Communism Week part 1-Krakow, Poland

I got a week off of school Starting October 30th, so me and my friend Sara Abad packed our small backpacks with enough clean underwear and headed off for nine days for eastern Europe! It was an amazing week and I am so glad I went to the places I did. The first stop on our trip was Krakow, Poland where my friend from home Alexis is studying. I had no idea what to expect about Poland, in no way is it somewhere yo often hear of tourists going and I had no preconceived notions as to what Krakow held. According to Rick Steve's it is "The Boston of Europe," that was all the convincing I needed.

We left Florence on Saturday the 30th and took a Ryan air flight to Krakow. We arrived latish in the evening but Alexis quickly met us at our hostel and brought us to a Peruogi restaurant. A perougi is the polish version of a dumpling, with anything inside from cheese and potatoes (the classic type) or sweet cheese and fruit. This was my first introduction into A. how good perougi's are, and B. just how much the Polish love their potatoes and their carbs!
After dinner we went to this great bar in the Jewish quarter. It was dark, stone (one of the first bars ever in Krakow), and it was entirely lit by candlelight! Can you imagine a pub in the U.S. have candles on the wooden tables with college kids all around! Adding to the very old fashion appearance of the bar was the fact that people are still allowed to smoke indoors in eastern Europe, so a thick haze of cigarette smoke fills all the bars and pubs, making my limited amount of clothing reek. Krakow has this great drink, which is a mix of light beer and either ginger or raspberry syrup. They were both great! And the ginger beer went especially well with meals.
The next day we had a great little breakfast at our hostel and then met up with Alexis at an antique flea market. After being tempted by multiple communism relics we left and went to a free walking tour of the city. It was the best thing since they work off of tips they want to make sure you have a good time. We learned all about the important buildings, the legends behind various statues, saw the castle, the dragons lair, about a million statues of Pope John Paul the second, and the largest medieval square in Europe. We took a quick lunch break (sauerkraut and sausage) and then started the tour again to see the Jewish quarter. We saw the old synagogues, the memorials, the ghetto where Roman Polanski escaped from, and Oskar Schindler's factory. It was really amazing.

The next day was all Saints Day and everything was closed, but we walked around the church again, wandered the river, and then made our way over to one of the largest cemetery's of Europe. It was probably a mile by a mile and it appeared that it was not night out at all but day with the millions of burning candles. We wandered throughout the cemetery and every single tomb had candles and flowers on it, some were covered with dozens and dozens of candles. The nuns and monks go around and make sure no one is left unattended and place candles and flowers on the graves where relatives were not around to do it. It was like looking out at a sea of candles which gently illuminated the headstones. By far one of the most interesting and breathtaking things I have ever seen. To add to the slightly spooky demeanor of it they very small church at the edge of the cemetery was broadcasting mass over loudspeakers.

We got on a train that night around ten to take the overnight to Budapest. We were slightly nervous about who our other bunk mates may be on the ten hour journey through Slovakia and Hungary but we entered to find a very nice couple on the bottom bunk and two dopey British boys on the middle bunks. We climbed up to our top bunks and semi-slept through the train journey. At one point the train split apart, with half going to Prague and half going to Budapest...we hoped we were on the right car going to Budapest and fell back asleep.