I’m the worst and haven’t had the chance to update this thing until now, Christmas in Budapest. I’m still recovering from Berlin and Krakow, but Budapest is debatably the craziest. But LET’S JOURNEY BACK to Krakow!
My first day in Krakow I was so pooped that I didn’t do a whole lot other than watch some Bojack Horseman and wash my laundry in the sink because traveling is glamorous. I did go out for dinner with a couple American girls in my room, which was really nice. I had AMAZING pierogi, which are by the way one of my favorite foods and not a thing you can just get anywhere. After that, it was time to start drinking. And this hostel has a bar inside and basically just gets you drunk for free. You have a free beer from like 9-9:30, and then 10-11 is “power hour;” this means that you can just drink for free, until the pub crawl starts essentially. But even before 10 we were playing drinking games and they just provide all the alcohol.
My hostel was lovely: it wasn’t too big, and as it was so close to Christmas it was also pretty empty. It was fun, intimate, and I know that I want to return someday.
I did have one unfortunate incident: we were playing Kings- actually, a weird version of it where the rules are already on the cards. Late in the game, I drew the dreaded King’s Cup card, meaning I had to down the entire giant drink in the middle of the table that was a mixture of everyone else’s drinks. I started to, and then the guy that went next pulled a blank card. Apparently in this version that means they have to do a nudie run, which is exactly what you would think it is. I joked that I would rather have drawn that card than the one I had, and half offered to trade him. And then suddenly he agreed and nobody would let me change my mind and so that happened. It was definitely an experience!
I also somehow ended up never paying for the pub crawl, and I just got free drinks and shots everywhere, so I spent actually no money at all that night even though I got hammered. The clubs were super fun, and I’m so glad I went even though I was totally exhausted. Had a good time with a staff member which didn’t hurt.
In the morning I had a reservation to go to Auschwitz, but I’m a moron and didn’t realize how long it actually takes to get there via public transit (2.5 hours ughhh.) I was pooped anyway, and just decided to book a tour through the hostel for the next day which would pick me up directly at the hostel in a car, save me over an hour of travel time, and I’ll get to listen to a tour guide instead of doing everything on my own.
After breakfast, I went into my room for a quick nap and some reading time- but while I was there the worst thing I could ever imagine happened: I saw a bedbug crawling across my sheet. Oh. Fuck. I knew it was a bedbug because I unfortunately know too well what bedbugs look like at different stages of their lives. I stuck it in a baggie, brought it to the front desk and was like HEY GUYS, I HAVE SOME BAD NEWS. They were super great about it though: they did all my laundry, moved me to a new room, and were checking the entire area to see if they could find anything else. That was literally the only one we could find, and I didn’t have any bites on me or anything, so hopefully I’m not carrying any around with me. All of this still ate up a decent portion of my day, which would have been fine except I really wanted to sleep. OH WELL.
I finally got myself out the door to walk around, but I froze my ass off because most of my layers were getting washed. I did manage to find a really nice restaurant that I had read about on the lovely internet that we have for the time being, where I got more pierogi (because that is all I plan on eating while I’m here) and some potato pancakes. I actually ordered two entrees because I’m a fatass, and a half liter of beer because I’m an alcoholic, and all this cost under $15USD. Ridiculous.
That evening, it was time to go out again. I knew I couldn’t party as hard as the night before because I’m an old lady, so I paced myself way better. I also actually paid for the pub crawl this time (which like, wasn’t a lot of money. This is Poland. I’m rich here.)
The pub crawl was fun, but certainly didn’t pass without incident. I had a run-in with a dickbag guy who was also on the crawl who wore his shirt half unbuttoned. I have this bad habit of being friendly to everyone, and sometimes it bites me in the ass. We were at one of the clubs and there were a group of us sitting in a smoking area- me and about six guys, half of them staff. And this jerk. WELL. He starts telling me this story (I think possibly to get a rise out of me. I don’t know. Men are poop.) about how he said something super inappropriate to these girls and couldn’t figure out why it upset them. So me being me, I try to educate him, not in an accusatory way, just like hey, this is why you shouldn’t talk like that. And he gets SUPER DEFENSIVE. We argue for a minute or two, and it finally gets to the point where I’m like okay, whatever, read some feminist literature (he did NOT like that) and tried to change the subject. At this point he starts getting aggressive. So I ignore him and talk to the other guy next to me. And then he like stands up and starts yelling, and all the guys come to my defense. I got shepherded downstairs by one of them while the asshole calls my friends racist and everyone is like standing up and it got a bit scary. But again, most people at hostels (and I think everywhere) are good and decent and take care of each other. Every single one of the guys in the next five minutes came and checked on me, and they made sure I was never alone the rest of the night. Which was great, but I also hate that I need to have a guy with me to feel safe. What’s up with that. He tried to talk to me a few other times throughout the night and I just ignored him/told him to fuck off/was led away by one of the other guys.
I come to find out a bit later that they had been watching this guy from the moment he came in: he had been kicked out of a hostel in another city, and they wouldn’t even let him check in here, but the pub crawl is technically a public event so there was only so much they could do about that. He will probably now be blacklisted at a bunch of hostels now. I’m just glad I had good friends.
Anyway, the rest of the night aside from that was a good time. Had night numero dos with the same guy which was good, and didn’t sleep nearly enough before my tour to Auschwitz.
Going to Auschwitz was…I don’t even know. There is really nothing to say about it, and yet so much. We had basically a private tour – there were only five of us, which made it easier to absorb everything that had happened. We started in Auschwitz I, which is a smaller camp and had been made into more of a museum; there is an entire giant display of human hair. One of children’s shoes. The most difficult part for me was walking through the gas chamber there. Just…there aren’t words for how horrible, so I’m not going to try. We then went to Auschwitz II, which is the big death camp. The place where the train just took hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths.
It’s so unbelievable that this all happened only 75 years ago. How, how, can people do that to each other? And I can only hope that more people will soon realize that this CAN happen again if we continue on our path of fear and hatred. There is so much more that I want to say, but I don’t know how to say it.
That night, I had to catch a bus back to Budapest. However, in my travels, I’ve gotten more and more complacent about getting places on time, and I didn’t give myself a whole lot of extra time to get there. I had the brilliant idea to take a “shortcut” through the mall, and ended up getting entirely lost. I had to ask about six people how to get to the station, and I still didn’t know where it was ten minutes before departure time. WHOOPS. But. Somehow, between desperation, sprinting with my backpack on, and nice people directing me, I found it and boarded with approximately one minute to spare. Never. Again.
Quick side note: my biggest accomplishment in Poland was most definitely not taking out any cash at all. My ATM card is being a little bitch, so I’m having to use my backup ATM card that charges insane ATM fees on top of foreign transaction fees, which I’m not too crazy about. So since I’m only here a couple days, I tried to get away without taking out cash, and I’ve SUCCEEDED! The worst part is never having change to use public toilets, but such is life.
It was an overnight bus that arrived at 6am; I was glad I had already gotten slightly accustomed to the public transportation in Budapest because I was way too tired to walk all the way there. I crashed in my bed at about 7am, slept until noon, and greeted old friends and met new ones for a couple hours waiting for our food. They cooked us an incredible Christmas Eve dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, and all the other Christmas Eve-y foods. It is so nice to be somewhere that feels like family when you can’t be home with yours.
After dinner, it was time to head to a sister hostel for drinking…for the rest of the night. Because the hostel was closed, we were literally locked out until one of the staff members decided they were done and came back. It didn’t end up being a problem though. It was all you can drink, but they were really smart and only provided beer, gross wine, and premixed vodka soda, which was NOT VERY ALCOHOLIC. Therefore, you needed to drink a LOT of this, and you remained incredibly hydrated all night. I probably peed about 25 times; I’m literally not exaggerating. They also fed us a couple times, which was smart. Thumbs up, guys.
I also learned how to play flip pong, which is exactly what it sounds like: a combo of beer pong and flip cup. It’s very intense and I’m very bad at it, but it’s fast paced and I’m competitive and had a lot of fun playing it anyway. Unfortunately, when you lose by three cups or more which definitely happened to me one time, you have to straight arm one of the cups of beer. I therefore ended up completely missing my mouth (because it’s impossible) and pouring beer all over myself yayyyy.
All in all, it was a pretty solid night. Had fun with one of my roommates and stayed out until late. And now it’s Christmas and we’re gonna drink and eat ALL the things!