The KrakCast

The news is back with insulting ethnic slurs, Zakrzówek gets a makeover (and kills another person), another huge private student dormitory opens, a Good Lood update, little dragons will soon be all over town, drinking alcohol outside and Wisła Kraków goes down, down, down. 

John has been open about his weird fascination with Eurovision and this week is a good time to talk about it since Poland has a chance to make the finals. Listen as we give a brief history of Poland's mostly disappointing history at Eurovision and speculate on how many millions of points Ukraine will get at this year's "competition". 

This week in the news, the Matura has high school students nervous, everyone except Dr. Mike is making a lot more money than they did last year, cat cafes weren't awful enough so now we have rabbit cafes and who really thinks that Krakow has amazing street food? Seriously, we want to know. 

In our second news of this week, we talk about coal mine disasters, how nobody likes skateboarders, France's Macron has some harsh words for the Polish PM, supermarket self-checkout fraud, Leroy Merlin and others attracting protests, the ongoing mystery of the blue sausage van at Hala Targowa, marathons, cheerleaders and boring European flags. 

Among our totally random topics this week are vaccine shots, Iga Swiatek, nuclear power from Ukraine (?), Ryanair expanding in Poland, a mystery film crew in Krakow, new license place for cars in Krakow and pretty much everyone wants to go on strike. 

Did you know that the numbers 2, 3 and 4 have some mystical, magical power in Polish? When you look at a door, do you see one or two of them? Did you know that humans and animals die differently in Polish? These are just some of the mysteries we discuss in this look at some "WTF?" aspects of Polish. 

Ukrainian men are not allowed to leave the country and have to stay and fight or somehow help the war effort. What would Polish men do in a similar situation? It's a tough question with no one correct answer but we try to find one anyway in this discussion of how Poles would react to a theoretical Russian invasion. 

Lots of people talk about it, but few actually do it. Losing a lot of weight takes time, discipline and a lot of...steak? Listen as our guest describes the lifestyle changes he made to lose 30kg, the foods he ate to do it and why you maybe shouldn't invite him to your next party. Congratulations, Paweł! 

A Krakow City Council member says Auchan has blood on its hands, more free transport and parking (?) for Ukrainians, no increased tram prices (for now), bad timing for an air raid siren, we will never mention "Cracow Monsters" again and the worst funeral ever. 

Born in Białystok, Ludwik Zamenhof was the creator of Esperanto, an invented language that was supposed to help erase conflict and bring humanity together. Join us for a short discussion of this multilingual peace activist, doctor, philosopher, humanitarian and namesake of countless schools, buildings and streets, including here in Krakow. 

Listen as we discuss more news items involving the effects of the Ukraine situation on Poland, including more volunteers for the self-defense force, Biden's people clarify what he "really" said, more problems in the real estate market and more. 

In the news this week, we cover how Sean Penn saved the world, the mask mandate is (mostly) gone, another tax fail by the government, stealing from nuns, getting stabbed on Florianska street, the REAL "oldest" football club in Krakow and the European Games can't find their wallet. 

When a country of 40 million people adds another 2 million in less than a month, what happens to the real estate and job markets? Should Russian runners be banned from Krakow marathons? Is being associated with refugees going to affect tourism? Where are a million Ukrainian kids going to go to school? There are bigger, more important issues still in play right now but in this episode we look at some emerging topics produced by the conflict in Ukraine. 

The news is back and this week it's beauty pageants, the Sahara comes to Krakow, a passenger dies (is killed?) on a local bus, a weird Polish soldier dies a weird death, baby bison are bountiful and the hardest jobs to fill in Krakow. 

Everyone knows somebody who works at State Street, Shell or Cap Gemini, right? Listen as we go through the list of Krakow's 15 largest employers and see if you can guess who made the cut. Also, if anyone has any idea about what State Street actually does, please let us know. 

The fighting in Ukraine is the only thing worth talking about this week, so our regular News episode is instead a discussion of what's going on, how it is affecting Poland and what could be next. Listen and remember to help out any charity or organization you can in these difficult times. 

Political commentator and regular KrakCast guest Matthew Tyrmand stopped by to give us his take on the war in Ukraine, the situation at the Polish border and about 100 other topics in between. 

The daughter of our own John Adkins was effectively kidnapped from him 15 years ago and his book about the story has recently been published in Polish. Listen as he recounts what happened, what it's like to disappear into the black hole of the Krakow court system and how it all became a book (which is free for five days, btw).  Maja Adkins Krakow. 

Kazimierz Funk is generally credited with being the first researcher to identify the substances that didn't have a name before he called them "vitamins". Listen as we discuss his primary contribution to science & medicine before getting to the real point, which is to make lots of "funk" jokes. 

In this week's news, tourism is down (duh), traffic in Krakow is horrible (duh), VAT is gone (for now), the "Polish Deal" is a PR disaster and 40% of Poles don't have enough space at home.