Well, things are certainly speeding up now that the weather is good and we've had some time to feel out our travel buddies and plans. As always there's much to tell. I'll update a bit and make another more detailed post when i have time (when i go back to boring america). I'll explain my encounter with the Polish medical system in this post.
I got my friend Anna to take me to the doctor way back when my leg was infected. I was really dreading it, but actually with anna's help it was no worse than a trip to urgent care back home, with one exception. I went to the international student office to ask their recommendation where I could go and Ursula made a few calls and told me I could go to a place at 2pm when the doctor would be available and that somebody from the office could go with me. So I came back later and a nice young lady from the office went with me. The inside of the building looked really communist. Very institutional, old, bad colors, weird lighting. I don't really know how to describe it. We found the reception and they had us wait a while. Eventually somebody who worked there walked by and started talking to my interpreter friend for nearly 10 minutes. Then she turned to me and said "sorry, you will have to come back tomorrow before 12 to see the doctor." I was pondering how the hell so many words can be summarized so tersely.
The next day anna came with me. I didn't wanna fuck around so I whipped out my US passport to the receptionist the first chance I got. Apparently it helped because later anna told me it was much easier for me to see the doctor than she had ever seen. I walked up a lot of stairs and waited around in the hallway for 15 minutes to see the doctor. I took off my pants, she poked my wound asked two questions (through anna, which was a little awkward) as a nurse bandaged it then sat down to write a lot of things. It turns out that she gave me 4 prescriptions with some rather cryptic dosage instructions and told me to come back in a week. At the pharmacy down stairs I got 2 antibiotic pills and two ointments. They were just in a box like an OTC, and the pharmacist (after my request) wrote on the box with a pen a '1 x 2' or '1 x 3' apparently indicating the dose, but it still didn't seem so obvious if it meant 1 pill twice per day or once per day you take 2 pills. It turned out I had to take 1 pill every 12 hours, another pill every 24 hours, put on one cream in the morning and afternoon, and a different ointment every night. The night ointment was awful. I'm pretty sure it was a tube of tar. Four fucking medicines seemed a bit much. Back home I would have received one prescription I'm pretty sure. A few weeks later when i managed to get some internet access, I checked to see what the prescriptions were. One of the creams isn't approved for use in the US because it is essentially useless (resistance). Polish people are generally hypochondriacs and ask for a lot of medicines fairly often.
The next week on my appointment I took off my pants again and she looked at it and wrote me another prescription for one of the same pills and told me to come back again in 10 days. Goddammit! I was greatly improved and I didn't think i needed more antibiotics but it's important so i played along. The pills had given me some harsh diarrhea. After a few more days I got a horrible sore throat and my tongue turned black. It was a great pain to swallow. I was pretty scared, but then i vaguely remembered from microbiology class that 'hairy black tongue' was a side effect or long term antibiotic use. I was pretty angry. My leg seemed fine and it was really hell to live with this throat problem so i quit taking the pills and didn't go back to the doctor for my next appointment. After shitting hot snakes for about 3 weeks (NOT FUN) my bowels finally sorted themselves out and now I feel better than ever (except when I'm hung over).
The whole shebang cost about 60 bucks and i think i will get reimbursed if i ever make the time to do the paperwork, so I'm not so much worse for the wear.
Maybe I can talk about my how i resolved my computer problem in the next post...or maybe how I lost my dorm deposit, that's a good story.
One last bit of what I've been up to, I went to Prague and Slovenia for 10 days. It was such a great trip. I was really surprised by how amazing Slovenia is. It helped that I had a super cool guide to introduce me to her family and friends. Then i took a road trip to Budapest with a few friends the next weekend. Unfortunately i broke my second camera in Budapest somehow. I still have some photos, but I've got a backlog on my flickr site. I just uploaded some pics from home base, Wroclaw. I gotta run now, I'm heading for that body of water between Finland and USSR. peace
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
It’s time for another bitchy post
Due to my internet issues this post is a few weeks old but was never published until now! There have been updates, especially to the part about the shit weather and my medical problems. Life has improved immensely since this post so don't feel sorry for me!
I swear Murphy’s Law is so much more intense in Poland than anywhere else in the world. Everything goes wrong, every day, all the time. Take a simple thing like going to class for example. My dormitory is not in a bad location, but not a particularly good one. There is no university campus, only buildings scattered about that you have courses in. Naturally, all of my courses are in bum fuck Egypt. It’s called Koszarowa (for the street), and it’s a former Red army camp in a really far away useless place. They must have chosen to rent these building because it was cheap. Furthermore, the university doesn’t have shuttles there, instead we use the public transport system. Ninety percent of the buses are noisy, rattling, shaky metal shit boxes. Only two per hour go from near my dorm to Koszarowa. It is always crowded and I often have to stand on the 30 minute trip. I had no idea which stop to get off at the first few times I went and got lost. I got off at the right stop and walked the wrong way, or I got off at the wrong stop. This is the middle of nowhere and there are no people in the street to ask. Sometimes the stop names aren’t labeled. Sometimes the stops are named differently on schedules posted in different locations. DAMMIT POLAND. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.
The first time I go to find a class I go early because I anticipate getting lost. I end up walking around in a desolate place with warehouse looking buildings and a field. I find another bus stop and wait for it. Eventually and miraculously I do make it to Koszarowa only fifteen minutes late. I consult the three print-outs I had received a week earlier from the international student office, which showed the schedule of courses offered in English. One sheet has the addresses of each course and the room number and instructor. But it says only the institute that offers it and the street, Koszarowa 3. This one address includes at least five large buildings inside the walled compound. Another sheet only says that it is courses for master students (which are the courses we take because they are in English), but it doesn’t say what department or what address. I found out they are all in Koszarowa also. You don’t have to enroll in courses, you just need to show up. I choose the building I think my course is in and search long and hard for room 205. This is difficult because numbers are not in order Poland. It can go 207, 212, 237, 215, 240, 220. Nonsense. I find the room and sit down. There are 6-8 girls speaking Polish and then an instructor arrives late and begins speaking some Polish junk that I don’t understand. I approach and show my schedule, asking if this is the right course. She talks to one of the students and then the student tells me, “other building.” I start the room search again in the next building. When I arrive there are a few other international students waiting outside the door. The motherfucking teacher never even showed up for class. All my time and frustration just for nothing.
I came back for another course the next day. The story is almost the same. Then the next week one of the instructors still doesn’t show up so my friends and I get angry and start asking around. They go to the front desk and the receptionist makes a call. It turns out one of our courses had changed the time to one hour later, yet nobody was informed. There is no fucking effort to communicate a goddamn thing in this place.
My roommate is the only foreign student studying physics in this university of 50+ thousand students. In the first two weeks of classes he has shown up for courses but the instructors never have. Naturally he gets a bit frustrated. He sent me the following text last week: “Mother fuckin poles. I had to wait two hours in between the lessons and nobody showed up. We r not gonna learn or study anything in this country.”
He is the only student in several of his classes, but he said it will be like an independent study.
Also, there is a policy that there must be at least five students in a course or it will be canceled. Because there is no enrollment process you have to wait a few weeks (we only have each course one day per week) to see how many people decide to attend for the semester before you even know if the course will take place. One of my instructors had to travel the second and fourth weeks of classes. We only had three people attend for the first and third week, so we will not decide if the course is to be canceled until the fifth week, but it looks probable. By the sixth week it is obviously too late to join another course to pick up the credits we need. What the hell are we supposed to do? On one of the days my class was canceled I went to check out another class offered at the same time to ask if maybe I could still join. Guess what? I show up at the time and place on the time schedule and there was a class going on in the room. I didn’t want to interrupt to ask what was going on, so I sulked home. I’m guessing they changed the time and/or location of that course also, without telling anybody. Typical Polish communication block.
Also, instructors tell us we can find the syllabus on the school website, which is in all Polish. One instructor told us he left a book on reserve in the library that we needed to photocopy a chapter from (they have 15 books in English). The library did not have the book. Another professor gives us handouts in class but never has enough for every student. GODDAMMIT POLAND.
Aside from this though, all of my Professors are incredibly smart, well-read, and give good lectures. They just exhibit Polish behaviors sometimes. I’ll elaborate a bit on how great the courses later, but this is a post for complaining not commending.
I waste 45 minutes each way to go to a class. That is equal to the time I spend in class. On Wednesday I have a course at 10 then another at 2, then my language course in the city center (far away) at 5pm. So my day goes like this: 9am drag my dead ass out of bed to drink a cheap energy drink and go to the bus stop for the 10am course, kill a few hours between classes, enjoy another good lecture, travel back to my dorm for a 30 minute stopover to make a sandwich, then on to language course, return home by 7 to fix dinner and then drink away my wasted life. Typical Wednesday. On Monday and Tuesday I only have one course so there is more time for cooking and drinking.
When we arrived we took a two week intensive Polish language course. Then they told us to meet on a certain day to take a placement test. We were all beginners and we know we need to take the beginning Polish course but still they told us to take the test. We went for the test and it was suuuper fuckin hard. It was for all people who were studying Polish. All of the beginners just looked at it and walked out except for one of my friends and me. The test administrator told us that if we couldn’t understand anything then we could go to room 25. I still took the test. It had some multiple choice along with the fill in the blank, listening section, and essay. Naturally, I finished quickly and went to room 25. They told me to go to the class with the native English speakers. There were about 20 in the class and most of them were friends of mine. I knew I could never learn a thing in this large group of friends. We just goof off, and a language course with more than 10 people is really bad. The next day I went to the office and asked to switch to another section. It was difficult to make them understand why I wanted to and they told me to wait two weeks and come back again to ask because the courses may have people drop out. I knew this was bullshit and I just left feeling defeated once again. The next week they posted the groups of the people who had taken the exam. I was in a different and smaller group than my friends. Hooray! They returned our test to us in the class. I got 24 out of 140. YEAAHHHH!!! The other students were a very strange mix. They were 2 older Spanish guys who I think have lived here for a while, a couple Indians who have lived here for 2 years, a German guy who has lived here for a while, a couple Chinese students who were here last semester, and an Indian girl who I want to punch. I want to punch her because she is a know-it-all who tries to answer every question. Also, she promptly corrects other students, and sometimes will answer questions directed to the teacher. But the class is really a good for me. It’s really challenging. After the first course though, our teacher had to travel for a week and a half (3 class periods!). We combined with another class. Shit, another huge class. I don’t get much attention and I’m totally lost, but I’m not about to be the asshole who slows it down for the whole group of 25.
So that’s the school problems.
And the weather is always shit here. I’ve never lived in a place where the weather was so consistently horrible for 3 months. There is an expression here that translates to something like (excuse the horrible translation) “March weather is a pot,” meaning that all different weather is thrown in and you never know what you will get. Today for example (Tuesday), there was sun in the morning (but very briefly), then hail, rain, sun (for a few minutes), then blizzard like conditions for half an hour, then cold cold wind. This is not an exaggeration. It cycles through EVERY type of weather in a very short period of time some days.
I think I have a staph infection in my leg. It’s killing me, really painful. I am so intimidated by the process of trying to find a Polish doctor. It will take a really long time, be really frustrating, and no English will be spoken. I’ve been trying to do a lot of favors for my Polish friend lately so she will help me out. I helped her move, I keep her supplied with chocolate and I’ve been teaching her loads of American idioms. She says she can go with me Friday, if I survive until then. First though, I need to print off my insurance card, but I have no printer and I just experienced a jump drive meltdown. DAMMIT. All the stress here has forced me to drink and swear like British sailor. I joke about these things with my English friend Emma, who has as much difficulty as me here. My personal favorite joke is (Background for the joke: Germans have a reputation for being super organized even to the point that one of the first phrases people who study German learn translates as “there must be order/organization”) so I say “I totally understand why the Germans wanted to take over Poland. All this chaos on their doorstep must really irritate them. Actually I wish the Germans would take it again so I could get some things accomplished.”
Like I said, Murphy’s law is the only thing I can count on in Poland. I’m afraid to get out of bed in the morning because I don’t want to know what will happen next. Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I really do enjoy it immensely here, but it can be so challenging.
I swear Murphy’s Law is so much more intense in Poland than anywhere else in the world. Everything goes wrong, every day, all the time. Take a simple thing like going to class for example. My dormitory is not in a bad location, but not a particularly good one. There is no university campus, only buildings scattered about that you have courses in. Naturally, all of my courses are in bum fuck Egypt. It’s called Koszarowa (for the street), and it’s a former Red army camp in a really far away useless place. They must have chosen to rent these building because it was cheap. Furthermore, the university doesn’t have shuttles there, instead we use the public transport system. Ninety percent of the buses are noisy, rattling, shaky metal shit boxes. Only two per hour go from near my dorm to Koszarowa. It is always crowded and I often have to stand on the 30 minute trip. I had no idea which stop to get off at the first few times I went and got lost. I got off at the right stop and walked the wrong way, or I got off at the wrong stop. This is the middle of nowhere and there are no people in the street to ask. Sometimes the stop names aren’t labeled. Sometimes the stops are named differently on schedules posted in different locations. DAMMIT POLAND. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.
The first time I go to find a class I go early because I anticipate getting lost. I end up walking around in a desolate place with warehouse looking buildings and a field. I find another bus stop and wait for it. Eventually and miraculously I do make it to Koszarowa only fifteen minutes late. I consult the three print-outs I had received a week earlier from the international student office, which showed the schedule of courses offered in English. One sheet has the addresses of each course and the room number and instructor. But it says only the institute that offers it and the street, Koszarowa 3. This one address includes at least five large buildings inside the walled compound. Another sheet only says that it is courses for master students (which are the courses we take because they are in English), but it doesn’t say what department or what address. I found out they are all in Koszarowa also. You don’t have to enroll in courses, you just need to show up. I choose the building I think my course is in and search long and hard for room 205. This is difficult because numbers are not in order Poland. It can go 207, 212, 237, 215, 240, 220. Nonsense. I find the room and sit down. There are 6-8 girls speaking Polish and then an instructor arrives late and begins speaking some Polish junk that I don’t understand. I approach and show my schedule, asking if this is the right course. She talks to one of the students and then the student tells me, “other building.” I start the room search again in the next building. When I arrive there are a few other international students waiting outside the door. The motherfucking teacher never even showed up for class. All my time and frustration just for nothing.
I came back for another course the next day. The story is almost the same. Then the next week one of the instructors still doesn’t show up so my friends and I get angry and start asking around. They go to the front desk and the receptionist makes a call. It turns out one of our courses had changed the time to one hour later, yet nobody was informed. There is no fucking effort to communicate a goddamn thing in this place.
My roommate is the only foreign student studying physics in this university of 50+ thousand students. In the first two weeks of classes he has shown up for courses but the instructors never have. Naturally he gets a bit frustrated. He sent me the following text last week: “Mother fuckin poles. I had to wait two hours in between the lessons and nobody showed up. We r not gonna learn or study anything in this country.”
He is the only student in several of his classes, but he said it will be like an independent study.
Also, there is a policy that there must be at least five students in a course or it will be canceled. Because there is no enrollment process you have to wait a few weeks (we only have each course one day per week) to see how many people decide to attend for the semester before you even know if the course will take place. One of my instructors had to travel the second and fourth weeks of classes. We only had three people attend for the first and third week, so we will not decide if the course is to be canceled until the fifth week, but it looks probable. By the sixth week it is obviously too late to join another course to pick up the credits we need. What the hell are we supposed to do? On one of the days my class was canceled I went to check out another class offered at the same time to ask if maybe I could still join. Guess what? I show up at the time and place on the time schedule and there was a class going on in the room. I didn’t want to interrupt to ask what was going on, so I sulked home. I’m guessing they changed the time and/or location of that course also, without telling anybody. Typical Polish communication block.
Also, instructors tell us we can find the syllabus on the school website, which is in all Polish. One instructor told us he left a book on reserve in the library that we needed to photocopy a chapter from (they have 15 books in English). The library did not have the book. Another professor gives us handouts in class but never has enough for every student. GODDAMMIT POLAND.
Aside from this though, all of my Professors are incredibly smart, well-read, and give good lectures. They just exhibit Polish behaviors sometimes. I’ll elaborate a bit on how great the courses later, but this is a post for complaining not commending.
I waste 45 minutes each way to go to a class. That is equal to the time I spend in class. On Wednesday I have a course at 10 then another at 2, then my language course in the city center (far away) at 5pm. So my day goes like this: 9am drag my dead ass out of bed to drink a cheap energy drink and go to the bus stop for the 10am course, kill a few hours between classes, enjoy another good lecture, travel back to my dorm for a 30 minute stopover to make a sandwich, then on to language course, return home by 7 to fix dinner and then drink away my wasted life. Typical Wednesday. On Monday and Tuesday I only have one course so there is more time for cooking and drinking.
When we arrived we took a two week intensive Polish language course. Then they told us to meet on a certain day to take a placement test. We were all beginners and we know we need to take the beginning Polish course but still they told us to take the test. We went for the test and it was suuuper fuckin hard. It was for all people who were studying Polish. All of the beginners just looked at it and walked out except for one of my friends and me. The test administrator told us that if we couldn’t understand anything then we could go to room 25. I still took the test. It had some multiple choice along with the fill in the blank, listening section, and essay. Naturally, I finished quickly and went to room 25. They told me to go to the class with the native English speakers. There were about 20 in the class and most of them were friends of mine. I knew I could never learn a thing in this large group of friends. We just goof off, and a language course with more than 10 people is really bad. The next day I went to the office and asked to switch to another section. It was difficult to make them understand why I wanted to and they told me to wait two weeks and come back again to ask because the courses may have people drop out. I knew this was bullshit and I just left feeling defeated once again. The next week they posted the groups of the people who had taken the exam. I was in a different and smaller group than my friends. Hooray! They returned our test to us in the class. I got 24 out of 140. YEAAHHHH!!! The other students were a very strange mix. They were 2 older Spanish guys who I think have lived here for a while, a couple Indians who have lived here for 2 years, a German guy who has lived here for a while, a couple Chinese students who were here last semester, and an Indian girl who I want to punch. I want to punch her because she is a know-it-all who tries to answer every question. Also, she promptly corrects other students, and sometimes will answer questions directed to the teacher. But the class is really a good for me. It’s really challenging. After the first course though, our teacher had to travel for a week and a half (3 class periods!). We combined with another class. Shit, another huge class. I don’t get much attention and I’m totally lost, but I’m not about to be the asshole who slows it down for the whole group of 25.
So that’s the school problems.
And the weather is always shit here. I’ve never lived in a place where the weather was so consistently horrible for 3 months. There is an expression here that translates to something like (excuse the horrible translation) “March weather is a pot,” meaning that all different weather is thrown in and you never know what you will get. Today for example (Tuesday), there was sun in the morning (but very briefly), then hail, rain, sun (for a few minutes), then blizzard like conditions for half an hour, then cold cold wind. This is not an exaggeration. It cycles through EVERY type of weather in a very short period of time some days.
I think I have a staph infection in my leg. It’s killing me, really painful. I am so intimidated by the process of trying to find a Polish doctor. It will take a really long time, be really frustrating, and no English will be spoken. I’ve been trying to do a lot of favors for my Polish friend lately so she will help me out. I helped her move, I keep her supplied with chocolate and I’ve been teaching her loads of American idioms. She says she can go with me Friday, if I survive until then. First though, I need to print off my insurance card, but I have no printer and I just experienced a jump drive meltdown. DAMMIT. All the stress here has forced me to drink and swear like British sailor. I joke about these things with my English friend Emma, who has as much difficulty as me here. My personal favorite joke is (Background for the joke: Germans have a reputation for being super organized even to the point that one of the first phrases people who study German learn translates as “there must be order/organization”) so I say “I totally understand why the Germans wanted to take over Poland. All this chaos on their doorstep must really irritate them. Actually I wish the Germans would take it again so I could get some things accomplished.”
Like I said, Murphy’s law is the only thing I can count on in Poland. I’m afraid to get out of bed in the morning because I don’t want to know what will happen next. Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I really do enjoy it immensely here, but it can be so challenging.
return from the black hole
I've got so much to tell since the last post. Firstly I must apologize for the long dead period, but I'm in Poland and these modern things such as Internet have been problematic for me here. But now I should have consistent Internet.
I've had complications of all sorts to tell about. The weather just got nice which absolutely transformed this city like nothing I've ever seen. It greatly improved my mood and optimism as well. Check back soon because I hope to catch up a bit before the Easter break. I've planned to go to Prague and then to Slovenia to my friend's home! yipee yayayayayayayayayaya!!!!!!!!!
I've had complications of all sorts to tell about. The weather just got nice which absolutely transformed this city like nothing I've ever seen. It greatly improved my mood and optimism as well. Check back soon because I hope to catch up a bit before the Easter break. I've planned to go to Prague and then to Slovenia to my friend's home! yipee yayayayayayayayayaya!!!!!!!!!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
I stole bowling shoes and slept on a bridge.
Sorry, maybe the title spoiled the ending, but still don’t you want to know how it happened? Somebody organized a three day ski trip to a place just across the Czech border about 3 hrs away. It was for students from several universities in Wroclaw, but mostly exchange students. I heard about it through the grapevine and managed to sign up. The communication network for everything is pitiful. Nobody bothers to tell anybody anything. There are very crude and sparse notifications through Facebook, a Yahoo! Groups email thing (which I don’t understand, but apparently you must have a Yahoo email account to subscribe), and word of mouth.
Anyway, I managed to get on the list and pay my money. For about $60 we had transportation and two nights stay in a decent hostel with breakfast included (but only before 9:30 as I found out). I knew it was a big group going, but after asking all my friends if they were going I discovered I only had one friend and another person I barely knew that were coming with me. Whoohoo! New friends!
I should take a pause here to discuss the level of Polish public drunkenness because I don’t know where else to bring it up. While waiting for the bus to leave at 6am I saw a guy stumbling around with a can of beer in his hand. Also, it is very common to see rough looking middle-aged guys on the tram drinking a beer in the morning or afternoon. I think Sunday afternoon is prime drunk time. While taking a walk one day I saw people stumbling around on three separate occasions within one hour. My favorite was three old men down by the river. One of them trips on the sidewalk, nearly falls down, shouts some obscenities, and then begins to piss on the edge of the sidewalk. Another good one was told to me by a friend who understands Polish. She said that early one morning on her way to class she walked by a couple old guys on the sidewalk passing a bottle of vodka back and forth as one of them mumbled (translated) “we drink sloooww.”
Back to the ski trip. I tried to sleep a little on the bus ride, but it didn’t work so well. Instead I mostly had chat and chocolate with my Polish friend Anna. Then we stopped at a money changer at the Czech border. I changed about 300 Polish Zlotys, which equals a bit less than $100, in return for around 1,800 Kc. I think they were called cronura or something. I didn’t worry about trying to do the math I just spent the money. Eighteen hundred, I felt filthy rich! I think our group was around 50-70 people, with many Spanish. I was the only American, which is always awesome. With so many people it took foooreeeeevvvveeeeerr to get all our bags from the bus and get checked in to the hostel. We had the entire place filled. In my room was a Spanish guy, Manuel, and two Belgians, Gil and Julian.
A German girl and I ditched the group in order to move faster. We were starving, for food and for snow. She was a good ski buddy because we had the same skill level, but the lift chat was a bit forced and awkward. It was great to be back on skis, but the conditions were no good. There was sooo much fog I couldn’t see 20 yards in some places. Also, it had warmed up a bit the previous week and the snow was all ice or slush. I skied till the lift closed regardless. We went out for dinner with a pretty large group so it took forever and we were all starving. It was worth it though because a friend told me to try a dish that was special to the Czech Republic. It’s called something like Smaczezny Sery, and it’s a big slab of fried cheese. It’s a little like a mozzarella stick, but it’s huge and more liquefied while remaining crusty and breaded on the outside. It approaches the maximum threshold of cheese that can be safely consumed in one sitting, and it’s absolutely genius. I even got into a friendly debate with Anna the Germ about the merit of this human achievement. My point was that the inventor was probably one of the few humans smarter than Einstein. Her argument was that it was probably some drunk guy that accidentally dropped a piece of cheese into hot oil. Also noteworthy is that this fried cheese is the only dish listed in the vegetarian section on the menu. I find this funny because all of my vegetarian friends are vegan and therefore don’t even eat dairy. That evening I was exhausted and took it easy, just chilling out and meeting some people in the hostel bar.
The next day I spent the whole day skiing. This time I found a new partner, Anna the Germ. She told me that Germans often make the mistake of calling themselves Germs instead of Germans and naturally the nickname stuck. She was a snowboarder and liked the same slopes as me, and she was much more fun to converse with on the lift. Again I skied till the lift stopped and my legs were exhausted. Tonight was party night though. First we split up into smaller groups for dinner. I went with my Polish friend Anna and it was a group of seven Polish people and me. Perfect! I’m trying pretty hard to learn Polish and Polish people love that I’m trying. Somewhere along the course of the meal I started speaking with a Borat accent. Borat, the character of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, says a few Polish words such as dzienkuje (thank you), bardzo mi milo (nice to meet you), and a couple others. Apparently Cohen has some Polish people in his family and drew from the language in creating his beloved character from Kazakhstan. Anyway, the people thought it was so funny when I spoke like that, so I couldn’t stop. Now I have this horrible habit that comes out sometimes, especially when I’m drinking. It is addictive and infectious. All of my friends trying to learn Polish immediately cover their ears and tell me to stop for fear of becoming infected with my fun accent, but the Polish people laugh.
We made pre-party number one with the Polish people at the hostel and they told all the jokes they knew. Even though it was in Polish and I only understood the bad words, they were quite funny, especially when they translated some of it for my sake. Then we went bowling with a huge group of people. It was great. I spent the rest of my Czech money on beer and bowled the worst game of my life. I’d rather not mention any numbers. Then the party moved to a club across the street. I went with the crowd and forgot to change my shoes. I was wearing tacky orange and black bowling shoes in Silver Rock Bar. It wasn’t long before my friends started pointing this out to me. They always laughed really hard, except the girl who organized the trip. She didn’t seem to be so entertained by my stupidity. She told me I have to go back right now to return the shoes because we (she) will get in trouble. I was busy shakin’ my groove thang so told her I would do it later, or tomorrow.
At one point I saw a guy I (not from our group) leave and shut the door hard, then another guy seated in a booth jumped over a chair and ran out the door to punch him in the face. The bouncer stopped it quickly and the guy who punched him came back inside and sat down like nothing had happened. A few minutes later the guy who was punched came in and shook the guy’s hand. Strange. They would be 86’ed (thrown out) at any place I’ve ever been at in the USA. Apparently it is pretty common for people in a club to scrap in this part of the world. There is a club called Alibi across the street from my dorm. On a weekend night, my friends say that you can just hang out on the balcony and watch fights. I’m yet to watch fight night.
We were out late. The music was bad. The place was full of muscled up meat-head looking Euro-douches so I was doing my best to encourage the others to go back to the hostel for afterparty festivities. Eventually we headed back, but first had to stop outside the front door to watch the entertainment. The front door was up a short steep slope from the street. The slope was a perfect sheet of unclimbable ice. We watched at least 3 people fall on their ass. Great fun. We took the side path, which was more level. After hanging out in the hall and finishing up our drink supplies we made it to bed. My alarm clock on my mobile phone works roughly 50 percent of the time, so I don’t always set it. I asked Polish Anna to wake me for breakfast at 9am. Instead she woke me at ten minutes till eleven, after breakfast was closed, to ask why I didn’t come to breakfast. Dammit. So I told her to let me sleep. She replied that we have to check out of the room by 11 or pay for another day. Double dammit. Our room was a smelly chaotic mess and I was tired. I put on my clothes and bowling shoes and threw all my shit into my pack. I’m ready. I took my satchel down to the dining room where everybody was piling all their things. Then I set out to find a bottle of water, because my mouth was dryer than the Gobi desert. You would be a fool think that it would be simple to find a bottle of water, as I was. In fact, there are no simple tasks in this part of the world.
The first place to check for anything you might want is a Kiosk. These are little shacks, usually green in color, where an old woman lives out her day selling a ridiculously wide range of goods from a space no bigger than a small closet. In the kiosk you can buy phone cards, tampons, random children’s toys, cleaning supplies, train tickets, magazines, snacks, postcards, stamps, and God only knows what else, but of course you have to know how to ask for whatever you want by name in the local language. These kiosks have windows but they are entirely covered with all the things that are stocked. There is only a tiny hole with a sliding window, at about the height of your belly button, where you can exchange words and money. I found a kiosk. It was not open. Every other building in town was a restaurant, ski shop, or hotel. Really, these are the only businesses here. I don’t want to go sit down at a restaurant to order a glass bottle of water that I cannot take away. I’m a man on the move dammit. I check a couple ski shops and hotel lobbies, but no bottled water or vending machines. I go to a tourist information office that sells a few knick-knacks. It even has a freezer full of ice cream. It’s the middle of fucking winter and I’ve not seen anybody walking around with an ice cream cone! Why do you sell ice cream but no water? Czech Republic seems to be a senseless as Poland.
I ask the tourist info receptionist where I can buy a bottle of water. She says “at the kiosk, but it’s Sunday and they aren’t open today (which I already found out).”
“Where is the nearest gas station?” I ask.
“Two kilometers, that way.”
“Thanks.” I leave. GRRRRR!.
I will not survive that walk without a drink of water. And these bowling shoes aren’t very comfortable for walking in anyway. I keep checking everywhere. The Internet café isn’t open. A little shop that sells lift tickets and a few souvenirs had Absinthe for Christ sake, but no water. I was tempted, but decided against it. Then I find a little shopping center and give it a try. It has a couple shops selling the same snow gear, both are closed. Then I lay my eyes upon the most beautiful sight of my journey. Asia Store convenience store. I think the name is strange, but then see that is run by an Asian family. Ahahaha. I saw another store a day or two before called Asia store and I thought it sold goods imported from Asia. Apparently in this town though, the Asians are the only people with enough business sense and work ethic to be open and sell necessary items on a Sunday. I buy a bottle of water and a bottle of Absinthe (a gift for friends of course, as Absinthe can be bought within Czech but few other places). It’s a pretty nice day and I decide it’s really not worth 50 bucks to me to spend another day skiing on the same slopes with such shitty snow. I chug my water and find a comfortable seat resting against the truss of a pedestrian bridge, overlooking a beautiful stream and mountains. I fell asleep. 20 minutes later the group of my Polish friends, who had been making fun of my shoes pretty steadily, happened to pass by. They laughed a lot and took a few pictures. One of them scolded me and told me to take them back now. I told them, “go away. I’ll do it later. I’m tired.”
In all honesty I was considering keeping the shoes. After all, if you read my previous post about my shoe problem then you have an idea what’s going through my head. In fact I was wearing the broken shit-shoes on this trip and I had one wet foot the entire time. Not fun.
I went back to my rest, then I got cold so I went to a restaurant for some more gooey melty fried cheesy goodness. Then I decided I had to return these damn shoes because this one girl who organized the trip was really bothered by my laziness in returning the shoes. I walked into the bar and snuck past the three people at the bar and into the back room where the four bowling lanes were. I looked around for my shoes, but they had cleaned up and taken them elsewhere. I knew had to ask the bartender who was talking to his two friends at the bar. I walked out slowly. They were all waiting for me to come around the corner staring at my feet…When they saw my bowling shoes they started laughing so hard they nearly fell to the floor. The bartender pointed to where my shoes were and I quickly changed them without saying a word and left.
Then I walked to the slopes to hang out at the outdoor bar. I tried spend the rest of my koruna on Jagermeister while waiting on the lifts to close for the day. Everybody was exhausted. I went for dinner with some of them, but had spent all my money. Then back to the hostel dining room where everybody’s stuff was strewn about with reckless abandon. It looked like a refugee camp. Then the buses came for us. It was a horrible 3 hour trip home. The bus was so hot and smelly. The road was so horrible it was like riding on a wooden rollercoaster and all I wanted to do was sleep. Impossible.
It was a great weekend.
Anyway, I managed to get on the list and pay my money. For about $60 we had transportation and two nights stay in a decent hostel with breakfast included (but only before 9:30 as I found out). I knew it was a big group going, but after asking all my friends if they were going I discovered I only had one friend and another person I barely knew that were coming with me. Whoohoo! New friends!
I should take a pause here to discuss the level of Polish public drunkenness because I don’t know where else to bring it up. While waiting for the bus to leave at 6am I saw a guy stumbling around with a can of beer in his hand. Also, it is very common to see rough looking middle-aged guys on the tram drinking a beer in the morning or afternoon. I think Sunday afternoon is prime drunk time. While taking a walk one day I saw people stumbling around on three separate occasions within one hour. My favorite was three old men down by the river. One of them trips on the sidewalk, nearly falls down, shouts some obscenities, and then begins to piss on the edge of the sidewalk. Another good one was told to me by a friend who understands Polish. She said that early one morning on her way to class she walked by a couple old guys on the sidewalk passing a bottle of vodka back and forth as one of them mumbled (translated) “we drink sloooww.”
Back to the ski trip. I tried to sleep a little on the bus ride, but it didn’t work so well. Instead I mostly had chat and chocolate with my Polish friend Anna. Then we stopped at a money changer at the Czech border. I changed about 300 Polish Zlotys, which equals a bit less than $100, in return for around 1,800 Kc. I think they were called cronura or something. I didn’t worry about trying to do the math I just spent the money. Eighteen hundred, I felt filthy rich! I think our group was around 50-70 people, with many Spanish. I was the only American, which is always awesome. With so many people it took foooreeeeevvvveeeeerr to get all our bags from the bus and get checked in to the hostel. We had the entire place filled. In my room was a Spanish guy, Manuel, and two Belgians, Gil and Julian.
A German girl and I ditched the group in order to move faster. We were starving, for food and for snow. She was a good ski buddy because we had the same skill level, but the lift chat was a bit forced and awkward. It was great to be back on skis, but the conditions were no good. There was sooo much fog I couldn’t see 20 yards in some places. Also, it had warmed up a bit the previous week and the snow was all ice or slush. I skied till the lift closed regardless. We went out for dinner with a pretty large group so it took forever and we were all starving. It was worth it though because a friend told me to try a dish that was special to the Czech Republic. It’s called something like Smaczezny Sery, and it’s a big slab of fried cheese. It’s a little like a mozzarella stick, but it’s huge and more liquefied while remaining crusty and breaded on the outside. It approaches the maximum threshold of cheese that can be safely consumed in one sitting, and it’s absolutely genius. I even got into a friendly debate with Anna the Germ about the merit of this human achievement. My point was that the inventor was probably one of the few humans smarter than Einstein. Her argument was that it was probably some drunk guy that accidentally dropped a piece of cheese into hot oil. Also noteworthy is that this fried cheese is the only dish listed in the vegetarian section on the menu. I find this funny because all of my vegetarian friends are vegan and therefore don’t even eat dairy. That evening I was exhausted and took it easy, just chilling out and meeting some people in the hostel bar.
The next day I spent the whole day skiing. This time I found a new partner, Anna the Germ. She told me that Germans often make the mistake of calling themselves Germs instead of Germans and naturally the nickname stuck. She was a snowboarder and liked the same slopes as me, and she was much more fun to converse with on the lift. Again I skied till the lift stopped and my legs were exhausted. Tonight was party night though. First we split up into smaller groups for dinner. I went with my Polish friend Anna and it was a group of seven Polish people and me. Perfect! I’m trying pretty hard to learn Polish and Polish people love that I’m trying. Somewhere along the course of the meal I started speaking with a Borat accent. Borat, the character of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, says a few Polish words such as dzienkuje (thank you), bardzo mi milo (nice to meet you), and a couple others. Apparently Cohen has some Polish people in his family and drew from the language in creating his beloved character from Kazakhstan. Anyway, the people thought it was so funny when I spoke like that, so I couldn’t stop. Now I have this horrible habit that comes out sometimes, especially when I’m drinking. It is addictive and infectious. All of my friends trying to learn Polish immediately cover their ears and tell me to stop for fear of becoming infected with my fun accent, but the Polish people laugh.
We made pre-party number one with the Polish people at the hostel and they told all the jokes they knew. Even though it was in Polish and I only understood the bad words, they were quite funny, especially when they translated some of it for my sake. Then we went bowling with a huge group of people. It was great. I spent the rest of my Czech money on beer and bowled the worst game of my life. I’d rather not mention any numbers. Then the party moved to a club across the street. I went with the crowd and forgot to change my shoes. I was wearing tacky orange and black bowling shoes in Silver Rock Bar. It wasn’t long before my friends started pointing this out to me. They always laughed really hard, except the girl who organized the trip. She didn’t seem to be so entertained by my stupidity. She told me I have to go back right now to return the shoes because we (she) will get in trouble. I was busy shakin’ my groove thang so told her I would do it later, or tomorrow.
At one point I saw a guy I (not from our group) leave and shut the door hard, then another guy seated in a booth jumped over a chair and ran out the door to punch him in the face. The bouncer stopped it quickly and the guy who punched him came back inside and sat down like nothing had happened. A few minutes later the guy who was punched came in and shook the guy’s hand. Strange. They would be 86’ed (thrown out) at any place I’ve ever been at in the USA. Apparently it is pretty common for people in a club to scrap in this part of the world. There is a club called Alibi across the street from my dorm. On a weekend night, my friends say that you can just hang out on the balcony and watch fights. I’m yet to watch fight night.
We were out late. The music was bad. The place was full of muscled up meat-head looking Euro-douches so I was doing my best to encourage the others to go back to the hostel for afterparty festivities. Eventually we headed back, but first had to stop outside the front door to watch the entertainment. The front door was up a short steep slope from the street. The slope was a perfect sheet of unclimbable ice. We watched at least 3 people fall on their ass. Great fun. We took the side path, which was more level. After hanging out in the hall and finishing up our drink supplies we made it to bed. My alarm clock on my mobile phone works roughly 50 percent of the time, so I don’t always set it. I asked Polish Anna to wake me for breakfast at 9am. Instead she woke me at ten minutes till eleven, after breakfast was closed, to ask why I didn’t come to breakfast. Dammit. So I told her to let me sleep. She replied that we have to check out of the room by 11 or pay for another day. Double dammit. Our room was a smelly chaotic mess and I was tired. I put on my clothes and bowling shoes and threw all my shit into my pack. I’m ready. I took my satchel down to the dining room where everybody was piling all their things. Then I set out to find a bottle of water, because my mouth was dryer than the Gobi desert. You would be a fool think that it would be simple to find a bottle of water, as I was. In fact, there are no simple tasks in this part of the world.
The first place to check for anything you might want is a Kiosk. These are little shacks, usually green in color, where an old woman lives out her day selling a ridiculously wide range of goods from a space no bigger than a small closet. In the kiosk you can buy phone cards, tampons, random children’s toys, cleaning supplies, train tickets, magazines, snacks, postcards, stamps, and God only knows what else, but of course you have to know how to ask for whatever you want by name in the local language. These kiosks have windows but they are entirely covered with all the things that are stocked. There is only a tiny hole with a sliding window, at about the height of your belly button, where you can exchange words and money. I found a kiosk. It was not open. Every other building in town was a restaurant, ski shop, or hotel. Really, these are the only businesses here. I don’t want to go sit down at a restaurant to order a glass bottle of water that I cannot take away. I’m a man on the move dammit. I check a couple ski shops and hotel lobbies, but no bottled water or vending machines. I go to a tourist information office that sells a few knick-knacks. It even has a freezer full of ice cream. It’s the middle of fucking winter and I’ve not seen anybody walking around with an ice cream cone! Why do you sell ice cream but no water? Czech Republic seems to be a senseless as Poland.
I ask the tourist info receptionist where I can buy a bottle of water. She says “at the kiosk, but it’s Sunday and they aren’t open today (which I already found out).”
“Where is the nearest gas station?” I ask.
“Two kilometers, that way.”
“Thanks.” I leave. GRRRRR!.
I will not survive that walk without a drink of water. And these bowling shoes aren’t very comfortable for walking in anyway. I keep checking everywhere. The Internet café isn’t open. A little shop that sells lift tickets and a few souvenirs had Absinthe for Christ sake, but no water. I was tempted, but decided against it. Then I find a little shopping center and give it a try. It has a couple shops selling the same snow gear, both are closed. Then I lay my eyes upon the most beautiful sight of my journey. Asia Store convenience store. I think the name is strange, but then see that is run by an Asian family. Ahahaha. I saw another store a day or two before called Asia store and I thought it sold goods imported from Asia. Apparently in this town though, the Asians are the only people with enough business sense and work ethic to be open and sell necessary items on a Sunday. I buy a bottle of water and a bottle of Absinthe (a gift for friends of course, as Absinthe can be bought within Czech but few other places). It’s a pretty nice day and I decide it’s really not worth 50 bucks to me to spend another day skiing on the same slopes with such shitty snow. I chug my water and find a comfortable seat resting against the truss of a pedestrian bridge, overlooking a beautiful stream and mountains. I fell asleep. 20 minutes later the group of my Polish friends, who had been making fun of my shoes pretty steadily, happened to pass by. They laughed a lot and took a few pictures. One of them scolded me and told me to take them back now. I told them, “go away. I’ll do it later. I’m tired.”
In all honesty I was considering keeping the shoes. After all, if you read my previous post about my shoe problem then you have an idea what’s going through my head. In fact I was wearing the broken shit-shoes on this trip and I had one wet foot the entire time. Not fun.
I went back to my rest, then I got cold so I went to a restaurant for some more gooey melty fried cheesy goodness. Then I decided I had to return these damn shoes because this one girl who organized the trip was really bothered by my laziness in returning the shoes. I walked into the bar and snuck past the three people at the bar and into the back room where the four bowling lanes were. I looked around for my shoes, but they had cleaned up and taken them elsewhere. I knew had to ask the bartender who was talking to his two friends at the bar. I walked out slowly. They were all waiting for me to come around the corner staring at my feet…When they saw my bowling shoes they started laughing so hard they nearly fell to the floor. The bartender pointed to where my shoes were and I quickly changed them without saying a word and left.
Then I walked to the slopes to hang out at the outdoor bar. I tried spend the rest of my koruna on Jagermeister while waiting on the lifts to close for the day. Everybody was exhausted. I went for dinner with some of them, but had spent all my money. Then back to the hostel dining room where everybody’s stuff was strewn about with reckless abandon. It looked like a refugee camp. Then the buses came for us. It was a horrible 3 hour trip home. The bus was so hot and smelly. The road was so horrible it was like riding on a wooden rollercoaster and all I wanted to do was sleep. Impossible.
It was a great weekend.
Friday, March 6, 2009
update
So if you're a regular reader then you may recall that I promised to share some of our inside jokes. Sorry, but you will have to wait. I think I have some more pressing posts about problems that arise in Poland. Seriously, everyday it is something. I am still in the stage where I can just laugh it off, but I think I may snap after a couple more months.
Also, I'm going on a ski trip to Czech Republic for the weekend. So czech back next week for more!
Do widzenia!
Also, I'm going on a ski trip to Czech Republic for the weekend. So czech back next week for more!
Do widzenia!
Don’t mess with Polish toilets
As I mentioned before, we had recently acquired a store of cleaning munitions. We had an old plastic toilet bowl freshener hanging on the edge of our bowl, but its freshening briquette was beyond used up. I set out to replace it! I didn’t think it would do any good hanging on the edge of the bowl above the water level, so I thought maybe I should put it in the tank. I thought I was being clever, but as usual I was not.
A Polish toilet typically has one big flusher button in the center of the tank lid, on the top of the flushing reservoir. Our dorm has especially cheap plastic tanks. I pried off the lid and heard a snap. Upon closer inspection of the lid, I found this to be the most asinine design for a toilet I’d ever come across. Thomas Crapper must be rolling over in his grave! The plunger is a straight pipe connected to the button, but is easily detachable. It lifts straight up and down during flushing action. There is another small, skinny, loose plastic piece with a hook end that is attached to the button. Apparently the hook attaches to a lever on the float, which is a plastic air-filled piece that runs vertically up and down on a plastic pole located at the side of the tank. The little hook-ended piece attaches to the float so that when the water is refilled and the float is back at its highest level, a lever pushes this plastic piece which returns the flushing button from the depressed position. I know the design well enough to draw up plans, take them to China and reverse engineer the toilet. But this would be stupid because the design is absolute stupid shit.
When I realized what an irreversible tragedy I had caused by removing the lid I aborted the original mission and set out simply to fix what I had broken. I spent a goddamn hour messing with the lid trying to put on the lid while simultaneously connecting two separate flimsy plastic pieces to the button. Impossible, I’ve only got 2 hands. You would need a remote controlled robot inside the tank, or possibly a small trained monkey to attach the pieces after the lid is replaced. The monkey would then drown itself as a result, and monkeys aren’t cheap. I tried only connecting the plunger, but then the button was stuck. I was late for meeting up with my friend. She came by and I had to explain to this pretty girl that she had to wait a few minutes, because I was busy playing in the toilet. I finally gave up, left the lid off and put up a note saying, “Stupid American broke the toilet. Remove and replace the plunger by hand for now. I’ll fix later.”
I went for a nice walk and lunch with my friend. When I returned I wanted to destroy the toilet. I could always defecate on the balcony if I had to. Instead I just pushed the lid back on with a snap and went to check my email. When I returned later to test it, miraculously, it worked! I will never remove a Polish toilet tank lid again, and I would advise you to do the same.
A Polish toilet typically has one big flusher button in the center of the tank lid, on the top of the flushing reservoir. Our dorm has especially cheap plastic tanks. I pried off the lid and heard a snap. Upon closer inspection of the lid, I found this to be the most asinine design for a toilet I’d ever come across. Thomas Crapper must be rolling over in his grave! The plunger is a straight pipe connected to the button, but is easily detachable. It lifts straight up and down during flushing action. There is another small, skinny, loose plastic piece with a hook end that is attached to the button. Apparently the hook attaches to a lever on the float, which is a plastic air-filled piece that runs vertically up and down on a plastic pole located at the side of the tank. The little hook-ended piece attaches to the float so that when the water is refilled and the float is back at its highest level, a lever pushes this plastic piece which returns the flushing button from the depressed position. I know the design well enough to draw up plans, take them to China and reverse engineer the toilet. But this would be stupid because the design is absolute stupid shit.
When I realized what an irreversible tragedy I had caused by removing the lid I aborted the original mission and set out simply to fix what I had broken. I spent a goddamn hour messing with the lid trying to put on the lid while simultaneously connecting two separate flimsy plastic pieces to the button. Impossible, I’ve only got 2 hands. You would need a remote controlled robot inside the tank, or possibly a small trained monkey to attach the pieces after the lid is replaced. The monkey would then drown itself as a result, and monkeys aren’t cheap. I tried only connecting the plunger, but then the button was stuck. I was late for meeting up with my friend. She came by and I had to explain to this pretty girl that she had to wait a few minutes, because I was busy playing in the toilet. I finally gave up, left the lid off and put up a note saying, “Stupid American broke the toilet. Remove and replace the plunger by hand for now. I’ll fix later.”
I went for a nice walk and lunch with my friend. When I returned I wanted to destroy the toilet. I could always defecate on the balcony if I had to. Instead I just pushed the lid back on with a snap and went to check my email. When I returned later to test it, miraculously, it worked! I will never remove a Polish toilet tank lid again, and I would advise you to do the same.
This building is strange pt. II – the demon hell scream!
One night at about 2am as I was sleeping like baby, I heard a quick loud crunch of static, then an blood curdling demon hell scream blasting in my room at about 130 decibels. I jumped up terrified, but it stopped and I fell back into my vegetative state. The next day I didn’t even remember this event until my friend Emma asked me, “Did you hear that horrible screech on the intercom in our rooms last night?”
“No, what are you talking about?” I reply.
“I came on in all the rooms last night at around 2am.”
A cold shiver runs down my back as I scream like a little girl. “AHHhhh. Yes, I remember that now!”
A few nights later there was a going away party for some Spanish guy in the common room on the 12th floor. Some of the people from the previous semester are leaving and they have parties. I have never met these people and will never see them again, but a party is a party so I am there. At around 11:30 they began heading out to catch the last tram to city center. This party was moving to the club, but I decided to go to bed. My throat was really sore and I wasn’t in the mood for going out. I get ready for bed and chat with my roommate for a bit, then around 1 or 2am I lay down and turn off the light. About 2 minutes later the intercom blasts, “UWAGA UWAGA,” some angry sounding Polish stuff, then in English “this is an emergency situation, you must leave the building now, do not take the elevators.” Then there is a horrible sound like a 1950’s ambulance siren. I’m wearing only my athletic shorts, so in case the building is actually on fire I grab my most prized possessions in the room, my pimp shades (the green ones I had just bought the night before), and my ridiculous shiny teal and yellow hat. I put on my scarf coat and pink house slippers and go to the lobby. The alarm is going off for at least an hour and the lobby is packed with people. I’m talking with friends and joking around, but some people are really pissed off. My friend Georg is in the reception office while a few older Polish guys are messing with the alarm trying to turn it off. Georg has been here a year and a half already and knows the building well, and he speaks a bit of Polish. When the alarm finally gets shut off I ask Georg what the hell is going on. He says that 8 or so alarms went off at the same time and that’s why it was so much trouble.
I know the reputation of the Spanish, and since they were having a party tonight there is no doubt who is to blame. They have been known to destroy rooms and start fires in the past. The rumors I heard the next day were “one of the Spanish guys punched a smoke alarm.” Also I heard that one of them was smoking inside. I choose to believe the first story.
This place is nuts.
“No, what are you talking about?” I reply.
“I came on in all the rooms last night at around 2am.”
A cold shiver runs down my back as I scream like a little girl. “AHHhhh. Yes, I remember that now!”
A few nights later there was a going away party for some Spanish guy in the common room on the 12th floor. Some of the people from the previous semester are leaving and they have parties. I have never met these people and will never see them again, but a party is a party so I am there. At around 11:30 they began heading out to catch the last tram to city center. This party was moving to the club, but I decided to go to bed. My throat was really sore and I wasn’t in the mood for going out. I get ready for bed and chat with my roommate for a bit, then around 1 or 2am I lay down and turn off the light. About 2 minutes later the intercom blasts, “UWAGA UWAGA,” some angry sounding Polish stuff, then in English “this is an emergency situation, you must leave the building now, do not take the elevators.” Then there is a horrible sound like a 1950’s ambulance siren. I’m wearing only my athletic shorts, so in case the building is actually on fire I grab my most prized possessions in the room, my pimp shades (the green ones I had just bought the night before), and my ridiculous shiny teal and yellow hat. I put on my scarf coat and pink house slippers and go to the lobby. The alarm is going off for at least an hour and the lobby is packed with people. I’m talking with friends and joking around, but some people are really pissed off. My friend Georg is in the reception office while a few older Polish guys are messing with the alarm trying to turn it off. Georg has been here a year and a half already and knows the building well, and he speaks a bit of Polish. When the alarm finally gets shut off I ask Georg what the hell is going on. He says that 8 or so alarms went off at the same time and that’s why it was so much trouble.
I know the reputation of the Spanish, and since they were having a party tonight there is no doubt who is to blame. They have been known to destroy rooms and start fires in the past. The rumors I heard the next day were “one of the Spanish guys punched a smoke alarm.” Also I heard that one of them was smoking inside. I choose to believe the first story.
This place is nuts.
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