Warsaw, Poland: Ignorance, vodka and the pope
What a title hey? Well, anyway, yesterday evening after I finished playing with words on the computer I went out for a walk and to go to the supermarket. I stumbled upon some sort of parade, there was a full brass band and everything. I finally realized it was some sort of young people's mass or something because the Pope was visiting Poland and has now left. The thing that gave it away was the freakish big posters of good old Benedict they were lugging with them, and the fact that they stopped outside a Catholic church. Mystery solved. So I kinda got caught in this crowd that were singing hymns in Polish and I was getting quite a few looks for just standing there with a dumb look on my face haha.
When I got back to the hostel I decided to be somewhat social and sat in the bar chatting to people. There was this crazy gang of Norwegians smoking hash and drinking beer. They are Reggae DJs doing a Poland tour. There was also an Australian guy who is staying in my dorm and a guy from Manchester with a strong Northern accent that still takes a lot of my concentration to understand despite having being in England for months. We were chatting about random shit... particularly the stoned Norwegians. One of them had some really interesting philosophies about global politics, and you could tell he was very left, very well read, and very stoned. I was being my very straight self until these guys bought out this special Polish vodka to share that you drink with apple juice. I can't remember what it was called (due to it being hard to pronounce, not because of drinking it haha) but it was really nice. I only had two drinks, so I was just chatty :p. Ranted about the state of the world with the well read stoned Norwegian which was interesting. But at least I have tried the national drink of Poland now. Then some poor yanks stumbled in and joined the conversation (which, as in all European hostels, had turned to football aka soccer) and incurred the full wrath of the well read Norwegian's anti-Americanism. And the American guy seemed alright, not a conservative, I kind of felt sorry for him!
Then these German guys came up who we discovered were our other dorm mates and they were hilarious. Due to all the rooms at this hostel being themed, and our room being the "Rainbow dorm" we decided that our little team was "Club Rainbow" which resulted in us creating a whole secret society thing and joking around a lot. The Norwegians and the Aussie guy left to go out, the yanks went to bed, and the Germans and I got kicked out of the hostel bar at 1am and returned to Club Rainbow to continue talking crap and bagging out tourists of other nationalities. Twas a nice bunch, hope I have equally cool cats in my dorm this evening, especially since tonight is the last evening I will be spending in Club Rainbow before heading south to Krakow.
On to ignorance. This Aussie guy was friendly, but had absolutely no clue about the world. He started talking about how the Queen has been great for England setting up public healthcare and that. I couldn't be bitchy enough to tell him the Queen plays no part in policy making in the English government. Then he had absolutely no clue that basically the entire Jewish population of Poland was killed by the Germans. In fact, he didn't know that it was the German invasion of Poland that started WW2. I won't even go on and on about the things he didn't know, but yeah, I was a bit surprised, most travellers do have a bit more of a clue even if they are just on booze and birds trips. He also thought Lithuania was a city in Latvia, and that Latvia was in Russia. And he came over to watch the World Cup in Europe, but kept on talking about when we play China... um it's Japan. Bit of a difference there. OK, need to stop being a bitch now, he seems pretty nice.
And there was a flipside. I was ignorant in some ways too. This guy had been travelling in Brazil and Guatamala and he was telling me how crazy it is over there. I knew it wasn't very safe but I didn't know it was so crazy dangerous. He had been in supermarkets that were basically stormed by gangs, seen tourists being bashed at hostels by the police and a British guy who knew vanished for five days and was found in a hospital with serious head injuries. Sounds crazy. But I imagine this guy would have indulged in a fair amount of nightlife over there, but still.
On the subject of ignorance, I was in some tourist trap pub having a crap meal that was as far from authentic Polish as McDonalds is and I was surrounded by whinging yanks. Complain complain complain. I've really had a gutfull of them lately, although I have met a few good ones, that has far been outnumbered by the amount of whinging ones whose sole purpose in travelling is cheap booze and the opportunity to completely ignore the culture, history and beauty of foreign countries because it is obviously crap compared to America. The classic is when they think people who can't speak English will all of a sudden be able to understand it if they just start speaking more loudly and slowly. Hands are meant for sign language kids, it usually does the trick.
If ignorance is bliss, they must be in bloody Nirvana!
When I got back to the hostel I decided to be somewhat social and sat in the bar chatting to people. There was this crazy gang of Norwegians smoking hash and drinking beer. They are Reggae DJs doing a Poland tour. There was also an Australian guy who is staying in my dorm and a guy from Manchester with a strong Northern accent that still takes a lot of my concentration to understand despite having being in England for months. We were chatting about random shit... particularly the stoned Norwegians. One of them had some really interesting philosophies about global politics, and you could tell he was very left, very well read, and very stoned. I was being my very straight self until these guys bought out this special Polish vodka to share that you drink with apple juice. I can't remember what it was called (due to it being hard to pronounce, not because of drinking it haha) but it was really nice. I only had two drinks, so I was just chatty :p. Ranted about the state of the world with the well read stoned Norwegian which was interesting. But at least I have tried the national drink of Poland now. Then some poor yanks stumbled in and joined the conversation (which, as in all European hostels, had turned to football aka soccer) and incurred the full wrath of the well read Norwegian's anti-Americanism. And the American guy seemed alright, not a conservative, I kind of felt sorry for him!
Then these German guys came up who we discovered were our other dorm mates and they were hilarious. Due to all the rooms at this hostel being themed, and our room being the "Rainbow dorm" we decided that our little team was "Club Rainbow" which resulted in us creating a whole secret society thing and joking around a lot. The Norwegians and the Aussie guy left to go out, the yanks went to bed, and the Germans and I got kicked out of the hostel bar at 1am and returned to Club Rainbow to continue talking crap and bagging out tourists of other nationalities. Twas a nice bunch, hope I have equally cool cats in my dorm this evening, especially since tonight is the last evening I will be spending in Club Rainbow before heading south to Krakow.
On to ignorance. This Aussie guy was friendly, but had absolutely no clue about the world. He started talking about how the Queen has been great for England setting up public healthcare and that. I couldn't be bitchy enough to tell him the Queen plays no part in policy making in the English government. Then he had absolutely no clue that basically the entire Jewish population of Poland was killed by the Germans. In fact, he didn't know that it was the German invasion of Poland that started WW2. I won't even go on and on about the things he didn't know, but yeah, I was a bit surprised, most travellers do have a bit more of a clue even if they are just on booze and birds trips. He also thought Lithuania was a city in Latvia, and that Latvia was in Russia. And he came over to watch the World Cup in Europe, but kept on talking about when we play China... um it's Japan. Bit of a difference there. OK, need to stop being a bitch now, he seems pretty nice.
And there was a flipside. I was ignorant in some ways too. This guy had been travelling in Brazil and Guatamala and he was telling me how crazy it is over there. I knew it wasn't very safe but I didn't know it was so crazy dangerous. He had been in supermarkets that were basically stormed by gangs, seen tourists being bashed at hostels by the police and a British guy who knew vanished for five days and was found in a hospital with serious head injuries. Sounds crazy. But I imagine this guy would have indulged in a fair amount of nightlife over there, but still.
On the subject of ignorance, I was in some tourist trap pub having a crap meal that was as far from authentic Polish as McDonalds is and I was surrounded by whinging yanks. Complain complain complain. I've really had a gutfull of them lately, although I have met a few good ones, that has far been outnumbered by the amount of whinging ones whose sole purpose in travelling is cheap booze and the opportunity to completely ignore the culture, history and beauty of foreign countries because it is obviously crap compared to America. The classic is when they think people who can't speak English will all of a sudden be able to understand it if they just start speaking more loudly and slowly. Hands are meant for sign language kids, it usually does the trick.
If ignorance is bliss, they must be in bloody Nirvana!
posted by Ashlee at 1:17 pm
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