Brrrrrr, it's cold. I blog from Krakow, where an annual arctic weather invasion keeps all of the tourists away in January...all of the tourists...except...me. In the hostel that serves as my base of operations, I occupy one bed in an eighteen-bed dormitory, which leaves seventeen empty beds. For $15 a night, I got my own room, a locker, use of the computer, breakfast, and laundry. I don't feel ripped off. The frigid air responsible for keeping away the tourists that packed the city when I visited in August is also responsible for the deaths of about 40 Poles in the last week. Weather may have also played a role in the tragic roof-collapse in Katowice that killed at least 60 people.

For me, the dangerous weather resulted in one of the most noble and heroic pub crawls in the annals of pub crawls: the Survival Pub Crawl. I ventured into Kazimierz, Krakow's artsy Jewish district, to eat, drink, read, and write. As merriment distracted, the mercury snuck below two-degrees fahrenheit. That's International Falls-cold! I attempted to make my way back to Krakow's main square. Slowly, my hair, my skin, my bones began to freeze. Must...get...inside. The glow of Zywiec signs led me to safe harbor. I ventured below into dimly-lit, subterranean watering holes. At each stop, a kindly Pole poured an elixir that gave me added protection against the cold. Courage, waning in the face of numbing blasts off the steppes of Poland, returned with each sip. The booming sounds of the industrial/metal band Rammstein, whose discography seems to be the official soundtrack of Polish bars, answers my question: "Should I stay or should I go?" I trudge through the night, stopping on my journey from Kazimierz to the main square at bars only to ensure my survival, and the survival of Flynns not yet born. It is as if the sole purpose of each pub is to support me in my trek. It's Donner Party desparation. The cold has affected my brain. I dream of lighting myself afire to keep warm, dismissing any other consequence besides warmth as unimportant. In the distance, I spot Cloth Hall, the clock on the Town Hall Tower, and a steeple of Kosciol Mariacki. The Survival Pub Crawl ends, thankfully, in my survival.

FIRST! Dan, your fortitude is awe inspiring!

Greetings, Mr. Flynn. In Krakow some Januaries ago the first thing I did after checking in to my hotel was run a hot bath. The sidewalks weren't shoveled and the streets weren't plowed. The only Polish I remember is (phonetically) YED-den her-BAT-a, pro-SH (two teas, please). Joseph Conrad lived there as a teenager before deciding to sail off to the Caribbean and Indian Oceans.

Sounds colder than a witch's tit! Cool, the filter lets us say tit.

Dan, I'd watch the drinking, if I were you. It lowers your resistance to the cold, making you more susceptible to joining those 40 dead Poles.

All lies, Gary. Haven't you ever watched a December game in which Packer fans disrobe to their shorts? They didn't do that by not drinking. Drinking keeps you warm. It's science.

Wrong, Dan. Alcohol increases heat loss. http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/conditions/hypothermia1.shtml

A little more reading, in case the BBC article wasn't sufficient:

http://www.emprc.org/jan98/chill.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3430138&dopt=Abstract

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00022287.htm

http://www.sarbc.org/andrew1.html

http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/hypothermia.jsp

http://www.umm.edu/altmed/ConsConditions/Hypothermiacc.html

Like you said, it's all science. The most homeless people die of hypothermia during the winter due to alcoholism.

P.S.: I'm not trying to win an argument, I'm trying to save your life.

Just a thought: There is part of the brain that helps us recognize other people's points of view and meanings, and this is often underdeveloped in people who have a hard time recognizing sarcasm.

Kevin: Look, I don't think there's any need to be sarcastic.

Dave: Oh, I'm not being sarcastic! Nooo! This is just a little speech impediment. I can't help it!

Kevin: Okay, I've obviously said or done something wrong to upset you, I'm just gonna apologize and be on my way.

Dave: No, no, no, please stay. It's true. I've talked this way all my life. It's made things very difficult for me.

Kevin: Yeah! Right!

Dave: Hey! Where ya goin'? Come back! I really wanna be your friend!

Hmmm. "I'm not trying to win an argument, I'm trying to save your life." Dan, be careful of Gary...he is showing stalker tendencies. He may have some sort of Dan shrine complete with candles and a wall of your articles and pictures. I totally agree with your theory on booze.

Make sure you bring back a variety of coasters. Be safe and keep boozing hard...especially in the cold!

"I'm not going to be IGNORED, Dan!"

Dan, what is your pub grub food of choice? I bet the locals have some brilliant dishes.

Sounds like you're freezing your a$$ky off!

Everyone knows that drinking makes you warm, feel real good and be really cool around the ladies. That has been proven. A Flynn doesn't puke when he drinks. He pukes when he doesn't drink.

All any of you had to do to dispel your ignorance on the subject was read at least one of the articles I posted links to. But, nooooo, that might actually entail having to give up your cherished notion that alcohol warms you. Okay, if you won't read the articles, I'll tell you what they say. Basically, what happens when you drink alcohol is that your blood vessels dilate. This promotes greater heat loss. Your body's natural reaction to cold is to constrict your blood vessels, so as to impede heat loss. Alcohol defeats this natural mechanism by dilating the blood vessels, thus allowing heat to escape your body more readily. That warmth you feel when you're drunk is due to your own body heat escaping. As it does so, some of it is trapped under your clothing, so you feel warmer. But, if you're outdoors in severe cold for even a few minutes, that body heat is escaping more rapidly because heat flows from warm to cold. If you put your hand on a cold metal object, it feels cold until it has absorbed enough of your body heat to feel warm to the touch. This is because heat is transferred into the metal from your body. Heat flows from warm to cold. The same thing happens when your body is surrounded by cold air. Thermal energy (heat) is transferred from your body to the air around you. The larger the cold area, the more heat it draws. The atmosphere is mighty big in relation to your body, so it keeps on drawing heat from you, unless you do something to warm yourself or insulate yourself. If you've been drinking, your blood vessels are wide open and body heat is rushing to the skin, where it is transferred out into the open air around you.

Heat loss is greatest at your head, so if you're not wearing a hat that insulates your head, you're going to lose body heat faster. If you've been drinking for a while, this is made even worse.

Most deaths from hypothermia that occur when people have been swimming or have fallen into a body of water occur even in relatively warm water and are due to the victim drinking alcohol (which is why most wind up in the water, to begin with).

Again, this is scientific fact, not opinion.

P.S.: Another fact is that your body temperature is at its lowest just before sunrise and rises throughout the day, peaking in late afternoon. Then it declines again throughout the night. So, you're more vulnerable to hypothermia when walking home from the pub after closing than at any other time.

I am a Packer fan, and a Wisconsinite.
Therefore, I drink. Especially when it's colder than a witches tit. Thanks to master obi juan, I know that "tit" poked through.
My hometown also happens to be the birthplace of Leinenkugels Beer, makers of one fine Boch!

Just read those articles Gary. Very interesting. Would have read them sooner but I woke up in my car with a wicked hangover after rolling home last night. Was very cold but, here I am, nice and toasty.

That's what I love about living in the North Wm.: winter hobbies include, drinking, sitting (either watching tv or reading Dan's books), drinking, having sex, drinking and in between eating. And eventually coming out of hibernation in the spring weighing an additional 20 pounds. Healthy lifestyle this.

Skeptic = too gentle. Stalker must = oblivious or, perhaps, militant teetotaler.

Everyone knows that drinking makes you FEEL warmer, ergo drinking warms you up ...

esse est percipi, dude...

Besides which, it's not like Dan is wandering around on the Steppes of the Caucasus - he's in the artsy quarter of a major metropolis ... lighten up.

Dan, we're not as cold here as you were there (by about 20 degrees celsius), but I can tell you, there's nothing like a schnapps or two when the temp dips below null.

Ali G.
Trèvés

Would "teat" and other older words also make the cut perhaps? Should we play a game of "beat the filter"?

Yesss! It's ON! - break out your OED boys!...