Viva La Polska

"What do you think the turnover rate is for tour guides at the Auschwitz concentration camp?" Ben asked me.

I had just found my American drinking partners for the evening in Wroclaw, Poland.

"No, seriously -- how long do you think you could last there as a tour guide?"

Ben had known me for about 15 seconds, and what Ben didn't understand was that I would take the question very seriously. He, his friend Dan, and I discussed the question at length. Ben had just been to visit Auschwitz. "There's a Radisson like right across the street. And how could you ever say, 'I live in Auschwitz?' What the hell?" (Please click on that link, the headline is incredible.)

My main question was whether or not the Auschwitz tour guides acted like a person at any other job -- started to loosen up after a couple months and crack jokes. You know, mess around with other employees.

We settled on probably six months as the longest you could make it, but our conversation was interrupted by a bachelor party group from London. It included the groom-to-be wearing a Speedo and a cape, and a really short guy who kept laughing hysterically to himself, eyes closed. We bought them drinks. Then left for a club.

Ben is fearless. After explaining to me how he had been in Kosovo before arriving in Poland, he found the biggest group of Polish girls in the club and sat down right in the middle. I ended up talking to one who told me that her father is "Very involved in the city politics, I don't know how you say -- he's very important." She also told me much about her German boyfriend of four years. And how they live together.

Soon after, she asked me if we were going to another club after this one. She suggested that she show me "some good clubs, the best in Wroclaw." But alas, I was prepared for this little trick.

Two nights previously, in Poznan, a girl had asked to "show me the best bars in Poznan." I declined, citing the muscular, shaved-headed, Polish gentleman with his arms around her who was kissing her ear. "Him?" she said, "I don't like him." After I told her that he probably liked her and that I'd pass on the invitation, she insisted. Before I could respond, the gentleman placed his arm on the bar and yelled something in Polish. "He wants to armwrestle you," she said. "And I would like to leave," I said. She laughed and told me that she would come with me. "Uhh, I don't think that's the best idea. I appreciate the offer, but goodbye."

She again insisted. I told her that I needed to use the bathroom, to buy some time and try to figure out how to get out of this situation.

I had nothing.

She cornered me as I exited the restroom, asking if I was ready to leave. I told her that I should probably just be going -- then her male friend decided to grab my arms and place me against the wall. And shout at me, in Polish. She yelled at him, then insisted that she would still like to show me around Poznan. I waited for him to finally ease up a bit...then I sprinted up the stairs, out of the bar, and down the street as quickly as possible, screaming "No thank you!" over my back.

So back to Wroclaw.......so the mayor's daughter asks me to hang out with her, despite her live-in German boyfriend of four years. I had learned my lesson in Poznan. I said a couple of indistinguishable words in English, then ran out of the bar, as fast as I could.

The next day, outside I noticed a lot of drunk burly men wearing scarves and shirts of ridiculous colors. I had learned that in Europe, this means a soccer game is being played somewhere in town. I jumped into the nearest internet cafe and tried to find out as much as I could about the Wroclaw team. Deciphering Polish to the best of my ability, I reasoned that they were playing tonight at 8pm in a stadium about 1.5 miles from where I was. Sounded like a fine walk to me.

I found the nearest drunk burly Pole with an electric green scarf around his neck and asked him to confirm what I had learned. He said, "Yes! There is very big match tonight. VERY big. Biggest in years here. But no tickets left, tickets are all sold."

I thanked him and tried to figure out a decent place to watch the game on TV. Ah, screw it, I thought. I don't have anything better to do. I started walking down to the stadium.

Not knowing exactly where it was, I followed the smell of booze and the radiance of electric green. And the swarm of armored police vehicles.

Forty-five minutes later, I was outside the Wroclaw soccer stadium, wondering if Polish people would understand the phrase "ticket scalpers."

I heard a man on his cell phone speaking English. When he hung up, I asked if he thought there would be scalpers selling tickets. He looked puzzled. "Uh, I think you just buy your tickets here at the gate, mate." Plenty of tickets left.

He was fine with me tagging along. We waited for his two friends to arrive, then we got in line to buy tickets.

My newly acquired soccer-watching crew consisted of two British guys and an American who all had been living in Wroclaw for 4-5 years. All of them taught advanced conversational English.

A gigantic water cannon rolled by, distracting everyone's attention.

We sat in a section directly behind the goal. All three guys explained to me that their students had warned them to never, ever go to a soccer game in Wroclaw because it's really dangerous. We discussed the debate that takes place in the presence of countless policemen and a water cannon -- "Am I safe because there IS so much security around? Or am I unsafe because they NEED so much security around?"

The Wroclaw team had advanced to the top Polish league for the first time in the last seven years. This was their first game of the season. The stadium looked like the average American high school football stadium....and was not even full. They explained that the concept of "advance ticket sales" hadn't really caught on here yet, and people don't really feel safe coming to the games. They also told me that the first two weeks of the season had been postponed due to a bribery scandal involving almost every single referee in the league. And that Poland's president is a former child actor. And that Poland's former prime minister who just left office was the president's identical twin, and also a former child actor.

I turned the conversation to more jovial matters. English Matt was engaged to one of his previous students. American Matt was married to one of his previous students. "Rob, what's taking you so long? Hee hee," I joked. He didn't look pleased. "Actually mate, I'm divorced from one of my students."

I went down to the concession stand. And bought a sausage that was bigger than my arm.

Hoping that Rob had forgotten my marriage remark, I asked English Matt more about his engagement. Yes, she was a student. Yes, he had been teaching her. Yes, she was from Poland. "If you can believe it or not, she's actually from Auschwitz. Isn't that crazy?" My head almost exploded. I probably spit out a piece of gigantic sausage.

"Yeah, and it's really funny -- I would never ever want to live there. Like can you imagine living there? What the hell? But I went to meet her family a few months ago, and they were trying to convince us to move down there. I told them that there were no jobs for English speakers, but they said no no no, that wasn't true. They told me that they're always looking to hire people at the concentration camp."