Krakow

I went to Krakow for a long weekend trip with Lukasz between 4 June and 8 June. We went there to go to the Selector music festival and to visit Paulina, Kuba and Dominika. Unfortunately, there were no longer direct flights from AMS to Krakow, so we had to fly via Warzawa. After five hours of traveling, Paulina picked us up at the airport.

At 20 past eight in the evening, there was a celebratory drink to celebrate 20 years since the fall of communism in Poland. We did our part, and had a couple of celebratory shots, while a slideshow of "Solidarnosc"-pictures was playing on a big screen TV in the bar. I missed some singing of the national anthem or something like that. Or...maybe they did. Maybe "Na zdrovje" IS the national anthem of Poland... Later on we had a nice dinner at a traditional Polish restaurant at the main square, where we also linked up with Dominika. We spent the evening boozing it up in some cellar clubs in the center.

Lukasz and I spent most of Friday hanging out with Dominika, drinking wine and vodka at various downtown cafes. We met up with Dominika's friend Ula, and together with Paulina and Kuba, we made our way down to the festival area - Krakowskie Blonie. Kuba had this idea that we should stay away from the watered down beer at the festival, so he bought some bottles of wine, so we could get properly drunk before entering the festival area.



It was a nice festival area, with almost no queues. The only exception was the beer area, which quickly became very crowded. There were lots and lots of Norwegians there, and I found it very strange to hear so many people speak Norwegian at a random festival in Poland. They were probably there for the Røyksopp-concert. We first saw Fisherspooner - a very artsy electronic act with lots of interpretative dance and strange video stuff. Next up was Franz Ferdinand, who played a very good concert. Their set was also very long, more than one hour and 30 minutes. I was mostly waiting for the Røyksopp concert, but I was pretty disappointed when they finally started playing. Their presentation was pretty messy, they seemed unprofessional, and for the singing parts they brought Anneli Drecker. She couldn't really pull off some of the songs, and she missed a lot of notes, so it sucked pretty bad. We left early, went back to the apartment and sampled some other Norwegian culture instead - Norwegian Viking Fjord Blåbær (blueberry) vodka.

Saturday we spent the morning hanging out at various bars in Kazimierz, having dinner at an Italian place. Kuba was making fun of me, as I was not entirely present. I had come more or less straight off an exercise to this trip, so I was pretty tired and backed up on sleep. Somehow after a few good chugs of wine on the way over to the festival area, I started waking up, and suddenly I was teaching various people how to shout "Visa pattarna!!" at concerts (I told them it meant "good concert, play more!" >;-)

The first band we watched was a Brazilian band called CSS. Next we rocked out to a DJ set by a German duo named "Digitalism" - it was pretty good! We tried to go to the chillout lounge, but it was overcrowded, so we tried the next tent where some crappy DJ was playing (I forgot the name). We didn't want to hang around for the last band, so we went back to the apartment for some more blueberry vodka. After a couple of shots, things got weird. Details shall remain classified, but they include the ritual spilling of coke zero, Schnappi - das kleine Krokodil, exotic underwear, large quantities of vodka, listening to Max Raabe and Franek Kimono.



Sunday morning Kuba got up at 10am to go to a wine tasting. We thought he was just kidding the evening before when he mentioned this. Where do you get the stamina to go to a wine tasting at 10am after drinking until 4am the night before? Respect!

The rest of us were in no shape to follow him, so we didn't get to the wine tasting until 12 or so. Nothing like being slightly hung over and put in a room with lots of upper class people doing a very formal tasting of Hungarian wines. Also, the wines were pretty bad, but I'm picky about wine. Also, I think drinking large quantities of vodka the night before did not do wonders for my palate. After the wine tasting Paulina & Kuba went off to vote in the european elections. The rest of us were rebels and chose to drink instead (not to mention that I am not eligible to vote).



Apparently this was a Hungarian day in Krakow. We were tasting Hungarian wine in the morning, there were various stands at a square letting you taste Hungarian wine from various producers, and they also had a stage with various performers playing Hungarian music while some dancers were doing some traditional Hungarian folk dances. To top it off, we had dinner at a Hungarian restaurant.
In the evening we went to see Terminator- Ocalenie (Terminator Salvation, thankfully they didn't dub the movie in Polish, they only had subtitles. It still sucked, though) .

Monday Lukasz and I spent the day being touristy in the center before flying back to Holland.

Pictures are here.