It was the night of our last dinner in Krakow and after our trip to the horrors of Auschwitz we needed something life-affirming, to lift the spirits, in addition to being satisfyingly delicious. Not a tall order at all I thought. We cleaned up and recharged our batteries – phone batteries that is – at home base in Kazimierz and didn’t go too far as we lucked out with a table at Zazie Bistro, the only Bib Gourmand in the city, and conveniently one block away. We tried the night before – yes, we tried to walk in during peak dinner hour on a Saturday night – and failed spectacularly, and didn’t hold too much hope on a second attempt. Lady Luck though was on our side when our hotel’s staff made the call for us, and violá, a table at the city’s best French bistro became our venue. Life needed to be lived and we were determined to succeed.

Delicious as the feast was and given our habit of sharing dishes with one another I ended up experiencing another food coma to a point I couldn’t even finish my own dish and passed on dessert completely. The suggested wine helped the discussions and laughter stream on, and the fact that it was the last night of our trip gave our meal a feeling of accomplishment. Our group of five unique individuals from different parts of the world found the means to come together in a foreign land, and celebrated the moment for what it was – a happy meeting of personal hopes and ambitions, common notions, and cultural like-mindedness, something that is rare to come by as we get older, but really is universal in more ways than one.