Chicago's Polish Have Nothing on This

After Auschwitz we went back to Krakow to explore a bit before our night train to Prague. While Krakow was a relatively nice city—it’s really not much to write home about. What caught my attention was the deep cut left by the Soviets. The architecture was Soviet. The block and angled government signs, most of which were peeling or falling a part, smelled of Russians. The spoiled, overgrown infrastructure, rude service, non-descript shops and sunken sulked eyes of the people were all remains of Soviet life. The Jewish quarter was large and interesting to explore, with several large cemeteries. However, otherwise, the cheap food was the only other thing that really intrigued me. Maybe Warsaw will be a bit more fascinating.

Yet, right before we got onto our train to go back to Prague; we wanted to get rid of our Polish coins and decided to buy some pretzel like bread. We went up to a grey haired lady selling the rolls. Put our money on the counter, knowing we could only buy one roll. She took all our money and gave us a single roll. I was confused, maybe she didn’t understand my Ukrainian or… I was too fast to judge. Instead she gave us two more rolls. It was lovely!

So with a happy feeling about the Polish people, we hauled back to the train and found a compartment with three other people into which we could crash. One blonde haired woman in her late 30s was curled up, taking half of a bench up; next to her a red haired lady sat making dagger eyes at the rest of us. Next to me sat a small student from Mexico, carrying a backpack nearly three times his size. And we were on our way, drifting in and out of sleep. In the middle of our trip, Hans left to go to another compartment—only to return because the other passengers were creepy. The red haired lady also abandoned us mid-way—leaving Hans a half bench area now (and me too!).

As we were nearing our way to Prague, I’m dozing off a bit and all of a sudden I hear a half-bark yelp a see a figure jar out of the corner of my eye. I get up to see if someone’s hurt to meet eyes with the blonde haired woman whose eyes have now exploded to the size of ping-pong balls and the Mexican boy who looked a little scared. Then I look at Hans who looks around, acting innocent. Hans had a dream—and yelled during that dream, quite loudly and woke everyone up. I tried not to laugh. But that’s what happens when you sleep on trains.

Once we got to Prague we sneaked into Aditi’s hostel for showers and were off for another day of exploring the city. After all that exploration, we headed to the airport since check in was at 4 in the morning and transportation doesn’t run that early. This was the night of the 19^th.

So, yes, I was sitting in Prague’s airport--smelling, tired, wearing clothing seeped in sweat when I got out my half-eaten bottle of generic brand Nutella, and the three of us each had our plastic knives, which we each collected on various dares from Prague shops. Hans took out some bread and Aditi looked up to the huge neon red clock and gave me a gleeful “Happy Birthday!” It was beyond amazing! I was a very, very, very happy 21 year-old, celebrating her birthday in an airport.

It was great.

However, the story of course never ends there. There’s a really funny story about napping on the seats in the airport and me leaving for a minute and someone stealing my seat. Yet, if you would like to hear that story—ask me in person and I will be more than glad to tell you. You’ll laugh. I promise.