We woke up at 11:00am after having slept in from our late night romp. Downstairs I enjoyed the excellent free breakfast. Jon also got up and after debating over where we should stay and not wanting to share a floor with 10 other people at a random couchsurfer's house that we had received a message from, we decided to rebook the hostel and received a double discount for today and yesterday since we mentioned our student ID cards. Always ask if there is a student discount!
I took a cold shower as the water heater wasn't working. I didn't mind though as I just thought of the cold showers the prisoners of Auschwitz took in the snow and the shower was quite warm.
Back downstairs I facebooked and talked to Nikola and Nick, a kid traveling by himself from Hong Kong. We had decided to wait for our impromptu large group and by the time everyone was ready, it was 1:00pm.
Leaving the perfect location of the hostel in the city center, we took a left and headed toward Wawel hill (pronounced "Favel") As we turned the corner, I saw the large Wawel castle on the hill covered in snow. Walking up the castle gate, I saw a large statue of a man mounted on a horse. We walked through the gate and Nikola took my normal job with the guidebook, by reading historical facts of the castle. As we came up to the entrance of the main attraction, the Wawel Cathedral, Nikola read about the history of the huge "dragon bones" that hung above the church entrance. Apparently, the world will end when the bones fall.
We entered the cathedral and did a quick tour around until we came to the bell tower entrance where we needed a ticket. Nikola and I had walked ahead of the group and decided to find the ticket office. We went back outside and bought tickets from the nun working the ticket office. We received another nice student discount (I'd received more here in Poland than all of my time combined in Europe). We also picked up the cool audio guide in the form of an iPod Shuffel with a guide who had an American accent!
We went back to the Cathedral and spent the next hour or more listening to the guide and learning a lot about Polish history and the tombs of the many famous Polish kings laying in their beautifully decorated tombs. Walking around with Nikola was fun as I was glad to had met someone new and she was an interesting person. She is from Germany and studying abroad in the US at the University of New Hampshire.
Presenting our tickets to the guard, we climbed the 70 ancient, wooden steps of the bell tower. At the top we had a nice view of Krakow, blanketed in snow.
Back down in the cathedral we went underground, having a chance to explore the crypts. Some cool tombs, one of them belonging to a Polish general who had helped in the American Revolution.
We had been separated from the group for a while, so we wen back outside in the cold. Nikola called them and we met up in the small, historical museum before heading to the impressive State Rooms. Sliding along the ice, we came back to the entrance where we put blue, plastic slipper covers over our shoes and toured the exquisitely decorated rooms with fantastic tapestries and works of aft. One room was very pretty with a large window overlooking the city.
The Castle was closing as it was getting dark at 4. We decided to head back toward the city. Our big group had split up as Jon and I were walking just with Robbert and Nikola. We ended up getting into a large conversation about American, specifically "if America has any culture." Jon and I gave them a litany of rebuttals.
Jon and I still hadn't seen St. Mary's Cathedral nor really explored the square. We told Robbert and Nikola we'd meet back up with them at the hostel. It was freezing and dark as we walked around, talking about the "American Culture" conversation we had just had and also about the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I've been pretty silent on the subject here, considering Europe and Spain are drastically anti-Israel. I gave Jon my thoughts and opinions.
St. Mary's Cathedral was nice, but we were getting really cold and decided to head back to the hostel. We relaxed by drinking some of the great, free, black tea and lazing in the common room.
At 8:00pm or so, Jon, Nikola, Patrick, Nick and I went out to dinner at a Polish restaurant that turned out to be more pricey than we thought. The dumplings were good although it took us for ever to figure out the check.
We decided to go out on the town and ended up paying the 2 slotzky (5o euro cents) cover to enter the very good, underground club called "Frantic." The music was great and everyone was up and dancing. We joked about the scene from "Eurotrip" in which the main characters go to a club in Eastern Europe. This seemed to fit the bill. We left "early" at 3:30am. I had definitely been impressed by the Polish night life.
No comments:
Post a Comment