writinginmygournal

[writinginmygournal]

Monday, June 26: Pedagogy, Graffiti, Mani-Pedi

I tag along with Stephen on his way to work, and find a v. cute vegan cafe in Kreuzberg where I can chill and plan my day. Chia pudding and an Americano; so sue me. Make a phone call to Julia Albrecht, incredibly enough she has time the very next day to meet me at the Waisenhaus. Great. Stop into a SHARP (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice)-run punk/hardcore record shop. Hell yeah. Buy a goofy Antifa shirt they make/sell.

Lunch at “Safron” with Stephen and his lovely coworker Pedro. Wander Kreuzberg for a while longer, find a very cool little leftist bookstore & snag a copy of Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and a lil AnCom star enamel pin.

I look down at my hands and am suddenly compelled to get myself a manipedi. As I wander toward “Pink Nails” I have a lot of opportunities to check out the graffiti & street art in this part of Berlin. It’s omnipresent and overwhelmingly political in nature. It makes it difficult to ignore the political tension in the air. I’ve been thinking about signs and symbols a lot. Does this type of thing serve as any type of meaningfully insightful social barometer into this (or any) city? Or is my analysis (as it can so often be) a little shallow or reactionary or whatever.

Make it to Pink Nails. A dream. Fingers and toes. All black everything.

Hot & exhausted, I take the long way home. After a shower, Stephen, Eileen, and I have a lovely time walking around their neighborhood and getting dinner at an awesome vegetarian burger spot. They are the perfect casual tour guides. Before bed, Stephen and I watch a favorite movie of his: Billy Wilder’s rapid-fire 1961 comedy “One, Two, Three” starring James Cagney as a Coca-Cola executive working in West Berlin during the Cold War. Absolutely buckwild.

[writinginmygournal]

Sunday, June 25: HYMN TO LOVE AND FALAFEL

- We re-awaken around 11am, and I meet Stephen's wonderful girlfriend Eileen Wagner. Stephen has baked a beautiful Challah which we greedily cover in jams (plum, cherry, fig) handmade by Eileen's father. As we have coffee I catch them up to speed with my trip so far, and we talk about everything: politics, philosophy (an area in which I am a true amateur and these two are pros), etc. A perfectly slow way to start my first day in Berlin. Eileen is a Berlin native (they met in Amsterdam when Stephen lived there for a couple years) and has many suggestion for which items on my to-do list might be most worthwhile and accomplishable. - Erik Thurmond (<3) is in Berlin for a program via The New School, so Stephen and I get tickets to see the same show he's seeing (a new work) at the Maxim Gorki theater. - We have a long, pleasant walk through East Berlin, Stevie my ersatz tour guide. A goofy run in with a friend of Stephen's from Reed; when we part ways Stephen confides: "he was a huge asshole in college." We stop at dada Falafel, and, Dear Readers, you must believe me when I say that I spent less than ten Euro on the most exquisite and overflowing platter of falafel I've ever consumed in my life. Hanging out with Stephen is great; we make each other laugh & have great conversations — I also can't stop seeing glimpses of Daniel in his face, voice, gestures, and it makes me happy every time. - We tram it to the theater where we meet up with the absolute boy, Erik Thurmond. He's here studying and working on a solo performance, seeing 5-10 shows a week. - The show is called "Hymn an die Liebe," (Hymn to Love), a new work by a Polish director. A choir of untrained performers sing contemporary hymns -- loud, strange songs ironically depicting the contemporary state of extreme nationalism on the rise in Poland, performed with some interesting and bold physicality. - Stephen and I join Erik & his cohort for a drink and some chatting. This is something I really adore about the theater scene here -- every theater I've attended or visited has an adjacent patio, garden, something, and area for people to congregate, eat, drink, conversate...it's almost like they want to build community through their art. WHAT A CONCEPT!

[writinginmygournal]

Saturday, June 24: DER NACHTBUS

The night bus...it is a goofy time. I have played an extra 5 zloty (less than $1.50) for a "table seat," and find myself across the quadrant from a middle aged couple who are clearly very in love. Clearly. VERY. In love. I notice the quadrant adjacent contains only a Polish girl of probably 14, and after a series of rudimentary gestures on both our our parts, she gives me permission to sit across from her. For the first couple hours I read on my kindle (Joseph Skibell's "A Curable Romantic," fantastic.) We make our only drop off/pickup in Wrocław) and I'm joined by a woman of about 20 with a loud, brassy, Chicago accent. Upon realizing I speak English she immediately dives into an imminently forgettable tale of travel woes — figuring that this is true of all such stories, I keep mine to myself. I am reminded that all people contain multitudes when, as I surreptitiously slip my crappy courtesy Delta earbuds in for some Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird, my new seatmate begins speaking flawless polish to the teenage girl across from us. Rest of the trip is mostly uneventful — quickly resigned myself to not sleeping. My Chicago Polish companion laughs at me when I do a few sun salutations on the concrete during a 4am fuel stop. Monologue on Facebook about the brilliance of Daniel Kahn, who's work I've been obsessing over for about a year now, but whose music has taken on a whole new meaning for me on this trip. We arrive; it's 5:30am. I take a cab to Herr. Stephen Pastan's. On the way —unbelievably— a friend request from Daniel Kahn himself. Stephen sleepily welcomes me in, and I collapse onto a mattress in the spare room.

[writinginmygournal]

Saturday, June 24 -- The Blade

Saturday morning comes unexpectedly, as I blink awake and realize I fell asleep with the lights and my kindle still on, and I've got <30 minutes to get checked out of my room. I pack up and check out — bad news, no rooms at the inn tonight. I'm bedless again. This day is not worth much detail — I spend most of it trying to remain positive as I devote about 6 hours on the phone wrestling with the Golaith of Delta. At one point my sweet friend Emma, who lives in a small village in the vicinity of Bologna, agrees to help me with her fluent Italian and local phone number. Imagine — Emma and her entire family on speaker phone, shouting in Italian at each other, at the phone, being sent on the same circuitous route from Baggage Handling to Airline to Airport and back again. I thank Emma for her service; no dice. Eventually it's time and I realize I need to avail myself of my sword. I'm due in Berlin. SLICE. Buy a ticket on the night bus; SLICE. Call big D., demand in my best Buckhead Betty voice (jk I'm firm but exceedingly polite, natch) that they send my shit to Berlin. SLICE. Take my last couple hours to eat some traditional polish food (exquisite), check out a small flea market (vintage Marx pins, dope), then it's time...FOR THE NIGHT BUS!

[writinginmygournal]

Friday, June 23 -- Galician Shabbos

6/25

I’m not going to write any more about Auschwitz right now. The enormity of the experience deserves more than a hastily written gournal entry, and after the long strange prose poem I wrote on the bus back to Kraków & subsequent chat with Alex Pratt, I’m content to let the experience marinate for a while before I put pen to paper over it again. I don’t particularly remember the hour immediately after returning to Kraków. I had been crying & writing the whole bus ride, and made it back to the hostel in a spiritually and emotionally exhausted daze. I collapsed for a bit, did some more drudgery over the luggage issue, and realized:

A) I’ve been neglecting my & need to get a thorough toiletries set, and, therefore, B) It’s time for Delta Airlines to take on a damn shopping trip.

Visited L'Occitan for the finest of soaps, perfumes, and ablutive tools, then Zara for some evil corporate pop fashion. Buying on the Zloty makes me feel like a king and I remember that, for better or for worse, few things pick up my spirits quite like shopping for clothes. Retail therapy at its finest. Homewards, and I realize that I’m genuinely developing a feel for Kraków’s geography, which is a great feat given my abysmal sense of direction. A good shave and a hot, fancy soaped shower, and I am cleansed, body and spirit. Grab a quick dinner at yet another incredible vegan joint, and head to the Galician Jewish Museum for Shabbos services.

I’m the first one there excepting Barry Smerin, a Krakower by way of London who will be leading the Kabbalat Shabbat services, as well as his son Zach. Barry greets me with “Welcome home, Mister Krakovsky!” And it feels GOOD. Before the other arrives (a NFTY group, a bunch of folks from a reform shul in El Paso) I take some time to go through the central exhibit: a huge photo essay on the history, destruction, and slow, ongoing re-birth of Jewish life in Galicia. Over a thousand years Jews lives in Galicia, and the Nazis & their collaborators killed over 90%.

Shabbos services are relatively brief but exceedingly lovely. After the morning I had, to be surrounded by Jews who are ALIVE & chant & shuckle & sing in their presence, is a real blessing. Afterwards, wandering through the Jewish Quarter, I ind a restaurant with live Klezmer. Obviously I get a seat immediately for some dessert & brandy. The restaurant could best be described as “Jewish Themed,” and in the light of the following day I will feel exceedingly cynical about the whole affair, but in the afterglow of Shabbos, the warmth of the cognac, and the basso profundo reverberation of Fiddler on the Roof songs sung in Polish, I am delighted.

[writinginmygournal]

Friday, June 23, "In Auschwitz Today"

TRIGGER WARNING: Holocaust, genocide, Nazism, mass murder, death, trauma. This morning I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, the concentration and extermination camps (respectively) that, together with Monowitz, made up the single largest compound in Nazi Germany's systematic attempt to eradicate the Jews of Europe. Over 1.1 million people were tortured & murdered there between 1940-1945, overwhelmingly Jews, but also large minorities of Roma & Sinti (historically referred to with the slur "G*psies,") Poles, political prisoners, disabled people, and many others considered "undesirable" by the Third Reich. Visiting this place was unlike anything I have ever done in my life, and I will be thinking and writing and crying about it for a long time. Also worth noting is that the presentation and design of the museum exhibits (housed within buildings in the camp) was among the most effective and affecting curation I've ever experienced. Below are some brief observations about what you can see and do at Auschwitz & Birkenau. PART I of II: IN AUSCHWITZ TODAY - the sky is perfect blue and the clouds hang low and they mostly just drizzle, with the brief occasional downpour. take note of this as your eyes will act much the same - the grass is lush and green and men in uniforms are paid to cut it - You can wear your new white sneakers &, though no one will quote Hannah Arendt at you, you cant help being overwhelmed by the banality of your nikes. - you can drink from your water bottle & nobody will beat you - Toasted bread with mushrooms, cheese, and ketchup is only 4 zloty, and candy is even cheaper - once you reserve your ticket and enter the premises, you are free to vacillate between devastating numbness and spontaneous uncontrollable tears, free of charge - if, when you turn that first corner and suddenly see the twisted iron words above the gate, you collapse to the ground and you sob and scream...people will understand. they will not stare - nor will they look askance at a boy with a star on a chain on his neck whose eyes overflow anew when he sees - glasses - suitcases - prayer-shawls - tucked behind glass in mountainous piles - nor when he pulls out his tiny prayerbook and prays the kaddish through tears again and again and again PART II of II: IN BIRKENAU TODAY - countless daisies bloom on the train tracks, yellow as a patchwork star - fresh faced young Poles in blue Volkswagen t-shirts install barbed wire on replica barrack fences, while original fenceposts slump gently in italics amidst wildflowers - you can take photos almost everywhere. you can take your iphone up to the guard tower. you can take selfies. no, not YOU, you can't, of course. but many people can. somehow. - There is Quiet. Birds sing and insects chirp, but if you are away from the tour guides talking in English Polish Russian Hebrew French German Italian Dutch Spanish Greek you will find Quiet. Just the birds, the insects, and all the dead voices. Quiet. - In the woods where men women children waited to be gassed, the trees are very beautiful, and you can close your eyes and chant the Shema as loud as you want, and nothing on the signs in English Polish or Hebrew says that you can't - The crematoria and gas chambers are in ruins--the Nazis blew them up with TNT. You mightn't even know what you were looking at if it weren't for the signs in English & Polish & Hebrew. And the very best part is, if you want, you can imagine little SS men inside, with their little haircuts and their little outfits, and you can imagine stuffing their hats and their jackets & their pockets full of dynamite, and you can blow them up, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and no one can tell you to stop. EPILOGUE: AT THE BUS STOP TODAY - After walking the length and breadth of Birkenau, I ask a group if I am at the right bus stop. They shake their heads, point to their ears: they are deaf. - I try not to stare as they speak quickly in sign language. How do you say "Holocaust" with your hands? How can a body express the unnameable? - Their interpreter notices my concern: is this the bus back to Auschwitz? - "Auschwitz? Si, si." - "Ah! Grazie." - "Prego." - Knowing now that she speaks Italian and sign language, my curiosity becomes too much, and so I ask her: - "Scusa, per favore. Sono curioso: come si dice "Holocaust" in...." I gesture with my hands. - "Ah! Allora:" And she shows me. - Hands in fists, arms crossed over one another in an X at the forearm, just past the wrist. Tap them twice together, like train tracks rattling. - "Perche," she explains, "'Auschwitz' é:" and shows me another: Hands crossed as before, but with thumbs and forefingers circular wheels, the other six splayed out like the legs of a monstrous insect. Or posts of a barbed wire fence. The angle of the pinkies makes a capital letter "A." Or an arched gate for trains to pull through, unloading their sacred, righteous, precious, doomed cargo.

[writinginmygournal]

Friday, June 23: On The Bus to Auschwitz

TW/CW: Holocaust, genocide, Auschwitz, attempted processing of familial, historical, personal trauma. - - - - - - - I'm on the bus to Auschwitz and we're waiting to depart. I'm on the bus to Auschwitz wearing perfectly white sneakers. I bought a ticket to go to Auschwitz. I nearly began to cry in the train station because I could not figure out how to get to Auschwitz, until a kind young Polish woman helped me buy a ticket to Auschwitz. When I got on the bus to Auschwitz I spontaneously began to weep. The bus to Auschwitz has departed, more or less right on time. Ninety seconds late, to be precise. Every moment of this is suffused with the most bitter and impossible irony and I'm choking on it. Perhaps as Adorno allegedly said there is "no more poetry after Auschwitz" but there seems to be endless, heavy irony. As if the world is so tainted by its memory that it sequesters the very idea of Auschwitz behind a thick gate of irony, lest, like the face of G-d, one gaze directly at the thing itself and be utterly destroyed. Who else is on the bus to Auschwitz? I cannot say. I know not their intent nor their reasoning. The driver is on the bus to Auschwitz because it is his job to take people to Auschwitz on a bus, that they might mourn, or marvel, or make sort of pilgrimage. I am wearing my Star of David on a chain on the bus to Auschwitz. I have chosen this, unlike the hundreds of thousands who travelled to Auschwitz before me. Unlike most words, the word "Auschwitz," the German name for the Polish "Oświęcim," seems to lose no weight when repeated. The ugly pattern on the bus seat fabric seems to me crude and vulgar.

[writinginmygournal]

Thursday, June 22

In the morning Emilia & I slowly awaken. She brings me my clothes which she was kind enough to put through her washer and hang dry, and it’s time for the tram. We say a quick goodbye, promise to keep in touch, and I’m off to the metro. I manage to grab a bagel and an “Herbal Water” (mint/dandelion/nettle) and now: ECCO CI QUA.

Train to Krakow. Drinking a miserable coffee that the Hogwarts Express-looking cart pusher handed me and loving it. Sitting alone in a carriage save for a strikingly beautiful Polish woman sitting directly across from me, alternating between talking on the phone in rapid-fire Polish & grooving with her wireless headphones, tapping her tropical-print sneakers. She is ADAMANT in her refusal to look at me, and I am in love.

I arrive in Kraków and am immediately overwhelmed. Without the wonderful Emilia and Zuzanna to guide me I am lost in a sea of Polish. The station opens up immediately into a large mall, and I stagger about awkwardly until I find something familiar with which to steady myself: a burrito place. They have…interesting ideas of what a burrito is in Poland. I become embarrassed trying to figure out the way to my hostel. Between my piss-poor sense of direction, lack of orienteering skills, and not knowing a gosh darn word of Polish, I feel shamefully useless. My son: the world traveller! I drop the $10 for 24 more hours of data and Google Maps my sorry ass to City Hostel Krakow. The Great Reveal: No luggage. I’m sensing a theme. The next few hours are spent in my little closet of a hostel room, trying to locate my luggage, enlisting the help of my poor family stateside, yadda yadda yadda. No real resolution. I drift in and out of sweaty, stressful sleep. I’m feeling defeated in a small but impactful way. When I get home I need to devote some therapy time to interrogating the intense psychic weight I seem to give to the competent/incompetent duality.

Eventually I remember: my sword! SLICE. Shoes on, out the door. I walk to the main town square and really see Kraków for the first time…it’s gorgeous! I google me up the best vegan joints in Old Town and eat the most incredible veggie burger of my life & drink a delicious smufi as I plan plot & scheme. Gogol Bordello’s “Alcohol” is playing on the stereo. Tomorrow morning I will take an early bus to visit Auschwitz, and tomorrow evening I will have Shabbos at the Galician Jewish Museum. Before bed I finally reach someone who, allegedly, knows where my luggage is and, allegedly, can get it to me [ED. NOTE: Oh, my sweet summer child]. I make arrangements. Set alarm for 5:30am. Sleep.

[writinginmygournal]

Wednesday, June 21 {PART 2/2}

Hokay. Where were we? Landed in Warszawa & my extremely kind couch-surfing host Emilia helped me every stey of the way to take the correct trains & find her a the station. We go for dinner (Italian; hilarious) & devour an entire pizza each & a half liter of wine. Emilia is an actress and writer here in Warsaw — by day she works in a restaurant/bookshop. She tells me all about her four years at the acting school in Wrocław (pronounced “Vratswav”). We talk Grotowski, Chekhov, physical theater. I talk puppetry and Yankl and do my silly voices for her.

We talk politics & marvel at, at least on the surface, how similar the situation are in our own countries — a regressive right wing willing to do anything to gain & maintain power + a flaccid left party that is more devoted to status quo and maintained respectability than any attempt at genuine progressivism. We talk art & politics, she tells me that recently an actor in a Polish theater lost a huge TV job of a satirical play in which her character simulated performing fellatio on a likeness of Pope John Paul II. She also tells me about a teleplay she wrote about 5 Polish women, a family living in one house, their divisions & eventual unity. Apparently they filmed it but it won’t be released for reasons of censorship! Wild.

Eventually we make it back to her place where I gratefully drop my bags & change clothes. Then it’s out for a night on the town! Emilia has a really wonderful personality — confident & assertive, but also very sweet to me and considerate of my stranger-in-a-strange-land situation. We meet up with her best friend Zuzanna, who is scowling in a crop-top & pinstripe denim, with headphones around her neck, and greets Emilia with “Took you long enough. C'mon I want beer.” To me she smiles and gives a hug — later she will tell me “I am so often annoyed. But it never lasts long.” We walk down to the river, alongside which are a strip of small outdoor bars with lots of young Poles talking, drinking, a little dancing. It is extremely cool and I’m very glad I got this haircut.

I get us a few rounds of beers & the three of us have the most wonderful conversation. Art. Politics. Queerness. Politics culture. Sex. Music. BJORK. Kate McKinnon. America. The two of them are obsessed with American comedy & particularly Broad City, & style themselves a bit of an Abby & Ilana & I enthusiastically agree. I think they are very happy to be talking w/ me; we share a lot of interests that it seems like their Polish peers don’t care much about. Can’t remember everything we talked about (nursing a mild hangover at time of writing) but it was fabulous.

Eventually Emilia wants to show me a more central part of Warsaw, so we sneak ourselves & our beers onto a bus. Zuzanna tells me that if I ever get caught without a bus ticket I should cry and throw a tantrum in a made up language. I thank her for this advice.

The bar is “Plan B” & while there we encounter many interesting people from their life. A straight woman Emilia is tragically in love with, who herself is desperately in love with another friend of theirs, a gay man. Some drunk Russians who need a cigarette to roll a spliff with. A man with a blonde mustache who works with Emilia in the theater: “He is I think really a good person, but when he is drunk he is an asshole.” Inside they are playing Snoop Dogg — what else? We drink, chat, float. Emilia & I bum and share 1 (one) single cigarette. Zuzanna & I make eyes at one another. We all three of us dance, from time to time fending off men. We do two rounds of vodka shots because “we want you to have authentic Polish experience.”

By now it’s 4am and the sun is starting to rise — a cab back to Emilia’s place. I shower, we do some drunken yoga, Zuzanna & I come moments away from kissing but we are all tired and everyone stumbles to their respective couches and collapses.

[writinginmygournal]

Wednesday, June 21 {PART 1/2}

- After a brief 3am stretch to strip down to my undies, I awake properly around 10am having slept the sleep of the dead. A little internet work, some yoga, wash my face, & a blessing that I might find some clean underwear from Handsome French Anthony, & I'm out. Ciao. - My stomach directs me to a small cafe near Trustaver HOstel where I order an espresso, pastry, ed anche una bottiglia grande dell'aqua naturale. The purveyor tells me I am "un po d'Italiano," but whether this is due to my features, my neckerchief, or my no doubt flawless coffee-ordering vocabulary -- it's impossible to say. - Send off a quick e-mail missive — perhaps I should share these journals [EDITOR'S NOTE: I'M DOING IT, MA]? I explain, pretty competently, the situation w/ my baggage etc., and am directed to an area of Rome with some affordable clothing shops. - Walking. Sweating. If I weren't on a schedule today I could happily walk all day. I'm still delighted & fascinated by the modern/ancient duality that you're constantly confronted by in cities like Rome. Pass by the Rome "Museu Ebraico," no time today unfortunately. Unlike my fellow pedestrians I am not once approached by a street vendor or cab driver, a fact that I attest, with some pride, to my confident gait and European haircut (shoutout Jason @ Pork Chop Social Club). - I ride the tram for a few stops, but get confused & switch to walking. Notice a pattern? - After an hour or two of hiking I find the area I was searching for and drop in on some renowned Italian clothiers: Signore Calvino Klein, and a place simply called "il Gap." Drop ducats on some dope new duds (on Delta's dime, I hope). - Cab ride to airport. Trouble finding check-in: terror. Friendly agent helps me: solace. Big confusing upstairs: anxiety. Huge Italian salad: succor. A sign explaining what happens if you're denied a seat: horror! My boarding pass scanned & confirmed: balm in Gilead. Fear I have boarded the wrong bus: flop sweat. A baby wearing sunglasses & a whole row to myself: PEACE IN OUR TIME.

[writinginmygournal]

Easy

In Monteverde he hid his star. It was easy, for him, to tuck the gold and jade quickly between skin and cloth. Easy for him to spit on the black crosses (both twisted and iron) that dirtied the streets in right angles. Easy to slip six points into his t-shirt: an instant amateur u-boat in the navy of his fear's imagination. Was it easy, he wondered, for his mother's father to rip seams and pray frayed yellow threads hid their sunflower heads buried in the soil of his coat? Pray no butterflies spilled from under his tongue? Our young submariner snaps back from the past as reinforcements arrive: the Red Army; spray-paint division. Anarchista! Communista! Antifascista! Fash and antifash clash in a red and black bash black iron melts beneath a hot red star swastikas sliced by sickles and hammered into plowshares red covers black; you're okay jack Later he will take out his star. He will write a poem. He will wonder: was it easy, that graffiti game? Tomorrow: Poland. Next week, Berlin. Will he wear his star? Will the red be paint, or blood? Will it be easy?

[writinginmygournal]

June 19/20: "Day" "One"

• Arrive v. early at airport after long strange evening of packing with many visitors. Anna, Emily, Robbie, Prosper. Some freaking out but feeling pretty good. • Ate airport "Mexican" for lunch feat. dueling live saxophones. • Am told I will be assigned a seat at gate. Head to "Sojourners" for a double Jameson on the rocks feat. the Platonic Ideal of an airport waitress/bartender. Raspy voice. Wry observations. Called me "honey" and asked me not to go. • 3 or 4 delays to flight. Surrounded by lamentations: 50% baby boomer kvetching, 50% ppl's days being ruined. Writing this now I can only think: how young I was then. How naive. Made some goofs on FB about it & had fun with that while waiting. While waiting. Another delay, a gate exchange, and I am told that I cannot board until literally everyone else has been seated. I am not told why. I am a hunk of dead coral buoyed about by the buffeting waves of airport bureaucracy. I am reminded of Anthony Oliveira (@meakoopa) & what he says about how the ways in which airports, with their functional monopolies & regular customer service brutality, function as a sort of canary-in-the-coal-mine for the immediate future of corporate capitalism. • Another snack run. Cute kids abound. White family with child on a leash. Commiserate with my octogenarian neighbor. Brief fear that I, for some inscrutable & unknowable reason, will not be allowed to board. But ah! The very last moment arrives, and off I go! Sort of! • Flight is a purgatorial blur. In brief moments I dip into covert puddles of sticky, cramped sleep. Watched "8 Days a Week" the Beatles doc — needed better headphones. Watched the first 1/3 of the new live-action "Beauty & the Beast" — wretched. Watched s couple season 1 "Arrested Developments" — still perfect. Ate what was handed to me (lasagna? yeast rolls? nutrient slurry) with neither thought nor pleasure, like the prisoner I was. Night turned to day turned to empty twilight under my useless sleep mask. All is illusory. And THEN — • Rome. We've arrived at Leonardo da Vinci. Are any American airports named for artists or scientists? or just presidents & millionaires? • Mild panic. [EDITOR'S NOTE: HA!!!] Dov'e i miei bagaglii? Get a grip Krakovsky, you're on a wild solo cruise, you can handle this. And yet...no bag. Sitting it Atlanta. OK. Put out the call on FB — Allison will be in Vatican City later -- why not? A bus to Vatican City. I start to take stock of what exactly I don't have. First order of business is a charger for my very dead phone. Great Italian practice. • Caffetteria del Gracchi. Lovely staff, charmed (I tell myself) by my earnest, mediocre Italian. Sit and scheme with a Cafe Americano for a while. • Ah-ha! I WILL GO GO WARSAW! But alas...Jakey's not going to Warsaw. I arrive, thoughtlessly, like a little baby, too late to check in. Feel something down in my feeling place. My gullyworks. Hold it together long enough to learn from a travel agent that, yeah, I ain't getting to Poland today. I do whatever any good boy in my situation might do — I call my mama. Mom is her practical, sympathetic, someone un-tender self. I get off the phone and, at long last, it's time to openly weep in an airport. My favorite. In this moment, my lowest thus far (and, G-d willing, for a while), all the forces of {jet-lag, exhaustion, homesickness, & my bizarrely powerful psychological aversion to feelings of ineffectiveness, immaturity, inefficiency, & emasculation} conspire to drag me down. But NO. I refuse! I draw my sword and slice through the moment. Time to get an exquisite Italian airport sandwich and figure some shit out. • I arrange for my bag to be sent to my hostel in Krakow. [EDITOR'S NOTE: HA HA!!!] I buy a new ticket to Warsaw. I buy traveler's insurance. No more Diaper Baby, I'm a capable Diaper Cosmopolitan, damn it!! • Emily suggests a beautiful park in Rome — a good goal for my style of not-quite-directionless wandering. Take the train into the city, hop on a tram for a few stops, but get confused, so walking. Walking. The rest of the day is walking and sweating. • See some crust punk street performers doing some pretty great juggling at a stop light. • Buy my first gelato: Pistacchio é Nocciola. Perfetto. • Find the park! First thing I see is a path named for "Anna Frank, Martire del Nazismo." Recite the Kaddish for her. [EDITOR'S NOTE: THE FIRST OF MANY.] • The park is big, beautiful, & I know we're not really in Tuscany but it feels Tuscan as hell. Beautiful Italian people walking beautiful Italian dogs. I find a bench & a clearing near a young woman doing pilates & some older folks doing Tai Chi. For some reason (maybe because I already had the tiny siddur Sara Burmenko gave me out) I feel compelled to pray Ma'ariv. I do, my version at least, with my cap on & facing away from the sunset. Toss on a T'filat ha-derech for good measure; better late than never, right? • I reserve a spot at Hostel Trustever right by the Trustevere station and get to hoofin. • While walking thru Monteverde I see some graffiti. Iron Cross. Celtic Cross. Swastika. I take pics. I get pissed. I spit on the wall. Then the plot thickens — anarchist and communist symbols, & it devolves into a fascists VS antifascists graffiti turf war. They are painting over each other, altering the messaging — lots done by the Monteverde Antifa, G-d bless them. I get nervous. I tuck my star of David necklace into my black t-shirt. I walk faster. [EDITOR'S NOTE: WROTE A POEM ABOUT THIS EXPERIENCE, WILL SHARE IN NEXT POST; IT'S OKAY.] • And now, dear reader, we're finally here. Showered & cleaned & in the same sweaty track pants. In my comfy hostel room with my friendly hostel buddy Handsome Anthony from Paris. IN TOMORROW'S INSTALLMENT: • Shopping with Allison? • Clean underwear? • Coffee? Pastries? Gelato? • A flight to Warsaw to meet Emilia and crash on her couch? • ???