There’s a Flickr set here.

It’s beautiful here in Krakow. It’s not really cold yet, but we’re right in the middle of a gorgeous fall. The leaves are even changing. Nice. I’m writing you from my small studio apartment in central Krakow.

I also left you hanging a bit. What was I excited about in my last entry? Read on.

I’m world-renowned for telling people different variants of the phrase, “It will be okay.”

Such as, “Things will work out,” or “I’ve got faith in you,” or, “Ahh, don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine,” or I’ll quote quote Outkast’s SpottieOttieDopaliscious and say, “Funny how shit work out sometimes, y’dig? One moment you frequent the booty clubs and the next four years you and somebody’s daughter raisin’ y’all own young’n.” Whether it’s relevant to the situation or not — and it never is.

I believe it, too. (Except the part about raising my own young’n anytime soon. I hope.) I have faith that good things will happen. Even when bad things happen, they’re usually transitory and I tend to either learn things from them or laugh at them. Thanks, Mom, for the positive world-view.

So what does this Love Fest of positive energy and thoughts have to do with Poland? It’s what happened. I was in a distinctly average hostel near the city center of Krakow which was in a building where the gestapo used to torture people. Nothing crazy-exceptional had happened until I wandered over to the Wall of Business Cards and I found these:

Cards for a film festival.

Hell yeah! There’s a film and animation festival in Krakow. While I’m here. I’m specifically here to spend some time working on a creative venture or two and what better than an international film festival to pass my time and grab a little inspiration with!

But wait, there’s more. I went to ask the receptionist at the hostel about where I could buy tickets. She said, “Oh, this is cool. I worked it last year, will be going again this year, and have a bunch of friends with films in the festival.” We talked some more and it turns out she’s a film student and producer in a nascent film production company she and a couple friends are starting. Who knew?

Furthermore, I showed her my demo reel and she told me about a potential green-screen shoot in Poland’s capital city of Warsaw which she might be bringing me along to! Awesome. They’re still working out the details of the shoot, so I don’t know if it’s going to happen or not yet, but if it does, I’m totally going. Woot.

So thanks to a spoonful o’ random chance, things took a nice turn in Krakow. Had I not looked at the Wall of Business Cards, I would have had no idea about any of this.

Nice. Thanks, Krakow.

Propaganda Bar in Kazimierz

I have found where I like to go out in Krakow. I spent the first few nights wandering around the beautiful main square in Krakow. It is certainly beautiful: full of incredible architecture, nice restaurants, and nice bars. A bit too nice at times.

Enter Kazimierz. It’s a historic Jewish district in Krakow and has the good-to-Shipley spots to go out to. It seems “hipper,” for whatever that’s worth. Apparently it used to be dangerous to walk around in but is in the process of coming up. It also includes last night’s destination: a bar called “Propaganda.”

Propaganda is chocked full of, well, propaganda. Old Soviet posters, old radios, gas masks, all sorts of bizarre decorations. It’s weird. It’s awesome. It’ll probably be my first destination when I go out. There was even a fight between a couple of drunk Poles with the smelly guy that was sitting next to me at the bar and making out with some girl acting as a sort of moderator. Naturally, the first thing I did was bust out the camera and shoot video:

Half-Assed Bar Fight in Krakow from Nathan Shipley on Vimeo.

All of the patrons were quite nonplussed by the whole thing. The guys got pushed out the door and that was that — I still have no idea what happened. The bartender cleaned up the broken glass and the everyone moved on. I decided on a change of venue and wandered over to another bar where I met a group of girls from England in for the weekend. While far from Polish, they were fun to hang out with.

The Mall.

So, the cheapest place to buy groceries around here is at the Carrefour. Which is in a massive mall. I still don’t like malls, but I did find some enjoyable things:

A women’s clothing store called “Troll.” Hah.

Forever 21 is one-upped by “Forever 18″ … Europe continues to be on the bleeding edge of fashion. I’m sure when the US gets around to having a “Forever 18,” these guys will have already moved on to Forever 16.

Finally, a sign in the “Ecco” store referring to the “Husky Rangers,” which I’m pretty sure is just a promo for some winter clothing line – Google shows no mention of a book or film by the same name. I’m sure they’re referring to the dogs, but I like the idea of slightly overweight park rangers on an adventure. They’re not large, they’re just, you know, “husky.”

Here’s the photo set on Flickr.

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