Poland by way of Florence.

Just spent my week off in Krakow, Poland.  I know what you're thinking... Poland, Michelle?  Really?


No, Poland is totally great.  I'll admit, I too had ideas that it was going to be this sleepy post-communist country, with limited cultural attractions, and I don't know, goats being skinned on the side of the road.  I just had NO idea what to expect, but it ended up being one of the cheapest places I could choose to spend my break-- and so there I was.


I noticed immediately off the plane that the people are just so totally different than Italians.  This might seem quite obvious, but I have been around nothing but Italian culture for two straight months-- so I experienced my own little version of culture shock coming FROM Italy.  The people are bigger, and walk faster, smoke MORE than Italians (if that's possible) and there's just a striking amount of ethnic homogeneity.


Now Poland is part of the EU, but have not yet joined the Eurozone, so they are still using the zloty.  One zloty is about $.35 USD, which is an awkward conversion to get the hang of.  We took the quick train from the airport to the town center for 8 zloty a piece-- working that out, we figured out that it was less than $3, remarkably cheap to accomplish anything, as compared to Florence.


Krakow has the largest indoor mall I have ever seen in Europe.  It's amazing... and I felt right at home.  Apparently, the Poles have welcomed capitalism with open arms-- the McDonald's was right downstairs from the hostel.  Believe it or not, the biggest thing I was excited to see was a to-go coffee place-- I just can't embrace the Italian style of coffee at the bar, in itty bitty cups.  I need my large chai tea latte to-go, please :)


Now, I don't speak a single word of Polish.  I didn't even have the slightest idea how to begin to botch a word, as the alphabet is all different-- but it made absolutely no difference.  Sensing my confusion when spoken to in Polish, everyone I met immediately switched over to English, which they generally spoke very well.  The younger they were, the better the English was, and I never had the slightest bit of trouble paying or ordering at a restaurant.  Interestingly, the biggest language barrier issue I overcame was in the pharmacy, where you must consult with the pharmacist for most things.  I came down with flu-like symptoms mid-week and needed something for it-- but using a series of gestures and broken English I was able to get cold and flu pills, and thus it was a success.


The whole week in Poland combined with my language experiences in Italy really got me reflecting on the world experience of a native English speaker.  I think Americans often have some kind of guilt complex or embarrassment while traveling over being, for the most part, limited to the English language-- but when it comes down to it, being a native English speaker is the most convenient thing you could be for the purposes of traveling the world.  It wasn't an embarrassment thing in Poland that I couldn't speak a word of Polish-- it simply wasn't expected of me.  It wasn't, nor ever will be, imperative that I have a working knowledge of Polish.  It wasn't arrogant of me to go into a store and speak to someone working there in English-- sticking to English in every situation was expected and convenient.


Back in the hostel, I socialized with Australian, Canadian, and English travelers.  Those I met there who were not native English speakers had a good basic knowledge.  English is the language of travel, of meeting people from around the world, of hostels, of business, of pop culture, and of convenience.  


It has made me much more confident in my daily life since returning to Italy.  If I could do everything I needed to-- get medicine in a country where I didn't speak a single word of the language-- then I should surely not be intimidated in situations in a country where I at least speak a little.  Often, I get so tripped up trying to be a perfectionist about what I am about to say in Italian-- double-checking in my mind that the grammar all makes sense, that I'm using the right word, and then trying to anticipate the response-- that I forget to just try to accomplish things.  It's often fairly obvious immediately that I am an American, so the effort in learning Italian is likely appreciated and makes things easier, but it is not altogether expected of me.  At the risk of sounding too arrogant about my status as an American-- I am one, and I enjoy a special status because of it.  There is a pattern of expectation, that for convenience's sake, is OK to reinforce.  They see that I am putting forth the effort to speak Italian well, and that is often enough.  


Anyways, the city of Krakow was great and very cute, and the trip to Auschwitz was one of the most intense experiences.  It's the kind of thing everyone should see for themselves-- just to be there, right where it all happened is a really weird thing.  Surreal and intense.  I'm so glad I got to go.  


Polish food was a welcome break from the pasta dominated diet of Italy-- lots of meat, potatoes, and BEER.  Primarily drinking wine gets old, so massive steins of Zywiec tasted amazing.  Just having huge slabs of beef, pork, or sausage with sides of cabbage was great.  Meat is so expensive back in Florence, almost everything I regularly cook is vegetarian.  Polish food is definitely not.  I loved it.


The end of the week wasn't too exciting, a lot of laying around the hostel sick and trying to recover for a whole day of travel back to Florence.  We had planned to go to Warsaw, but heard from many people it was such a new, rebuilt city that there weren't many things of any importance there left to see.  I enjoyed Krakow, so I was okay with staying there the whole week.  I'll be posting pictures to Facebook soon.


Side note-- Latest development on my Italian residency permit is that I now officially officially have it and never have to go back to that wretched immigration office again (as far as I know).  Yesterday, something as simple-sounding as "going to pick it up" turned into this nearly five-hour miserable ordeal, with people yelling in Italian, being herded around like cattle, and having a massive panic attack when I found out I needed a particular form I had left at home.  The story ended with me running through the streets of Florence to get home and back with the form before my number came up, missing my number, and then relying on the mercy of one clerk to help me before the end of business hours.  I was pouring with sweat, feet badly blistered, and on the verge of tears by the time the whole process ended in me receiving my very official-looking documentation.  Italian bureaucracy is the absolute worst.