Gnomes, Gnomes Everywhere

Day 224
When I woke up I could see that the crazy lady had returned. Oddly she didn’t seem to have her bag with her. I made a quick decision, instead of going to the salt mines I would just go straight to Wroclaw, pronounced Frot-Suave. This, of course, had nothing to do with the thought of running into crazy lady again.

The train ride took forever. There was an old man in my compartment that just couldn’t sit still, he was drinking too, at 8am! He was sitting near the window and I was near the door. Any time a stop was near he would open the window, hang way out and then leave the compartment bumping into me to check the window just outside of the compartment. The crazy thing was that he was going to Wroclaw as well and it was the last stop. There was no missing it. All he really succeeded in was preventing me from taking a nap. I about cheered when I walked into the station.

My hostel was easy to find and I soon was checked in. The girls at the front desk set me up with a cup of tea and several maps of the city. They were really friendly.

I went through the maps and figured out a game plan. It was a bit late in the day at this point so I figured that I should get some lunch and then just explore a bit on foot. Krakow has been calling itself the new Prague and Wroclaw is calling itself the new Krakow. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

It was quite beautiful. I was wandering through the main square when I saw a group of girls bending over something and laughing. That’s when I remembered something that I had read in one of the maps. Wroclaw is home to a population of ancient gnomes. Apparently some of them are so well hidden that even locals don’t know exactly how many there are. Besides just being cute they are also symbolic. In the 1980s a group of performance artists called the Orange Alternative staged an anti-communist protest dressed as gnomes. Some say that it was these gnomes that brought down communism.

Suddenly my afternoon had a purpose, to eat and to find gnomes! The first one I found was fixing a wall, the second was reading and the third eating a perogie.

I was hungry and popped into the local milk bar. The line was thick with students from the nearby university. Nothing was in English so I ordered a main meal from one of the three pictures available and asked the girl in line behind me if she could tell me what the desserts were. Her English wasn’t that great, but she told me which one everyone seems to order the most. My entrée was some sort of yummy potato thing but my dessert looked like and had the consistency of pink snot. I chatted over lunch with my near friend. She told me that there were about 20 gnomes and that new ones were periodically added. After lunch she headed off to class and I went off gnoming.

Almost immediately I found one that was in jail. I then found an interesting bear fountain. A couple of minutes later I found a gnome holding something, maybe money. It took me another 20 minutes to find one that was sitting outside of the entrance to the secret gnome underground. I then found some barnyard animals who had all just gone to the bathroom. Further down the road was another gnome entering a different secret door. When some locals saw me taking a picture of a gnome that was traveling they directed me up the street to a sleeping gnome. I hope that I didn’t disturb him.

I went back to the hostel at this point. It had been some time since I had found a gnome and I was growing bored. Back at the hostel I decided to see a movie. On the way I found a gnome with walking sticks and another riding a bike. The later was in the middle of an intersection and I almost got myself run over getting the picture. I also found statues of people walking into the sidewalk, it was weird.

After the movie I wanted to do a bit more wandering and ended up with a cup of tea and doing some writing. On my way there I found a pair of gnomes play a game and two more trying to push a marble ball two different directions. The last find of the day was a gnome playing the guitar while another watched on. That makes 14 gnomes for the day.

At about 11pm I decided that it was time for bed. I was in a room full of boys, most of them one group of Polish guys. Usually when one person in the rooms wants to go to sleep everyone clears out and goes to the common room. That is why there is a common room after all. These guys wouldn’t leave. I asked nicely and they basically said too bad. I then went to complain and the guy at the hostel talked to them and told me that they were leaving. I tried to sleep. They were just going for a smoke and in just a minute they were back in the room talking. I asked them several more times nicely and then not so nicely to leave. They started to call me names and got louder on purpose.

I complained again. The guy at the hostel told me that he couldn’t ask them to leave the room and that it was my own fault for booking a dorm room. However, I could pay about 4 times more for my own room if I would like. I told him that wasn’t and option and tried to explain to him how hostels work and that I have been traveling for over seven months and no one had behaved this badly, including him. Then a creepy older man offered to let me share a double room with him if I paid half the price, I said no.

At this point it was about midnight and I told him that I wanted my money back. He said are you sure you want to go out there now, you will never find another place. I replied that it was a week night, that there were several other hostels in town and that I would get a better nights sleep if I ended up on a park bench for free than if I paid to have a group of Polish men talk all night an call me dirty words.

I got my money back and packed quickly to a hail of insults. I walked about five minutes down the street to the next hostel. There I got a bed in a small all girls dorm for almost half the cost. Even though I was definitely in a better place I was livid and it took me some time to calm down and cool down before I was able to fall asleep.

So, if you are going to Wroclaw do not book the hostel called Babel, formerly Stranger, instead book the much better Avant-garde hostel.

Bleh

Day 223

I still felt pretty bad when I got up but I wanted to follow through with my plans. I got my stinky clothes together and walked about 30 minutes to the laundromat. This place was pretty good though. While I waited for my clothes I could check my email, play board games, or chill out a couch with some tea. I ended up reading for a while over earl gray.

I had wanted to go to the salt mines, but I was not really feeling up to it. Annoying lady remarked that I didn't look good. I ended up spending the afternoon reading in my bed.

When I was able to get my act together I went and did some work in an internet cafe. I came back around 9 and could see that annoying lady's things were gone. I was happy. I made myself some dinner and read before going to sleep early.

Escape

Day 222
The goal of the day was to see a few things in Krakow, I just didn't know what. After breakfast and weighing my options I went out.

After checking out the main square I headed to Warvel Castle. For some reason I decided that it was too expensive on my last visit and wanted to see it this time. I don't know what it cost then, but the cathedral was free and this time they were charging people for it.

I decided to visit the state rooms and the dragons den. It really wasn't all that interesting. There were some nice paintings and tapestries to check out and of course two throne rooms. Everyone needs two throne rooms.

The dragon's den was just a cave from the top of the hill to the bottom. There was a family inside taking turns taking pictures with each other. I offered to take one of all of them but they refused in a way that made it seem like they were frightened of me. I had no idea that I looked like a camera thief and where would I go in a cave full of people anyway? Outside the cave was a dragon statue, it was the scariest part of all.

I think I must be coming down with something. I'm was really dragging and I had gotten plenty of sleep the night before. I ended up going back to the hostel though and taking a nap. When I woke up it was dinner time. Annoying lady wouldn't leave me alone though. I kept telling her that I wanted to write in my journal, but she wanted to go clubbing. In the end I snuck out when she was in the bathroom. I felt bad, but I wanted to write and I didn't want to talk to her. I ended up at a pub milking a beer for a couple of hours and writing.

When I got back to the hostel she wasn't there. I still felt guilty, but at least I got to write.

Sad Day

Day 221
I was up early, packed, and put my things into storage quickly. I had to be on a 12:30 train and there wasn't much time.

I decided to go out to the Majdanek death camp. I have been in the vicinity of these several times now, but really haven't wanted to visit. I've been to several already and I am sure they are all alike. I picked Majdanek because it was not just a death camp but a concentration and transit camp as well. It was also not destroyed during the Nazi retreat, there just wasn't any time, as the other camps were.

Majdanek functioned from October of 1942 to July of 1944 when it was liberated by the Soviet army. The first exhibit was on letters that the Polish, political, prisoners were able to sneak out. Most of them were in code.

For some reason I went through the place backwards and headed straight to the mausoleum. I already knew that this was a large pile of human ash. It was windy and I kept my mouth closed. When I got close I could see that there wasn't much of a need for that. The pile had solidified into rock. Next door was the crematorium.

I then moved past the crematorium to the barracks, most of them were locked. I looked through the keyhole, there wasn't anything there. The Polish part of the camp looked like many of the hostels that I have stayed in. The Jewish barracks would have been packed full, up to 800 people in a room only meant for 250.

Eventually I moved into the informational bit. One of the barracks was full of shoes. At the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. there is a room of shoes with a fan on it. There was no fan here and the smell was stifling.

78,000 people died here. I took pictures of zyclone b (gas chamber chemical) and of piles of human hair. I read the info on camp life and looked at the objects that have been left behind. I'm finding this to be rather difficult to write about. At the end of my tour, but at the beginning of everyone else's, I found the gas chambers. I went through them quickly, I had done this before at Auschwitz and didn't see a need to do it again. I think the only reason that I was there was that I think that castles and history museums are great, but sometimes we have to remember the bad stuff as well.

When I got on the bus and was out of site of the camp I felt a whole lot better. After grabbing my I headed to the bus stop. I couldn't find it and as I was panicked for time I just kinda stood there asking if anyone spoke English. Finally someone did and I got to the right place. I made my train with about 10 minutes to spare.

After about 4 hours of listening to the woman in my compartment talk on the phone I was fed up. I didn't have a phone to call anyone on but I did have my ipod. I put it on and began to sing along. She got the message and stopped, and so did I.

Once in Krakow I found my hostel quickly. I met an older Polish woman there who had been living in Sweden for about 20 years. I will call her annoying lady. I knew her entire life story before she even knew my name. She didn't speak English very well and I was having big issues understanding her. She was pressuring me to go out because she wanted me to help her pick up men. I figured that if I went out I could talk to other people. In the end she got bored and wanted to leave. She wanted to go to clubs with big covers and I don't like clubs, I wanted a quiet pub. I told her that I would see her the next day. When I was sure she was gone I went back myself and went to sleep.