Poland: Krakow & Slawkow

The last stop on our European itinerary was Poland to visit a railroad terminal. 

I am fascinated by any operation that deals with international shipping containers, so I thought this place was great!!  Here is the rail yard of the EuroTerminal.

Do these railroads below look the same to you?  Because they are not.  The one on the right is the European rail, and the one on the left is the Russian rail, which is 10cm wider.  Thus, all freight that travels between Russia and Europe needs to be transferred at a terminal.

Ironically, the two different sized railroads made this area the perfect location for the notorious concentration camp of Auschwitz.  It was easy to round up the Jews and bring them to one central place.  Poland was full of sad tales of history.

Silly Pepsi ad.  I do like this guy's name featured at the bottom left of this ad: Kaka!

After the visit to the rail terminal, Krakow isn't exactly a thriving airport, so there were no flights going home that evening.  We had some free time to explore the city center, another UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Here is the Town Hall Tower, which leans 55cm since a strong wind storm in 1703 made it unstable.  Honestly, I couldn't really tell it was leaning.

Creepy sculpture in the Grand Square of Old Town.

The Grand Square is probably quite grand, but everything was under construction the day we were there.  I was disappointed to see so much scaffolding and very few beautiful buildings.  We did go inside to Cloth Hall, which is claimed to be the world's first shopping mall.

St. Mary's Basilica (a.k.a. Mariacki Cathedral) built in the 13th century.  It is famous for it's bugler who plays an abbreviated tune at the top of every hour from the taller of the two towers.  Accordingly to legend a bugler was warning the city of approaching danger in the 1300's and was shot in the throat during mid-tune.  But the villagers still awoke and defended their town.

Close up of St. Mary's Cathedral.

Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. 

The sculptures of the 12 disciples standing out front were breathtaking!

Wawel Royal Castle and Cathedral.

The former pope is from Poland, and lived in Krakow for many years.  The city is very proud, and we saw many references to Pope John Paul II.

This is the hotel that Nishimura stayed at last time he was in Krakow.  I'm still trying to decide if I'm disappointed or relieved that we didn't stay here.  Disappointed because I love old stuff, it's in the heart of the city center, and most likely has old world charm.  Relieved because it's in the heart of the city center, theefore might not have been able to get any sleep since there were tons of people milling around waiting for a concert to start.

Polish meat-stuffed pierogis for dinner.  I still wasn't very hungry, but these were so yummy!  Poland is also known for an excellent soup called, Zurek with sausage and egg in it.  We had to walk around for over an hour finding the perfect restaurant with the perfect Zurek soup for Kawakami!!

I was getting tired of all the crazy beers, so when I realized Poland was known for vodka, I gladly ordered a cocktail instead!

Served with a crazy green cherry!!

But oddly my dessert was served with a red cherry!

Nishimura with his after dinner vodka shot.  Apparently it aids in digestion.  But I feared that if I had a bite or sip of anything else, I might explode!!

To me, Poland was a sad place.  They have such a terrible history related to the Nazis, and everything you read about was rather gruesome. 

In addition, I was puzzled by the complete lack of vowels in most of their vocabulary.  How they pronounce anything is beyond me.

When driving between Krakow and Slawkow, I noticed that every house and every window was covered in sheer white curtains.  A few had patterns on them, but none were pulled back to let the sunshine in.  I was trying to decide why every single house was like that.  Maybe a preference for privacy, but why not regular curtains then?  The fact that they were all so bizarrely similar was somewhat unsettling to me.

Kawakami also noticed several billboards for push lawn mowers.  We realized that most people in that area didn't mow their yard, and basically had overgrown grass every where.  Perhaps it's a new status symbol to be able to afford a lawn mower and care for your yard?!

Also rather odd, every thing in Poland was served in a glass bottle, even water.  No plastic could be found any where, even in convenience stores!

I noticed that short hair for women was very popular, while many of the men had long hair!

Since Poland was our last stop on the map, I was tired of trying to convert zlotys into a currency value I could understand.  I am always thinking in terms of dollars and yen, then throw pounds, euros, and krohns in the mix all week... I was exhausted!!  (Which bring me to another point of contention: Why is it called the Euro when 3 out of the 5 European countries I visited did not use it as currency?!)  As it turns out, everything in Poland was super cheap!!  When I looked at my credit card bill this week, I was shocked by the charges for some of the things I purchased.  I should have done more shopping, especially since they are known for amber jewelry!  I remember giving our taxi driver my last 150 zlotys when dropping us off at the airport, thinking we probably just got hosed.  But he had driven us around for the last 3 hours for like $50!!  Deal!