Paris!

I'm already 2 trips behind on this thing, and I'm going on another next week. (EDIT: now less than 4 days. Geez)

I guess I need to power through then. who knows...maybe I'll have 2 posts in the same day!

But yes...Paris. One of the most romantic cities in the world, and I went with one of my new guy friends Manny that I met here. I actually fell into a group of American guys that I got to know while being here. Most of them go to my university, so it made it all a little easier to find common ground and whatnot. THAT, and I think I am one of the only girls that ever hung out with them. they are a good group though...they definitely made parts of my trip ones I won't soon forget. (example: my trip with most of them to Rome)

Moving on though...

So our flight from Prague to Paris was at 5 in the evening, which was the latest either of us had flown to another country. Everything leading up to the flight and getting to the Paris Orly Airport was uneventful...we got our tickets...got Mcdonalds to kill time...got on the plane...got off the plane...ran to the bathroom...and then began the ordeal of getting from the airport to our hostel.

when dealing with the Paris Metro...you see this map and want to have a heart attack.


THAT....is 14 lines. Yes...14. And of course they are not all clearly labeled, its very bizzare how far you have to walk to transfer at times, and sometimes you don't know if you are going in the right direction or not until you get on and hope that the next stop is towards you final destination. With that being said, Manny and I NEVER got lost on the metro. I would tell us where we were going, and he would figure out how to get there. It was a beautiful system. I figured if I had a hard time finding our hostel on a map, that I had no business looking at a metro map.

You are often greeted by this sign on the metro. I think it says something to the effect of "don't be a dumbass and use your foot to block the door from closing" These doors were quite scary. I should have gotten a picture of them. instead of them opening automatically, there is a latch you have to lift up to unlock the doors, and they open kinda fast. and riders would like to open the doors before the train had come to a complete stop. And you had to step up to get on the train. fun times.

But we found our hostel, got dinner at McDonalds (which was across the street from our hostel. Smart planning on someone's part.) and then wandered around the area because we had nothing else better to do with our time.

Typical metro stop decoration. They are designed in the Art Nouveau style, and of the reason why I went to Paris in the first place. Coincidentally, these metro stops are some of the only designs I care from from Art Nouveau...the rest of it is all too frilly and busy for me.

La Bastille, which was i think about a mile away from our hostel. That is all that's left of the infamous prison that started the French Revolution. I think i read somewhere that you could see remains of the foundations of the prison from a metro stop nearby.


FULL DAY #1 Started with a trip to the Eiffel Tower. And just like when I saw the Colosseum...the first words out of my mouth upon seeing it were..."that's the god damn Eiffel Tower right there." And there it was indeed.

From the Bottom

From the middle-ish?

View from the first or second observation level. Im going to lean towards this being the higher one of the 2

A view of the menu for a restaurant at the top of the tower. That's right...they have pigeon on the menu...and if I remember correctly, its 74 Euro. You heard it here folks...the French are somehow making money off of a bird that won't move EVER, even when a tram is dangerously close to flattening it. (Sidebar: the pigeons in Europe are entirely too domesticated. You could be standing next to it and it still won't flinch and the larger the open public area...the more they swarm around people, especially friendly old people).

View from the bottom (obviously). I tried to get the whole tower in the shot, but I failed.

ME. We walked across the street and to some other building that is parallel to the Eiffel Tower. It had a lot of flags and statues and whatnot in front of it. We mainly did this to get a picture of the whole thing.

And then we headed towards the Paris Catacombs...and got really hungry, and progressively more pissed (atleast I was) because it took us forever to find a place that had an english menu outside of it, and it started drizzling, then raining, then pouring.

Typical street in Paris

My first "french" meal. 1/4 of chicken and french fries at the place we settled on. it was tasty

THE CATACOMBS!! We paid 4 Euro to get it (roughly 6 bucks i think) and then had to go down a flight or 2 of stairs, and then down a corridor that was 400-600 meters (i went like a month ago...I don't remember exactly...geez!) it was slippery. and dimly lit (these pictures were taken with flash though, because the night setting on my camera blows). It quickly turned into one of the creepiest/most awesome places I've been to in Europe. Expect for the me almost slipping and falling part a few times. BUT...I figured if I died that they would just throw my body in with the rest of the bones, and no one would know... It would be quite ironic as well.

Entrance to Catacombs. get excited!

Proof I was in the Catacombs. YES that's my shadow, and yes, I think those are femurs and skulls behind me. I spent some of my time in the catacombs taking pebbles that were on the floor. I thought it would be a pretty sweet sovenier (Sidebar: sorry...that word is incredibly difficult for me to spell this semester), and would have less potential to bring a horrible curse onto my family than taking a random bone.

From what I understand, the Catacombs were concecrated in the 18th century because the bodies in a nearby cemetary were causing a plague to spread, so the bodies had to go. And then I guess that bones from all Paris cemetaries were put down there until 1815. I didn't even know the Catacombs were there until someone told me about them a few days before I left for Paris; I thought it was an "off the beaten path" tourist destination. Apparently Manny and I were wrong. We waited in like for close to an hour, and contemplated even getting out of line because it was still drizzling, and both of us were cold. And it almost looked like we were not going to get in because someone who worked there came around at like 4ish and said that not everyone in line was going to get in (we actually have no idea what the guy said, but neither did the people in front of us, a lady was kind enough to translate for them, and I overhead what she said), but I think we were in the last group of 20 or so people to get it.

View from the bathroom of our hostel. I thought I had gotten a picture of it, but if you had looked to the right of this building, you would have seen a Mcdonalds across the street. It became very convenient during my stay in Paris

After the catacombs we headed back to the hostel for a bit, and then traversed to the Triumphal Arch. or Arc de Triomphe if you speak french. I believe its modeled after Hadrians arch in Rome or something like that. It has a tomb to an unknown soldier from WWI at the base of it. BUT before we got to to the Arch, we got sidetracked by some people dancing.Manny says they were pop-and-locking, but it looks suspiciously similar to someone doing the Robot, so I'm going to say he was doing the Robot, which made the Paris trip awesome. Because ever since seeing Eurotrip, I had always wanted to see the Robot done on a Paris street. Granted, it was not a battle royale like in the movie (which is one of the best scenes in the movie. well, that and the train scene, which I also experienced sort of when I was in Rome.) And I think there was a Lambo parked on the street behind them. So of course Manny had to get a picture.

Best Angled picture ever! The sign's arrow points the arch! in reality though, the sign points to stairs you can take that lead you to a tunnel that can take you from one side of the roundabout that the Arch is in the middle of, to to the other one. We were unaware that was there at first, so we ran across the roundabout because we could not figure out how else to get closer to the arch.

It turns out thats a bad plan.

After that, we went back to the Eiffel tower, because we heard it "sparkles" at night. Oh yea it sparkles. The lights flicker like a spasmatic seizure-inducing strobe light. It was definitely a sight to see.
FULL DAY #2 Began with a trip to Versailles

The gate to the palace. We waited in line to get tickets for almost an hour. But it was one of the most entertaining lines I had ever waited in. Because you see, I was greeted with some guy talking with his friends and mom about random shit, It went from why Texas should seceede from the Union, to what he was wearing that day, to his crystal meth addiction earlier in his life, to living in London. Granted, I overheard all of this, but he would have had to be stupid to think no one could hear him and wasn't paying attention. THAT, and waiting in a line at a famous house in France is not the place to discuss your entire life story with others.

You never know who actually speaks english...

The tour cost about 11 Euros (we just looked at the palace, but you could pay extra to see Marie Antionette's rooms, the Petit Trianon (her little cottage on the grounds), and the Gardens), but it did include an audio guide thing. We accidentally got rid of the audio guides before you were supposed to, but all they really talked about was the art anyways, which is not exactly why I came to Versailles.

Yup, that's marble. It was some of the most colorful marble I had ever seen as well. And I totally touched it.
The world famous Hall of Mirrors. Louis XIV built it, and used it to walk from his rooms to the chapel in the morning. And other such functions were held in there as well. i just looked it up, and wikipedia says that there are a total of 357 mirrors.

We got to the Palace at 11.30, and by the time we got out of there, it was almost 3, and both of us were STARVING! So, with very little arguement, we settled on Versailles' friendly neighborhood McDonalds, which was actually cheaper than the McDonalds by our hostel by 40-50 Euro cents.

Then, we went to Norte Dame, a church I distinctly remember learning about in school, and know that the facade is uber important, but I can't quite remember why. Grr, after a while all the Gothic churches looked the same...

Notre Dame Cathedral

Notre Dame Cathedral!

This was yet another church that had candles you could light (but for like 2-5 Euro depending on how decorative a candle you wanted to light with the potential of burning the church down. YES, I know that the church is mainly stone, but it could happen...) so I totally did. SO now I can say that I've lit candles in 3 countries, Poland, Hungary, and France. WOOT.

After church, it was ice cream time!

Tirimisu Ice Cream. Delicious. And I still have that spoon. It was pretty.

Our "french" dinner. The tortellini (the pasta in the top left) was the best out of the 3. I always have the best akward conversations with people when people are trying to say whatever to make the whole thing less akward. Food seriously brings people together.

FULL DAY #3 began with looking at the Sacre Coeur. I believe its a Neo-gothic church with islamic influence built in the 1800s. its at the top of a hill. And full of people trying to sell you stuff. I thought was terrible in that respect, but Paris is WAAAY worse. And they are a lot smarter about it here too. They situate themselves in places where you have to pass by them, so its nearly unavoidable to talk to them. It is incredibly irritating.

Sacre Couer in all its glory

Since that took like 20 minutes, we headed in the direction of the Hotel Invaldes, which was the French Military History Musuem was, and Napoleon's tomb. Tickets were like 11 Euro though, and we were only mildly interesting, so we just walked around the outside of it.

Napoleon (Dynamite's) Tomb. You have to pay to get in. We were having none of that. And both of us had to go to the bathroom.

Since that took like 45 minutes, and we were running out of ideas, we back in the direction of the Cathedral because when we had gotten ice cream earlier in our trip, we saw this one guy making delectable looking crepes. So we got ham and cheese ones, for I'm not a fan of ham, but I was a fan of this crepe.

Ham and cheese crepe. I started eating it right away, so I didn't take a picture til halfway through eating it.

After this we were going to go to the Louve, but I thought it was free at some point that day, but not til later on, so we loitered around in a few bookstores and a Starbucks for like 3 hours. I did get a book for 3.50 Euro there, So it wasnt all bad.

THEN, We tried to Louvre it up.
The glass pyramid signifying the I.M. Pei addition to the louve.

Yea...i fucked up on the times and the placed closed like 20 minutes before we got there. But the gift shop was open, so we wandered around there for a bit. I was so pissed that I screwed up on the times. But I guess I saved a bit of money, and its not like i know a whole lot about art anyways....so i would have gotten through the whole place in like an hour.

Then we spent the rest of the day killing more, had a slight scare that we were going the wrong way when we left for the airport in the morning (turns out we were right anyways) and then I made it back to my room at like 2 in the afternoon.

all in all, a good trip. I'm sure more things happened...I was on this trip over a month ago...so its time to push onto the next one...Bratislava and Budapest!

I Swear I Haven't Gotten Lazy (Just Busy...kinda)

Week(s) In Review (OR…I wanted to update…but am also too lazy to put pictures up)

EDIT: yea…yet again, I’m back from where I was (Paris), but have been a little too tired to want to type a long post about my adventures/misadventures. THAT, and my allergies that I didn’t know I had decided to literally kick me in the throat and nasal passages the morning I was supposed to leave Paris, so I haven’t been doing too much lately. But I did regain the use of my nose this morning, so I guess that’s good.

A few highlights from Paris: We never got lost on the 14 line metro system (yet helped a group of people from Boston find their way to La Defense), Climbing 300+ meters worth of stairs to get to the second level of the Eiffel Tower, seeing the mini Statue of Liberty on a tiny island (it might have been an outcropping or a peninsula though) in the middle of the river, my first trip to Catacombs since there was no time (or interest from anyone else) to see the ones just outside of Rome, Versailles, Crepes, running across a giant roundabout without realizing that there was an underground tunnel that would get you to the other side much safer…

EDIT EDIT: you guessed it…I’m back from my next destinations…Bratislava and Budapest. It wasn’t exactly a spur of the moment trip, but my friend and I bought tickets on a Monday afternoon, and left the country early that Thursday morning. Which will be coming up as blog updates…I just haven’t gotten that far. Ive done nothing but travel and do homework for the past month. And I still want to punch my allergies/sinuses in the face.

It might help the pain…you never know.

I’m sure that’s more information that any of you cared to know about me…but suck it up and deal with it.

Damn straight.

Some highlights from my weekend though (before I completely forget what happened, and I keep getting Bratislava and Budapest confused in my head): Devin Castle (note: never walk around a mountain that has a castle in flip-flops. That was a bad choice on my part), St. Steven’s Church, the Citadel (another note: don’t walk up a castle taking the route that cars do. We did not find the stairs until we were on our way down from the top), Hungarian food, Memento park (I now know how to effectively search a house for contraband), Budapest metro system (hands down the creepiest one I have encountered while in Europe)…

Ok, So I guess I need to backtrack a bit to my going’s on since leaving Krakow, the Holy Land of Polish food, and JP2.

It took me a few days to recover from being in Poland….so much so that I have yet to send out postcards (ok…to be perfectly honest…I haven’t sent out postcards from Berlin or Rome either…people might be getting them while I’m in the states….which makes getting postcards only half as cool. BUT each stamp is like a dollar, and times are tough.) ALSO….I don’t remember what I did the day after I got back (which I think was a Tuesday). Its not that I had been drinking or anything, I just have no idea what happened. After a while and traveling so much, the days kinda blur together with little beams of memory at the halfway interesting parts of each day. Also, everyday is different and full of all sorts of random shit. That is why I have like 3 different journals/blogs to keep track of everything that goes on here!

But…I guess that as of this past weekend, I have about 4 weeks left here, and I’m not sure how I feel about that, yet. I mean, I haven’t really gotten all that homesick yet, and the only time I get close to that is when I talk to family members in succession on skype. I think it also helps that some of my friends here are from the Chicago area, so I can get my Chicago fix on a weekly basis. Also, I have so many places left to go and so many things to do (or…and homework and finals too) that I’m not quite ready to leave.

But anyways….enough of the sappiness…time to get back to what I assume people read this for…what the hell have I been up to these past weeks that hasn’t gotten me arrested??

Hm…one night the week before I left for Paris, I went to a pub (its actually called The Pub) for some light competitive drinking…but I really went because I heard that there were $8 ribs- which in all honesty, is almost an excuse to go anywhere. The ribs were, as expected, not that great, and really greasy, (like I had rib hands, and had to take a picture of them they were so greasy), but…not bad for the price. As an appetizer, they had one thing on the menu that was bacon-wrapped apricot. My roommate and I saw that, and immediately HAD to try them. They seriously tasted like breakfast. Am I a little closer to dying of a heart attack- probably- But atleast I went eating delicious food.

What else…um, I went to a beer garden the weekend before I left for Paris, which was about I what I expected- beer and sausages and a big screen that was showing a football (soccer) game- and it existed! That’s a small problem when looking for places to go in Prague: you look for a place on the internet because you wind to try something new…and it longer exists. But the beer was cheap, and the food was decent, so I think I’m going to try and go back some point before I leave.

That same night…three of my friends and I wandered around Prague for a few hours. Prague is an awesome city to wander around with (as long as you have atleast one other person with you). There are very few tourists out, only a few homeless people, and its really quiet. AND…there are 24 hour McDonalds and fried cheese stands around…which always make hours of wandering around worth it….

Which gives an excellent segway to the purpose of this post (besides putting off homework and killing time before dinner): food.

I seem to eat A LOT in Europe. And all different types of food…Czech, Italian, Indian, German, Chinese….and English bacon…

I eat PLETHORA of English bacon. Actually, English bacon…spreadable cheese…sliced processed cheese…and chips, all on rye bread (which is another thing I eat entirely too much of but its inexpensive and delicious here). I would take of picture of this culinary masterpiece…but I never think about it until I’m halfway through the sandwich, and I’m afraid that people would yell at me and tell me to stop eating it. But I figure, English bacon can’t be any worse for me than salami, and I can’t help it that the bacon is cheaper than salami- I gotta save money where I can. Also, I’ve seen a lot of lunchmeat in my days, and having frequented European delis in Chicago, I have never seen English bacon…or anything remotely close to sandwich-sized bacon slices. I’m trying to get my fill of it before I never have it again! Which will be a sad day…I’ll have to go back to my salami, cheese, and chips on rye bread. (I know, because that’s SOO much better)

Another food I eat quite a bit of- Mexican. My roommates and I somehow found the best Mexican restaurant in Prague. Its pretty delicious. Sadly its in a tourist area, but the prices aren’t ridiculous…and they make a mean chicken enchiladas. And it also helps to go at random times in the afternoon so you don’t have to wait an outrageous amount of time to have to sit.

Czech food….as good as it can be at times…can get a little boring after a while. Most of it is variations on meat and dumplings- which is sometimes all I want- but very rarely are there vegetables, which are nice from time to time. But…this restaurant across the street from my dorm makes a delicious piece of chicken wrapped around a potato pancake. And I still need to try stuffed potato dumplings… I hear they are delicious.

Another food item I consume massive quantities of is coffee. I think I have fully embraced the idea of sitting around and having coffee…or having it after eating. Its cheaper than a dessert…and sometimes more delicious, and another excuse to have caffeine. I’m very partial to latte machiattos (sometimes just called a latte)…which are I think steamed milk…a shot of espresso…and frothed milk. I also like these things called frostitos…which are like frappachinos….but more delicious. But not delicious when you are accidentally holding it wrong, and it falls to the ground and splashes on your pants- and you now have frostito pants.

Since I’m on the topic of eating and drinking things, this past Friday (May 15th I think) I went to my first Czech micro-brewery. I think I ate venison (it sounded like a good idea at the time…) and tried to (scratch that- 3) of their beers. First I ordered a wheat beer…which didn’t even taste like beer at first because it didn’t have a bitter aftertaste. And then I had a coffee beer- because I had always wondered what they tasted like- and it was about what I expected- if coffee and beer had a baby I think it would taste like that. But it was still good. They brewery has a banana beer….which I might have to try just because I sounds ridiculous to me (as does a vanilla porter which I had over the summer…and was disgusting). I also tried their sour cherry beer that my friend ordered, and it was better than the Cherry Sam Adams…. But I think it was really a beer champagne or something like that (that’s what their brochure said)

The week before I went to Bratislava and Budapest was….um…relatively uneventful. I had to do homework and such. BUT…I did put off some homework for a ridiculously long time so I could see the new Star Trek in a theater in one of the malls here. It was in English with Czech subtitles…and there were about 10 other people in the theater. Granted, it was close to 10.30 in the PM when the movie started, but it had been released like 3 days before that. I thought the movie was well done, and then I felt like a giant nerd when I understood some of the random references in the movie. Not cool.

BUT NOW….sadly… I’m not leaving the Czech Republic til the middle of June because I have finals and I have to finish up the my projects and whatnot so it can look like I didn’t completely waste my time here….but I’m pretty sure I am going to go to Munich around June 22, I’m just waiting to see how many more people are going. And hopefully, I will be able to go one at least one day trip in the Czech Republic to see some of the towns that I have heard are good to visit, like Plzen (where Pilsner Urquell is made).

It’s hard to believe that I have a little more than a month here…and my birthday is in 4 weeks from today!!

So I close with a quote from this weekend…

Scene: We were in a church in Budapest-
A: So there is a 2 Floriant coin on the floor under a pew. Would it be bad if I took it, but left a 10 (or some other coin that was larger than 2) Floriant in its place? The 2’s are not in circulation anymore.
B: Yes that would be bad. You are stealing from the church.
A: But I would be leaving more money
B: Too bad.

I Heart Perogi

Wow...this will have been the quickest turnaround between me going on a trip...and me blogging about it....go me. Well...and I'm trying to avoid the rest of my homework...and a little too exhausted from traveling from the past 2 weeks to want to do it anyways....so there

So yes...through my school's ISC (international student club)...I got the opportunity to go to Krakow over the weekend. We left thursday night, and got back early monday morning...quite early. But I'll get to all that later. 40ish people went on the trip all together...15 from my school, 25 from another school in Prague...and 2 people from my international student club. We were all on one train car...on a 9 hour train ride to Krakow.... god that blew.... Well it was OK in the fact that I met some new people...but blew in the fact that I had to try and sleep on the train, which was not comfortable. I was in a sleeping room with 5 other guys, which was only slightly akward. (I actually spent most of this weekend being the only girl in a group of guys...im not sure if thats good or bad...(Sidebar: anyone have any ideas on that? its not that im trying to do these things....I just always find myself being one of the only girls talking to certain groups of guys). So after only getting about 4 hours of sleep...we arrived in Krakow at like 7 in the morning.

This is from the front of the bus station as we were leaving Krakow Sunday night...I got a blurry picture when we got there on Friday.

After we all get off the train we walked to our hostel. Because there were so many of us...we stayed in separate hostels. More or less, one school stayed in one hostel, and the other one in the other hostel. I was in the one called the Krakow Hostel, and in a room with 20 beds. It's the biggest room I've stayed in yet!

This is a sign from the front of our hostel...on the first floor of it was a tiny restaurant...and outside of the restaurant...they had this sign: its a list of 20 different types of perogis... I did not know there were 20 different types (i actually did not eat here...but the sign proverbially blew me away...and gave me a jonesing for perogi...)

After that...we went on a 2 hour tour of Krakow...(well...we only saw the older part...but still...we saw a lot)
The pigeons in Krakow are numerous (like more than I have seen on Devon Avenue in Chicago)...and friendly...WAAY to friendly...they dont move even when you are like 6 inches away from them. I have another picture a bunch are surrounding three little kids....and they were feeding them.

The first of many occurances of JP2 that I saw while in Krakow...hes a real big deal here. Possibly because he went to school in Krakow...or because he was bishop of Krakow for a while...you know. This was was a small relief sculpture outside of one of many churches in Krakow... I think that Krakow is called the Rome of the North...or something like that.

Inside of one church...lets say its Catholic. It was beautiful. All the ones we went into were (i think we visited 3 or 4 on the tour...but could not take pictures at the last one. it was in the Wawel

Possibly JP2... keeping his pope hands strong! Or going in for a hug. The world will never know...

An image of JP2 in a window of a think a monastery. JP2 would stay there every time he came back to visit Krakow...and would stand outside that window to talk to the young people who would crowd outside.... I guess he would hold a dialogue of sorts...I dunno...I heard all this during our city tour.

This actually isnt the image i thought it was. I have a picture of Our lady of Czestahowa ( i know thats spelled wrong)...but this city is the first one I found where one was able to light candles...so I did it...twice. Well..the first time i tried...I almost burned my hand, and had walked away from our tour to do it...and then the tour caught up to me...so I ducked out of the way to find more places to light candles and potentially burn the church down. so I did...and I did. but I didnt have any money minus bills...but I still did it. (I also lit a candle in a church the next day...I think it was the same one....but I paid) I'd been waiting for a place in Europe to do this...and was excited. (i know...and odd thing to get excited about...but watevs)

After that...we went to lunch...
The wrap we had...it was filled with vegetables. I was so hungry I demolished it and didn't question what exactly was in it (which is what I do most of the time)...and then went and got more food with some people....
...and got sushi....THIS...is vegetarian sushi though...because fish disgusts me. It wasn't too bad though...and like the 3rd time I've had sushi. Then...some people went to take a nap at the hostel. I didn't come to Krakow to nap...so me and this guy from Canada walked around for 2 hours. we walked along the river and along this park that takes the place of the former city walls. (its a narrow park...but really cool if you think about the fact that the park rests on the former city walls).

Wawel Castle

Then after that...we went to the evenings activities...a Traditional Highlander evening. I did not have a very good time...because it was a pointless evening if you werent participating in any of the games...I couldnt see what was going on half the time...and I guess I just wasnt in a very good mood. We ate traditional cheese...soup that had a whole hard boiled egg in it (see below)...chicken with potatoes...and some apple thing...and we got a free glass of Zywiec (its the polish beer whose logo is the dancing man and woman...which i thought was quite tasteless if you ask me) I actually tried to steal one of the .3 liter glasses at the end of the night...but it shattered the next day...when i dropped it... stupid karma. So I have no cool Polish beer glass...sad day.

Soup with potato and egg in it...i did not eat the egg...because I hate egg...

Cool street view

The next day...we toured Auchwitz 1 and 2 which were about an hour outside of Krakow. There were actually 3...possibly 4 main camps...but they do not exist anymore. The first one we visited is called Auchwitz- Birkenau (or Auchwitz 2). This is the camp where most of the um...atrocities took place. Auchwitz 1 was more or less the experiemental one...and mainly held Soviet Prisoners...and I think men. Look up the camps if you want more information...I know quite a bit...but I chose not to take very many pictures...at all. I didn't think it was right to take pictures in a place filled with such pain and destruction.

.
A sandwich I ate on the bus outside of one of the camps (i know...the worst form of irony)...it was the best turkey and cheese (or ham and cheese) sandwich I had had in some time...I think it was the roll that made the sandwich....
Sign from the front of Auchwitz 1...it translates to 'work makes free"...its an ironic slogan if you think about it...

My first try at getting perogis. I walked around for like 20 minutes trying to find a place that sold them hot (and had completely walked away from the guys I was walking around with because I was on a mission...from god)....and was not having any luck... so I went to my fallback...a deli. (because polish delis always have stuff like that). And...they had like 8 kinds, and potato pancakes (but potato pancakes are not good cold...so I skipped out on them). So...after a few minutes of deliberation, and the Polish lady behind the counter getting progressive pissed at me...I picked the kind called Russkie. I was trying to pick a type that was potato (WELL....after I tried them, I think that they were potato and sour cream, so I was HALF right.) So Im walking out of the store...and walking across the square in Krakow...and I come across these bad boys....
THESE...were some of the best perogis I've ever had. I picked potato and cheese (mainly because that's what the guy ahead of me in line picked) and they also came with some mushroomy sauce thing. A-MAZING. I ate them in the square...and then had a few of the cold ones I got...and was feeling a little more at one with the city, and my heritage.

Then I walked around by myself for a while, and got slightly lost. Well, not completely lost, I just could not read which way to face on the map. I wandered into a few churches to take some pictures, but accidentally walked in on 2 masses. I was going to take a picture of a confessional in during one of them, but it felt wrong...so I left.

Creepy-Ass confessional. They had a lot of these in Krakow. I think these confessionals would scare me straight in Krakow (kinda like D.A.R.E. for Catholics).

After my walk....and I met up with everyone else...we had a pizza party. Only sadly...it was not cheese and sausage pizza (which would have been amazing) BUT NO...it was pizza with a lot of things that did belong on pizza- like vegetables, and chicken, and I think curry.

The next day, we went to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, which I believe has been in operation since the 1200s. We had to walk down like 20 flights of stairs to get to the start of the tour...and boy was it an experience!! The tour was like 2.5 hours long, and wound through a small part of the cave, and then through a museum that talked about the history of mining there, and salt, and other such dioramas.

View of art, and salt statue.

THATS RIGHT....its a salt statue...of JP2! This was taken in a church that was carved out my several miners in the cave (it was actually quite beautiful) and I technically wasn't supposed to take a picture because I did not pay to get a special sticker to let me take pictures, but I took one anyways...because its JP2.

While in the salt mines I managed to get myself almost lost twice. The first time...I went to the bathroomm and then went back to where I thought everyone was. And they were not there. I did eventually find them (it turns out I had not walked far enough). But second time I almost was not so lucky. We were in the museum part of the mines and I had walked away from the group because I like exploring exhibits at my own pace (which is a lot quicker that some people) and had kept walking with this other kid. We found some exhibit of pictures and then turned around and walked back to where everyone else was...and they were not there. We slightly paniced...and backtracked through the whole museum area to the beginnning of the museum, where we ran into this Polish lady who worked there and could tell we were not where we were supposed to be. So she pointed us in the right direction....and thus the end of the excitement of the Salt Mines.

After the salt mines....we had perogis for lunch....OMG were they amazing... I had potato...meat....and saurkraut. BUT the meat ones were the best. Instead of them being smothered in butter (which made me slightly sad)...I think they were cooked with little cubes of pork fat...which made them amazing. I dont think that a lot of the people liked the perogis...but I wish I could have had more ( we were only allowed ten each...:(

The delicious perogis....

The best wafer cookies I have ever had. You can get them in the states (well...my best bud gave me a bunch of them for my birthday one year.) and I'm pretty sure I have seen them in a store a the bottom of the Hancock Building

Then...we had a 9 hour train ride back from Krakow...BUT...not before the guides giving us A free botle of vodka, a free shot glass, and a free bag of polish candy. (actually..we got that earlier in the day, but I didn't remember til about a minute ago.) Because there were so many of us....there was not enough room in the sleeping car for everyone...so me and 3 other guys volunteered to stay in a sitting cabin with our guides...because I'm a nice kid like that. And I figured that I would not sleep a whole lot anyways... BUT...I did get free wine.

Said free wine. It was Australian white wine....imported to Latvia...and sold I guess in Krakow...we could not find a bottle opener...so one guy opened the bottle with a key...and then another guy pushed the cork past the neck...with a pencil. It was decent wine..but I know nothing about wine...I just know what the other guys told me.

And then we rolled into the Prague train station at 7 in the morning on Monday...and was back in my room watching the Office after breakfast by 8.30.

And thus ends my trip to mah homeland...well...half of it.

NEXT TRIP: PARIS!!! but I'll hopefully update before then...I do have other things going on besides trip....you know...like class...

....most of the reason why I'm in Prague (in case anyone was wondering...class is going just fine...and I do go...most of the time)