Krakow, day 3
Monday, September 17th, 2007Day 1
It’s cold here. Real cold. Jessica didn’t bring very warm clothes. I did. The first day we got in at 5 in the morning and it was raining, not hard though. We ended up meeting a lawyer, his name is Gabe, in Budapest and he happened to be on the train with us to Krakow. We all stayed at the same hostel. The Gardenhouse. It’s pretty nice, and is in a really really good location. It is about 30 feet from the main square in Krakow. Krakow is also pretty cheap, unlike Budapest which was super expensive. When we got to our hostel we took a nap and then went and walked around town. We drank some warm beer that had cinnamon and some red juice in it. It was surprisingly good. We got drunk and then went to bed.
Day 2
so we were supposed to get an early start so that we could see Auschwitz and the salt mines in the same day but gabe was the only who got up. instead of doing a pre-paid tour to Auschwitz we decide to be cheap and take the public bus there. it took us an hour and 45 min to get there and then once there we waited an hour and a half for the next english guided tour. manuel and i both felt nothing while there. others around us cried and we just felt absolutely nothing. we waited an hour for our bus to come and bring us back to Krakow, and that ride was 2 and a half hours long. this one trip took us about 10 hours when all was said and done.
once back we ate kebabs. there are kebab stand all over. only the kebabs here are basically a gyro, not meat on a stick. we had some gross Czech beer and headed to bed.
Day 3
gabe departed to prague this morning, so we got up pretty early. we then went out and got our tickets for the salt mine tour, this seemed like a better option than trying to be cheap and sitting on a bus for 5 hours. we went to the meeting spot for the tour and sat on the bus for 15 minutes and it was really hot. we got to the salt mines and took an english speaking tour that lasted about 2 hours or so. we went down about 135 meters underground. it was pretty impressive. everything, basically, is made of rock salt. the floors, the walls and the ceilings. there were statues that the miners carved out, one was of Pope John Paul II, life size. That wasn’t done by a miner though, as the mine stopped being active 11 years ago. Most of the statues were made by miners though. They had a really big chapel that was carved out of the salt, it was pretty cool. The tour guide said it took 25 years to carve the chapel. I think I took about 97 pictures in total. Jessica thinks I took too many pictures, oh well. I also bought a calling card and called home. The card lasted about 3 minutes, sorry Morris.
Now I think we are going to take a nap and then head out.
jessica here and i wanna tell about the food we ate today. for lunch we had mexican. the food was descent. it was just what i was craving. oh my bloody mary was made with tequila and not vodka. gross. i understand they used a mexican liquor but this is poland and i was expecting vodka. for dinner we ate a traditional polish meal. manuel had pirogies and i had lamb. to drink? beer.