Chronicles of Cracow 7

Today was a day to myself, and I went adventuring to the center of Cracow! After getting off the tram I was in front of a movie theater that was showing an odd combination of films, one was Robin Hood, the other was some small indie film and finally, (yea only three) was.....Men who Stare at Goats? Wait what? didn't that movie come out like a year ago, that was definitely strange. So 2 hours later, after seeing Men Who Stare at Goats, I left the theater to check out some monuments and Church's and such that you can see on my facebook page.
Anyway for a culture insight, what I noticed and will kindof miss when I leave is the idea of manliness and coolness here. It seems that overall practicality is taken more into effect over what makes you look or feel seemingly cool or a man. An easy example is the cars here, none are big or even close to scale to our huge cars, and sure you'll see a damn nice car once and awhile but it won't be as unpractical as the 55 year old driving the 40k sports car to boost his ego. Another example is the fact that it is raining season around here and everyone carries umbrellas, now if you picture 4 guys walking over to a park to play some basketball, I doubt you would picture them all with their umbrellas because there are some dark clouds on the horizon. In America, it would be more like, "Pssh I'm a Man! I'm not afraid of some rain! Bring it on rain! Rain won't mess with my 12 gage!". Speaking of guns, no one needs that dumb masculinity boost or should I say "safety and self defense" that automatic weapons legally carried in the open provide, or any guns for that matter, not even cops carry them here.
This guy had an umbrella and it kicked ass!


Another little example of practicality over "coolness" here is on most bicycles is a bell that you can ring to warn people walking. This is more of a necessity here where there is more people out walking but even then how many of you would be ok with a bike with a little bell on it, let alone use it.

Ok sidenote of the day, Maggy told me she likes the older Batman movies over the Dark Knight! isn't that crazy!

Let's just compare bad guys, you have this guy versus the ultimate bad ass

That's all from me for now, sorry if my views on the whole gun thing are wrong, remember I'm a uninformed 17 yr old in another country and also i don't care! So keep commenting and so on, see you next time!

Final Note: Mark Hamill as the Joker in the Animated Series tops all!

Chronicles of Cracow 6

OK had a big trip today so I figured I'd just fill you in on that and add some other random stuff.
So today we were going to go in the hot springs near a mountain, crossing the border to Slovakia! You know Slovakia, with famous people like Andy Warhol!, Paul Newmen (both just descendents of Slovaks), and ummm John Hertz of Hertz Rental Cars, and uhh that one hockey player..... yea that's about it. It was about a 2 hour drive from Cracow and I listened to my ipod with Maggy most of the way. I loved the border of Poland and Slovakia, it was just a sign. There is more in between states usually! Just a sign that said "Welcome to Slovakia, Home of Nothing Important!" Ok I added that last part. And damn it again my ipod shuffled to "Highway to Hell" when entering it like it's God's reoccurring joke or something. Anyways when we got there we went for a short hike which was nice, good weather. Poland (and Slovakia's) forests are about the same visually compared to Wisconsin (except no deer), I bet if you recognized tree's and plants you would be able to tell a difference but I can't. Out in the country they also have cows like us but the amount of them is split with sheep.
Ok now to the main story, the pool! It was being fed by a underground spring of like water with sulfur which I guess is supposed to do some good for your body. If you have ever been to Yellowstone's Old Faithful it smells like that so I assume it's the basically same kind of spring. They had a normal warm pool and an equal sized almost hot tub (almost as in it wasn't quite that hot). Now more importantly the people there made.... an impression..... as in they scarred me for life. Let me explain, so this pool is supposed to be good for you, so it's mostly older people, and by mostly I mean ALL, me and Maggy were the youngest there by 30 or 40 years. And then to top that off, you know that stereotype of the European guy walking around in just a speedo. THIS IS COMPLETELY TRUE. I mean they weren't all speedo's but it was basically really tight briefs, or very small briefs that were loose that looked like a diaper (which was fitting considering the people wearing them), or speedos (everyone should thank me for not including a picture). The water was really relaxing but you definitely had to be a "glass half-full" kind of person to enjoy yourself, either your swimming in a nice warm pool that's supposed to be healthy with a bit of a nostalgic smell (at least to me) or your swimming in the pool next to the 85 year old hairy chested old man who probably has alot of dead skin to lose. Man it was bad, don't get me confused, I had a great time and it was fun, I just couldn't look at a single other person there. It did make sense though, midday on a cloudy Monday, who else would have the time to go to this place. So after getting a lucky break and being the only in the males shower room, we left and stopped to eat on our way back. The two most common foods I have had here are pierogies which isn't a surprise because it was one of the only polish foods I knew coming here and, oddly enough, ice cream which is quite the favorite here in Poland, most of the time it's basically the same as the U.S's except sometimes.... WHO PUTS RAISINS IN ICE CREAM!?!?!? YUCK!.

OK so that's my story of the day, now heres just some random things that I can't make a whole update about so I just threw them at the end here.
-I have found myself craving American food, but not junk like hot dogs, Mcdonalds, or other fast food, more as in junk like Orv's pepperoni pizza, Roundy's brand fruit snacks, pizza rolls, and some Flamen Hot Cheetos! (they dont even have normal cheetos here! The official Cheetos here are like a wierd offbrand kind of Cheetos that are terrible, but they are the Cheetos brand!)
-answering "reader mail", I think polish women here are all generally thin just by the culture of walking and biking mostly everywhere and all the time, that's kind of the idea of what you do with your free time here, just go down to the city center and walk around and thats not just being a tourist, Maggy's parents often just take the tram down to the city and walk around, kind of like what we do at summerfest, or a better example is in Milwaukee, down by the lakefront where people are walking, biking, various activities, except it's everyone here not just a few people. Also the food is so much healthier I really can't stress that enough, even unhealthy foods are made of more naturally, if that makes any sense.
-Not really missing the family or home too much yet, only truly missing is writing for Follies, and my cat, Binky!

So that's it for now, sorry if there are any mistakes, usually I take two days to write one of these but I threw this out in about an hour and a half. Please keep commenting, again it motivates me to keep writing knowing people are reading it! Any thoughts or questions or things you want to know about Poland I will gladly address at some point. And Finally I know this is alot of text to get through and I havent done what I've wanted when it comes to mixing in pictures so thanks to everyone who does read this far. And a shout out goes to all my followers, Tamar, Kathleen, Myself (yea I follow myself, so what?) and someone else.... I can't remember... o well.

Chronicles of Cracow 5

Hey I'm back! (not from poland just to my laptop)
Ok so when it comes to the Polish language, I have learned very little, mostly the basics, but this isnt completely my fault. Their language is unfairly hard, it uses odd pronunciations, it's not like spanish where you could get away just reading words, here it's impossible. Try to pronounce "wysokozmineralizowana" (Vis-o-coz-mineral-al-ziana)(high minerals). It makes a little sense but that was actually kinda easy one.
On the subject of water, probably the toughest thing here is any water I drink is sparkling or mineral water. No tap water, at all. It's just weird, i guess there tap water isnt that clean so you cant drink it. Think of gettign home from a long bike ride and your options for hydration is mineral water, lemonade, and hot tea.
So people in America would not be able to survive driving here. It is crazy, it's alot more dangerous and fast, and just less controlled in general. Throw the fact that trams are all over and its chaos. To add to that it doesnt help that Maggy's older brother drives like James Bond on speed, I'm usually ok with people driving crazily, (thanks Joey), but with Conrad my normal thought in that car is "O SHIT WE ARE GOING TO DIE".
And I knew the cars here were small but I thought it was just going to be like half small cars than lots of american sized cars, that was stupid of me. Every car here is small, a mini-cooper here would be a bigger sized car. These little machines work well in the very narrow streets here, where basically every street is the size of one lane in the U.S. with cars parking on the sidewalk.
O yea there are also traffic jams that take forever and are all over the place. It's not like there is alot of cars, it's just EVERY street is one lane with no passing.

WARNING: This next part is probably inappropiate, reader discretion advised.

So the girls here are HOT. I mean DAMN. Basically because really no one here is overweight, or at least its very uncommon. And the time Ive gotten here is the first time its been really warm so everyones showen off there new summer skimpy clothes. A big part of it is that everyone walks around outside here, people dont drive or sit in there house everyone is out and about. So if you arent the luckiest guy come to poland because most often I find myself thinking "damn that guys lucky she is with him". (obviously i dont have proof of this because im not THAT creepy that im just taking pictures of random girls). So yea, it makes any walk outside a little improved. (and if you have complaints about me writing this (mom, Tamar), I dont really care, im a 17 year old teen boy, what do u expect)

ok thats all i got for now, I'll be back with, i dont no, something at some time. Do me a favor and comment! on the material, or on my writing, I just need some kindof feedback and it motivates me to write more

Chronicles of Cracow 4

OK so we haad some spare time awhile back so me and adam went into a cd and movie store. They had lots of American music, but it seems that's all they had separated it by, American and Polish. When actually looking at the selection of music I lost on how they had tried to organize it, this was a sequence of CD's, Weezer, Selena Gomez, The Soundtrack to Coyote Ugly, Black Sabbath. What the heck is that?! I mean couldnt they organize it in any, any possible way, alphabetical, type of music, even color of the case! It was ridiculous. However it was quite pleasing to see my brother Joeys beloved Eagles next to Akon and below Demi Lovato. Yea outside of that it was just bad music overall and i didnt end up getting anything. The movie section was just terrible, just think of any made for tv movie that was so bad in the U.S. that it didnt see the light of day afterword and it was probably on the shelves of this store (in one of my other blogs I showed the Scooby doo one), they had some other stuff like obviously (gag) Avatar.
This all kindof brings up the topic of music here. and to start off, no they dont only they polka music. So just any jokes you were going to make about that just stop it now. So they mostly listen to American music here, basically rock alternative and rap/hiphop, not country at all. But they do produce some of their own music, and some of it aint half bad, most of there music is just a step below ours, with bands that probably wouldnt make it in the U.S. However they do have one popstar named Doda, I didnt think anyone could out-dumbhotblond Britney Spears but she is able to pull it off. Yea and her music is some how even worse, I didnt think that was possible. for along time she sang with a group called Virgin. The irony here is too obvious to even point out. At least she's done so many men the favor of posing naked, which is probably why she's so popular after I heard her music. Some how she is married to the lead singer of Behemoth a hardcore metal band. Isnt that just a match made in music hell.
Anyways back to their music here, I have to admit the music choice of American music isnt half bad its pretty to my likings and I even heard Smashmouths "I'm a believer" which was just awesome.
When it comes to music videos i was pretty impressed, their MTV here actually just plaays music videos about 75% of the time which is pretty cool (however if you were to watch it for awhile they basically show the same 10 songs over and over) And I have to say I have found the one place in the world where I can be safe from Bieber-bonanza, although Poland isn't fully Disney-proof it is quite the safehaven against Bieiber.
So in general music here isn't too bad, it is definitely survivavable especially considering 80% of it is American music. Now I'm going to go rock out to some KE$HA!!!

sidenote: TV channels have an awesome thing where in the corner of the screen will be a timer of how long until the show returns from commercials, this is sooo fricken awesomely helpful.

Chronicles of Cracow 3

OK so I finally got some time to crank out some information. This time I'll actually talk about what I have been doing, and not just culture differences, which I find more interesting so I'll probably go back to that. So here is just a random collection of stories that I've done
So a few days back, me, Maggy, and her friend Peter went on a bike ride which i was told was going to go play some tennis, an hour later they had decided that we were going to go biking to a lookout point, where you could see the city, it was a long, long, ride. All up hill and through the city, which is very tough because there sidewalks are small, with cars parked on them, there streets are narrow and you will never get a smooth road, it is all just stones layed down that are not flat or consistent, think of that area in the Milwaukee Museum thats all old fashioned, but less even. That was quite the exhausting trip but afterword felt rewarding.
Another time we went by bike to their zoo! This created mixed emotions, if you think our zoos were bad when it comes to locking animals up in small areas this was quite sad. However it was only in select areas, the zoo itself was not bad they had a decent amount of animals, including 2 elephants. Obviously it didnt compare to the own in Milwaukee but it wasnt bad and I had a good time. It was especially funny seeing people look and take pictures of exotic creatures like raccoons! Deer! and especially, geese!
Another trip to the city center lead to me climbing 239 steps to the top of a tower for a view of the city. And you might say "Patrick 239 steps? that isnt that bad! you can practically double that on a nice day at Devils Lake! Or when people are forgetful, and you are feeling especially nice out at the cottage" but the reason this was tough was because it was after 4 HOURs of walking, and the steps were so steep sometimes it was better if they had just hung a rope ladder down. Luckily while up there I got a bunch of shots of the city.


I also went to a small village outside of Cracow where all the Presidents of Poland spend their summers, it was a nice little place.

Yea for more check out my facebook. I will be back with more on music in Poland and my trip to a CD and Movie store.

Kaymazing

Chronicles of Cracow 2

Ok this is a short addition, just quick talken about some polish TV!.
So TV in poland is crazy. I was excited to see what american channels they had here, and wow, no wonder they have such a bad impression of us. The channels they have are CNN, VH1, and MTV. So yea, what they know of americans is Jersey Shore, Ke$ha, and Flavor Flav. Also they have cartoons that carry over like teen titans and batman but the voices are done by the polish obviously, which i couldnt watch, it was just too freaky, the voice of Scooby-doo scared the shit out of me. So for tv shows that are in english or movies in english that they show they dont take the time to voice over each voice with a different person, so they will have one guy translate the whole thing with no intonation or change in his voice, i wonder how that job hire went
"We want you to do voiceover for Mel Gibson"
"wow! what an honor"
"Also for Julia Roberts, and really anyone else that speaks"
"ummmmm how will i do that"
"just do it like your reading a book out loud, but with no expression!"

Yea everytime I see it I laugh, it's crazy. OK thats all i got for polish tv for now, ill probably talk more about it later. And I should have more updates soon cuz ill have some more free time. I was able to crank this one out in 10 minutes so with some more time i can say more, with a little more organization.

As a sidenote: I went on a trip to a video/music store, which is a story ill tell later but i gotta say, I know things like this existed but I never expected for this to be in stores prominently displayed.

Kaymazing.

Chronicles of Cracow 1

ok here we go! first update two days into my poland trip! Even though I have only been here for a little while I have lots to talk about, so sorry if it is kindof random and jumps around alot. and this is written hastily so theres probably bad grammar and spelling.
OK so getting off the plane, my brother told me to listen to my ipod, cuz when he first came he had some Rocky theme music blasting and it really pumped him up. So I thought I'd leave it up to God and have it on shuffle, the first song that came on was ACDC's "Highway to Hell"...yea... Luckily this did not set the tone for the trip. But First some basics I am staying with a family, the mother Ella, the dad Joseph, and the daughter Maggy, who is a college student. I will be spending most of my time with her as I repeatedly tour the city and see new things.
So far it has been really fun, Maggy and her friend Paulina has taken me into the city by tram, and we saw the markets and alot of elaborate churches that are actually pretty awesome, I have not been taking too many pictures because i plan to go back and revisit alot of places. Then today I went on a long, long bikeride with Maggy and her friend Peter to a place where you could see all of Cracow, this was cool but it reminded me how out of shape I was when it came to biking.
Thats a huge difference between us and them, transportation, they have cars (although tiny), but because most roads only have one lane traffic is horrible. So most people use public transportation, the bus or the tram, the tram is actually pretty cool and a nice setup. Or people just walk! or ride a bike!
Anyway the language barrier isn't too much of a problem, Maggy speaks english, although it took her awhile because she was rusty, but now already two days in and she is doing great, she just struggles when she has never learned a word to fit a random situation, like mud. The first confusion we had was when she said "You are boring?" when she meant to say "bored". But I can carry a conversation with her and most of her friends well. The mother Ella does not speak much english at all so thats kindof tough but Maggy is usually around to translate.
The first thing we found out we dont have at all in common is, TEA! I had never had it before! But here they have it two, three times a day. I like it, its not bad, its just a big change. Anytime you think of having milk in a day, they have tea. To talk about the food a little its.... different. Its much healthier and alot more natural, but because of this it isnt what im used to, and alot harder to get down regularly. This will probably my toughest challenge here is surviving each meal.

Well I could go on and on but ill save some stuff to talk about for another time, so check in later when ill talk about my latest travels, my flight here, and polish TV! Now im going to go have a beer and watch a soccer match with Adam, the guy i came over with, and Joseph, Maggy's father

Kaymazing