Krakoooooow

            Aaaaaaaand we’re on the home stretch. Only 27 more days left until I’m on a plane back to Nebraska. If that’s not depressing then I don’t know what is. After this last weekend in Krakow, Poland we only have one more class field trip. It makes me sad knowing that we only have two weeks left with the 24 of us. I’ve actually really enjoyed getting to know everyone and hanging around them all, they’re not so bad I guess ;)

            Friday morning started off a little rocky with Lily and I sleeping through our alarms (I accidently hit snooze, woops). And we made it just in time before Kathy realized we were almost late (sorry Kath J). It was smooth sailing from there on out, the bus ride was a great time to take a well needed nap, occasionally waking up and staring out the window. I actually enjoy the bus rides, the longer the better, time for me to listen to music and think about anything and everything on my mind.

            The bus ride from Olomouc to the Wieliczka Salt Mines was about four hours. I really enjoyed our tour through the salt mines; our guide had a sense of humor, which I think makes things more fun for everyone. We started off going down 53 flights of stairs to get to the start our tour, it wasn’t quite what I expected when hearing “salt mine” I always thought of a cave and having to where lights on our heads. This salt mine was way more than that, it was huge! Due to the ventilation in the salt mines we had to close one door before we could open another. There was electricity and lights running through all the areas, benches carved out of salt, sculptures carved of salt, chapels, horse stables to house the horses that once used to work in the salt mines, bodies of water, gift shops and even restaurants. For the two hours that our tour lasted we had only seen 1% total of the salt mine and we were 130 meters (over 400 feet) underground. I was so impressed by how massive it was and how much work was put into creating these salt mines, I definitely enjoyed this part of our trip.

            After the salt mine we checked into our hostel and had the rest of the night to ourselves in which we decided to grab a traditional Polish meal some Pierogi’s, also known as Polish dumplings. After grabbing dinner the majority of our group decided we were going to experience the Krakow nightlife for ourselves and attended a pub-crawl. It made for an interesting night having a big group of Nebraskan’s roaming the streets of Poland, but as always was so much fun!

            The next morning we met up with our whole group for a tour of the Wawel Castle, to be honest I wasn’t too interested in this part of our trip. Our tour guide talked a lot and explained pretty much every single piece of art, every weapon, and everything displayed in the castle. In my opinion it was too much detail for a group of students that are used to wandering and reading information of things that interest them. Once our tour of the castle was over we headed to the main square of the city to hit up some markets and of course eat some Polish sausage, which did not settle too well in my stomach and make for a crappy rest of the day.

            On Sunday we were up early to get some breakfast at a cute café down the street from our hostel, which took FOREVER, but my stomach was full afterwards so I was happy. We then checked out of our hostel and headed to Schindler’s Factory, which has now been turned in to a museum of World War II and Krakow’s history throughout this time in history. I really wish we would’ve been able to stay longer at the museum and actually get to read everything displayed and written on the walls instead of listening to a tour guide because I feel that we missed out a lot on the important information that could have been taken from this museum. For a city that has so much dark history, I wanted to really get a feel for everything that happened and with this tour I don’t think that we did.

                                                    

            Overall I loved Krakow, it is definitely a city that I would love to visit again! It’s very lively with all of its markets and booths set up everywhere. It’s a city with so much rich history that you could spend days learning about, I’m very glad we had the opportunity to spend the weekend here!