In Living Color

For about a year, Blogger hasn't let me post videos directly to my blog. I investigated moving to a different service, but the one I was interested in charged for video uploading, and that was not going to happen, so I stayed put and just didn't post videos. But after the accordion madness, something had to be done. I needed you to be able to see the accordion videos! To that end, I broke down and signed up with YouTube.

If I've marked everything correctly, you won't be able to comment on the videos on YouTube, nor will they come up in a search. People are rude and ignorant when commenting on that site, and I don't want to have to deal with that; the videos are only going on there since Google Video is kaput. So I know the videos are poor quality, often shaky, blah blah blah. Most of them were taken on a digital camera (although a few were done with my mom's camcorder), and I have problems holding still. It's not necessary for you to tell me these things.

Now I'm going to post some of the videos that I would have done in the past had I had the ability. First up is the bus tour of Kraków from last July, at a dizzying quadruple speed.

Next, what Tisovec looks like from the fourth floor of the hotel.

Here are the bells from York Minster.

And finally some head-butting sheeps.

The Long Way Home

I would like to begin by requesting we all pretend that I actually posted this in a timely fashion, not some two months after it all happened.

At the end of June, my parents came out to Tisovec to escort me home for the summer, and we wandered around the area for a little before we left. We went to the SNP Museum in Bystrica, and Bojnice Castle, and then when we left Tisovec we drove north to Kraków, then to Moravský Krumlov in the Czech Republic, and down to Vienna, from whence we flew home.

on the way up to Poland

these two dudes look like the Abbott and Costello of Polish carriage drivers

In Kraków we took a hop-on-hop-off bus tour, and I'd show you the cool video of driving around the city, except Blogger doesn't want me to upload videos anymore. We stayed in Kazimierz, the Jewish district, about a block from the Tempel Synagogue, and we happened to arrive on the last day of the Jewish Culture Festival. That night Matisyahu played an acoustic show at the synagogue, which we could hear from our room. That was cool. There are some videos of the show on Youtube that are better quality, but this one shows some of the interior of the synagogue best.

When we arrived in Moravský Krumlov, about half an hour from Brno, my dad asked why he'd driven out to the back end of beyond. On the map it doesn't look like that bad of a drive, but it kind of is. There's really not much interesting about the town itself. The interesting thing shouldn't even be there. The chateau in Moravský Krumlov houses the Slav Epic, a series of paintings by renowned Art Nouveau artist Alfons Mucha (which is not, in fact, pronounced "Moo-cow," as we called him). Mucha was born in the nearby village of Ivančice. He wanted the Slav Epic to be in Prague, and the government was supposed to find or build a home for the paintings there by this year, but so far that hasn't happened. The chateau isn't a bad site for hosting exhibitions, but it's out of the way and needs to be fixed up. I was concerned about the paintings from a conservation point of view, because although there were barometers about and the exhibit is only open during the summer, it gets humid there, and these paintings really need to be protected.

The Slav Epic consists of 20 huge paintings that tell the story of the Slavic people. Photography was forbidden in the exhibit, the which stricture I actually followed this time; but there is no way photographs do justice to these pictures. They are really amazing. As my mom said, the style is reminiscent of Maxfield Parrish, another artist the commercial use of whose works often seems to overshadow his artistic talent, and Andrew Wyeth. The colors Mucha used are amazing, the size of the canvases is staggering, and the composition is untraditional but effective. It may be out of the way and take a while to get to, but it's totally worth it to go. I really hope the Czech government does right by Mucha's genius and passion and gets it the home it deserves in his native country.

Just north of the Czech-Austrian border is a town called Mikulov. We stopped at the Tesco there to buy some final Kofola and Studentskas before heading into Austria. From the Tesco we could see in the near distance an island of an old town rising above the fields and the newer parts of Mikulov.

The old town of Mikulov is very pretty and well-preserved. It's kind of like a Disney version of a late-medieval/Renaissance town. That probably sounds denigratory, though I don't mean it to be. Somehow--and this could have been more to do with me and when we visited than with the place itself--Mikulov didn't seem like an authentic old town. It had a slightly surreal quality in some way. This is not to say that I didn't like it. If I ever find myself in that area again I'd like to go back, because Mikulov had a significant Jewish community for nearly 500 years, beginning in the 15th century. One can visit the former ghetto, and there is an old cemetery that is supposed to be really cool.

Here's a view of the borderlands from the grounds of the chateau.

I may have mentioned before that even though Slovakia and the Czech Republic border Austria, there is a definite difference between the countries in terms of the divide between Western and Central Europe. The obvious difference is in signage, but there is often a different feel to the areas as well. And then there is visible, tangible evidence:Those crazy Austrians, with their sustainable energy sources.

When we got to Vienna and checked in to our hotel, we went into the center and looked in St. Stephen's and then ate dinner and I had an Almdudler and saw a woman in a kilt playing the bagpipes near the plague column. Then I had the least uncomfortable flights I can ever remember and then we went home and watched all three Jason Bourne movies within the first 48 hours we were back.

Road Trip

In an attempt to be less verbose, I will now write only one sentence where I otherwise would have written a whole paragraph.

Last weekend Bear and I rented a car so that we could go explore northeastern Slovakia.

On Friday afternoon we stopped at Krásna Hôrka, but sadly, there was no trebuchet; I think they did away with it because it was falling apart.We spent the night at a friend's flat in Košice and learned that you can't take your pistol into Tesco.On Saturday morning we stopped in Prešov and I bought a sweet Slovak baseball cap at Tesco to be my new driving cap, and we walked around the old town and I ate ice cream.I saw two vehicles that were imported from North America: a GMC truck with a Canadian (Ontario) license plate and a Dodge SUV with a New Jersey plate.

At an Orthodox church in Stropkov we were offered spring water that we drank from plastic neon smiley-face cups tied to the spigot.Andy Warhol's mother was born in Slovakia, and there is a museum dedicated to Warhol and modern art in Medzilaborce.Our reason for going to the northeast was to visit tripartite Greek Catholic wooden churches, of which we saw the exteriors of five (Potoky, Hunkovce, Korejovce, Príkra, and Bodružal) and went into four more (Ladomírová, Krajné Čierno, Nižný Komarník, and Miroľa).The Dukla Pass, on the border between Slovakia and Poland, was the site of a month of hard fighting between the Soviets and their allies and the Nazis in 1944, and there is now a memorial to the battle there.And since the Dukla Pass is on the border, we went into Poland for the heck of it.
On the way home we passed through Bardejov and stopped to have a look at the charming old town square, with its cathedral dedicated to St Egidius and its Renaissance town hall.When I was getting in the car, I was mindful not to spill any ice cream on the seat; and while I didn't spill, I managed to stick my delicious chocolate-orange scoop into the upholstery on the top of the door frame (I also managed to get it clean again).

Back in Bystrica, we got the car washed and returned it, then had to take the bus back, which was lame after having experienced the sweet freedom of the open road.

Poland Update

Two of my friends are teaching in Poland this year, and one of them has written about the situation there following the recent tragedy. Rather than try to say anything about the subject myself, I'll direct you to her posts, which are here and here. Poland is, in the words of one of my friends, a tough old horse. She's been through a lot, but I think she'll survive this, and I think the country and her people have the strength to survive more.

So Close and Yet So Far

Last weekend was a three-day weekend at the end of our first semester. I've wanted to go to Kraków for a while, and it seemed like a good time to go. On Friday after school I and two of my friends left Tisovec for our first stop, which was Cieszyn, Poland. There are two American teachers at the school there, and they kindly allowed us to stay with them overnight. We left Tisovec around noon and our train got to Český Těšín in the Czech Republic shortly after 7. From there we walked into Poland. As we crossed the border, which is more or less the middle of the Olza River, we did the classic standing-in-two-countries-at-once thing. Our friends greeted us in Cieszyn with fajitas and real American brownies and a drink made with vodka and apple juice.

Here follows a brief digression about vodka. If you're going to be in Central Europe, especially in someplace like Poland that is renowned for its vodka, you should probably sample it--in moderation, of course, because nobody likes a drunk tourist. In fact, most of us really dislike drunk tourists, so don't be an idiot. Anyway, the apple juice and vodka concoction is properly made with a kind of vodka called Żubrówka, which I tend to call "buffalo vodka," because the English name is really bison grass vodka. Żubrówka is made using grass that bison (żubr) like to eat. I for one did not even know that there were bison running around Poland these days. True żubrówka is not available in the US, although the internet says you can get a version of it there.

On Saturday morning we left Cieszyn for Kraków, although we ended up leaving one of our number behind. M didn't feel well as we were getting ready, and decided not to try to sit on a bus for three hours. I felt bad leaving her with a mysterious malady, but there was really nothing we could do, so H and I went on. (M went home on Sunday afternoon, and feels better now.) Unfortunately, that meant going without the one of us who had actually been to Poland before, but we managed okay.

One of the challenges or obstacles in my mind was the difference between Slovak and Polish. Even though I don't know much Slovak, I am well able to say "I don't understand" and "I don't speak Slovak," and I feel secure in a way when I don't understand Slovak. But other languages are a different story. When I don't understand in another language, I can't always say that I don't understand, which is difficult. You'd think Polish would be closer to Slovak than it is, because it's in the same family, but you would, of course, be wrong. For example, tak means "so" in Slovak but "yes" in Polish. There are some things that are close, but just different enough to mess you up. Polish also uses some special characters that Slovak doesn't have. The Slovak ž is Polish ż, and there are some vowels with the little hooky thing,* which, according to Character Map, is an ogonek. I wasn't able to master the proper Polish pronunciation of "thank you," dziękuję. It's funny what a difference knowing one little phrase like "thank you" makes.

We got to Kraków around 12:30 and went to our hostel. It was pretty close to the train and bus stations. We actually stayed in a three-bed private room around the corner from the main hostel. It was much quieter than the main place was, and we enjoyed not having to share a room and being able to lock our stuff in safely. (Second sidebar: When we checked in, the helpful young man at the hostel gave us a map and told us some places to go. The map was one of the City Spy maps, which are aimed at young'uns and therefore have an irreverent view of their cities. In this particular map, my favorite piece of advice was, "If you happen to meet A LOT of ladies dressed up, [sic] as penguins then be nice. They are nuns, devoted to God & in no mood to put up with your shit!!" I'm thinking of adopting "Devoted to God and in no mood to put up with your shit" as my personal motto.)

After we'd dropped our things off, we went looking for sights. Just opposite the hostel was a park with the only remaining part of the city walls. The barbican, or barbakan in Polish, and St. Florian's Gate are all that's left of the walls. The Florian Gate, pictured at right, leads into the Old Town area of the city. Florianska, the street that begins at the gate, goes straight to the main square. The Cloth Hall, the basilica, and the town hall tower are all in the main square. Of course the Cloth Hall is being renovated and was covered in scaffolding. Inside there are souvenir and craft stalls, and apparently on the second floor there's something else, but we were there late enough in the afternoon that that was all closed. You can ascend the town hall tower to overlook the city, and I believe there's an exhibit inside there as well. I was most interested in St. Mary's Basilica, and gladly paid even the fee for photography inside. I think the most striking thing about the interior was the ceiling, which is a vibrant blue and decorated with stars. Part of me immediately thought of Grand Central when I looked at the ceiling.

When I was younger we had a book called The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly. It was probably the first time I'd ever heard of Kraków. The book is based on the legend that a city watch trumpeter was sounding the alarm that the city was about to be attacked by Tatars when he was shot in the throat, abruptly ending the tune. Every hour a trumpeter plays the hejnał from the taller tower of the basilica, once to each direction. Each time the hejnał ends with the "broken note." I wasn't able to get a video during the day, because I just missed it a few times, but the following two videos are of the hejnał on Saturday and Sunday nights, respectively. (I know the first one has a bit of nothing at the beginning, but when I tried to trim the video, the quality got even worse, if you can believe that worse quality is possible.) The two videos show that they are indeed real people playing and not just a recording.




When we left the basilica we continued toward the Wisła River, wandering into some of the many churches we passed. There are lots and lots of churches of all different sizes and styles in Kraków. The vast majority of them seem to be Catholic churches--we only passed one that I noticed was Protestant. For some reason, all of the churches still had their Christmas decorations up. There was also a large Christmas tree in a square near the Franciscan church. (We didn't get a chance to go in that church, which is too bad, because it has some stained glass windows designed by Stanisław Wyspiański that are supposed to be really cool.) This was a bit confusing, as we were there at the very end of January. Like I said, it just wasn't just one church that was a little behind, either; it was all of them. Are there any Polish people out there who can shed some light on this situation for me?

Let me tell you how much the Poles in Kraków love Jan Paweł II. The last pope lived in the city for about 16 years. There's a statue of him outside the cathedral (above), a bronze relief on the side of the basilica, they mentioned him during Mass, and there are multiple vending machines where you can buy a John Paul II medal. The first one I noticed was in the ticket office for the basilica; I saw it and thought immediately of the machines that press pennies back home. This was so much more, though. They were proper vending machines, where you insert 7 złoty and receive a hefty gold-colored coin with the pope's profile on one side and the papal seal on the other. I always really liked John Paul, and I still call him "the pope." I feel bad for Benedict, because that must be a tough act to follow. Anyhow, I admired John Paul, because he refused to be part of the oppression and genocide of Jews before and during World War II, and he also stood up to the Communist Party. The motto of the John Paul II Centre is Nie lękajcie się!--Do not be afraid! That motto also appears on the medals. I had a brief moment of doubt as to whether buying a medal with the pope on it was idolatrous at all, but I decided it couldn't be too bad, and bought one anyway.

On Sunday, as I mentioned earlier, we went to Mass at the cathedral. The cathedral is amusing from the outside because, as you can see in the picture, there are a variety of different styles existing together. And they're all kind of squished in together, too (that's the technical architectural term, "squished in"). When we arrived for Mass, a pair of young men wearing very official capes were waiting at the door. Their job was clearly to make sure that no tourists were sneaking in free under the guise of attending the service. They heard us talking, and as we went in one of them asked if we were there for worship, to which we both replied in the affirmative. He was incredulous, but let us in. It was not entirely dissimilar to church here in Tisovec: both places were cold, and I only understood some of what was going on. The cathedral had a bishop and a good organist and a male choir, though, the latter two of which we really enjoyed.

After Mass we walked around Wawel a bit, but didn't really check out any of the exhibits. The river was frozen but for a few patches, and we saw a crowd gathered at the side, so we wandered that way to see what was going on. A group of truly brave people were doing a walrus plunge kind of thing. Now yes, I did a penguin plunge in March 2006, but the air temperature was significantly warmer, and while there was snow on the ground, there was no actual ice in the water. I am nowhere near hardcore enough to jump into the Wisła in January.

We made our way to Kazimierz, the Jewish quarter, where we had lunch. Observe my true Polish pierogi. It's possible that my father might have disowned me had I not eaten pierogi while I was there.
Once we'd finished our lunch, we didn't really want to leave the cafe, because it was wicked cold outside. But leave we did, and continued on to the Remuh Synagogue. It's a small synagogue in the process of being renovated, but by entering it you also get into the cemetery. The inside of the wall around the cemetery is made up of tombstones that were destroyed during the war. We also visited the Tempel (Progressive) Synagogue, which is much larger and in a Moorish style. It was similar to the Spanish Synagogue in Prague, in that the style was completely incongruous with the area's natural decorative style. What's the word for an anachronism, but in space, rather than time? Because that's what those synagogues are.
Kraków is also blessed with a really nice mall. I was so close to buying a mortar and pestle there, among other things. Something that I've experienced fairly often in Europe is the feeling of being overwhelmed at malls. In Portugal I couldn't stand being in the malls for very long, and even Aupark in Bratislava can be too much for me. I was fully expecting to be overwhelmed by the Kraków Galeria, but was pleasantly surprised not to be. Say what you will about consumerism and capitalism, malls are really handy. And they had good ice cream.

Our last experience was to visit a bar mleczny. In English these places are called "milk bars." They're basically cafeterias left over from the Communist era where you order from a super-cheap menu. The guidebooks all say that you ought to visit a milk bar because real Polish people eat there, not just tourists. While we were eating dinner, an old guy came in and got four glasses of hot water, to which he added his own teabags. I got potato pancakes and gulas, and H got a pork steak with potatoes and beets. Each meal was about $5. It was by no means haute cuisine, but I enjoyed it. It was hot and filling and cheap and great.

The only thing we had to do on Monday was make it on the train at 7:35. We made that one and all our subsequent connections without a hitch and got back home by 5. I keep thinking that Kraków wasn't what I expected it to be like, but then again, I couldn't really say what I did expect it to be like.

*I may have described bacteria as "tiny little germ guys" to 3A1 this week. They were rather amused, and in fact quoted me back to myself shortly thereafter. In my defense, it's not as if I was explaining a completely new concept.