The Mini-Break Part 3

Bust of Jan Matejko, Painter

To my surprise I received an email from someone impatiently waiting to hear about the Sunday of our  mini-break in Kraków. That was encouraging, so I will consult my travel journal.

Means

Sunday was a little stressful, actually, because I knew we would be squeezed for time between Mass and our flight back to Scotland, some of which would be taken up by me explaining to Polish security guards that B.A. can't go through metal detectors.

There are no shortage of Sunday masses in Kraków, which is probably the most devotional big Catholic city in Europe, if not the entire world, but B.A. insisted on going to the Traditional Latin Mass, and the only one before our flight was at 10:30 AM. According to my calculations, we had to catch the airport train at 12:07 PM.

However, I mapped out our morning to be as relaxed as possible. We had already pruned some belongings so as to fit my new books and "Red-is-Bad" white eagle shirt into our bags, and we checked out of the hotel at 8:40 AM. We took the enormous birthday bouquet of tulips to the Church of the Holy Cross, which was already open, and B.A. laid it on the Mary altar. People were coming in for the 9 AM Mass, and a recorded version of Lulajze Jezuniu  (a traditional Christmas carol) was playing softly through discreet speakers.

Beans

Then we headed back along the Old Market and down yet another mediaeval street to Szczepański Square and "Charlotte", which is a French-style hipster bakery, bistro and cafe. "Charlotte" is kitty-corner from the Szołayski House National Museum---I realise that that that is the second "SZ" in a row there, but bear with me.

(Polish SZ is not that scary--it's just like the "sh" sound in "shower." CZ is basically like the "ch" in "Charlotte." SZCZ is sh'ch. After two years of practise, you'll be able to say Szczepański and Szołayski in no time.)

Szczepański Square had a dozen or so big many-sided posters in its middle, celebrating the heroes of Polish Independence because 2018 is the 100th anniversary of the end of the Partitions. We had looked at them the night before; helpfully the captions were in English as well as Polish. So what really drew our eye that morning was the little crowd of 20-somethings patiently waiting outside "Charlotte" for the door to open. It opened on the dot of nine, and I was very happy we had been there in time to get a good table with a view of the Square, or at least of the bust of painter Jan Matejko looking across at the Szołayski House National Museum from his perch in the baroque facade of the "Palace of Art."

I was also very happy I had done my research and picked "Charlotte" for our pre-church destination because it was big and bright and hipstery, with walls painted white or left rough stone, a cathedral-ceiling, variated levels, and really, really good croissants. The music was French and nostalgic, by which I mean it was a mix of French 1960s pop,  French war-time and 1950s music hall songs, and French jazz. (The breakfast room at our hotel had played horrible cheesy American and British rock/R&B/whatever at a high volume, so after Friday morning, I avoided it except for coffee, which was bad.) The coffee at Charlotte was very good indeed.

It may have been sunny; yes, I think the sun came out and lit up the gold painted panels flanking Jan Matejko's head. Benedict Ambrose ate a plain croissant and read a copy of the Spectator; I hoovered an almond croissant, a piece of quiche and two cups of black coffee while watching the bistro fill up with twenty-somethings. Although some had big, travel backpacks, these were, for the most part, Polish-speaking twenty-somethings. There were also some married-with-children Polish twenty-somethings, either heading for tables downstairs or waiting in the queue for loaves of fresh French bread.

Teens

Kraków always strikes me as a city full of young people. This may be because of the universities, or because the young of the region flee there from their villages for work and variety, or because Poles of my generation had rather more children, and at a younger age, than my generation in general, and now these children are in their teens and twenties. Whatever the reason, they are a pleasant and cheerful sight, almost always slim and usually attractive. Well, the girls are usually attractive. The boys run the gamut; the Astrophysicist once sweepingly denounced his countrymen as ugly. You should hear what he said about English girls in Plymouth, though. Ouch.

Church

After an hour or so, we headed back to the Church of the Holy Cross, hoping to find a coveted back pew so as to slip out early, if necessary, for our train. Ha, ha, ha. When we got there, we saw people, and their baby carriages, crowding in the door and when we jostled our own way in, we saw that the church was packed and that the only seats available were ancient wooden boxes on the sides of the nave or up in the very mediaeval choir section between the High Altar and the communion rail.  B.A. objected to not being able to see the altar---"Or there's no point!" he hissed heretically--and so we ended up on two chairs set up in the aisle between choir stalls.

I was wearing my faux-bear fur hat, as everyone could see, so I jammed it further down my big head so as to take up as little of the view as possible. There were no mantillas in the choir stall; Continental  Trads are not as wedded to mantillas or even hats-for-women-at-Mass as women in English-speaking countries are. The younger men were wearing suits (or, in case B.A. objects to this word--jackets and trousers that may or may not have matched) and ties and looked keen and a bit ferocious.

In a country where over 90% are Catholics, of whom 40% of go to Sunday Mass*,  and the priests and bishops largely orthodox, strict, and (as far as I've seen) straight-looking, it takes a Very Special Kind of Person to go to Traditional Latin Mass in Poland. I think I overheard on Friday night that the vast majority of young men to go to the TLM are hyper-patriots or, not to put a fine point on it, "alt-right", but I highly doubt there has been a scientific study done.

Anyway, the TLM at the Church of the Holy Cross was said by a friendly- and fatherly-looking Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter priest in his late forties. The choir led hymns instead of singing the propers, which disappointed stickler B.A. There was a very lovely Christmas tree, even though the purple vestments alerted us to the fact that it was Septuagesima, and the priest highlighted the contrast in his homily. At least, I think he did.  He definitely commented on how nice and homey the Christmas decorations all over Krakow were, and he definitely talked about our fallen state and  warfare of some kind.

TLM enthusiasts will be interested to know that there was no incense, both the Epistle and Gospel were read aloud in Polish after they were announced in Latin, and there was no Second Confiteor.

I was grateful for that shortcut because time really started speeding up after the homily. I had planned our exit for 11:30 AM, but we were trapped behind the communion rail, and B.A. refused to budge until the last communicant had received. I was in agony of fear lest we miss our train, miss our plane, and generally have a financial disaster. Originally we were supposed to fly home on Sunday night, but RyanAir upped and cancelled hundreds of thousands of flights last autumn, and after getting a partial refund out of them, I had to book EasyJet's 1:30 PM.

However, when we left at 11:40 AM, eyes cast down to the floor to avoid the curious gaze of Polish Trads, I discovered that it didn't take as long as I thought to walk to the railway station, and when we found the platform, a man on it told B.A. we could buy tickets on-board.

Lurch

Unfortunately, I was down to our last 15 zl in cash, and tickets came to 18 zl, so I really should have ignored Mr. Excuse to Speak English and found a ticket machine. For, to my utter humiliation and horror, when the young ticket collector came by, we discovered she did not take credit or debit cards.

For some reason, I found this unbearably humiliating and promptly forgot how to speak Polish, and as the now extremely uncomfortable and irritated ticket collector sat down across from us, waiting for me to come up with the 3 zl (i.e. 75 p) we didn't have, a kind-hearted duo of Polish women on the other side of the aisle voluntarily paid them. I found this so unbearably humiliating that I wanted to DIE. Even now I have to remind myself that although in 1990 everyone was painting their Easter eggs with the juice of onion skins, nowadays Poles of working age usually have a few zlotys to throw around, even to bail out foreign morons. B.A. smiled and said "Dziękuję" a lot as I descended into a black and wordless gloom.

Delight

Anyway, we got to the airport in plenty of time, and I managed to make my special speech about B.A.'s "tube in brain" and not to take it amiss when the security guard, after asking me if my husband spoke Polish, switched to English to address B.A. directly. One of my spiritual/psychological goals on this trip was not to be disappointed whenever Poles switched to English, and so I never was. That said, outside of hotel staff, most Poles I spoke to were happy to stick to Polish.

And that is that, except that when I got through Passport Control--the border guard successfully suppressing a smile when he asked me what I had been doing in Poland and I said I liked Poland very much--I found Benedict Ambrose in an animated conversation with Polish Pretend Daughter and French Pretend Son-in-Law. They had been visiting her mother for a week.

Our Flight

On the airplane, we had more good luck, for there was no-one in our window seat, and so I slid into it to continue reading Siostrzeniec Czarodzieja (The Magician's Nephew) and The Art of Travel. The same noisy drunk British woman whose laugh had so irritated B.A. on the way over was also on our flight, but perhaps she didn't drink this time, for I never noticed her.

*If 40 36.7% Mass attendance sounds low for Polish Catholics, you should know that of the 15% of the residents of Scotland who are Catholic, only 19% of them go to Sunday Mass. This is about the same figure for English-speaking Catholics in Canada; I won't depress you with the numbers for French-Canadians.