Sunday, April 29, 2012

very belated semana santa post



Today (it was today when I typed this out originally) was the first day back to school after a week off for easter. I wouldn’t exactly say it was a much needed break but I definitely enjoyed it. I took advantage of the time off to travel to places that aren’t worth going to for only a weekend. Starting Friday before palm Sunday, I left with my travel buddy Carolyn.

Our first stop was Bologna. We chose to go there because it was the cheapest way to get to out ultimate destination, Krakow, Poland. And we also wanted to eat some good Italian food. Mission Accomplished. Bologna is a fairly small city so we were able to see a lot of the sites in the one day we were there, while leaving time for one, or maybe two gelato breaks.



Early the next morning we were on our way from warm and sunny Italy to cold and snowy Poland. When we arrived it was only rain, but that soon froze. Although we had been awake for 5 hours when we landed in Krakow, it was still quite early in the morning, only 9:30 AM. We were tired, but excited to see the city so we went out after dropping off our bags at the hostel. Also, the fact that our room wasn’t ready yet kinda pushed us out the door.

We walked directly to the main square because that’s usually a good place to start in an unfamiliar city. Right in the center of the square was a place called Coffee Heaven, AKA my heaven. I was so excited to be in a place where there were choices other than black coffee, or coffee with milk (although I do love my café con leche). I was actually quite overwhelmed with all the choices (surprise, surprise) and I hadn’t brushed up on my Polish beforehand, so the all in polish menu was a little difficult for me to understand. I ended up ordering a cappuchino, which is essentially a café con leche. The only difference was the size, it was an American size coffee! Maybe even bigger, and cheap too.


After my trip to coffee heaven, we walked around to find the Wawel Castle (pronounce Vavel), but when we got there it was already closed for the day. So, we decided to look for the Jewish Quarter to see some synagogues. Those too, by the time we found them (polish maps are hard to read), were closed. Next on our to do list was Schindler’s Factory which was a recommended site for tourists but I’m not entirely sure of its significance. Well guess what? NO, it wasn’t closed, well maybe it was. I wouldn’t know because we never found it! And by that time it was unbearably cold, so we went inside for a warm drink. We ended the day with an awesome Thai massage (Thai women stepping all over us) and used the rest of the evening to plan out next few days in Krakow. The two main sites we wanted to visit were both outside the city, so we decided to go on an organized tour that would include transportation. Given our track record, we didn’t want to risk finding these places on our own.

Our first visit was to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. I’d never been in a mine before and it was one of the coolest things I ever saw. The mine no longer functions and has been made into a museum with statues and even a cathedral made entirely of salt. It was hard to believe that what I was looking at was all salt. So cool!


statue made of salt


By the time the tour was over we went straight to lunch because it was already 3PM and we were starving.  The day before we had gotten out kielbasa fix so we were on the lookout for pierogis. We found a Michelin restaurant that wasn’t too expensive (nothing really is there) and decided to go there because we wanted GOOD pierogis. The menu had so many different options so we decided to share a variety platter which the menu said was good for two people, Turns out it was good for about 6 people, and even though we were quite hungry, we could not finish the plate. But we took them to go so they would not go to waste. That night, we hung out with some hostel friends that were from different places all over the world.

The next day we went to Auschwitz, a depressing but also very interesting experience.

We spent the rest of the break in Malaga and Granada, two other cities in Andalucia. Since Carolyn studied abroad in Granada, I had my very own tour guide. We stayed at two very interesting hostels; both in terms of people and appearance. All in all, I had a really great break, and if my april hadn’t been so busy I would have shared this blog earlier.

Much much much more to come!