All Hail Baron Sadowy of the Order of the White Eagle!

I'm relatively worried right now. I'm travelling to Paris in just a few short days and I have yet to find a place to stay for the two nights that I will be there (I figured I'd spend my third night in the airport, since my flight back to Cracow is at 5). Many couchsurfers have told me that they will be out at that time, and I'm starting to get a little desperate. Worst comes to worst, I can Jason Boune it and sleep in the park, breaking the arms of any cops that try to kick me off the benches. Or I could try to find a cheap hostel. Whatever I feel like at the time.

A couple of weeks ago, on my second day in Cracow, I dined at the Wierzynek, a resturant for the highest class of dining, established in 1364 and fequented by Kings and Emperors. Hanna made reservations, telling us that we should expect to fork over a ridiculous amount of Zloty for a meal here; as much as 100 a head. I was excited. I've never had a 30-40 dollar meal before, and it just seems fitting that my first would be at the resturant listed under Poland in "1000 Places to See Before You Die". So, after Birkenau, we got together all of our classiest clothes (In Jonathan's case, this meant a faded blue t-shirt that, well, made him look like a bit of a bum. I think he should have gone with the eighties v-neck that he wore the first day in Poland) and walked the short distance to the market square, where the upper floor of the resturant over looks the hustle and bustle of central Cracow. It took us close to 20 minutes for everyone to decide what to get, and I find it significant that I bought water here; it cost just as much as beer in posh resturants like this. We agreed that we would all share our dishes, and thus, I dined not only on the duck that I had ordered, which was an orgasmic epicurian delight that took me nearly an hour and a half to eat, but on wild boar, goose, herrings, plum chicken, and an excellent barszcz czerwony. And everything was served under those silver dishes that I'd seen before only in bugs bunny cartoons; the waiters even pulled the dishes away in perfect coordination! What grace! It was darkening as we left and nering the time we had planned to meet up with some friends, and I grabbed a brochure from the resturant, in which were innumerated the various distinguished guests that had been hosted. I felt honored to have feasted in the same hall as George Bush, Juan Carlos, Charles de Gaulle, Viktor Yushchenko. It suprised me, though, to find that Kate Moss was listed before Steven Spielberg and Robert De Niro.

Cracow has some good memories. As I mentioned earlier, it feels much less like a city than Poznan and more like a walk through a park, in which beautiful edifices just happen to have been erected, much to the augmentation of the city's ambience. I won't forget my early morning runs through the mile long Warka field that led up to the city's ancient Barrows Hill, buying the most excellent Razowy bread at a specialty liquor shop and then eating a whole loaf, sunning myself on the banks of the river smack in the middle of the city with three bags of frozen plums and a can of herrings, being asked if I wanted a shot of heroin for 1 Zloty (about $ 00.32 at the time), learning how to make waiters understand that I was ordering my meal in Polish, looking at the tombs of the Polish Kings from beyond a roped off section because Hanna had my ticket for the exhibit, and not turning a corner without jumping back in alarm from a John Paul II statue that had suddenly run up in my face. Also watching the cherry blossoms float above Wawel Castle like lazy drifts of snow, disappearing into a brialliant arc of sun.

I'm so glad that neither the Nazis nor the Russians touched Cracow; it seems like there are very few places in Poland where the influence of these cultures has not choked out the life of the city, and Cracow reigns supreme amongst them. Everyone knows why there is an underlying animosity between the Polish and the Germans, or at least eeryone can figure this out after reading an AP history lesson on WWII. But the lingering hate the the Polish have for Russians is much less easily come by; the history books in the states say nothing about Stalin abandoning the Polish Home Army during the Warshawa Uprising in order to cut his own losses, about his "gift" to the Polish people of leveled cities and ugly monoliths dedicated to the working class that he would eventually persecute and kill. There is a brief mention of Solidarnosc, but nothing of the toll that enforced communism took upon the Polish people. And unmentioned is the good that did come out of this era; Poland was left with an essentially classless society, making it very easy to make a name for one's self under the new rule of capitalism. And now, Hanna says, there is an element of the Polish people that want to return to the class based society, to lines of Kings and Queens, where your name dictates your worth (This might work in my favor; Mark says that I have the distinguishing features of the Polish Aristocracy). While I wouldn't mind going by Baron Sadowy, this is all just BS. I hope that I won't have to kiss a ring in the near future.

Needless to say, when acosted by three drunken fifteen year old Polish skinheads who punched Jonathan in the back of the head, I felt a strong urge to curse them in Russian, or maybe repeat some Rammstein lyrics. I can just imagine how their little pre pubecent faces would have twisted under those dialects of oppression.

Just as a little note; my Aunt died Monday evening in a Burlington Hospice home. It felt good to know that she had heard my voice, but it pains me greatly that I missed the funeral. It really is difficult to be seperated from family at times like these.

In my next installment, I shall relate to you the beauty of Hanna's farm, where I decided that I would unseat Victor Ashe and install myself as Ambassador to Poland.