Selling Sno-Cones at the Beach

back in Krakow

I've been in Krakow since Wednesday. My luggage just arrived yesterday - FINALLY!!! This will be the last trip that I don't have a spare set of clothes in my carry-on bag! I had to buy some cheap clothes finally - couldn't stand it anymore.

I've been visiting tourist information offices "under the radar" trying to see how the City tourism people promote the communist suburb of Nowa Huta. And I have been managing my cold (by curling up in the bed with black current juice (a little bitter aftertaste but delightfully not too sweet) and tissues.

And reading voraciously. There's a great used-book, English-language bookstore here, and they buy back books, too, which is great for me. It means I can indulge in trashy (or at least non academic) reading and sell back the books to get rid of the weight on the return. I read an old book by Neal Stephenson (The Big U) and a bio by Nicholas Gage about Ari Onassis and Maria Callas. The former was just goofy but had all the hallmarks of NS style already - the sly references to geek culture, the just-plain-invented technology. I think he must have been influenced by that Shampoo Planet guy - whose name is escaping me at the moment.

The Gage book was a bit sad - everyone dies (like the Moby-Dick-in-One-Minute summary: "everyone dies but the fish and Ish") but only after losing their youth and being rejected or failing miserably. After my flight time, I really focused in the book on all the jetting around - how could they stand to travel so much? Even first class is so claustrophobic, being stuck in a tin can all those hours.

Tomorrow I move to the dormitory for classes for 6 weeks. It will be hard to organize research around classes, but it must be done. I was hoping to arrange a tour for tomorrow, but no one answers the phone and the internet reservation failed, so I'm not sure what's going on there.

More to follow in the subsequent weeks....