Rachel and Katie Do Europe 2008

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

Pro.Shem. Tch-mog oun. Pog. Wad-itch tvoy Me-yen-key toh-veh-cheque?

Hello :)
Today, our first full day in Krakow, Katie and I visited the famous Wieliczka Salt Mine. We decided to take a tour from our hotel instead of just checking it out ourselves. It was a good idea to do it this way because transportation was easy, we didnt have to wait in the 2 hour individuals line, and we got an awesome Polish your guide who spoke perfect English and knew the place inside and out. Our tour was a total of 5 hours from hotel to mine to hotel, which means after we needed a nap, clearly.

The salt mine was really neat. It is unbelievable what man is capable of creating. In order to see the mine we had to climb down 57 flights of stairs to 300 feet below the surface. We saw some really beautiful carvings and chapels and were shown how the miners over the years have used different technology in their mining for salt. We then climbed down to two more levels of the mine where we ended up being approximately 500 feet below the surface and about 100 meters above sea level. Here we saw the most gorgeous chapel where miners have sculpted books of the Bible into the walls. Katie and I both thought that The Last Super was the most amazing of them all. Everything in the mine was made of salt, with the exception of some wood that is used to support the mine from collapsing. The walls, the floors (even when it looks like marble) the chandeliers and the sculptures are all made of salt. At the end of the tour, you take an elevator up to the surface level again. This elevator goes up 12 floors a second!!! They made it sound like it was going to be all super-dooper fast but it didnt seem like it at all- until we stepped out and both Katie and I were a little light-headed. We both really enjoyed the mine and would definitely recommend that people visit it if they come to Poland.

After the salt mine, Kate and I napped and then went upstairs to the main hostel where they were providing a FREE authentic Polish dinner. It was a bit of a let down. It was just some cabbage soup with some vegetable platers on the side. Since it was free we ate as much as we could stand to get down and then went out on the town to find dessert. We got some gelato (good, but not as good as in Italy). We made our way over to the main sqaure, which we love, where they had music playing and the crowd was dancing around enjoying themselves. It was the cutest thing. There were these old couples all lovey-dovey! It's amazing how many older couples, I'm using the term older very loosely, we have seen who look and act like they are totally in love still. It is not something that is usually seen at home.

It is nice to see people who are in love and not afraid to show it. It brings a smile to our faces. It also makes me wonder why the U.S. is so afraid of P.D.A.. I mean seriously, if a couple in love kiss each other and cuddles in public everyone around is like "ewww...gross....get a room" but then they are perfectly fine to hear, talk, see and watch on TV all the disgusting blood and death that we show. Lets get real, which is better? Love or death and violence? I think we should rethink what we define as gross or appalling. Maybe we would have a nicer society.

Okay, Im done with my rant. Sorry. Anyways, after dinner Katie and I check out a DVD, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in honor of the birth of Viv and Know (hahaha), and watched it in the TV Lounge. Then we took some MyQuil at 11:00 and passed out!!! We needed/wanted some really great zzzzzz's and we got them!!

Well today we are just going to explore so we will update you on that later tonight.

P.S. The title of the blog says "Please may I fondle your buttocks?" in Polish

A picture we took in the mall, posting it just for laughs

The ground in the salt mine is one solid piece of salt which is just carved into this design

carving in salt

The Last Supper carving

Artistic picure taken under one of the salt crystal chandeliers

Mining shaft

The big chapel

One of the salt crystal chandeliers

"Smells like berbaque"- Katie

Today Katie and I arrived in Krakow, Poland and instantly loved it. It is beautiful here. The building are medieval and there is so much lush greenery. We are staying at a really nice hostel and so far the beds seem comfy so that is a plus.

We got to our hostel late in the afternoon so we did not have much time to see the city. We did however have enough time to find some authentic Polish food and shove our faces. I had Polish sausage with onions and fries and Kate had potato pancakes with some sauce on top. The food was amazing!! After dinner we walked over to the main square in Krakow where we stumbled upon a bike race. We werent and still arent too sure how important it was and who won since we arent too familiar with the language, but it was really fun/funny to watch. Katie could not get enough of it. We sat and watched the men in tight biker shorts ride in (small) circles all the while wondering if they use the lavender Venus razors to make their shaven legs so smooth.

After seeing some of Krakow we can back to our hostel to plan out our next couple of days. Tomorrow we have scheduled to go to the salt mine which should be pretty awesome and then our hostel hosts a (free) authentic dinner so we are def gunna hit that up. The next day we are going to Auschwitz and at night see the Jewish Quarter. Our last day in Krakow we are going to see as much of the city as possible.

Below we have posted the few pictures that we took today and tomorrow we will post the pictures from the salt mine. We have internet here so we should be loading pictures everyday simply for your enjoyment.

P.S. Our title for this blog just so happens to be a quote from Katie that made us laugh for a good hour and has become our quote of the day. We are pretty sure it is a "guess you had to be there" type of thing, but nevertheless it makes us laugh. The story goes as follows: we walk out of our hostel discussing dinner plans. I think authentic food sounds good, Katie disagrees until she smells the food and it just so happens that it "smells like berbaque," which apparently is similar to Barbecue. We pretty much looked like freaks as we walked down the main street laughing so hard we were crying at this simple little error in speech. This is the type of thing that happens when you are hyped up on espresso and seriously delirious from way too many days of buses, trains, airplanes, pasta, and shitty beds.

XOXOX,
Dumb and Dumber