Bar Miś

MMmmm...Bar Miś. The milk bar, a remnant of communism, was a subsidized 'fast food' restaurant that offered Polish home cooking at a marginal price. I've found the best one in Wroclaw, and I've vowed to eat the entire menu. I'm pretty sure that this will offically kill any chance I have at eating 70kg of pierogi, because eating here is cheaper than cooking at home.

Bar Miś, I love you. Sure, you have the atmosphere of a hospital cafeteria; sure, some angry old man always buds in front of me in line; and sure enough, 5 minutes later, I end up having to share a table with that same angry, old man. But look what my two dollars got me today...



ps: My students tell me that there is a joke, that in Bar Mis you better eat your food quickly, before all the worms in it walk it out the door.

pps: Could this explain the month long, low grade diahhrea that I've been experiencing?

Wrocław Medieval Flogging Pillar Reopens After 150 Year Closure!

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

On Thas Daye, thee 28th of Septaembere, wae sentence one Tomasz Roszkowski, to a publick floegging of 20 lashes across his backsyde, to be aedminestered by the officyal towne Flogger, for the cryme of.... ???

As I remember...

This long exposure at night had no chance, but with toying around and luck, it's more like what I remember than it otherwise could have been. It's also nice because you can barely tell that all of Europe is really covered in scaffolding.

Most of my memories are this blurry, because I've been drunk for 40 straight days...

Pretty (embarassed) in Pink

Yesterday I woke up and got ready for an early morning shift of work. I opened my closet and found on top of the pile, my brand new pink dress shirt, which I had bought right before leaving.

My reasoning was simple. I'd need a nice euro-Pink dress shirt to go with my euro-purse.

It still had all the tags on it, and although I noticed it's soft cottony feel, although the scissors were only 2m (6 feet) away, and although I could hear my mother's voice, firmly planted in my superego, yelling at me not to do it, I grabbed the tags and gave them a solid pull.

Oddly enough, I noticed the last plastic ring was still completely in tact, but I had somehow successfully removed the tag from my shirt. However, there was no miracle responsible for this. The only miracle in this story is that I only managed to tear one hole out of my new dress shirt, not three.

At work, my Polish students, who ironically enough, happened to be an entire class full of middle aged women all resembling my mother, told me to go to a sewing shop behind the Rynek to buy some thread to fix it.

I made my way into the tiny shop full of babcias, and found a squat, older woman behind the counter. I whipped out my best Polish, which loosely translated sounded like this:

Hello. Me put on shirt today. It new shirt. Me (exaggerated pulling gesture) tag. Me make hole. Me very stupid.

To which she replied.

Oh dear sir. You nice, nice man. Here is some thread for your shirt. Oh, you poor, poor boy. Here are some directions to another babcia, who can repair your shirt. (3 minutes of unintelligible directions)






To which I made this face.






To which she replied.

Oh your poor, poor, poor boy. Let me fix your shirt for you here, just buy the thread.

Me: I go home? Bring shirt back you?

Her: No. Just take off your shirt.

Me: Me naked here? But it's cold. And many babcias.

Her: Oh get over it. Take off your clothes. And while you're at it. Thread the needle, I can't see well anymore.

So I took off my shirt, and sat topless in a corner, with my dress pants and farmer's tan, trying to thread the needle for her. Thankfully, the extreme embarassment that I was feeling was slowing turning my body a uniform shame of red as more and more babcias came into the store staring at me.

My embarassment was made worse because:
1) the lady noticed I was embarassed and half naked, and pointed it out to everyone that walked in the store, ensuring everyone noticed me there. Thankfully I had my head buried deep in my hands so I didn't see all of this.
2) she started yelling at me for not being able to thread the needle, and looked at my nerd glasses, and yelled that I must be at least as blind as her, then grabbed the thread and needle and did it herself.

Well, eventually she fixed my shirt, overcharged me for the thread, and gave me back my shirt. Finally, as I was putting it back on, thinking it was all finally over, a cute girl came into the store and she of course told her "You should have been here a minute ago. He had his shirt off you know" All Polish and any wit I may possess left me at this point and I could only nod my head and smile like an idiot.

I left the store to her yelling at me "Do you have an iron? No?!! Then go buy an iron. Everyone needs an iron. And stop pulling on those tags!" I ran, but if I poke my head out the window, I can still hear her.


The morale of the story is this: Don't pull the fucking tag.

It's best to think of it as an emergency ripcord to an instant shaming. "Pull here to release babcia and extinguish all dignity within 4-6 feet."

Backpacking monks score all the girls...

50 points for whoever can tell me what this hipster, 20 something, backpacking Euro-monk is saying to these girls...

Are you worth your weight in Pierogi?

Today, hungry and poor, I noticed that for the price of one small square of pizza from Pizza Hut, I can buy myself 1kg of pierogi. The pizza won't even rid me of my temporary hunger, but 1kg of pierogi will sustain my Polish metabolism with delicious cheese and potato for days. It's time to rid myself of my North American diet. Pizza, chips and burgers are all undeserving luxury items here.

So I've decided then to live off of pierogi, and use the money I save to drink beer and to travel.

My goal? To eat my own weight in pierogi by year's end. 70kg.

I'll become a connasseiur of pierogi, I'll know each flavour, each way to cook them, and try each of the many brands of pierogi available here. I'll write love poems about pierogi, I'll become a leading world expert on them; CNN will contact me when a story about pierogi breaks, and perhaps, one day, I may even shit out a nice shiny golden pierog like some twisted Polish fairytale.

Wish me luck, not scurvy.

The pierogi chart. 1 kg down, 69 to go.

Night time...

I finally ventured out the Rynek with my camera and found an area of Wrocław far more beautiful, reducing the Rynek in my mind to nothing more than a European stripmall.
These are some photos along the way to Ostrów Tumski and then back at the Rynek afterwards.


The most handsome man in Poland.







The Odra River from one of the 102 bridges in Wrocław.






The University. Suck on that, York. Vari Hall my ass!









A church in Ostrów Tumski.








Ratusz at night.

More Pretty Rynek

My favourite building in the Rynek.
























St. Elizabeth's Church.

Dance like a negroe & the birth of "Superfag"

Look at that photo. Yes, it was 'Family Holiday' in the Rynek this weekend. It was a celebration of all that is good about the family and it was truly wholesome in all the ways we know wholesome to look like; a daughter up on a father's shoulders, children running around and dancing, face painting, candy, and music.

Yet for any lucky person in the audience who could understand Polish and English, this was a family day full of good ol' wholesome racism and sex.

A music group came on stage, dressed as big puffy fruits and vegetables, and instead of Baa Baa Black Sheep like I expected, I heard a song called "Dance like a negroe!". When I heard the first line, "Little Blacky lives in the jungle and loves to dance with the monkeys." I knew I was in for a treat. "1, 2, 3! Dance like blacky! I said Dance!!!"

Next, this group of 10 year old girls in pink jumped on stage dancing like hookers in a Polish Jay Z video, grinding their bright, pink, preteen asses to a full on assault of explicit R&B blaring over these now sinful speakers, while their babcias cheered them on in the audience, wondering what "Swing that dirty ass, bitch!" meant, and maybe even singing along. But irony was not lost today, for these R&B babcias had at least as much gold on their teeth as the hardest gangbangers this side of Compton, so all was good in the world....or was it?

The icing on the fruitcake was this poor kid here. Surrounded by his entourage of tweenage supertramps, this 10 year old boy's only thought was how good he'd look if he had access to even more sequins. This doomed child, living in the most catholic and intolerant country on earth, is so gay that he's best likened to a Gay Neo in the gayhating Matrix of Poland. He is the One the prophecies spoke of.

Moderation...Polish Style

In the basement of the old city hall, there is a very old brewpub. Beers are available in half litre and four litre sizes. The four litre beer comes in a glass with its own tap. There is also one table in the bar, which has taps and a 20 litre keg built into it, which you buy for about 60 dollars. Rumor has it that in medieval times this is where the 'Century Club' was invented by Teutonic Knights.

Breakfast

Is this even normal here, or is my aunt just fucking with me? Nobody else got a smoked herring for breakfast.

Wrocław Massive

Here is my Wrocław crew having beer in the Rynek. Notice the fear and admiration we garner from the native Poles, who are unfamiliar with our loud, obnoxious voices and our gang symbols.






A new gang symbol for Wrocław was invented by Wrocław gangbanger Craig, who enjoys dressing and acting like me. This gang symbol consists of the 'W' and the Polish "ł" with a diagonal line through it.







Poland tastes its first babyfreeze. Notice the look of complete disinterest on the faces of these Polish wiggers. Later on when I told them that my best friend in grade 3 was actually black, I won their respect.