ah, the long-awaited krakow post. (by long-awaited, it means i've waited a week to write it because who knows how many people actually read what i write). the trip got off to a rough start for two reasons - i left the house without my cell phone and realized this when i left the apartment, so i scurried back, and then speed-walked to the metro station. last thursday was the first day of GREAT weather so i was wearing my fleece but the combination of my backpack + speed-walking + the fleece = uncomfortably hot. i was practically out of breath by the time i got to cerge.. but it turns out i rushed for nothing. we didn't end up leaving prague until after 6pm because a couple people forgot their passports.
>> side note/rant: okay, i know forgetting stuff is a common mistake and i forgot my glassescase. but come on, people. your passport. isn't that obvious when we're leaving the COUNTRY? i was a little enraged by this. but i think i was more enraged than usual because i had only slept five hours the night before (and in prague, i usually sleep 8+ hours a night) and i had class all day. ugh. <<
to make the long story short, it was a really, really long bus ride. people were noisy, per usual, and the bus was not comfortable. we arrived in krakow on friday morning at 2:30am. the beds in our hostel were extremely squeaky so i didn't sleep much.. but we had to get up a few hours later to go on our city tour of krakow.
my EU professor came on the trip (at least on friday) and led one of the tours of krakow. when i asked him how he knew so much, he said he had visited krakow over 20 times - he came to study there for summer school and fell in love with the city. we visited wawel castle (pronounced va-vel), the cathedral, and walked to the center of the city in the morning. krakow was surprisingly pretty - and the weather was great! plus, there were dragon souvenirs everywhere. apparently the dragon is the city mascot because of an old myth that i, of course, no longer remember. well. here are some pictures to make up for my short attention span.
in the afternoon, there was an optional tour of the jewish ghetto, once again led by my EU professor. we went to a few synagogues (one which had a cemetery in the back) and then walked across the river to schindler's factory. it was a long, long day of walking and it was exhausting, but krakow is a very navigable city.
my teacher (teehee). all the boys had to wear kippahs before entering the synagogue.
>> side note: fyi #2, i am TERRIBLE with directions, map-reading, anything that requires getting from one place to another (unless it is from the wesleyan campus to main street for thai food). but in krakow, i proved my map-reading prowess not once but (at least) TWICE by navigating my way from wherever we were back to the hostel. major win!! <<
on saturday, we drove an hour outside of krakow to go to auschwitz and birkenau. i decided i'm not going to really describe this, because nothing i say could properly convey how i felt when i was there. one thing i will say is that being at the concentration camp really made me question humanity - how one person (or a group) could put another human through that kind of torture. one of the eeriest parts was seeing a room with a display case the length of a wall in a large room filled with human hair - the nazis shaved womens' hair and sent it back to germany to be used in making products like blankets. it was awful. overall it was a really difficult and extremely moving experience, but i'm glad we went. it's something everyone should see at some point, though it feels surreal.
we continued to explore krakow on saturday afternoon and night (following a much-needed break after auschwitz), walking around old town square and eating delish kebabs for dinner. krakow's old town reminded me of prague's old town, complete with a beautiful church in the center. i still prefer prague, though (obvi). i bought some postcards, my favorite pastime, and we had a chill night at the hostel that involved getting another kebab at 1am. good times.
sunday - we left krakow and our cozy hostel (well, cozy might be a bit generous of an adjective) and headed to the wieliczka salt mine. to be honest, i had NO idea what a salt mine was until we got there.. but apparently it's just a place where salt is produced. not that special. but it was extremely cool because all the walls were lickable (which i did not partake in) AND there's a cathedral inside. completely made of salt. including the chandeliers. AND there was a salt statue of pope john paul ii!! apparently people get married in this underground salt mine (which, btw, was like 400 stairs below ground). very cool. also, the salt mine had little people (midgets) made out of salt. carved by miners. what more could you want?
we made it back to prague later than expected, and pranadhi and i didn't get home until a little after 11pm. overall, krakow was a good trip. a couple noteworthy things about poland:
-the currency is called "zloty." WIN!
-a lot of words in polish are the same as czech, but the "v" and "w" are switched in the spelling through pronunciation is the same. for instance, wine is "vino" in czech. but it's "wino" in polish. beer is "pivo" in czech, but "piwo" in polish. very very cool.
-i ate some really good pasta in krakow. random, but true. what i would do for some spaghetti carbonara right now!
congrats if you made it to the end of this blog entry! it's 11:20pm on a thursday night and i am vegging out at home. getting ready to watch some ncaa basketball. then i'm getting up early to go watch alice in wonderland tomorrow! woot. midterms this week, then spring break!
next destination: rome, italy :)
I just got caught up on all your posts
ReplyDeleteThe current Pope is German. You’ll see him in a few days – Joseph Ratzinger, former archbishop of Munich. What made JP II unique (among a number of things) was that he was the first non-Italian Pope in a few centuries (first since the Holy See returned to Rome from Avignon, I think?). Many other Popes were also not Italian. Like St Peter, who was Galilean.
Not sure how easy it is to get from SK to Japan, but you should go to Hiroshima, probably a similar experience to Aushwitz.
From another post – why is the theory of a mulitverse a ‘myth’ in the Weslane(sp) religion department?