Poland, part the third

After the Auschwitz experience none of us felt like doing much, but after a little nap and a gigantic four-course Polish meal courtesy of the hotel we were feeling a little better, and we all headed into downtown Krakow to check out the Polish nightlife. We ended up at a club that Marcin recommended. Can't remember the name, started with an S I think, but it was quite the place. It was exactly what you'd expect an Eastern European club to be like: full of smoke, riddled with labyrinthine corridors, rickety as hell, and completely packed with tons of people dressed in strange fashions and speaking all sorts of languages. The entire thing was spread out over four or five floors, with multiple bars and dance floors on each level, and....you get the idea.

Europeans party a lot harder than pretty much everybody else in the entire world. In the United States bars close at one or two in the morning, three at the latest, but here the bars and clubs don't close until everybody leaves. So weekend (and weekday) revelers typically head out into the night around midnight or so and stay out until about 7 or 8 in the morning. Given the extreme northern latitude of both Germany and Poland, the sun rises around 4:30 in the morning during the summer, so while it's almost unthinkable to stay out until sunrise in the USA, by the time you leave a bar in Europe the sun is already halfway in the sky. So, to make a long story short, all of the people in that damn place were absolutely nuts and completely out of control. I -stank- of cigarette smoke and Polish beer in the morning, and by the time we left at the modest hour of 2:30 fresh newcomers were still arriving. Michael Jackson had died earlier that day, too, so the DJ's put on a couple Michale Jackson songs every half hour or so, which was actually a lot of fun; everybody stopped what they were doing every time to sing along and dance.

The next day we took a tour of Wawel Castle with Marcin, about a 10-minute walk from downtown, and then we had the rest of the day to ourselves before dinner and the train ride back. Not much else to report there: shopping, hanging out, dinner, etc..

One of the most interesting things I noticed about the Poles is that they're all very proud of their country. Marcin would go off on big tangents while giving his tours about how big and powerful Poland used to be during its heyday, and why its on it's way back to greatness as we speak. The tour guide we had for Auschwitz was also very notably patriotic and a little defensive about Poland's history. It was interesting to see that after having lived in Germany for a few weeks, where the national sentiment can be summed up as, "Well, we really REALLY messed up from about 1939 to 1989, let's acknowledge that over and over and promise never to do it again." Their national pride didn't seem strange or out of place, either; all of the Poles love their country, and that's completely normal. You have to be a little stupid to love America completely without considering the cons with the pros, but that blind, patriotic ignorance wasn't present with the Poles we met. It was just a fact of their society.

Another extremely interesting point that Marcin made is that Poland never had a sexual revolution. Being part of the USSR, religion wasn't allowed in Poland, and so during the 60's Poland experienced a Catholic revolution instead of a sexual revolution. It seems odd, but I can see the same thing happening in the United States; from one angle religion can seem like a limiting of personal freedom, but if something that is very important to a lot of people is outlawed, then it makes sense to fight to get it back. While the younger generation is less religious than their parents, Poland is still a very Catholic country. They love John Paul the 2nd there (world's first Polish Pope); there were plaques and commemorations and big photos and John Paul paraphernalia all over the place.

I also felt a little bad about how much English I ended up seeing and hearing in Poland. Granted, English is obviously the definitive international language, but even so, I don't think it should take precedence over a country's national language. While we were walking around the town square on the first day we caught a performance by a children's choir. They all looked to be about middle school aged, and were affiliated with some church or another. The choir sang nothing but American pop songs, and between songs the director would talk to the crowd in English, even though the majority of the crowd was Polish and the choir itself was Polish. It was certainly helpful for me, but I didn't like the cultural implications of the scene.