The twilight world

I'm in my second Internet cafe in Cracow. The going rate for using the net is 2 zlotys per hour: on the order of US$0.55.

I just went to the craziest gay bar I've ever seen. Like the bar I went to in Warsaw, it has a very inconspicuous street profile consisting of a door with a sign and a buzzer. Again, it's one of the approximately three gay bars recommended to visitors of Cracow. I had a hell of a time finding the place, because the street it's on is only one block long and is a few blocks outside of the central "Stare Miasto" district. And this place was the first gay bar I've ever been to where you actually have to ring the buzzer. As I learned once I was inside, the bartender buzzes you in, theoretically after checking you out on the little closed-circuit monitor to make sure you're not a hooligan who's come to beat up queers or something. At least, that's my reading of what it was about.

The place, which is called Klub Queer (it has quite an elaborate website, doubtless maintained by its seemingly all-under-21 staff), was what I can only describe as a very gently converted basement flat. It's a long narrow space, the middle room being the biggest and containing the bar. It has a real restroom in back, a real bar, and several other renovations have been made that make it workable as a tiny little bar, but it still feels like you're in somebody's garden apartment. That said, it's genuinely nicely lit, cozy, and has a friendly vibe. There were, over the course of the hour I spent there, probably 15 guys in the place, all except one or two under 30 years old. It has an espresso maker and a tiny dishwasher behind the bar, but it basically looks like it was, not that long ago, a home kitchen. There's a computer behind the bar where I could see that the sound was being run by an MP3 playlist that the bartender was in control of (and which played American pop songs). And there was a TV on which a channel called Fox Kids was playing cartoons.

I have never been anyplace like this. I think the modal age was probably 19 or so. It's definitely for the out-of-the-closet set; they even have a little framed thingy on the wall showing the rainbow jewelry that you can purchase from the bartender. There was a group of four skinny boys, two of whom were also the bartenders but flitted back and forth between the two sides of the bar, who were clearly in charge of the place and spent a lot of time here and with each other. None of them really spoke English at all. With one of them, not the bartender, a cute blond kid, I managed after quite an extended exchange to extract the fact that, yes, he was from Cracow. One of them seemed to be the designated English speaker and they tended to defer to him when I tried to say something, but let's just say he probably wouldn't do so well on his TOEFL.

Not that I can speak any Polish at all....