Epic

This morning I woke up dead on 10am, wrapped in somebody's crochet rug, with dill in my teeth. Far from flying into a panic and desperately pulling at my cocoon, I shuffled in deeper, watched the summer rain trickling down the windows and pleased myself with idle contemplations of Russian novellas, French boys and that accordion I'm going to buy.
This was the lull in the best twenty-four hours of my life, that started in the evening, some twenty-five hours ago.

I must be the devil, because I'm reading The Master and Margherita, and the chaos that has promptly followed has been very good to me, actually. On page 136 the Master reveals Satan. On page 136, my phone shrillingly delivered this message (in English, with French/Polish grammar): "I m next to you. Where are? David".

Now, this would have been a nice surprise if my apartment wasn't such a large, curtainless beacon, there wasn't a storm thrashing the city's walls and I wasn't reading about the devil. Adrenalin coursed through me as I nervously watched a lone figure walking the street where I had left David a few days before, but that person didn't have the same gait, nor did he appear to be expecting my appearance on the balcony. Anyhow, he soon was consumed by the fog, and I was left watching the blinking lights of the buses and the yellow silhouette of the Palace of Culture

David didn't message me back.

I made myself a cup of tea and listlessly rifled through my clothes, until I was satisified. I do everything very slowly nowadays- it makes me happier. There was much rain, but it was warm, so I left the building wearing a skirt and t-shirt and headed for Ulica Dobra. Somewhere along the way I ended up at a party with Natalia. There I patiently waited for some guy to get my joke, before floating off down towards the river, Wisla.

On Dobra, there was dancing and laughing and photos of people's abdomens. When I dropped The Master and Margherita, I think Radek was taking photos of people's feet. I crawled under the table, dumbly sifting through gravel to find the novel, then dusted it off. Drunk and curious, I turned to page 136 and read two sentences. When my concentration lapsed I found Natalia in tears and Szymon looking really pissed off. Hours of tentative diplomacy failed, so exhausted, I collapsed at a table, knocking the sausage off some guy's plate. He looked up, with pretty brown eyes, and the next two hours were spent in French, interrupted only occasionally by tears and hysterics.

This table quickly became the transit table. Every half an hour or so, people would awkwardly shuffle onto the bench, at first apologetic at having encroached on our little tete-a-tete. Before long we would all be collapsing into fits of laughter, effortlessly moving through language and time, swapping numbers and parting as firm friends.

This is how Renata, who I knew for all of ten minutes, and I came to be on bus 167 in the brilliant six-am sunshine. We were en route to her apartment, the bus's belly slowly curving with the bends, making a general nuisance of ourselves in front of wholesome folk. At six am we were on the bus, at six-thirty we had prepared an elaborate dinner for two: chicken schnitzel, mashed potatoes with dill and a salad. Carefully selecting the best plates and cutlery, we settled to our meal of Polish fare, discussing the pedagogical differences in approaches to Anthropology. At seven am, I was wrapped up in somebody's crochet rug and asleep.

And so, at ten am, I wriggled my toes and admiring the vibrancy of the elms after the morning's shower; pleased with the seamless way the night had moved from one curious encounter to another. I checked my phone: David still hadn't offered an explanation. Secretly pleased, I allowed myself to indulge in this little mystery a while longer.

At 14:00 I was standing in a queue at the main railway station, one person away from being served. It was 14:00, my train was at 14:05, and I was still all bleary and drunk. I was investing a lot of energy into hating the scrawny teenager in front of me who had so nonchalantly squeezed passed me at 15:32, but he didn’t seem to notice. At 14:03 I was skidding across the main hall, my pack clumsily following, having just remembered the possibility of buying tickets on the train.

After getting confused I ended up in the dining cart. I appropriated a roll with limp lettuce from a rather jolly man, who didn’t mind when the intertia of the carriage threw him into the dishwasher or stove. Later on, he sold me an orange juice, and merely chortled when sent flying with a cup and saucer, which made me like him a lot.

I moved towards the one table that wasn’t patroned by a drunk man with a shaved head; but, rather, a quiet man absorbed by his book. My cumbersome load meant I made quite an announcement of my arrival, and probably made some sort of quip in Polish because the guy smiled dumbly. I turned to page 139 and disappeared for ten minutes. The devil was still wreaking havoc in Moscow, but when I returned to the rhythmic shuffling of the carriage, we were cutting through virgin wheat; the sun invoking an intensity of yellow I’d never seen before.

Between Warsaw and Krakow, Matthew and I became chums. He was an English teacher from Washington DC, quietly tracing his Jewish roots from the barren wastelands of the Ukraine, to the more obvious ancestral villages of Poland. Together we agonised over the admininstrative principles of all the teaching institutions in Warsaw, clutching at our heads at the horror stories we exchanged. I gave him anecdotal evidence of really bad pick-up lines from Polish gents, whereas he offered that an ‘English gentleman was the holy grail for Polish women...or so I’ve been told’. Finally, we shared a moment when on mentioning his German Shepard, Zooey, I inquired of Franny’s welfare. The perfection of that personal joke lead us to fall into contemplative silence, and when we arrived at Krakow station, and bid each other goodbye, I knew we were friends.

Elation made me to skip around Krakow for six hours, followed by my father, somewhere behind. On the corner of Aleja Dietla, some man was guffawing loudly. On Ulica Felicjanek some girl, wearing a wreath of violets tripped over her feet, and burst into tears of laughter. Near the old square three elderly women screeched greetings from their windows onto the street below. Everwhere, accordions and violins were being tuned in anticipation of the Jewish music festival. And the rain that had woken me that morning in Warsaw descended with all its wrath on the city of churches, ruining my red suede shoes. But I didn’t care- because I was going to have cake.

At sunset, we approached the synagogue on Ulica Miodowa. It was not the largest synagogue in Krakow and possibly not the prettiest, but tonight the most revered kletzmer band, Kroke, was going to play within its walls.

The atmosphere inside was a buzz. Somehow Matthew found his way to a seat near me, and we easily slipped back into our talk of literature . I opened my mouth, said something about The Master and Margherita, then a buffeting BOOM resounded through the synagogue, and the lights went out. Technical difficulties, they said, but I knew otherwise and smilingly reached into my bag to stroke the Penguin Classic that lay therein. Nevertheless, all we could see were the dim lights of the outside world, so we opted to talk about Kerouac and how he ruined literature for me.

With another BOOM the audience, the stage, and finally the synagogue were spectatularly brought back to life and the band, to raucous applause, entered the stage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG3QO57mOd4

There was such subtlety and humility to the violinist’s song that I cried for a very long time.

And that's that, five hours later of travel later, back over half of Poland, I'm safe in bed. I’m now on page 157....

And David still hasn’t written back.

My mum is great.

Me: "MUM, can you get me some toilet paper? It's in that cupboard"

Mama Pusia, barging in: "Sorry, what? Did you say you wanted to borrow money?"














What did she think I was doing in there? Playing poker?

Giggity-giggity-goo-ski.

Today, I had the pleasure of getting sun stroke on a Polish beach. The beach, I might add, looks like St Kilda, but boy are they proud of it. Salmonella aside, I skipped over to the gentle waves with the hungry eyes of an Australian in a landlocked country. Three seconds later, I retreated to the blanket of refuge, having lost all feeling in my toes. So, what's a girl to do but read sweeping epics that make her cry and be pleased with her new navy blue polkadot one-piece?



I now look like a smoked eel.



Anyway, I'm in hiding now- but not because I look like a smoked eel. I'm in hiding because I just spent ten hours with this person:









I didn't quite peg him from the start. It was a slow process of elimination- crossing out every arrogant, guffawing, sweaty lothario I had ever shared a tram-ride with. I didn't understand where this feeling of familiarity was coming from. I mean, I didn't really know that many people that unabashedly scanned the beach for flopped-out titties, and who then turned to their party and suggestively wiggled their eyebrows.


Then there was the inane rambling, the nervous jerks, the toothy grins this person would thrust into your line of sight so that you would vigorously nod and pretend you really cared about the time they weren't forty and bald.


Then, in an explosive realisation (cold, white shock) I came to understand that I was sharing an armrest wth Quagmire. So I quietly retreated, and haven't been seen since.


*

Until tomorrow, my friends. Because tomorrow, our Georgie Pie comes to town.

Poland. Is. Weird.

Anyone who has known me for more than ten minutes knows that I'm Polish and, when drunk, may get hysterical about its plight.


But now that I'm here, I understand.

1. Everyone is obsessed with guns and swords.

2. The EU is a topic best broached in controlled circumstances: like a vacuum.

3. You don't refuse alcohol.

4. If you are a woman, there is no way you will be allowed to walk home on your own.

5. If you are a woman, all the men in your family will quarrel, decide upon and toast your fate.

6. If you go to a pub patroned by philosophy students talking about their theses, you will inevitably be privy to at least four punch-ons. If you start taking photos of these punch-ons, you will be threatened by shirtless men with shaved heads, until your male friends arrive to defend your honour. Maybe later, once the cops/hysterical girlfriends/sober talk of Nietzche has broken up the mood, you will all indulge in a jovial spitting match.

Gaffe No. 273

My friend Tessa reminded me of my superb gift for putting my foot in my mouth.

A party a long time ago.

Me: something something (don't remember)

My friend the lesbian: "That's because I'm a dyke."

Me: "Yeah, you are a dyke."

My friend the lesbian: 'I said, "That's because I'm in the dark."'

Smooth.

What loud, obnoxious and unattractive Americans stop you on street corners for.

I harbour a deep distrust of my memory, so I scrambled up some stairs to write this post. I now have a big bruise on my knee. Bless.


I was rushing through the labyrinth of Hell-noise that is Hanoi when this giant of a tourist, rudely and expertly, manouvered his belly into my path. He was dressed in khaki with a bum bag of matching hue, that did little to compliment his girth.


Man, in American twang: "OMG, you were sitting next to us at that cafe around the corner!!"


Me: *Dumbly trying to locate this remarkable place in recent history*


Man: "It's the one with marble tables , near the cathedral, I mean, it's like POW here *arm gestures* and the cathedral is POW here."


Me: "Ok, well yeah...I was there a few minutes ago"


Man: "Yeah, the one that's listed as an Australian hot spot in the American Lonely Planet, you know?"


Me: *Panicked and wondering how he had known I was Australian*


Man: "What are you doing here? Studying or travelling?"


Me: "Travelling."


Man: "REALLY? Wow!"


Me: *Uncomfortably* "And you?"


Man: "I'm American."


Me: "Oh"


Silence.


Man: "Have you seen the big cross in dedicated to all those fallen Australian men? You know, it was such a tragedy. POW- two-hundred men in a couple of hours. Real tragedy. I was there with them in in my 20s. Good guys, good guys. They had....


*Man pauses and reaches arm towards the sky in invocation*


....they had great morale. They liked a good drink, good laugh, no BS, you know. They were...they were real Mel Gibson types, you know..."


Me: "Oh yeah, yeah...he's a great ambassador.."


Man: "He's a great guy, Mel...


*Man stares off into the distance in contemplation of this fact*


"...You know, he got into some trouble recently. He was drunk, that's all. They say he said some anti-Jewish, anti-semitic things, but it was a stitch-up, you know? They were just angry because they made this film, Passion of the Christ. Total stitch-up.......


Me: ....uh....


Man: "But yeah, I agree, he's made some great movies"


Me: "Have a good day"


Man: "Yeah, you too, you too! God BLESS. GOD BLESS."
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War is bad, guys- it turns out people like this.

What to think about on a 16hr train when you are lying one foot below a fluroscent light.

- Which colour yellow is better- duckling or lemon? Answer: duckling.

- Is private philanthropy a good idea?

- Is the nappy lying two metres away from my face soiled, or just a practical gesture from the people at Reunification Express?

- Hippies- yay or nay?

- Is there a U.S. state that begins with the letter 'b'?

- Is my headache and nausea malaria-related?

- Do I have malaria?

- Is calling your pet, 'Dogstoyevski', going too far?

- What am I doing here?