The adventures of Miss Despina

I just can’t begin to describe my holiday in Krakow. I think I’ll let Jez’s flickr stream do it for me. Just click the photo. My photos will probably arrive in installments, once flickr decides it’s heard of me!

It stopped raining for about four hours the whole time we were in Krakow. However this didn’t stop us from having an amazing time. We were staying in a rather bohemian hotel in Kasimierz, the old Jewish quarter, which is out of the main part of the city. There were lots of synagogues, restaurants and cafés to go in and hide from the rain.

One of our favourite cafés in the world is now "Singer", where the tables are old Singer sewing machine tables, the mirrors and pictures on the wall are delapidated, and candles light up the dark décor. At night however, a young crowd come and dance to Gypsy Kings (which brought back memories of our first date) and the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. Jez said it would take a lot of alcohol for him to get up and dance. So a lot of alcohol later, we finally danced together in Krakow! Neither of us has any co-ordination or sense of rhythm, but it was still a great experience!

Another favourite hangout is Alchemia club, where the music is extremely varied and for the most part very good, the décor is just quirky, and the drinks are Samoobsluga - almost the same as my favourite Czech word for self-service!

And another lovely café / restaurant we went in for hot chocolate / hot mead / Jewish cuisine was called Once Upon A Time In Kasimierz. It was the interior of four former shops: a grocer, a woodworker, a dressmaker and another tradesman but I can’t remember what, sorry. The restaurant is in four small sections, so around one table there is a sewing machine, a tailor’s dummy, hat boxes and tails jackets, then another section has a carpenter’s workbench, etc etc. It is truly lovely.

And the quirkiest restaurant round there? Klezmer Hois! Where we ate a three course meal (enough for a food hangover) whilst listening to live Klezmer music. We also had lots of apperfitifs, liquers, beers, wines and the most disgusting "cake kiss" in the world. It was just Perfect!

And all of these places were just five minutes from our hotel! 

We went out of the city twice. Once was to the salt mines about half and hour away - well worth a visit, despite the rain. The other trip was to Auschwitz. I don’t really want to describe how I felt when I went there. I will just say that it was harrowing and I’m glad I saw it. You can see the photos.

We could have spent a week just in Kasimierz, but we managed to get into town and see the castle and various churches and monuments, and also the Photography museum which you really shouldn’t bother going to!

Jez took Polish classes many many years ago, and manages to say "I’m sorry, my Polish is not very good" so well that people just assume he’s being modest and speak Polish back. I just kept speaking Czech accidentally - to waitresses, taxi drivers - and I asked Jez, "do you think they’re laughing at my Czech?"
"No," he said, "they just think you’re speaking shit Polish."
"Well," I said, "I managed to speak shit Czech for three months and get away with it!"
His response:
"Ah yes, Operation Shit Czech is alive and well!"

Jez, I love you. Thanks for a brilliant holiday xxx

Hello everyone. I’m afraid this will be my last proper post for the next few days. I’m off on holiday you see.

Then when I get home I am moving software! Byebye to this user-unfriendly blog - apologies to everyone who’s struggling to get comments through. 

I’m writing this from ever such a strange little "internet and laundry" kiosk under the main railway station in Prague. There’s even a curtain behind me I can pull across if I want to look at porno - I suppose I could try to find that video of myself on youtube! We’ve come to the station stupidly early, and in a couple of hours’ time, we’ll be on a train to Krakow! I’m so excited! Budapest, Prague and Krakow in one year is more than I’d have dreamt of. Photos when I’m home, promise.

When I left you on Friday it was to go the airport to meet Jez (who is lovely, by the way. Really really lovely). I’d dressed for the occasion, thinking of how thrilled he’d be to get of his Paris-Prague flight and see a gorgeous, straight-haired, sultry brunette waiting for him with a secret little smile. As it happened though, I don’t know whether it was the time and effort required to straighten my hair (which happens about once a month) or just the fact that I can’t get organised to save my life, but when I arrived in the depertures lounge, almost tripping over my shoes and splitting another pair of trousers, I felt like a mum who was late picking up her child from school. All the other children have gone home and there’s just your little boy sitting there, looking so cute but so lonely that you feel terrible.

We’ve had a good weekend. On Saturday Jez shocked me by suggesting that we go shopping - we spent about 60 quid in Marks & Spencers. Then we went to Bertramka, where there was a wedding going on, and oh, it was so lovely, and made me so excited about singing there! Really elegant. And then in the evening we met up with the friends who will be getting married there next May. Spent most of yesterday packing - Oh My God, I’m not brave enough to talk about that yet - and then we went out into Prague.

Walking across the Charles Bridge for the last time in a little while, we saw a jazz band strike up playing. They were five old men and whilst the sound was ok, they didn’t seem like they were really into it (although the bassist who had shoved his cigarette between his fingerboard and his tuning peg for safekeeping was quite funny, as was the man playing the cd case as a percussion instrument). They finished their piece, so Jez and I stopped holding hands and clapped them, as you do. And then we realised that no-one else was applauding. I looked around at the twenty or so grumpy tourists sitting on the wall, and before I could stop myself, I just said, "You miserable bastards!" Jez thought it was hilarious.

So we arrived at the opera house to see Manon Lescaut, both looking gorgeous and really enjoying the airy building and the elegant décor. Our tickets were for the second balcony, but since there had been so little interest and so few seats sold - which really surprised me, considering that this is the Prague equivalent of Covent Garden - we were given an upgrade to stalls seats. We managed to ignore the jeans-and-flip-flops-Gee-Honey tourists behind us and wow, what a production! It began in an artist’s studio, and the characters had a Ruddigore moment and stepped out of the paintings, the main picture breaking up and forming the scenery. Act II was in a jewellery box, in delicious powdered wig, Marie Antoinette style, and then the rest of the action took place in 1950’s Le Havre and America. Wonderfully sung by everyone, an excellent production and cast. The chorus were very strong too - however I was a bit sad that they didn’t get a bow, since they worked so hard. I bet they were all in the pub already! Jez and I drank champagne at the interval again - it’s becoming a tradition! I’m so lucky that we’ve been to the opera in Prague together twice. That’s the kind of lifestyle I’d like to get used to - please?

We met up with O on Vaclavské and said byebye, then we went out for a drink with Andrea, who I will miss so much. She is such an angel. She’s frighteningly intelligent and intellectual, and just so kind and giving - for example, she offered us to stay in her flat when we come in May! Then we said goodbye to her and went back to the flat, where Jez talked to me about trains until I went to sleep.

So it’s byebye Prague, and hello Krakow! Thanks for the travel / language tips everybody. We’ll talk when I return.

Despina x