The Mini-Break Part 2

  Is it still hyper-patriotic if you're not actually Polish? Hmm...

On the second proper day of Benedict Ambrose's and my mini-break in Krakow,  I didn't leave our hotel until ten to noon because, as you may remember from yesterday, I had one of the three worst hangovers of my life. It was a truly epic hangover. Unlike those other two hangovers, however, I came to the conclusion that this hangover was a price worth paying for the revelries of the night before. It also provided two men with opportunities for heroism: the Astrophysicist imparted his knowledge of hangover remedies, and B.A. went out and got me one.

START

By the time the church bells rang the Angelus, B.A. and I were scurrying through the Old Market  back towards Ul. Grodzka and I felt well enough to make the Angelus responses and even to look forward to eating lunch. This was in Balaton, a Hungarian restaurant recommended long ago by the Astrophysicist, who knows many useful things. There we found him, blond and resplendent in an excellent suit* and tie, and we embraced or shook hands and then sat, and I praised him for his grapefruit hangover remedy.

We had only just ordered when Polish Pretend Son, dark but also resplendent in suit* and tie, and Polish Future Pretend Daughter-in-Law appeared. There was more greeting and then congratulating back and forth, as the Astrophysicist, too, is getting married.

The conversation was largely about weddings until the Astrophysicist asked if we had heard of Jordan Peterson, which naturally we had. And I think it very interesting, and glorious for Canada, that five different people, three of them Poles, sitting in a Hungarian restaurant in Krakow, all knew who Jordan Peterson was and how he had greatly discomfited a British interviewer on the UK's Channel 4.

PFPDiL was wearing a T-shirt from a hyper-patriotic Polish clothing store, which I recognised, having perused their website during the January sales and concluded that few were suitable for non-Poles. The T-shirt, featuring Pacman about to swallow Karl Marx's head, was a gift from PPS.

Meanwhile the Astrophysicist, B.A. and I ate enormous helpings of goulash with potato pancakes and  PPS and PFPDiL helped us drink a bottle of red wine. Then PFPDiL took a photo of us all (and my splendid fake bear-fur hat, which hitherto I have forgotten to mention), and off the happy couple went for their train north.

MART

After the Astrophysicist paid the bill, we entreated him to come with us on our book-buying expedition, and sure enough he found for us a bookstore that carried the book I wanted before toddling off to meet a Krakow friend for coffee. This bookstore is called De Revolutionibus Books and Cafe, in honour of Copernicus, and it is extremely cool. Indeed, I felt extremely cool perusing the Theology section, so glamorously near the Philosophy section, as in Oooooh, look at me, hanging out in the intellectual Polish bookshop in Krakow; I am soooo cosmopolitan, y'all. You would think that at my age I would be beyond such posturing but, sadly, no.

Then, clutching my intellectual copies of Książę Kaspian and Podróż "Wędrowca do świtu", I wandered happily through the back streets of the Old Town with B.A. until we came across the hyper-patriotic Polish clothing store. There was a sale rack. I was terribly tempted by the T-shirt illustrated with a lurid scene from the Battle of Jasna Góra, but B.A. thought it was too lurid, which left a lot of shirts stating firmly (in both Polish and Magyar) that Hungarians and Poles are brothers or that Poland is OUR country, or depicting various battle-weary soldiers or an elegant if enormous White Eagle.

I decided for the Eagle. The very pretty salesgirl beamed and said something complicated about sizes, which I didn't quite understand, but there was no way I was going to speak English to a Pole in the hyper-patriotic Polish clothing store, so I stuck with the size in hand, which does indeed fit.

"Happy birthday," said B.A. whose present it was. (We had agreed beforehand that I would choose my own present.) And then we toddled along with our rather political shopping bag until we came across our favourite grumpy lady cafe.

TART

There are many pastry shops--called cukierni--in Krakow, and many cater to foreign tourists. Our favourite grumpy lady cafe does not. It is entirely authentic, which means the women behind the counter have no customer service skills, charge extra if you want to put milk in your coffee, and have a door to the loo that can be unlocked only with coins. But authenticity also means that the cafe is scrupulously clean, that the coffee is excellent, and that the pastries are good. Elderly Polish ladies sit huddled in corners under mohair berets and scrawny Polish men in caps wander in accompanied by strapping sons to order cakes to take home. We love this cafe.

Sure enough, the woman behind the counter was true to the spirit of the place, for she refused to sell me a piece of makowiec (poppyseed cake) as it could not be cut and served in the shop but only sold by the gram to be taken away. This made no sense to me, but at the first sign of conflict my Polish dissipates like a cloud of vapour and the only English word the sprzedawka knew was "No", which was itself confusing as "No" in Polish means "Well ..." or even sometimes "Yes".  In the end I had a sweet cheese tartlet. B.A., as always, had kremówka in honour of St. John Paul II.  The coffee was excellent.

ART

Afterwards we went to the National Gallery of Art in the Old Market for its last hour of the day, where we happened upon the Astrophysicist on his way out, and admired various classics of Polish national art, like Wanda committing suicide, Nero watching Christians being burned alive and storks conspiring darkly together. We then went back to the hotel for a rest before venturing out for some cheap pierogis at a back street shop popular with the young of all the world.

ATHWART   

B.A. was not very hungry, so I bought just 10 pierogis and a small glass of beer, and to my surprise, B.A. enjoyed both pierogis and beer enormously. We got there at a lucky moment, finding a central table before the young of all the world arrived en masse and stood in a queue in front of the old fashioned counter. The two languages of this restaurant, the Koko Tavern, were Polish for the Poles and English for everyone else, including the couple beside us. The female half sat down while saying, "Not even a smile", which suggested that Koko Tavern was also very authentic vis-a-vis customer service. The male half complained about trying to learn Polish after studying Russian, and the words getting confused in his head. He himself had a Mediterranean accent of some sort, possibly Greek.

RAMPART

And then B.A. and I, having paid in advance, went out and had a slightly damp walk in the romantic drizzle, enjoying all the romantic Italian renaissance architecture, the expensive menus in the restaurant windows and the Christmas decorations hanging gamely on until, we assume, Candlemas. We returned to our hotel at about 10 and went straight to bed.

*B.A. says they weren't wearing suits but jackets and trousers. I say the word "suit" denotes jackets and trousers in Canada. At any rate, they looked splendid as usual. B.A. was wearing trousers, a pullover and a tie. The Giant, when he was on the scene, was not not so formally dressed, I seem to recall. I believe one word to describe the Giant, in comparison with our other Polish men friends, is "normal."