updating, but would continue to last, in its last breaths. The New Year Decorations (already bad they were out in the fall) were from several years ago. No one seemed to mind.
Finally my cabbie arrived and drove me to the airport. He made gestures that showed the food made him sick as well. Then he tried to gauge me for the ride, which I fought as best I could. Hard to do that when he's bigger than you and can simply fuck you over by dropping you off in the middle of nowhere at 3 am, to fend for yourself among all the feral dogs running around.
The airport consisted of the most bizarre collection of people ever. Among them were various overseas exchange students leaving the country for the first time, a Jamaican (?), spooks of Eastern European and American extraction, and, of course, armed soldiers. The soldiers remained shocked that I bought so little during my stay.
A German sitting next to me on the plane didn't find it unusual. She laughed when I said I went there on business. Some Aussies were on the plane too, again making me believe they are far over-represented around the world, and they make no sense. I spoke to her in German, she spoke to one of the overseas students in Russian, which he conviently spoke in addition to Tajik and broken English. Originally from Yugoslavia, she taught languages in Hamburg. Her favorite country was Burkina Faso, which she loved dearly. The colors, the amount of food they gave her, simply the raw feel of the place made her go wild. She'd been to most of the world on a pathetic salary, sort of having no responsibility whatsoever. In exchange, people were free to crash in her apartment.
That was the flight to Turkey. The flight from Turkey to New York ranks as one of the worst experiences in my entire life. A couple that could not have annoyed me more sat across from me, drinking too much and spooning, kissing, etc on the flight. Fucking annoying jackasses, they stood stay far away from me, in some unknown tacky suburb where they can brag to their friends how they went to Turkey that one time and stayed in a resort. Of course I do the same thing with my trips, but they tend to have a bit more style.
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