The Half Arsed Traveller: 2015-01-02: To Market, to market, let's eat a fat pig.

We got to the cinema early yesterday and they don't have activities like air hockey or anything. But they do have a bar. I ordered beers and the Bar lady laughed. I think my pronunciation must be poetical and release the inherent joy in the heart of Poles.

In an effort to be self reliant Piotr learned to make Napoleonka. I thought he may have also learned to stay awake til 4 am so he could try it. Turns out I was wrong and Agnieska stole it while he slept.

When she gave them to me she said they "came from her heart".
I had no idea how to respond. So I just smiled.

The clouds had abs today.

I learned later the expression means that the glasses are really full. That was clever of her hiding her seduction behind commonplace expressions.

Sign Review: Market Square, Krakow

I wasn't even drunk. 20 metres from this sign the "Let's Rock" could easily be mistaken for another phrase which would be a selling point to many of the young cool kids staying in these places.

Of course it could be preconceptions of what the cool kids do

Ewa claims my eyes must be bad. Although she was probably never a small town 17 yr old boy backpacking through Europe and doesn't understand the hormonal haze everything is filtered through for them.

Rating: 5/10 (+3 if I was 17, drunk and hormonal)

Activity review: Park Wodny (Park of Water) Krakow

http://www.parkwodny.pl/
Poles do seem to enjoy water parks. I don't really remember there being many of them in Sydney, there was one a couple hours drive away, I never went.

Definitely looks cooler at night (the water park obviously)

I suppose they are Family Entertainment and I am spending more time with Families than usual so that could be it. This one has lots of water slides. The big ones have timers so you know how quick you were. Numbers for Activities! I have bruised elbows from trying to beat my times.

They also have a rock climbing wall over a pool. Only a metre or so but that seems lawsuit worthy. I managed to make some decent splashes jumping out from the top in a manner any Australian lawyer would probably pass out from.

Rating: 7/10 (gets a +1 because no one is going to have body issues here)

After splashy games we strolled over to Aunt Teresa's. In my mind she is the "Wild Walnut Woman of Krakow". Last time we carried a huge bag of them from Białystok to her place for reasons I didn't follow (I understood zero Polish and was new to the idea of being allowed vodka with every beer). When we got there she plied me with brandy and told stories of home distillation back when she was a wild one. I suspect the "wild one" phase was a week earlier.

Weak Brandy to the children's corner. Walnuts? What walnuts? You're crazy... touch these and I'll have you jimmy.

I am not foolish. I brought Walnuts and Brandy.

She claims not to remember anything about the walnuts.

We obviously got here in the nick of time, these are all she had left

Fortunately this time she had absolutely no food whatsoever for us. This is good as we are going to the market square later. It is also good as if she had provided actual food instead of the soup, anti pasti, pea salad, eggs, tomatoes, bread and cakes I fear we may have all fallen into a food coma.

A table bereft of food.

Nieces get all prim and proper at Teresa's place

This is normal for Polish Grandmothers, they are apparently the only Poles that never hear the word "No" and rule the country with an iron fist from the shadows. The sitcom Jewish Grandmother trope is considered a pale imitation.

70% alc/vol. Good for sterilising medical equipment and mid afternoon shots

My brandy was put in the corner, no doubt for when some children come over. Children and weak foreigners can't drink strong spirits. I like a good Slivovic; a bad one tastes like burning old socks. A good one does too but in a good way. This was a good one. Ewa and Ulla have been out of Poland too long and find the seriously flammable beverage a little hard going.

The Old Cloth Market inside the Market Square, lots of amber jewellery

Suitably fortified against disease & starvation we ventured on to the market. My first time seeing it in rain rather than snow. Snow is better by far however the rain was only light. If you are planning on visiting I would suggest trying to ensure snow. I'm not sure if the horsies pull their carts around in the snow but I think so.

These yellow things... you call them what?

Krakow has a tourism industry now. At least Krakow appears to be thinking about its tourist industry now. They have realised a lot of tourists are absolute idiots, misinformed by their media and lacking in anything regarding good taste. But if you tell them that they get all huffy.

Winged Hussar. No horse. He did have a nice iPhone though.

The compromise seems to be that the odd stall selling rendered lard on bread with fire roasted kielbasa slices or fatty juicy ham hocks will have a bowl of mixed vegetables keeping warm for moronic foreigners.

I refuse to purchase anything from these stalls on principle.

entree size.

Activity Review: Ciuciu candy shop, Krakow

http://www.ciuciu.pl/index.php?lang=en
If you enter the square the correct way (see previous post) and exit on the far left in 10 metres you will pass a tiny little shop claiming to be the worlds smallest candy factory. I went to in inquire how this status was granted, what the methodology for measuring was and the definitions of "small" and "candy".

Red, Green and Black for some people. Dark, black and black for me.

The wily counter lady evaded my legal probing and mentioned we could make our own lollipop for 10zł (AU$4). Fuelled up on slivovic and smaleć I fell for it.

I'm not claiming to be a hormonal 17 yr old boy but I bet he would have snickered a lot

Two ladies did a demonstration of making those little hard candies with the patterns inside from scratch. Then we got to make our own lollipops. Ewa made a dragon (symbol of Krakow) and I did the local castle. A couple of excited kids were there but they were small and easily knocked out of the way when required.

Plus the candy shop is warm.

I left the lollipops to cool outside for a bit but still managed to smoosh the dragons face up enough that now instead of a cheery grin he has a bit of a dopey drunk face.

Rating 6/10 (+1 for sweet tooth types or kiddie carrying types)

Looking for an underground bar we stumbled into the Muzeum Kata (http://kacianora.pl/). I thought Museum of Kata (as in martial arts) then realised I was being stupid so I thought Museum of Cats and realised I was spelling "cats" wrong. Ewa thought cats as well though. It is the Museum of Cuts.

Tourist Checklist: Museums.

Torture devices through the ages and around the world. Fun for all the family. 18zł per person entry. We paid 48zł for a guided tour of the two of us.

Quite a small museum. Lots of reproduction torture devices but I think some real ones as well. The guide was informative and also seemed to be paying a fair bit of attention to our response in order to judge whether to make it gorier. We went full gore I think.

This was before I was told not to take pictures. I complied with her request, she has a penis extractor handy.

There was an awful lot of mention about how Poland (and Krakow in particular) did not use most of these things and if they did it was only once or twice. Poland didn't have witches. And even if it did Poland liked witches. Not like the English and let's not get started on the Spanish, or shall we? man they were bastards...

Apparently the Cowardly Swedes liked some of the devices that they saw "not being used at all but we can give you a demo" and took them home after they were done fighting each other.

Without the guide it would be a couple of rooms with lots of pointy things. If there were more than 10 people inside it would be a couple of rooms with lots of people being pushed into pointy things.

Definitely not for the squeamish. It didn't have any of the horror house effects I have seen in similar museums and for that it gets a +1.

Rating 6/10 (just ensure your tetanus shots are up to date)

The bar we were looking for was right next door. It featured the worst pool players I have seen in my life. It was not underground.

Polish pool tables are apparently rented by the hour rather than by game. Seems to me this should encourage people to get better purely on economic reasoning terms.

I know there is a dirty joke here.

Cultural Observations: Polish Cooking

I am starting to see why they don't have cooking shows here. Every day in every kitchen there is a cooking show. And cooking shows seem to reduce actual time spent cooking.

Pavel here is a touch over one and likes making soup.

I made him a chefs hat.