Krakow home of the Bagel

jason@willock.org (Jason Willock) — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:02:46 -0400

Well Krakow Poland is an interesting city for sure! I had no idea it was
home to the Bagel, and to Pope John Paul II. There are tons of Synagogues
and Churches here, I entered my first Synagogue the other day, and had to
put on one of those little hats, quite interesting.

The weather here the last couple days has been great, high 20's I am
starting to get my tan back which I lost in Scandinavia and London. I had no
idea Polish girls were so attractive, it is an added bonus that it is so
warm, so clothes are at a minimum.

I haven't checked out the great night life Krakow is supposed to offer as of
yet, I will probably do that tonight, the last couple mornings I have had to
get up too early, (7:00 am) to go on a couple tours, first one was Auschwitz
concentration camp, which was certainly a morbid but interesting experience,
learnt a fair bit, and it made me realize how lucky we are not to have had
to experience anything like that!

Today I went to Wielickza, a tiny town with a huge salt mine that is 700
years old, it was one of the first tourist attractions in Europe, they
started selling tickets in the 1500¹s! The place is massive, with huge
ballrooms and churches below. And some amazing sculptures out of salt,
truly an impressive place, it ranks right up there in the coolest things I
have seen, and we only saw a very small portion of the 300km of tunnels that
consist of this mine, they also have a treatment center for asthma, as the
air inside the mine is very clean, since the salt kills most bacteria.

No pictures from the last two places I am afraid, battery died in Auschwitz,
which was a shame, and they wanted to charge money for photos in the salt
mine, I took one picture, and I knew they wouldn't turn out very well, so
you are just going to have to come see them yourselves!

Other than that it has been an uneventful last couple of nights. I have one
positive story, last night I went shopping for a new pair of shorts. I
finally found a pair at good ole H&M, I then went to the food court in the
mall to have some tasty KFC. I then left, leaving my bag at the table, which
I didn't realize until 5 minutes had passed! I ran back to the food court to
find that the bag was no longer on the chair, I looked around for it, but
could not see anything. I figured it was gone, then this big Polish guy who
was at a table with a couple of girls a few tables from mine, comes over,
and asks if I was looking for my bag. (well he said in Polish, so I assume
that is what he said). So I replied, yes my bag, did you see where it went.
He replied in English, follow me, and we went into the maintenance area, and
he was talking to a few people, and then he told me to wait there, and a
couple minutes later a cleaning lady appeared with my bag! I thanked them
both. It¹s was good to know there are decent people around!

Tomorrow I am off to Budapest Hungary, to meet up with my friend Tan, who
had to go there for work, so we are making a weekend out of it, should be
fun. I had wanted to go there when I was in Romania, but it was an expensive
flight from Bucharest, and a really long train ride. The flight isn't so
expensive from here. And I have been carrying around Hungarian money that a
girl in Romania gave me. From there I am not too sure where I will go,
maybe back to Prague by train, as flights from Budapest seem expensive.

Jason's Trip Around The World, and now life in Singapore - Poland

Krakow home of the Bagel