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So we're on the bus to Krakow in Poland. This required us to go through Slovakia. Roads- crappy. Potholes. Wind like crazy. Through mountains. I felt like to was going to puke the whole time.
Arrive at Krakow after 7 or 8 hours.
Sunday:
Woke up, had breakfast, decided to go for a walk. Our hotel was right next to the river, so I went for a stroll along the banks. Not too close to the banks, since I've heard that there've been cases of bird flu in the area. Walked over by the Wawel castle and back. Came back to the hotel for a city tour. We started our tour in, go figure, the castle. We walked around and through the whole thing. Not inside the buildings since it was closed for renovation. Went up the royal way (just a road in the city center) and ended our tour in the town square. The square in Krakow is really quite large. In the middle is a covered market, mainly selling souvenirs and amber. I went in there for a little bit, but then continued up the royal road to the Florinska gate, which was part of the old city wall. Just outside that is part of the old fortification, known as the Barbican (I looked that up, btw. I had no idea what it was when I saw it, it just looked cool). Continued up that way a bit, passing a war memorial (that I though was fairly gruesome as far as memorials go), but didn't see much after that. Sunday in Krakow, obviously nothing was happening there. But I was really quite surprised that stuff was open in the city center. I thought absolutely everything would be closed, especially since Poland is like the most religious country in Europe. Stopped quickly at a bakery for lunch. I didn't quite know what was what. Just pointed to stuff that looked good. One was a pizza like thing (that I could pretty much tell what it was), the other looked like a pastry except that it has pasty meat inside. If you don't know what a pasty is, I guess you haven't hung around Yoopers enough. I can't really describe it well.
1 pm, back at the hotel to get on the bus to Auschwitz. I'll leave most of this up to your imagination. I will say a couple things- the camp is in 2 parts. Birkenau, the main one, is huge. Bigger than I thought. While we were there, there was a group os Jewish boys, I'd say high school age, conducting a service. They were singing songs in Hebrew the whole time we saw them there. So that was cool.
Back to Krakow. That night for dinner, I decided to head out with a group of guys (me and like 6 dudes. I'm a pimp, I know). In searching for a place that the hotel had recommended, we ended up at a fondue restaurant. Each of us ordered our own pot of meat fondue, I got "Polish fondue" which was Polish sausage, bacon, and lamb, or something like that. Really good. You might be saying "How on earth could you afford to eat your own pot of fondue?" but really, it was only 10 dollars. Eastern European money isn't worth quite as much, so I was able to eat well the entire trip. btw, meat fondue is a little different than cheese fondue- the pot is filled with oil, which you put the meat into. Kinda look cooking your own meal. Except a little faster. Cheese has the actual cheese in the fondue pot, and you dip bread in (I've had that in Europe too, but that was in Switzerland and paid for my IES).
Monday:
Meetings. First one was outside Krakow, and we had to walk up a hill to get there, since the bus couldn't make it up. Not fun. the meeting wasn't that exciting either. Some dog kept howling outside the whole time. But I'm writing a paper on Poland, so at least it was useful.
Back to Krakow for lunch (nothing special today, I used the time to walk around, get some things-souvenirs and stuff for lunch the next day. Though I did have cheesecake. I hear it's semi-famous in Poland. btw the word for cheesecake is sernik), and another meeting. Changed, and decided to go see Schindler's factory. It was quite a hike to get there, took me like 40 minutes. I cut through the old Jewish neighborhood, which really wasn't anything exciting. The factory was in a not as nice part of town, not much else there. Right next to it there's an electronics store...so yea, it didn't become much of a monument. I hear they're turning it into an art museum. It was marked by a plaque though. Oddly enough, a plaque erected by Albion College. That surprised me- Michigan in Krakow. Smaller than I thought it would be. Only 2 stories. It looks bigger in the movie. And it seems like the Jews walked there in the movie, but I'm not sure how, since the ghetto was across the river.
Anywho, I grabbed something quick for dinner, since I didn't have much time- some pizza like thing with what I though was ketchup on top, but it actually tasted like taco sauce. Odd. Went back to the hotel and changed back into dress clothes for the opera. The opera we saw was Cosi Fan Tutti (Women are like that), a Mozart opera. It was in Italian, with a screen showing Polish subtitles. Needless to say I didn't understand much. It has some physical elements to it though, and was a comedy opera, so I thought it was good. That got over around 9:30 (3 hour opera...so it was long). Half an hour walk back to the hotel, and I didn't feel like going out that night. Some people did and got really crazy- not a fun bus ride the next day.
still to come: prague, riga
Arrive at Krakow after 7 or 8 hours.
Sunday:
Woke up, had breakfast, decided to go for a walk. Our hotel was right next to the river, so I went for a stroll along the banks. Not too close to the banks, since I've heard that there've been cases of bird flu in the area. Walked over by the Wawel castle and back. Came back to the hotel for a city tour. We started our tour in, go figure, the castle. We walked around and through the whole thing. Not inside the buildings since it was closed for renovation. Went up the royal way (just a road in the city center) and ended our tour in the town square. The square in Krakow is really quite large. In the middle is a covered market, mainly selling souvenirs and amber. I went in there for a little bit, but then continued up the royal road to the Florinska gate, which was part of the old city wall. Just outside that is part of the old fortification, known as the Barbican (I looked that up, btw. I had no idea what it was when I saw it, it just looked cool). Continued up that way a bit, passing a war memorial (that I though was fairly gruesome as far as memorials go), but didn't see much after that. Sunday in Krakow, obviously nothing was happening there. But I was really quite surprised that stuff was open in the city center. I thought absolutely everything would be closed, especially since Poland is like the most religious country in Europe. Stopped quickly at a bakery for lunch. I didn't quite know what was what. Just pointed to stuff that looked good. One was a pizza like thing (that I could pretty much tell what it was), the other looked like a pastry except that it has pasty meat inside. If you don't know what a pasty is, I guess you haven't hung around Yoopers enough. I can't really describe it well.
1 pm, back at the hotel to get on the bus to Auschwitz. I'll leave most of this up to your imagination. I will say a couple things- the camp is in 2 parts. Birkenau, the main one, is huge. Bigger than I thought. While we were there, there was a group os Jewish boys, I'd say high school age, conducting a service. They were singing songs in Hebrew the whole time we saw them there. So that was cool.
Back to Krakow. That night for dinner, I decided to head out with a group of guys (me and like 6 dudes. I'm a pimp, I know). In searching for a place that the hotel had recommended, we ended up at a fondue restaurant. Each of us ordered our own pot of meat fondue, I got "Polish fondue" which was Polish sausage, bacon, and lamb, or something like that. Really good. You might be saying "How on earth could you afford to eat your own pot of fondue?" but really, it was only 10 dollars. Eastern European money isn't worth quite as much, so I was able to eat well the entire trip. btw, meat fondue is a little different than cheese fondue- the pot is filled with oil, which you put the meat into. Kinda look cooking your own meal. Except a little faster. Cheese has the actual cheese in the fondue pot, and you dip bread in (I've had that in Europe too, but that was in Switzerland and paid for my IES).
Monday:
Meetings. First one was outside Krakow, and we had to walk up a hill to get there, since the bus couldn't make it up. Not fun. the meeting wasn't that exciting either. Some dog kept howling outside the whole time. But I'm writing a paper on Poland, so at least it was useful.
Back to Krakow for lunch (nothing special today, I used the time to walk around, get some things-souvenirs and stuff for lunch the next day. Though I did have cheesecake. I hear it's semi-famous in Poland. btw the word for cheesecake is sernik), and another meeting. Changed, and decided to go see Schindler's factory. It was quite a hike to get there, took me like 40 minutes. I cut through the old Jewish neighborhood, which really wasn't anything exciting. The factory was in a not as nice part of town, not much else there. Right next to it there's an electronics store...so yea, it didn't become much of a monument. I hear they're turning it into an art museum. It was marked by a plaque though. Oddly enough, a plaque erected by Albion College. That surprised me- Michigan in Krakow. Smaller than I thought it would be. Only 2 stories. It looks bigger in the movie. And it seems like the Jews walked there in the movie, but I'm not sure how, since the ghetto was across the river.
Anywho, I grabbed something quick for dinner, since I didn't have much time- some pizza like thing with what I though was ketchup on top, but it actually tasted like taco sauce. Odd. Went back to the hotel and changed back into dress clothes for the opera. The opera we saw was Cosi Fan Tutti (Women are like that), a Mozart opera. It was in Italian, with a screen showing Polish subtitles. Needless to say I didn't understand much. It has some physical elements to it though, and was a comedy opera, so I thought it was good. That got over around 9:30 (3 hour opera...so it was long). Half an hour walk back to the hotel, and I didn't feel like going out that night. Some people did and got really crazy- not a fun bus ride the next day.
still to come: prague, riga
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