Because it would hurt a lot Warren....

Today Katers and I set out to see as much of Krakow as we could before we were completely exhausted. It seems that no matter how much sleep we get we are still tired all day long. Last night we took Nyquil to get some good rest and so today we got a pretty late start on our day but it was okay since Krakow is decently small and easy to navigate.

We first walked through the Old Town Square, just because we love it so much, and then we made our way down one of the main streets in the direction of Wawel Hill, where the castle is located. On our way there we heard some opera-ish type singing, so we were looking around trying to find which woman was singing. After a few minutes of trying to spot the singer we found a tall, skinny old man singing the male and female parts of songs. It was sooo funny!! We watched him for a few minutes and could not believe our ears :)

After watching the funny man sing we climbed our butts up the hill, where we saw some man dressed in the old school salt mining outfit, took a look at the view of the river and Krakow, and wandered the castle grounds for a bit. This castle is my favorite castle of this trip to Europe. Katie doesnt quite think it is a castle cause it doesnt look like castles do in fairy tales but we both really loved it. The castle does not represent just one time period of architecture, rather it is a complete mix because over the 500 years that Polish royalty lived there, each royal family added new parts on to it. This collective effort made a beautiful castle. I could easily say that this castle just might be my favorite one of all.

After seeing Wawel Hill we made our way over to the Jewish Quarter, Kazimierz. Kazimierz was once a region seperate from Krakow. Krakow housed the Polish and Kazimierz housed the Jews. Each region had their customs, government, ect, but they were friendly to each other. Over time the two joined and Kazimierz became a section of Krakow. At its peak, before Nazi Germany invaded, Kazimierz housed tens of thousands of Jews. When the Nazis's invaded they moved them all to the near by concentration camp, Auschwitz, where most of them perished. Nowadays, there is said to be about only 200-600 Jews living in Kazimierz.

Kazimierz, currently, is the up-and-coming part of Krakow. All the new trendy bars, cafes, and nightclubs are being opened in this area. Katie and I visited during the day so we missed the chaos, which was nice because during the day Kazimierz is almost like a ghost town. We meandered the narrow streets gazing up at the buildings in almost complete silence for about 2 hours. We tried to go into the Old Jewish Cemetery but were not allowed in because our knees were showing.

Oh yeah, just so you know, Schindler's List is about Kazimierz and Auschwitz.

After touring the city we headed to get some authentic Polish food for lunch. I got a meat ball and mustard and a beer and Kate got some perogi. We ate at this cute little place in the Planty, which totally made us feel like we were at Disneyland. We LOVED it! The Planty is the green park surrounding the Old Town. It was built in place of the moat that used to surround the city. The Planty is gorgeous and I think that every town should have one!! :)

After lunch we relaxed a bit and then when just when we were about to go out for a stroll it started to pour rain so we had a change of plans and instead went over to the Galleria Krakow where we looked at some of the shops and grabbed an early dinner. We are going to try to get to bed at a decent time since we are going to tour Auschwitz tomorrow. We will let you know how that goes.

3 more days!

P.S. The title of todays blog just so happens to be the only thing that was coming out of our mouths today...lines from Empire Records.

P.S.S. I will post pictures tomorrow and post the blog and pictures from Auschwitz tomorrow. The internet is on the fritz right now.

Here are some pictures of the Jewish Quarter that Katers took with her new camera!

Me trying the Polish beer (it was gross)

raining outside

Wawel Hill

2 shots of the amazing castle

View of Krakow from Wawel Hill

Old Town

Katers in front of the castle and city wall

View of the river from Wawel Hill

Kate in front of the castle