Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

I’m in Krakow for a design review with my project engineers. This project is split Zurich and Krakow; since last time we met in Zurich, we decided to meet in Krakow this time around. I left Seattle on Saturday and arrived Sunday to give myself some extra time to adjust to the time difference of 8 hours.

Unfortunately, getting to Krakow involves more layovers than flying to India. I flew from Seattle to Amsterdam to Munich to Krakow. I’m not a big fan of flying in Europe. It’s ok to smoke in the airport, so you get lots of second-hand smoke waiting for the plane. And the boarding process is disorganized (“everyone board as once”). It’s probably faster, but not fun.

It’s especially not fun because of limited overhead bin space. On my flight from Munich to Krakow, the guy next to me kept this carry-on suitcase at his feet (it didn’t fit under the seat in front of him), so he ended up crowding my area quite a bit. It was very uncomfortable, but I was so tired by then that I just fell asleep.

Northwest Airlines couldn’t get the TV system on the plane working for about 2 hours, so I read most of The Blind Side, which was pretty good, but I liked Liar’s Poker better. Which reminds me, I have about 25 books that I’ve read and still need to write about. :-(

My last flight was about an hour late. My hotel had a car that picked me up and brought me to the hotel. The hotel was completely booked, so my room wasn’t available when I arrived (at around 2 pm). I was pretty annoyed (and sleepy), but fortunately, it was ready within 20 minutes.

The hotel is pretty nice. It’s has a nice central courtyard / atrium with the main restaurant and a glass ceiling. This morning I saw a guy mopping the ceiling. It’s the first time I’ve seen something mopped from floor’s perspective. :-)

I took a shower and then went to the main restaurant to get a bite to eat. They weren’t serving from the menu because they had a fancy Sunday brunch going on. Since I couldn’t eat most of the food (meat and fish) they were serving, I went to the sports bar and ate nachos and a brownie while engrossed in a soccer match between two teams I didn’t know or recognize.

Then I went to sleep (finally!) and slept until 7 when Morgwai and Marek (two of the Krakow based developers) met me at the hotel for dinner. We walked to Old Town and went to a traditional Polish restaurant where I had salad (lettuce with sour cream, which was surprisingly good) and vegetarian pierogi. I had both cabbage/mushroom and potato pierogi with a roasted onion sauce. I didn’t really like the cabbage/mushroom or the roasted onion sauce, but the potato ones were good. Much better than Trader Joe’s brand frozen pierogi.

For dessert I had a layered chocolate creme wafer cake thing. It was really good, but a little dry (I think it’s supposed to be like that). And then we walked back and I went to sleep after watching a little bit of Shrek 3 in Polish (I could have watched the English version, but the Polish one was better).

Coming next: Vijay explores the city while trying not to look like a tourist, goes to work in a palace, and finds some pizza.