I grew up eating my Aunt Denise’s famous lazy pierogi every holiday. I grew up confused about how to spell or even properly pronounce some of my family surnames, like Staszczyk or Jarzyniecki (yes – I had to double check those spellings just now). My mom would make kielbasa at least once a week. At least, that’s what it felt like. When I’m traveling abroad, I’m perpetually mystified by the sheer amount of strangers who look at me and ask if I’m Polish or Russian. Yes – Polish on my mom’s side. 

When I arrived in Kraków, I found myself subconsciously studying the faces of the locals around me, searching for any similarities. While my ethnicity is so classically American – some percentage of Polish, Argentinian, Puerto Rican, French Canadian, Native American and whatever else – I always withhold some level of surprise when people guess that I’m of a Slavic ethnicity. I think Polish is my highest percentage.

Your eyes. Your hair color. Your cheeks. The way you walk. The way you conduct yourself. 

What?

Absolutely none of my questions were answered by visiting Poland, but it was nonetheless interesting to take a side voyage to an ancestral homeland of mine. It somehow feels like it actually matters that I’m there, you know? Due to the 90-day limit of my Schengen tourist visa I only had about five days to spend in Poland, so I had to choose one city. Kraków.

Isn’t that a fun name? The w is pronounced as a v: Krah-kov. The city itself is one of Europe’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites, as it was Poland’s capital between the 7th-16th centuries, boasts Europe’s largest market square, and offers plenty of history. While there, I learned that Kraków and Rochester, New York (close to my hometown) are “sister cities” meaning they have an agreement to foster cultural connections with each other.

Right after hopping off the eight-hour bus ride from Dresden, Germany, my boyfriend, Cody, and I almost got fined on the city’s tram line. My foreign cards weren’t working and we didn’t have any zloty to feed the ticket machine. I certainly wasn’t going to rely on the kindness of a European stranger’s heart to help us out.

I usually don’t skimp out on purchasing public transport tickets, but at that point I wasn’t sure of a good alternative. I knew it was only a 20 minute tram ride from the bus station to our Airbnb, so…what are the chances we’ll get caught by an inspector on our first trip? Apparently, pretty freakin’ high.

I wasn’t sure how the ticket inspection system worked on the Kraków city trams. Each European city I’d been to has had a different system. As we stepped aboard the tram car, my phone data reconnected and I started surfing Reddit to glean more information about the tram inspectors. I’d read a comment that advised ticket dodgers to be wary of everyone because the inspectors might have on casual clothing instead of a typical professional uniform. I’d never heard of this.

I looked up from my phone to think, and instantly noticed a guy in a plaid flannel and jean capris holding a ticket scanner while talking to a teenager. The teenager obviously hadn’t bought a ticket either. For a second, I was glad I’d spotted him before he was breathing down my shoulder asking to see my ticket. And then I realized – I locked eyes with Cody and said under my breath, We need to get off. Now. 

Our Lipska stop was in sight, but due to traffic the tram slowed down. We were stuck at a light; the doors wouldn’t open yet. I watched the casually-clothed ticket inspector slowly make his way down the rows, scanning the tickets. Sweating because I did not want to pay a $100+ fine, per person. We all know Europeans are not known for being lax. He was looking back at us as we finally crawled forward to the stop, and we dashed out – no fine! It was adrenaline-inducing.

That night, I got my first taste of a truly authentic Polish meal (cooked in Poland). We went to a blue sausage food truck, specializing in kielbasa and rolls and nothing else, and I believe it is some of the best food I’ve ever had in Europe. We went back two consecutive nights after that. The kielbasa is perfectly charred, slow cooked over a wood-burning fire, absolutely delectable (sorry, mom, but it was the best kielbasa I’ve ever had in my life). 

And pierogies, pierogies, pierogies. Potato and cheese, spinach and cheese, onion, sauerkraut. The chicken and mushroom was great, the spinach and beef was the best. Even sweet pierogies – strawberries and cream, blueberry filling. We accidentally stumbled into a night market where pierogi vendors were lined up, ready to sell every possible concoction of filling you can imagine. Smoked cheese and cranberry, bacon and cabbage, poppy seed and honey, lentils and cumin. Even Oreo.

The number of establishments advertising vodka, or wódka, was striking. Who actually invented vodka is an old point of contention between Poles and Russians. Of course each country claims their own credit, and Kraków readily takes the credit using storefronts and neon signs. Birthplace of vodka. Vodka tour offered here. Have a shot of traditional Polish vodka.

There might be truth to the stereotype that Slavs have alcoholic tendencies. Our whole block had a power outage one night, including the nearby corner store that sold alcohol. The store’s automatic doors wouldn’t open until the electrician came to fix the issue. Cody and I went to grab some snacks before realizing we couldn’t get inside. We decided to wait a few minutes to see if the problem would resolve before heading back to our Airbnb.

A few Kraków locals stumbled over around 10:45pm and one asked us What’s the deal? There’s a ban on alcohol sales past 11pm in the city, and this guy really wanted some wine to hold him over for the rest of the night. We explained about the door issue. He nodded thoughtfully before saying I can fix this problem and attempting to pry the doors open with his hands. The store workers looked appalled and yelled some incomprehensible Polish at him, but he wanted to try a few more times before giving up.

Beyond great food and drunk locals, Poland has a lot of unique and historically relevant sites to offer. One of my favorite activities was touring the Wieliczka Salt Mine. It’s one of the world’s oldest salt mines, operating since the 13th century when the value of rock salt was discovered. We observed centuries of mining history and technology, with stunning sculptures and chapels carved directly out of the salt rock by miners. We were also told we can lick the walls (…I didn’t, Cody did). I loved the little salt gnomes carved around the mine – reflecting the old superstitions of hidden salt helpers.

We visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. We were guided into small buildings where 1,000 prisoners were held at once. We saw real piles of baby shoes, suitcases, and eyeglasses that Jewish people brought to the camps. They thought they were going to stay awhile, just to be killed days later. We looked at the pictures of the prisoners who were forced to work brutal labor, some as young as thirteen.

Images of a mother and her three sons walking in line to a gas chamber, likely dead thirty minutes later. The boy looked straight into the camera, like he was able to process at such a young age what exactly was going to happen – I’ll never forget that photo. The barbed wire on the gates outside was mostly authentic. The gas chamber we walked through and took a moment of silence in was also authentic. Auschwitz was the heaviest place I’d ever visited. It was heartbreaking, and I cried. A lot. But it’s important to remember the tragedies of history, not pretend they didn’t happen.

On our last day in Poland, we traveled outside of Kraków to Poland’s Tatra Mountains. We pulled over to an authentic roadside hut, where we tried the classic Polish smoked cheese. They made it in-house, over a wood fire. Chochołów is an idyllic village nestled in the mountains that has over a hundred well-preserved Highlander cabins. These góralskie chaty help maintain the cultural heritage of Poland’s mountain groups. I enjoyed strolling and admiring the architecture.

I didn’t leave Poland feeling any more or less Polish, or any closer to pinning where I feel closest to home. But I am grateful for the opportunity to see some of an important country that my current family hasn’t had the chance to visit. Kraków is a fun city, and a culturally rich one. Its nearby history is important to me, as it should be for everyone. I hope to return to Poland to see what else the country has to offer. I can almost still taste the spinach and beef pierogies.

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