Day 16: Krakow

So far, Krakow has proven to be not bad, not bad at all.

I was starting to feel a little weary from traveling. Not quite tired of traveling, but a little less excited about rushing out and seeing the sights. Physically, I was exhausted, too. Between my morning jogs, followed by sightseeing on foot, I estimated I was covering 10 - 15 miles most days, if not more. All of this activity made sleeping through the night at the hostels much easier, but my left ankle was starting to give me problems. So clearly, it was break-time, and I vowed to take the morning off: no guidebooks, no schedules, no cameras, no sightseeing. Instead, I hung out at the hostel, did my laundry, edited and cataloged photos, and generally acted lazy. The only touristy thing I did was to venture out of the hostel to go find some perogies for lunch, which were well worth the break from laziness.

In the Market Square of Krakow

At 6pm, I met Shannon for a fantastic Polish dinner: beetroot soup with egg, cabbage-wrapped stuffed pork, and roasted potatoes. Easily the best dinner I've had on this trip yet. After dinner, Shannon and I wandered down to the river, where Krakow was hosting a free outdoor concert to celebrate the shortest night of the summer. With some smooth maneuvering on Shannon's part, we were able to snag a great place to watch the show. The stage of the concert was set up across the river, while the crowd stood on the opposite bank. The lead act was Wyclef Jean, which turned into a fascinating show, not because of the music but more because of the crowd watching. I'm not great at estimating crowd sizes, but my best guess would be that about 30-50 thousand people attended the outdoor event. Maybe 5%-10% of the crowd actually knew Wycelf's music -- the attendees were largely Krakow residents whose primary language is Polish, and there were a lot of families. So this was not a group that was going to chant along to Wycelf's top hits, most of which were released 15 years ago and are generally in a mix of English and Spanish. To compensate, Wycelf did a couple of Black Eye Peas' more recent hits, a Shakira song, and some Michael Jackson. But it was easy to tell the crowd just wasn't that in to the concert, no matter how many times Wycelf yelled "Poland put your hands up in the air!" Wycelf must have sensed the lack of enthusiasm, too, because about 4 songs into the act he declared, "someone bring me a speedboat! I need to be on a boat! I want to see the people of Poland." So Wyclef was given a lifejacket and a speedboat, and he came to the opposite shore, where he paraded up and down in front of the crowd telling us to put our hands up in the air, before going back to the opposite side. Perhaps it was planned, but either way it was only a temporary excitement boost, and the crowd quickly returned to a state of mild exuberance while Wyclef continued to tell Poland to put it's hands up in the air. Wycelf started to wind down the concert by thanking Poland for helping his country of Haiti, followed by a free verse song where the chorus was the repeated refrain of "Africa...Poland...Africa...Poland." By this point, even I was confused. Poland's not exactly a land of racial diversity, in fact it's been suffering from a huge brain drain. Ambitious Poles are currently leaving the country to find better wages in other countries, and there's little immigration to Poland. I think the song was supposed to be generally about the importance of freedom and democracy, although I'm a little worried I might be giving Wycelf a lot of help with that interpretation.

But the crowd hung in there, which I found a bit surprising given that it was nearly 11pm and Wycelf had been playing for over two hours. But when Wycelf stopped playing, I realized why the crowd had really hung around -- the amazing fireworks display that followed. The fireworks show was one of the best I have seen in years.

The Wycelf Jean Concert

After the fireworks, I headed back to the hostel. I was able to have a very late phone call with my grandmother, father, and brother in California, and it was very nice to hear familiar voices after weeks of traveling.

It's back to sightseeing tomorrow!