Saturday night the taxi driver found the Orange Hostel and dropped me off. I recognized the area from one of my nights out on the town, I think I staggered past it Tuesday or Friday night at some point, its somewhat fuzzy. Anyways, set in the middle of a row of tenement buildings reminiscent of something you would see in London was a dark green building with an orange sign proclaiming "Orange Hostel". I went in the tall doors and was a bit dubious from the looks of the interior. I followed the signs to a wide flight of ancient looking stairs that had deep valleys worn in the center and much of the green paint faded and scuffed away from years of being tromped beneath snow covered boots. Some of the risers had the flat ends of nails protruding out from the effects of the warping wood over time. The last sign said "Orange Hostel P.3" and I sighed looking for the elevator I knew didn't exist and grabbed hold of my 50 lb suitcase and 30 lb carry-on and began climbing.
In Poland, like many European countries, they don't bother counting the ground floor as a story. So I drug my bags up to the fourth floor, avoiding looking down between the wooden railing knowing I would get vertigo from even such a short height. My fear of heights has more to do with the precariousness of the climb and less about the distance. The sight of the low and flimsy looking banister was enough to make my stomach do flips. I clenched my jaw and pressed on.
The Orange Hostel was the only door not gated. The door was open and once inside I was relieved because it was much nicer than my imagination had hoped for. Everything seemed clean and fairly new. The girl at the front desk, Aga, was young, attractive, friendly, helpful and spoke English very well. She welcomed me, got me my key, showed me the kitchen and the bathrooms and the room I would be staying in. It was a 4 person room and there were only 2 others sharing it with me. I had a small cabinet that locked to store my possessions in and they offered to lock up anything else I needed in their storage closet. I asked about internet and she said that the shared terminal didn't always work but that she would let me use the connection at the front desk, I would just have to sit on the opposite side from her across the desk. So I unpacked my bags, storing everything I could in the cabinet and pushed the bags under the bed. Then I grabbed my laptop and headed back to the front desk.
At this point I hadn't yet been able to send a single email since Saturday morning when everything was still going as originally planned. I was anxious to let the group in India know I would not be making it. Aga got me a live cable and I set up, but the only power outlet I could find that would hold my adapter was down the hall and across a wide door leading to more rooms. I had a long enough reach with the power cable and I didn't have much of a choice, but it seemed like an accident waiting to happen to me. I got everything plugged in and humming along and I sat and chatted with Aga about where I should get dinner and such while I checked my email and started composing an email to my bosses about the bad news and my updated plans.
Then I heard the pounding of many booted feet and loud boisterous voices outside just before 8 giant and drunken German backpackers came pouring through the door of the hostel shouting and laughing and pushing and slapping each other. I think Aga and I both had the same look of horror on our faces. Until now I had only seen a very quiet Japanese couple, two bored looking Polish men, an old woman who talked to herself, and 3 street tough English girls. Now this small army had disturbed our relative peace. They swarmed up to the desk and surrounded me as the smell of sweat and alcohol engulfed me. I watched with very little surprise as one of them stumbled backwards from a companionable shove and tripped over the power cable, yanking it from the wall and bending one of the converters prongs in the process. It seems that's the first they noticed of me because then the one that tripped came over and sat next to me reading my email over my shoulder out loud to his friends "Do you really think you are stuck here in Krakow?".
Their "leader", as I thought of him, a tall rugged and fairly handsome looking German, probably in his late 30s , was speaking to Aga. He was blatantly hitting on her already and asked if we were boyfriend-girlfriend. Aga and I both fumbled to answer in the negative, looking at each other with embarrassment while at the same time we were laughing at the situation. I tried to ignore them as I finished my email and they negotiated which rooms they would be staying in and in pairs they tromped off to explore the hostel with loud voices carrying. I had more work to do and another blog update to compose, but I wasn't about to do it at the hostel now so I asked Aga if there was an internet cafe nearby. Before she could answer the "leader" spoke up and tried to give me directions to one he had seen. I thanked him and then asked Aga if that sounded right and she nodded so I went to pack my things and grab my coat. On the way out the "leader" was having a smoke in the stairwell. When he saw me he apologized for disturbing me and chasing me off and then he quizzed me briefly on where I was from and how long I had stayed and what I thought of Krakow. I told him I was from the States, that Krakow was beautiful and I loved it, but that I was anxious to be gone now and headed down and out.
I never found the cafe they mentioned and I eventually found myself back in old town looking for some food. After finding an internet cafe that would not let me use my laptop I wasn't feeling very adventuresome so I into something that felt familiar, a Mexican restaurant. It was down a long narrow and twisted staircase. I ran into a small group of women on the stairs who had just entered before me and I asked if it was closed. They said "No, we are just picky". I wondered what was wrong. I continued down and saw it was deserted, but it looked decent enough. It had a dark warm feeling to it and I figured I'd give it a try. I had a decent meal, and it was very familiar although they use kidney beans instead of refried beans and there was plenty of Polish style cole slaw. It was getting late and I had to get back to my email soon so I ate up and forced the man to print up my ticket quickly so I could pay and go back to my search.
I wandered old town for awhile more, until just when I thought I would have to brave the connection back at the hostel I found "U Louisa" which seemed to have everything I wanted, internet, a hip atmosphere and beer. I wandered down and was lucky to get a place right at the bar in the corner next to the hub. I got myself set up and ordered a beer. I didn't bother looking for a power outlet and just ran off batteries. I didn't think to an extra battery pack on the trip, something to remember next time. I drank my beer slowly while I uploaded new pictures, read emails and composed the second part of "So Hard to Leave Krakow...". The level of my beer and my battery power indicator were in perfect unison. As I finished publishing my blog entry and sent the last email telling Mark and Jason and Paul that I was done for the night and planning on leaving in the morning, my laptop went into a coma from lack of power and I polished off the last of my beer.
As I wandered back I was getting tired and my foot was sore so I stopped at resting taxi driver and asked if he could take me to the hostel. When I showed him on the map where it was he was not impressed and said it was only 200 meters and I should walk. I wasn't in the mood to argue with him and convince him to take my money so I just hobbled back on my own cursing my luck for the day. Things were going strong and the Germans were getting everyone drunk now and singing and partying down with the English girls when I got back. The shifts had changed so I asked the girl that did the night shift to lock up my laptop and then I brushed my teeth, set my alarm for 3:00 am and went to bed. I didn't even bother taking my clothes off because I knew I wouldn't have time for a shower in the morning and I didn't want to be searching around in the dark for my clothes.
I tried to sleep, but the party was still going strong in the other room and I was just too paranoid about sleeping through my alarm. I drifted and woke every 30 minutes or so and checked the clock. Around 2:30 I gave up and turned off the alarm and got out of bed. By now the party had been reduced to 2 Germans, the night shift girl, and a cute Polish girl who was a student and stayed regularly at the hostel. Everyone was surprised to see me up and the Germans asked if they woke me. How thoughtful of them, but I told them no I had a plane to catch soon. The night shift girl (I wish I had asked her name) got my laptop out of the closet as I burnt some toast. One of the Germans stumbled out of his chair and asked if I wanted tea or coffee, and when I answered coffee he scoffed said something about Americans and then set to work making it for me. I couldn't complain. We sat all sat and talked and had our little breakfast until the second German finally stumbled off to bed around 3:30. I set up my laptop one last time and checked my email. Paul and Mark had tried to schedule a new flight to India for me that would have left on Monday, but the thought of another night at the hostel, getting to India almost 2 days late, and being in my current mood, it just wouldn't work out so I asked Mark to please cancel the flight and I was coming home.
I went back into the kitchen and asked the night gal to please call me a cab. She did and he would meet me in half an hour. I sat with the rest of the early morning crowed and shared my pictures with them. Then I took some pictures, packed my bags, and it was time to go again. I said my good-byes and thanked everyone for a nice stay and told them I might be back someday.
More still to tell, but not tonight. Czesc.
No comments:
Post a Comment