The destination was clear: Georgia the Country. The deadline was also clear: Arrive prior to Thanksgiving. These were the only KPIs. Or OKRs—I never could keep those straight in my corporate days.
But how to get there, how to get there... A decade of doing tech things in tech made a professional Googler out of me and to Google I went, searching “Europe direct flights to Tbilisi, Georgia.” Krakow, Poland was one of the first cities listed, and like a lucky fool, I didn’t question. Only after the flights from California to Poland were booked did I look at my “direct” flight options from Krakow to Tbilisi.
Lo and behold, the definition of the word “direct” has apparently been expanded, and now includes red-eye flights with extended layovers. Either that, or I had been hoodwinked by some search engine optimization and ought to have verified if I really wanted to optimize the experience for maximum effectiveness. Good thing I didn’t, something I only knew in hindsight.
Viewing this visit to Poland as a potentially fortuitous booking snafu or, at the very least, a good story, I got busy wondering what specifically a person should see in this neck of the Polish woods. I also got busy wondering how a person should pronounce the name of the city given all the options—“Krak-oaf,” “Krakoff,” or the Americanized “Krak-ow.” To pronounce it any way other than the latter is reminiscent of how one of my ostentatious college professors pronounced his favorite word, “naiveté.” With his nose lifted ever so slightly in the air, he managed to squeeze three Mississippi’s out of that last syllable.
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In my Google searching, Auschwitz-Birkenau quickly emerged as the single-most important place I could see while there. The Monday of the tour—my second full day in the country—was fittingly and bitingly cold, rainy, and oppressively gray as we quietly made our wet way around the concentration camp complex. As grateful as I was for all of my warm layers and my umbrella, I was still cold. And couldn’t help but think about the hundreds of thousands who endured unspeakable atrocities, scantily-clad in similar or worse weather.
In what could not have been orchestrated as a more confusing foil to this experience, two attractive Irish blokes and I became loosely acquainted on the bus. Our casual friendliness continued on the tour as we’d find each other to stand by and occasionally talk with. One of them I could understand really not at all, and the other I could only partially understand and this only if I paid very close attention.
A few factors contributed to my general confusion about these fellas. There seemed to be interest on the part of the one I could mostly understand, but I couldn’t be sure. One of the most somber locations on Earth is hardly the place for even standard fare chit-chat. Also, age confusion. I suspected they were younger than me but they could’ve been thinking the same thing about me.
Since my time in-country was limited, I opted to add on a tour of the Wieliczka Salt Mine for later in the same day. Once on the bus, I learned that only four of us were continuing on to the salt mine and did not understand how this was logistically going to be coordinated. Since no one had told me to do otherwise, though, I got my wet self on the bus after the tour and surrendered to things working out.
We drove what seemed an awfully lot like the way we’d come, and in the direction of Krakow. After a time and with no notice, we pulled off at a petrol station and the four of us were told to get off. Momentarily, a small van arrived—does this sound shady like it felt at the time?—and we went on our way. I was going to say “merry way,” but truth be told, none of us felt very merry.
I at least was very much jet-lagged, chilled, and questioning why I signed up for both excursions in one day and whether the salt mines would be any good. Also, it was feeling almost immoral to move so quickly past the somber experience of the morning. Things turned around when we arrived and parked near the mine, though. Us staying sad wasn’t going to undo anything that happened at Auschwitz, and we did what humans have done for all of history: try and move forward. A brisk walk, fresh air, and some lukewarm hot chocolate from a kiosk reconstituted all of us.
The other members of my tour van were three Greek college students/young professionals. Between them, they spoke decent English, which means one spoke it not at all, one spoke it very well, and one spoke it middlin’. As we waited for our official tour to start, we got to chatting. They were curious about what allowed me to travel like I was, and I told them the easiest answer, “I’m an author.”
They responded to this with interest, then conferred amongst each other before asking their follow-up question. “Are you a famous writer?”
With great emphasis, I gave the only reasonable response: “Very.”
They responded to this answer with great interest. After a long two seconds of suspense, my conscience kicked in. My face broke into a grin as I came clean. “Just kidding. I’m not famous, not yet and maybe not ever.”
They laughed.
We laughed.
We became friends.
The salt mine was like something straight out of Lord of the Rings, minus orcs and dwarves and an existential struggle between good and evil. But otherwise, an identical setting. This hall, hundreds of feet underground, was like something out of Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” even if there was no king or mountain in sight. Everything you see in this photo is salt. Except for the obvious stuff, so helpfully notated with red arrows.
I could go on about the tour, but I won’t. Just know that it was SO COOL. On the drive back to the mother ship (Krakow), I asked our driver questions about his family and Polish politics and history. His grandmother had been forced as a child to live in Siberia with her family for something like thirteen years, and nursed a lifelong hatred of everything Russia and Russian. I expressed interest that I hadn’t seen many police officers; he informed me they are mostly undercover. Also, according to him, the most violent crimes in Krakow at least are related to soccer gang warfare.
The following day, I had an accidentally-private tour of the castle on the hill. Turns out there are perks to off-season travel. My guide had a university degree in Polish history; this guy knew stuff. Once I got over some lame chagrin that I would need to be “on” this entire tour, we were off the races. I asked him questions worthy of a fully-booked tour group, learned a bunch, and fell further in love with this place and its people and history. Did you know they have one of the oldest universities in the WORLD? They do.
Tour over, I soaked up as much of the city as I could between my cloudy-day walk from the castle to my hotel. The cobblestones, the beautiful buildings largely unscathed by the bombings of World War 2, the cool trees which never get old.
My time in this place I’d never planned to visit had gone by too fast. As I headed to the airport for my “direct” flight to Tbilisi—direct, my foot—I found myself reflecting on how hungry I suddenly was.
But more meaningfully, I found myself reflecting on how glad I was to have seen the places I had and met the people I did—the Poles, the Greeks, the Irish fellas, the African college student who let me charge my dead iPhone behind the counter of the kabob shop where he was working, and lots more. My life would be several stories short had I not gone to Krakow. And it seems like that’s how a lot of life is lived—the best stuff happens on the unexpected detours and the things that don’t work exactly as we might try to perfectly plan them.
What’s been one of your favorite “detours” or accidental discoveries?
Isn’t life cool and aren’t people interesting and sometimes hard to understand (literally)? See you in the next one…
I always thought of “the salt mines” as a place of punishment. There seems to be more to them than that.
Oh my gosh- I forgot about that salt mine! I’ve been there too and it is indeed jaw dropping. Glad you didn’t get abducted and buried down there! 😆