Getting Drunk In Poland.

The train from Berlin to Krakow was quite a haunting experience. It stopped just before crossing the border; all of the German train employees alighted, and were replaced with their Polish counterparts. For the first time, I was dealing with officials who spoke no English, and even my stilted German was incomprehensible to these stern, lifeless creatures. After crossing the border, three guards in soldiers uniforms collected our passports, to ensure we were valid, and to offer us their stamp of approval. Being on the train from Germany to Poland, and harassed by passport-stamping officials, made me feel quite awkward, like a dark moment in history being hideously echoed for my benefit.

I'm sorry to play the Jew card, but Krakow itself is quite amazing for it, being a haven of relics and museums dedicated to between-war Judaism. I will go exploring at some point, but for the moment have been enjoying the city. It is quite an amazing place, with men dressed as beer bottles handing fake money to children. A quartet of accordionists were seated in the market square, playing Flight Of The Bumblebee at full speed. The destitution which is so visible around me has its most fascinating representation in the amount of people employed to stand on street corners handying out flyers, a job only given in Australia to backpackers in exchange for free accommodation. Unemployment is so rife here that entrepreneurialism is a must - every pavement has a local selling home-baked bagels for 1 Polish Zlotny (45 cents). One girl made her own matches, and sold them from the middle of a small alley.

Poland is the first country I've been to where there are actually real people who don't speak English. I know, it's amazing. I tried to order pierogi last night, exlaiming, 'No! No ham!'

Then I arrived at the hilariously-named Ars Hostel. I paid for my stay and was shown to my door. Barely had I dropped my bag that I was asked if I were 'going out tonight', and told that the entire hostel was meeting at reception at 9.30pm. I walked down, and was immediately offered a shot of sweet-tasting Polish vodka in a plastic cup. And then another. And then another.

Occupants of the Ars Hostel

We walked briskly to a local nightclub, where I met the hostel owner. He asked where I was from, and when I told him, said 'Heaven!' No, he didn't think Adelaide was a place of a glorious afterlife; he simply recalled the nightclub. I had to be the one to tell him that it no longer exists, and that something equally awful has been established in its place. He then bought me a beer.

It was good, and cost $3.30 per pint. So I had another. And then another. I danced on a platform to, of all things, Johnny O'Keefe. (Played somewhere in the middle of Eurotrash techno). I talked to Assad about his taste in girls, and then left at just the right time when a girl quite to his taste approached us. I was supposed to meet up with him this morning, but when I woke he was nowhere to be found. When Irene, a San Francisco auditor on a short holiday, decided to go home, I thought it was my time to go.

But like every night in Europe, last night didn't quite feel complete without Erica. So, as you doubtlessly read two blog posts earlier, I allowed myself one drunken phone call, from my mobile on the streets of Krakow at 1am.

And it was after hearing Erica's voice that getting drunk in Poland began to seem like a good idea after all.