Jenni & Joe
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Prague, Czech Republic (continued)
Monday, August 6
For once, we wake up at a reasonable time in the morning - Absinthe, get thee behind me! We gather up a considerable pile of clothes deemed dirty and head to a well-hidden laundromat a short walk away. Another woman named Taylor is there also doing laundry. She's from California and has just arrived in Prague and found a mini-apartment for about $10 a night, and is sharing it with two Italian guys. Taylor's stay in Europe was supposed to be a visit with her boyfriend in Rome. But when she got to the train station and called to let him know she's arrived, they had a long talk and wound up breaking up over the phone! So Taylor found a well of strength and decided to make the stay in Europe her own - and came to Prague. We feel lucky to have met her. We talk a short while with Taylor and another young man from Ireland who mumbles then finish our laundry.. On the way back to the hostel, we take a detour through a park to stretch our knotted-up bodies in the shade of a twisted tree. If we come across a cheap masseuse….

After a quick argument about our inherent differences, we part ways for a breather and run some errands. Jenni heads to the seamstress who has repaired the zipper on her pants, and Joe makes train reservations for the overnight trip to Krakow in a couple of days. We get first class (!) which means the chances are good of showing up in Krakow rested and ready for the day at 5:45AM. We meet up at Bohemian Bagel with hearts having grown fonder for each other, get a quick bite to eat and proceed to upload the Web site and check mails. Afterwards, weary-eyed from the dimly-lit Internet room, we stop off for some ice cream, then make our way to some unusual late-night entertainment: a live sex show. A man who convinced us it might be interesting handed us the pamphlet last night. Plus the admission was cheaper than other places and we were ready for something besides Charles Bridge. Almost as interesting as the show isthe chat we have with the proprietor. He is a very savvy erotica businessman with an interesting view of life after Communism. See Prague Extras for more about him.

Tuesday, August 7
Today is Jenni and Joe time. We sleep late and enjoy a day off from sightseeing. We wander into Bohemian Bagels (again!) and run into Taylor and chat! We also fire off some e-mails and relax. Taylor joins us for dinner at a scrumptious Vegetarian restaurant and later for a few drinks and a few laughs. We wish Taylor all the best in her European adventure and especially in her quest for "the good life" back home.

Wednesday, August 8
Last day in Prague. We check out of the Strawberry Hostel and leave our packs there for later, then decide to go our separate ways for awhile. Jenni needs to buy some of that Bohemian Crystal at rock-bottom prices. The stores will ship the crystal for you, but at a 40% profit, so Jenni decides to package it up herself and mail it from the main post office. Prague has a unique system for customers in the post office, and luckily Jenni saw a "How to Use the Post Office" section in the latest Prague Post, a weekly English newspaper. The process in itself took over an hour, and some Americans said they've heard of theft within the Postal System…so who knows if the box makes it home!

Joe wanders off to browse and chat with people. He meets a Czech guy who was involved in the demonstrations in 1989 that led to the fall of Czechoslovakia's Communist leadership. The guy is in his early 30's; a clerk in an "ethnic" music store (that sells everything from Indian to Gypsy to Native American music). His eyes light up as he tells the story of being thrown in prison but released a few days later just in time to watch Prague celebrate its freedom from Communism. He says he immediately left Czechoslovakia and went traveling. He comes back home to Prague to earn a little money for a few months, and then off goes again. He usually hitchhikes, he says, and easily gets rides everywhere he wants to go, especially the further east he ventures. He has lived in China, Southern India and all over Europe since the "changes" as they call the fall. He now plays down his involvement in the protests as not very important, but I think history will show that it was the brave people like this guy who risked their lives to stand up and shout down their totalitarian leaders that made the most impact on the fall of Communism.

We both show up at the decided-upon meeting time, but apparently we did not specify the meeting place clearly enough. Joe meant "Bo's" as in our favorite eating place, Bohemian Bagel…and Jenni thought he meant under "Bo", Joe's nickname for his favorite character on the Hus statue in the Square. Needless to say, we worried about each other for more than an hour. Next stop: a movie house. From an ad on the back of a men's room door, Joe saw an ad for a movie store that carries unusual, independent, and just plain hard-to-find movies, so we go and see what they have. We are on a hunt for a particular movie: a DVD copy of Schindler's List since we're headed to Krakow next, where the movie was made. They don't have Schindler's List, but they do have "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", a movie set during the Prague Spring of 1968. AND, this place is more than just a rental house - they also have a private theater with couches and cushions that you can use to watch the videos! It's a great concept, so we rent the theater out, gather some potato chips and a bottle of wine from the store next door, and watch a beautiful, moving story that made us both cry and be thankful for each other. It's a long movie, but if you ever have the time and inclination to watch a gorgeous film, rent "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"!

After the movie, we gulp down quick hotdogs in the square (for a $1!) and haul butt to the hostel to pick up our packs, then race to the train station. But, of course, race is a relative word. We can only "race" as fast as the metros will carry us, which seems very slow when you're up against the clock! We make it to our train with three minutes to spare, and revel in the luxury of a first class sleeper with our own sink in the cabin!

Krakow, Poland
Thursday, August 9
First day in Krakow Poland! Our train is delayed at the border for 90 minutes, so we arrive at a decent hour now - around 7:15AM. We paid for space at the Strawberry Hostel here in advance (the same company as the hostel in Prague), so we just find the Hostel hawkers at the train station and they give us a bus ride to the hostel. True to form, the lobby of the place is packed with people just like us (thank goodness for advance reservations!) so we dump our bags in the luggage room until the room is ready and make our way down to Rynek Glowny, the main square. We eat a splurge breakfast for $10 in one of the touristy cafes surrounding the square and watch the city wake up. When the Tourist Information office opens, we meet a simply wonderful staffer named Joanna who not only answers our questions, but also offers up additional information that really gets us excited about the city. Sleep was fitful on the train last night, so a nap is definitely in order.

Refreshed, we find our way to the Jewish Quarter, where a concert of Jewish music (that's a violin player in the photo) is taking place at a famous restaurant we found thanks to a tip from Joanna!. We eat egg salad, soup with matzo balls, and a local dessert, washing everything down with a glass of Polish vodka. Joe doesn't particularly care for his vodka, so Jenni, having found a well-hidden taste for vodka, finishes his up and has another. It's a wonderful, listening to violin music by candlelight, reveling in the feeling of a vodka-warmed throat and belly. Joanna is there, so we say 'hi' on our way out and catch the attention of an American-Polish family at the next table. The mother and father are from Poland and now live in the US, and their gifted kids, Victor (11) and Kat (21?) are simply wonderful. We chatted with them for rest of the night, and slowly sipped a glass of bison grass vodka (spicy) with apple juice (tasty!) We break our taxi rule and catch a cab back to the hostel for about $2.50.

Friday, August 10
It's rainy this morning, but we have made plans to meet Kat and her family at Wawel (pronounces Vah-vel) Castle at 11:00. Magically, the skies cleared every time we were outside, but grew wet again when we were indoors. The Polish gods must like us, from all the vodka we drank the night before! We never did meet up with the family, but we have Kat's e-mail address. Hopefully we can see them again before they leave Krakow. We are still on the quest to find the DVD copy of Schindler's List, and we are told we have to rent it from a huge video store far away from downtown. So we go. It's so easy to rent movies at home in Houston, but in Krakow going to the video store is an adventure! After figuring out the bus system, we hop on and make our way to a distant suburb, only to be told that Europe does not have the rights to distribute the movie on DVD - it's only available on videotape (we're looking for DVD because then we can play the disc on our laptop computer). Oh well. After a quick lunch at McDonald's (it was cheap and convenient) we get back to town and come across a fun little portable amusement park with some sort of jumping rides - you get strapped into a harness which allows you to do flips and such on a trampoline. Jenni wants to do it, but we are told it's "only for Polish people". It's probably some sort of phone company scam aimed at Polish residents. All day, along the way we are in search of Internet cafes. The ones we find have such utterly slow connections that we can't even get to Hotmail.com within 10 minutes, so each time we don't end up paying. Tired of restaurants, we stop by a grocery store on the way home and get the makings for dinner, breakfast, and lunch tomorrow - all for $15! We are tired, despite the relatively easy day, so we go to bed early.

Saturday, August 11
The skies are clear today, which is good news…we are going to see Auschwitz and Birkenau, two of the most infamous concentration camps in Europe. It's a 6-hour ordeal, and we come back subdued. We make our way from the drop-off point past the old remnants of the city wall, and have hot chocolate and coffee in Rynek Glowny, watching the kids play with hordes of pigeons. As night falls around 8:00, we can see just a sliver of a glorious sunset. The street musicians come out, and we spend several hours watching (and tipping) them all. Later we go barhopping; visiting all the cool places the guidebooks recommend and meet up with a hodge-podge group of travelers from England, Australia and Japan. Joe hooks up with them for more partying while Jenni calls her college friend Joanna to say Happy Birthday.

Sunday, August 12
We sleep late today, rising in time to go to the grocery store for a picnic lunch by a pretty, but probably fetid, little pond and fountain. Lunch is kiolbasa (Polish sausage), cheese, bread, some terrific mustard, and chips. After lunch, we head to the train station to make couchette reservations for tomorrow night, and Jenni catches the bus to go tour the 1000-year-old Wieliczka Salt Mines. Joe stays behind to nap and check e-mail. We meet back up at 6:00, take a nap (Joe's second of the day!) Joe eventually goes off to the grocery store for dinner and meets a traveling couple at the store. They're college classmates in England. He's from Sweden and she's from Manchester, England. We have a long talk until the "store nazi" tells us we have to move along and out of the way of the regular customers. Another lady yells at us too. Maybe they didn't like our smiles. Anyway, we exchange e-mails, then Joe fries up come kiolbasa sausage for dinner. After we eat, Jenni works on the Web site while Joe goes down the hall to listen to the guitar players have a jam session. Then it's off to bed at around midnight.

Monday, August 13 Laundry time. We drop off our clothes at a laundromat at a nearby college dorm, then work on the Web site while watching European MTV. It turns out Marshall Mathers (Slim Shady) is allowed to cuss in the European version. We eat a fantastic traditional Polish lunch: Joe has the mushroom soup, followed by roast pork and Jenni has potato soup, followed by roast chicken. Very spicy and very delicious! Then we go to an ice cream place and order a giant sundae recommended by the guidebook. In the late afternoon, we take off for Nova Huto, a former Soviet steel factory and polluted community that is legendary in its fight for a Catholic church as well as its struggle against communism. It takes hours to accomplish this tour because, as we go out of the tourist areas, we get lost and we find very few people who speak English. That makes it very difficult to ask directions. But, we must say, people are very helpful. We take back what we said about those little old ladies who keep pushing us out of line at the grocery store. It turns out they have also gone out of their ways to point us in the right direction! Afterwards, we go back and pick up our laundry, pick up our backpacks and head back downtown. After a few last photos, we head for an Internet cafe and try to upload the site. After trying for an hour-and-a-half, we give up. Either the server in Houston is down or the ftp program was having probems on the local machine. We'll just have to try it tomorrow. We've got a train to catch to Budapest. At the train, Jenni manages to upgrade our cabin to 1st class. What that means is we still have a train that has bunk beds for six people, but now we don't have to share the cabin with anyone else. We hope that will make for a smooth ride to Hungary.