15 Things I learned about Krakow/Poland over three years

#1). Customer Service Does Not Exist. If you go into a supermarket, a restaurant, a bar, you should not expect a smile. You should not expect a 'hello.' Definitely not a 'hello' with eye contact. You should not bring a 100 zloty bill - (equiv. of $30) anywhere, if you do, the face expression from the cashier/waiter/employee will shame you 1,000 shames.

#2). Illogical communist systems are still strong.

i.) The Post Office: Expect long lines. Expect a giant stamp that will thrust down with such force that the entire building will shake - all for no apparent reason. The stamp will be on a piece of paper from the first printer ever made. These antiquated printers make a shrieking noise (they are called dot-matrix printers specifically) and take double the time a normal printer takes.

ii). Dormitories: They are for the most part old, brown, and really brown. I call brown the color of communism. My communist dormitory is smothered in brown and concrete. The mattresses are brown (did you guys know they make brown mattresses??), the wall color and paneling are brown, the built-into-the-wall wardrobe is brown (and made all my clothes smell bad!), and the administration follows the same rules as the rest of the country in regards to customer service. Oh, and they also have the aforementioned dot-matrix printers that take forever to print. However, not everything is negative, they have many amenities for the room such as, sheets and blankets, a little desk lamp, and an Ethernet cable splitter. What is a cable splitter you ask? The internet in the dormitory is so out-dated that it deserves its own rant. When you move in the dorms, you must fill a sheet of paper from reception and go into your ipconfig and find out your specific IP address. You have to write it in and then you have to drop it off and wait a couple of days to have some other numbers to type into your settings. Anyways, the real question here is…. WHY NOT JUST GET WIFI, DORMS? Put some routers on every floor and fix the problem!! Of course many of the new computers, esp. macs, do not even have Ethernet adapters built in so they are out of luck. The one thing I can’t complain about, however, is that it’s just a mere 350 zl a month. (115$) - which is roughly 80% cheaper than US dormitories.

iii). Milk Bars: This blog isn’t just a rant: milk bars are a beautiful thing. They invented these little cafeterias during Communist times and offer Polish food for ridiculously low prices. If you get the basic pierogi (pierogi ruskie/potatoes and cheese), it is only 4 zl (1.30$) for a whole meal. They usually serve this with compote which is a boiled fruit liquid beverage, tastes like watery fruit, and has rather soggy floating strawberries.

iv). Trains: When you go to buy a ticket in the train station, you have those blasted dot-matrix printers AGAIN. The tellers impatiently help you without eye contact and spend what seems like an hour typing endlessly into a computer. It seems like it shouldn't take nearly as long as it does but then again, those printers probably take up most of the time. When you get on the train (possibly the oldest trains still running on Earth next to Russia or Central Asia) you have to literally pry open a steel door to get in it. When you get on, you’ll notice that the cars are split into compartments. These trains don't have any A/C so in the summer when it is boiling and you're in a compartment with 8 other people (which is the maximum), you feel like death as you sweat into the person next to you - especially if you're in the middle. When leaving the train, you have to literally turn an iron knob that looks like a steering wheel and kick the door open. In fact, I have missed my stop before due to these poorly designed and outdated doors. Lots of cursing was involved. However, I’m a strong believer in the expression “you get what you pay for” and because the trains are very affordable, I shouldn’t complain.

#3) Any pope after John Paul II does not exist :The bet is still ongoing with one of my friends. If you can find three pictures of Benedict or Francis, she’ll pay you….but you’ll fail of course because you’ll soon realize that according to Poland, the Polish pope is the only pope. The one pope to rule them all! Also, if John Paul II has stepped foot on the land where you are standing, you'll see a photo of it and it will be commemorated with some plaque. Hiking three hours and so has the pope? Photo guaranteed.

#4) In Polish Weddings you are supposed to eat and drink until you burst. For a 75-person wedding, there are 50 liters of vodka, wine, and champagne (keep in mind that there are children attending too). We all know that the best vodka originates in Poland and thus, it is the chosen drink for weddings. For the first wedding I went to, I was served my first big meal around 19:00 with two turkey breasts and vegetables and I thought it was the main meal (like every other wedding I’ve been to…) Two hours later of grazing on cakes and dancing and my next large dinner arrives, stuffed chicken with vegetables. I thought to myself, "hmm, well, it is rude to not eat food that is served to me.. and paid for" So, I ate it. After a bit more of dancing and playing wedding games, we sit back down at the table and pick at the fruit and salads on the table while chatting. What. a. mistake. The next FULL meal comes out and my stomach is already past capacity and I really can’t eat more - perhaps never again in this life, but wait. Oh no, they’re STILL. NOT. DONE. Two hours later, another plate appears of soup and chicken. That’s it. At this point I am on the verge of death by sudden combustion. Don’t let me leave out that we were also served wedding cake and an array of other desserts in between what felt like an endless amounts of meals. Now, going back to my point about the vodka, the guests were so serious about drinking that every 20 minutes or so the DJ would stop the music on the dance floor and play a recording that told people to "stop dancing, go back to your table, and take a shot!" (in Polish). Shots, endless shots. Endless food……But wait. You thought it was done? You go to the hotel at 4 a.m. and when you wake up for 12…..it ALL STARTS AGAIN. I later found out that there was an option to say no to the food….something that definitely should have been explained to me……

#5) Vodka and Liqueurs Poland has a beautiful and glorious range of vodka and liqueurs. These vodkas and liqueurs have all sort of different histories and if you ever visit Poland, you should do some alcohol tasting. I highly recommend cherry Nalewka which is a light 18% proof liqueur. Perhaps the most famous vodka is Zubrowka which is a vodka with a piece of “buffalo” grass in the middle. The grass comes from northern Poland from the Bison fields and supposedly gives the vodka flavor….I’ve also read that Zubrowka has to be altered in other countries because of the grass….anyways, it’s best ordered as a “tatanka” where they mix it with apple juice. Other flavors of vodka include apple, grapefruit, hazelnut, cherry, raspberry, black current, honey, rye, wheat, pineapple, etc. Go crazy because it is cheap! Poland is so serious about its vodka that my university actually held a lecture where we had vodka tasting and learned about the history of vodka in Poland….and got progressively drunk in class.

#6) Older women have strange hair colors. It is not uncommon to see women with unnatural red hair, blue hair, or the national favorite, purple.

#7) The food makes you fat but the people are annoyingly thin.  Poland surely needs to pride itself in being one of the thinnest countries in Europe. The American medium is a large or extra-large in Poland. If you want an attractive man here, you need to compete with the locals. In addition, the food is full of oil and butter and everything that you shouldn’t be eating when dieting. In fact, if you order a soup, there are always oil bubbles floating on top. Potatoes come with almost every meal and are dripping in butter! Poland has a common dish called smalec - which is literally lard - pork fat on bread.

How are the women so thin you may wonder? The people usually eat between 12 and 3 and have a small sandwich for dinner. Therefore, they work off their food during the day and all heavy carbs are digested by the time night arrives. The key to being thin - little to no dinner!

#8) McDonalds is beloved here regardless of how much people make fun of it. There are always lines outside of McDonalds. I've never seen the place empty. People constantly say "McDonalds, America!" Whatever, I say, "McDonalds, Poland!"

#9) Beef means beef and pork. Ground beef is rarely 100% and it mostly has pork in it too.

#10) The weather is full of extremities. In the summer it is scorching, in the winter it is the North Pole.

#11) Speaking a "little bit" of English. Speaking "a little bit" of English means the person speaks English but has low self-confidence or is being incredibly modest. It generally means they are fluent and they have no idea what not speaking a language is.

#12) Here, want some flyers!? Companies hire people to hold signs and pass out flyers everywhere in Krakow. They're at every corner of every street in this city. Sometimes, depending on the path, you get swarmed by 10 people passing out what seems like limitless amounts of trash from a "Police Academy" to "English courses" to "Strip Clubs." Most of the time my purse is weighed down by flyer trash! Ain't nobody wants this!!!!

#13) Cycle paths end in random places. If you're going down the street, ya know being a good cyclist and following the cycle path, you'll probably realize that it ends mid-street and in random places. It’s nice they tried to make cycle paths, until they didn’t. From there, you're mostly expected to get onto the uneven sidewalks and figure out where the next path is. I often cycle along a 6 km path designed to take you up the river to a local village called Tyniec and maybe 2-3 km in, you find yourself going through a random village even though the path could have been continued along the river. Why?? /sigh

#14) People are nicer in the north than in the south. If you ask for directions in Krakow from a local, especially the old, you'll find yourself speaking to someone who couldn’t care less if you find your destination or not. If you're in the north, like Gdansk, and you ask for directions, people will smile and perhaps two or three more people will magically appear trying their hardest to get you to your destination.

#15) Pigeons….pigeons..everywhere. A pigeon even once nested in my fridge. I mean, I did make a shoe box on my dorm balcony into a fridge but WHY, PIGEONS, WHY? Why are you everywhere???

Note: These are my generalizations and my opinions from experiences. I'm sure there are differences in other people’s experiences.