Babes in Poland

The Adventures and Further Adventures of Smelly Canadian Man

Now you know, all weekend, Crac had insulted my people in the following ways:

1. She said thosepeople while sneering on Air Baltic and making an obscene gesture with her hand
2. She said my people were “a little bit Polish”
3. She burned a Lithuanian flag while chanting “DEATH TO LITHUANIA” in Welsh

Ok, so #3 didn’t happen but I believe it would have if she had been able to get her hands on a flag and learn some Welsh. But even after all that, she wouldn’t stop. She just had to get one more dig in.

We were in line for passport control at the Vilnius Airport and there was a pungent odor hanging in the air. I mean this odor was foul. It was rude. So of course, Crac decides to blame the poor, formerly oppressed Lithuanians.

“Jesus, do you think that your people could get some deodorant?”

“Shut it, Crac unless you want to get an open hand across the face Air Baltic style.”

But, she was right, the odor was gross. And I was ashamed that my people had no sense of hygiene.

Then, I stepped up to passport control and it was like walking into the Great Wall of Smell. The man in front of me had gone through passport control but had left his rotten stench behind. My eyes started watering and I gagged.

“Crac, its not the Lithuanians! It is the Canadian man!”

Crac rolled her eyes.

The Canadian man went through security but his smell lingered.

“God that is disgusting, I hope he isn’t on our flight.”

We were a little early so we went up to the bar to watch the planes land and drink Cokes and eat peanuts. My eyes started watering again.

“Oh man, what’s that smell? Did you fart?

Crac covered her nose with her hand.

“No, I didn’t fart! I don’t know what that is!”

I looked behind me and in the doorway of the bar was Smelly Canadian Man. The plants next to the doorway had withered and turned black from being downwind from him.

“Oh man! He’s following us! He better not be on our flight!”

But of course, karma is a bitch, and he was. At all of the airports we have flown to in Europe, they do not have gates but buses that take you out on the runway to the planes. We got on our little bus and Smelly Canadian Man was there, holding onto the handrails with his arms up and gassing the whole bus.

The smell on the bus was disgusting. Foul. Rude. Smelly Canadian man was in the back of the bus so we went to the front and stood there. But there was no escaping the odor of Smelly Canadian Man. The bus driver got on the bus and got ready to take us the 10 feet to where our prop Eurolot plane was waiting.

Crac grabbed the bus driver.

“Sir, do not close the doors. If you close the doors, I will vomit.”

But the bus driver ignored her and shut the door anyway.

“Get on the floor, the air is cleaner on the floor!” she shouted and then hit the deck.

Our eyes watered. We were both about to spew when the bus stopped, the doors opened and fresh air poured into the bus.

“God, he better not be sitting near us.”

But of course, karma is a bitch, and he was. Crac and I had two seats on the left and he and his not so smelly but still guilty by association wife were in the two seats on the right of the plane.

“I’m not going to make it through this flight without barfing. We have to move seats.”

It was a full flight though. So Crac went up to the stewardess and asked if we could pay to switch to business class. (What? Of course Eurolot has business class!) The stewardess said no. So Crac decided to try another tactic without my knowledge. She told the stewardess that I was her “mentally handicapped” sister and if I sat on the wing I would piss myself all the way to Warsaw. The stewardess moved us immediately to two seats in the bulkhead.

That’s what friends are forrrrrrrrrr…

At the front of the plane, we were finally upwind from Smelly Canadian Man and had a pleasant flight. We landed in Warsaw and made our connection to Cracow which was the exact same Eurolot plane. (What? You thing Eurolot has more than one plane?) And what seats did we have? The seats of Smelly Canadian Man and his wife. And yes, they still smelled bad.

Karma is a bitch.

How Big is Nebraska?

After “Velobar” passed and we were stood there on the sidewalk basking in the glow of stupidity it had left in it’s wake, and American girl and a British man walked by.

The Brit says to the Yankee, “So what is Nebraska like? Is it big? Is it open?”

This causes Cracola to go a little bit insane.

“WHY DON’T YOU JUST ASK HER IF SHE WILL SLEEP WITH YOU?”

I pulled Cracola away from the scene but she wouldn’t let up.

“What kind of question is that? Big? Open? No Nebraska is small, and closed in. And it’s only open from 8:30 to 5 on weekdays.”

She stepped into a telephone box and shut herself in.

“Help! Help! I’m stuck in Nebraska! It is small and closed in! Oh help!”

"Your People Are A Little Bit Polish"

“Your People Are A Little Bit Polish”

I would argue against that but Crac is right.

After we ate (or, more accurately) attempted to eat at a place in Vilnius that had gnomes for tables, we left a random amount of Lithuanian money on the table for the pleasure of sitting at the table waiting for food that would never come and went back to the hotel for a yummy guacamole sandwich.

Crac was hungry and irritable and was bitching about how slow and useless the Lithuanians were.

“Admit it, admit it. Your people are a little bit Polish. They have some of that Polish in them.”

“Go to hell.”

I was about to say something else to her, something meaner, but off in the distance, down the road I heard a song, that sort of went like “Ohhhh, Ohhhhhh, OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”

“What the…”

And then, before our eyes, appeared the stupidest invention ever, an invention so stupid that it had to be a Polish creation. I’m sort of at a loss to describe it because even now, it doesn’t seem like something so stupid can exist.

It was a mobile bar driven by drunks on bicycles. The drunks lines up facing each other and had pedals attached to their stools. A captain stood in the middle steering the bar. It was called “Velobar”.

And there it was, lumbering up the street, a main street, with vehicle and pedestrian traffic. A street that Crac and I were in middle of with our mouths open, about to be hit by “Velobar”.

The song got louder as the drunks got closer. Crac and I moved to the sidewalk to watch “Velobar” go by.

I sighed.

“You’re right Crac, my people are a little bit Polish.”

How Not Knowing Your Name Can Change Your Life

So, finally and by way of Denmark, we made our way into Vilnius. Early, early Saturday morning we busted up into the Radisson (OF COURSE!) and attempted to check in. I had told my mom to call before Cracola and I got there and confirm our reservation because we would be getting there so late. Phones in Eastern Europe being what they are, I never knew what had happened with that.

But anyways, we got to the Radisson, looking and smelling like hobos and only 12 hours late for our check in. Ignatus, our cold but helpful concierge, looked at us and couldn’t believe we had a reservation at his nice hotel.

Which was funny, because according to his computer we didn’t.

So I had to hop on his computer, print out the Expedia receipt and prove to him that I did pay for the room and that I had a reservation.

Still nothing in the computer. No reservation. No room. No nothing.

He hands me the phone and says call Expedia. 1-800-EXPEDIA.

Surfer Bob answers and says, “Dude, what is up?”

“DUDE IF YOU DO NOT TELL THIS MAN THAT I HAVE A RESERVATION THEN I WILL BE FORCED TO SLEEP ON THE STREETS OF VILNIUS TONIGHT.”

“Whoa man, just give him the reservation number.”

“I ALREADY GAVE HIM THE NUMBER.”

“Well, give it to him again or something.”

“NO, YOU TALK TO HIM BECAUSE I CANNOT TALK TO HIM OR YOU ANYMORE!!!!!”

I gave the phone back to Ignatus and let him sort it out. Surfer Bob promised to fax him the secret Expedia confirmation. In the meantime, Ignatus was preparing a key for us because our stench was attracting flies into his opulent lobby.

“I am sorry girls, there is only one room left in the hotel tonight. It is the penthouse.”

Rock on.

The room was awesome, even by American standards. We had a balcony overlooking the city, robes and slippers and a bar of soaps and shampoos in the bathroom. Mmmm green apple shampoo in the penthouse.

Anyways, we hadn’t been up there 15 minutes before my mother called.

“Oh thank God you are there!”

“Yeah can you believe those assholes lost our reservation? I mean really, mother.”

Cue hilarious laughter from my dear mother.

“They didn’t lose your reservation. The reservation was under Cracola’s name. When I called before, the nice gentleman at the front desk said “Hello, Radisson” and then said it in Lithuanian…”

“What? Why would it be in Cracola’s name????”

“Shut up. Anyways, I said, I…need…someone…who…speaks…English and then he said, exactly the same, I…am…speaking…English.”

“Really mother, they’re Lithuanian, not retarded.”

“Hush. So he couldn’t find the reservation and he looked and looked and then someone else looked who finally asked if it could be under a different name. So we tried Cracola’s and there it was.”

I didn’t even think to have Ignatus try Cracola’s name. Not for one second. It didn’t occur to Cracola to speak up either. But whatever, all’s well that ends well, and Cracola and I were penthouse pets for the weekend.

The One Where Cracola And I Fight Over the Baltic Sea

Apart from fighting about where Bob Hoskins may or may not be from, Cracola and I never fight. Mostly because we get along famously but sort of because I don’t usually go around picking fights with people who can body slam me into next Tuesday.

That is, except when they insult the Lithuanians.

We boarded the flying tin can known as Air Baltic which smelled more like a flying sewer pipe rather than a tin can and took our filthy seats in the plane. The plane was packed.

I leaned over to Cracola.

“Do you think we weigh more than 20.8 metric tons?”

“What? How would I know? What kind of question is that? You look like you weigh a metric ton though,” she said as she held her nose tightly with her thumb and forefinger.

“Listen, these prop planes cannot take off if they weigh even a smidgen over 20.8 metric tons. Looks like there are a lot of fatties and baggage on this one”

“Smidgen, eh? Is that a technical term?”

Regardless of the fatties and their baggage, the plane took off beautifully and we started from Denmark over the Baltic Sea to Lithuania. About half an hour into the flight, the stewardesses came by with a menu of things you could order.

“Too bad we couldn’t buy any currency. I would have liked a Coke or something.”

Cracola sneered.

“Whatever, I’m not buying anything from those people.”

Um, excuse me? Those people? My people? The proud Lithuanian people who beat back the burden of Communism? Oh hell no. Those people are most definitely not those people.

So I did the logical thing and slapped her across the face.

“What the hell is your problem? What did you do that for?”

“Because you’re a racist. And I hate you.”
“What the hell?”

“I heard the way you said those people. Those people are my people, you bitch.”

“Your people are the people who work at Air Baltic? Because that is who I am talking about.”

Damn.

“Oh, well, uhh, that’s a horse of a different color then. I’m sorry for slapping you and uhh, please don’t punch me,” I whimpered.

Cracola picked up the menu and turned it over. The brilliant logo of Mastercard caught her eye.

“Just to show you how not a racist I am and how much I looooooove Lithuanians, I’m going to order everything on this menu. In fact, I am going to order two of everything on this menu so that you can partake in this exercise against racism.”

And she did. And I was sure she loved the Lithuanians until the next time she insulted them.

Money Laundering 101

Greetings from Warsaw bus station, I mean, Warsaw airport.

We are beginning to think that Lithuania does not exist. We have tried to buy currency 3 times at two different airports today and have been roundly mocked at the currency exchange. I mean, it isn't like Lithuania is you know, a neighboring country to Poland or anything.

This morning (God, this morning seems like days ago) we attempted to purchase Lithuanian money in Cracow. We went up to the currency exchange and said, "Lithuania?"

The girl just blinked.

Then I pulled out my "Baltic States" book and showed her on the cover the word Lithuania and a picture. She blinked again, grabbed the book and started reading it leaving Cracola and I standing there with a fistful of zlotys and no book.

"Um, we need that back? Do you have Lithuanian money?"

The girl laughed, said no, passed the book back to us and told us to go away. I still am confused as to what happened there.

Now, in Warsaw, the CAPITAL of Poland which is the country NEXT to Lithuania and we have twice been denied currency. At the first exchange place the girl explained they had Estonian EEKs (yes, eeeeeeeek!) but no Lithuanian money. At the second exchange place the woman broke into hysterical laughter.

"Yeah, real funny," Cracola growled.

So we are penniless. But the upside is that when we go through customs in Lithuania (assuming the country exists and we get there) we will have absolutely nothing to declare.

Babes in Poland are Babes All Over Europe

You have got to be effin' kidding me.

So we were booked to go from Cracow to Warsaw and from Warsaw to Vilnius today. Easy enough, no? But when you add a little dash of my favorite airlines, POLISH AIRLINES, you will not find yourself in Vilnius. You will find yourself in Copenhagen.

The propeller fell off of our plane from Cracow to Warsaw this morning so they wouldn't let us get on. And by "wouldn't let us get on" I mean wouldn't let the plane even come from Warsaw to Cracow. So we were waiting at the airport. Delay. Delay. Why is the plane delayed? Oh don't worry, POLISH AIRLINES will not tell you, just sit and wait. Delay. Delay. DELAY. When it became clear we weren't going to make our flight, we barged into the LOT office.

"We are not going to make our connection."

The LOT lady typed about a 5,938 keystrokes into the computer. I don't know what she was doing, maybe looking for a 100 digit prime number or something. Finally she looked at us.

"You are not going to make your connection."

"Yes, we know that. In fact, we just told you that."

The LOT lady looked back down at the computer, did some more equations and then looked up again.

"You no make it to Vilnius today."

Cracola was not amused. "No, you see, we make it to Vilnius today. Do something. Do something now."

The LOT lady was scared. I was scared. The LOT lady went back to typing her biography on the computer and then looked up again.

"You go to Copenhagen?"

"No, we NO GO TO COPENHAGEN. We go to Vilnius."

"Copenhagen and then Vilnius?"

"We are not flying west to go east."

But oh, in fact we were. The only way we could get to Vilnius today was to fly from Cracow to Warsaw, Warsaw to Copenhagen and then Copenhagen to Vilnius. This will get into Vilnius at midnight Vilnius time after a menage of LOT, Scandanavian Airline and the ominous AIR BALTIC. But it is the only way. And we were not alone, two other couples were going to Vilnius and opted for the same route.

The lady told us to sit down and someone would page us with the update on our Warsaw flight.

Tic toc. Crac and I ordered a grilled cheese. Tic toc. Crac and I ordered another grilled cheese. Tic toc.

Finally, someone paged us. In Polish first so we ignored it but then in broken English, "PASSENGERS Cracola and cracow_couture PLEASE CHECK THE DESK."

We had never been paged before. It was kind of like being famous in a very, very Polish sort of way.

So when we got to the desk, the lady takes our boarding passes and gives us new ones.

"Does this mean the plane is coming?" I asked.

"No."

So we waited and waited until a 737 pulled up on the runway and they called Warsaw to board. Only then did we figure out that our prop plane was dead in Warsaw.

So we boarded, or attempted to board, because LOT does not mess around and, in fact, boards planes while people are still getting off of them.

More Pictures!

New pictures (FINALLY, I know, I know) are in the photo album. And to entice you to check them out, here is a picture of the disembodied head of Kofi Annan made completely our of sugar. There was also a Bill Clinton one as well which I strained to lick through the protective glass.

The Hills are Alive...With the Sound of Music *barf*

We had another quick trip this weekend, this time to Vienna, Austria. At the beginning of our time in Poland, we had worked out the equation.

Where X= least amount of time in Poland and Y= least amount of money to accomplish this: X + Y= We are not staying in Poland on weekends.

We found tickets online to Austria for about $100 roundtrip and a night at the Radisson (of course!) for $120 so we were sooooo going. Unfortunately, the $100 tickets require you to leave Cracow at the ass crack of dawn.

So we came up with a brilliant idea. We won’t go to bed, we will just stay up all night. Marvelous.

Good idea in theory though because when 4am rolled around we were looking and feeling pretty rough. I don’t even think I put a bra on. Everyone at the airport had obviously gotten a goodnight’s sleep and at least 20 people greeted us with, “Dzien Dobry!” which I think is Polish for “Good Day!”

Cracola turned to me and growled, “The next person who says Dzien Dobry to me is getting a swift kick in the head.”

Luckily, by that point, our smell was offensive enough to put off the cheery Poles from talking to us.

And while I know it is hard to believe, when we landed in Vienna, we were looking and feeling worse.

Cracola’s stomach was upset. Really, really upset. As we lined up for passport control, she grabbed my arm and said, “I think I’m going to barf on passport control.”

She didn’t but she came close.

In Vienna, there is a train from the airport that takes you to the city center in 16 minutes for 9 Euro or you can get a taxi which takes 30 minutes and costs 35 Euro. Cracola was having none of the train in her state so we got a taxi.

Enter the friendliest, most wonderfully chatty taxi driver in the world. Which at 6am and on the threshold of vomiting, was exactly what Cracola did not need.

I guess it is really my fault that the cab driver talked to us. I shouldn’t have spoken up but when Cracola turned to me and said, “Why are we following all these road signs to Wien? I hope he knows we want to go to Vienna.”, I couldn’t help but tell her that Wien = Vienna in German. And that is when Chatty Taxi spoke up.

“Oh yes, Wien Is Vienna. Ever heard of a wiener? I am a Wiener but not a hotdog, I am not Oscar Meyer! Do you know that song? Oh I wish I was and Oscar Meyer wiener…then everyone would love me…”

He went on singing the Oscar Meyer song with all the wrong words. Cracola looked at me through her sunglasses and said, “If he doesn’t stop singing, I am going to blow chunks in the cab.”

But Chatty Taxi would not shut up. The whole rest of the way to Vienna he went on and on and on about his city, which on any other day would have been appreciated but today was just making Cracolaclutch her stomach and concentrate on not spewing.

“Wienerschnitzel! That means schnitzel, Vienna style. If you go to the wienerschnitzel place near the Radisson, you can get a wienerschnitzel the size of the steering wheel! After you eat it, you will go to the church and get down on your knees and thank God that you met me! Wienerschnitzel!”

Just as I thought Cracola was really going to lose it, we were at the hotel and I gave Chatty Taxi a huge tip for his kindness.

In America, if you try to check into a hotel a 6:30am, not only will they laugh at you and not let you check in, they may, in fact, kick the crap out of you. But the nice people at the Radisson Vienna took one look at us and let us right up to our room.

But before we could get to our room, we had to pass through the breakfast buffet area, a virtual gauntlet of bacon. The smell and sight of the buffet made Cracola gag.

But, as in most things, all’s well that ends well, and Cracola did not vom and we made it to our room to sleep off our stupidity.

You Can Check In Any Time You Like But You Can NEVER Leave

Hey guys! Know what? LOT has a 72 hour check in requirement or your ass isn't getting on the flight!

Guess who didn't know that? Mafioso!

So LOT didn't want to let him leave but since Cracola is so big and mean she was firm with the Polish people and made them put him on the flight.

"HELLO? LOT? DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH? NO? YOU MUST PUT MY HUSBAND ON THE FLIGHT IMMEDIATELY!"

Dealing with Polish Airlines is always fun.