My Krakow trip turned into everything that can go wrong went wrong. I had my side trip worked out. Fly to Milan on day 3, amazing ticket at la Scala booked, next morning see “The Last Supper.” I am wearing my tuxedo on the plane. I might look absurd, but who cares? I have a backpack with a change of clothes for after the opera.
Then I landed in Krakow. I took a taxi to my apartment, and then I figured out it was 57 steps to my apartment. Lesson learned.
I was hungry, so I did a phone search for food. “Pierogi bar .3 kilometers away? YES!”
I found a fantastic little pierogi joint near my apartment. A plate of peirogis was about $3, so I figured they were small. I ordered 2 of them and a beer. That was a lot of food, but the whole thing was less than $10.
While I sat for my first Polish meal, it started raining, and then it went sideways and got really cold. I did my lollygagging to wait it out. Nope. After 90 minutes of sipping on my beer I had to make it back home. The damage was done. Walking home in the wet cold rain knocked me on my butt. I was sick. Milan flight was out of the question.
Fortunately, I brought some of those Zicam swabs. I was good to go in 48 hours, but missed my trip to Milan. But, who cares? I am in the middle of Krakow! (I would like to use the Polish terms as much as possible, but that is a really complicated language.)
I could not take any pictures inside of Wawel Castle or any of the churches in Poland. At the time I was disappointed, but now I don’t really care. I took a ton of pictures in Italy and have never looked at them.
And finally, I had breakfast at the outdoor seating restaurants on the main square. I was peacefully reading the newspaper on my table and a few feet away from me there were about a dozen guys from the U.K. who were there for a stag party. Near the end of my breakfast the waitress brought me a beer and a shot of some surprisingly delicious cherry vodka. It was sent over by the bachelor party. Next thing you know I’m with them for a couple of hours. We hit a couple of bars, but I had to call it quits. When we were walking toward a strip bar I snuck away and went home. I am just too old for that now. And guess who I ran into the next day? Yup, and they really called me out for bailing on them. The one thing I learned about the Welsh, Irish, Scots and Brits—when they get drunk I cannot understand them. It was like trying to decipher a foreign language filled with slang I had never heard before.
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