Playing Catch-Up...

I've been slacking a little bit on the blog front...my apologies. We've been in Krakow since last Thursday, and we have been VERY busy! Here's a day-by-day account...

Day 1: We leave Warsaw at 8am on a bus (yikes) and head towards Krakow...after 5-ish hours on the bus, we finally arrived. After the bus struggled to make it up the incredibly steep hill to our hotel, we had a delicious lunch of soup, potatoes, pork, and cabbage (typical Polish cuisine). We then had a meeting explaining all the various all-group times during the year, and we were then divided up into different groups based on our ability to speak Polish. To do this, we each had to have a brief "interview" with one of the Polish teachers, explaining how well we speak Polish. I, not surprisingly, was placed in the beginner group. We then had a brief Polish class...which proved quite helpful - we learned how to say basic phrases like "may I have..." and "thank you" After Polish class, we had dinner, which is a lighter meal than lunch --really more of a snack-- and then we had some free-time, after which most of us retired as we had to be at breakfast by 7am the next morning.

Day 2: 6:15 am wake-up! We all sleepily wandered to breakfast...as most of you know, I'm not very functional until my coffee, so thank goodness there is always coffee available at our hotel. Also, thank goodness there were corn-flakes for breakfast...I have discovered that Polish breakfast of very runny eggs and hot dogs is not to my liking. I was also relieved that there was cold yogurt...I guess here it is typical to warm up milk for cereal, which I am not particularly a fan of. After breakfast, we all piled on to the bus and were driven to Jagiellonian (pronounced Yag-el-onion) University where the vice-rector, the Fulbright director, and a law professor all spoke about the Fulbright program and education in general. The room in which the lectures was given was called the Collegium Maius, and was very impressive with hand-carved wooden seats, portraits of former rectors adorning the wall, and elevated seats reserved for the rector and vice-rectors (there are 5). After, we were given a tour of the portion of the University we were in - which was one of the very oldest parts and is now a museum. The museum had a lot of historical scientific instruments, maps, and clocks.

After the tour, we took the public bus back to the bottom of the giant hill, hiked back up, and then had lunch at our hotel, which is called Przegorzaly. After lunch, we had a lecture by Professor Jan Lencznarowicz entitled "Highlights of Polish History" the lecture was broken up into 2 hour and a half sections and covered Poland's history from around 900-post WWII. While the topic doesn't sound particularly enthralling, the lecturer was incredibly knowledgeable and did manage to make the lecture not too painful. In the middle of the two lectures, we had a coffee break. I mention the coffee break, because when we are in lectures and Polish class, we have a coffee break every hour or so. We are all appreciative! After the second lecture, which ended around 6:30, we had a short break before dinner was served at 7. We all headed to sleep early once again because our departure time was designated at 7:45am the next morning.

Day 3: After breakfast, we left our hotel at 745am, headed down the hill, and boarded a public bus headed towards the center of Krakow. We then walked up to Wawel (pronounced as Vavel) Royal Castle. We had a wonderful tour guide who was able to provide us with a plethora of illuminating facts about the castle and its history. The tour lasted at least 2 hours, but passed by relatively quickly due to her extensive knowledge and engaging presentation style. I will post pictures of Wawel to paint a better picture of what it looked like, but I was surprised by the interior, it was decorated mostly with Italian-style architecture and furniture due to a Polish-Italian marriage during the early years of the castle's existence. After Wawel we were bused back to our hotel for a quick lunch, and then it was back on the bus. We took a bus about 45 minutes away to Wieliczka (Vel-eet-see-ah) Salt Mine. Ok, I realize a salt mine doesn't sound like a rockin' time, but it was actually incredible. After an initial moment of panic when I realized we were going several stories down in to a mine...I embraced our surroundings. The salt mine, which is actually still in use, was filled with beautiful salt sculptures (done mostly by miners, which I found very impressive) and even a cathedral decorated entirely out of salt crystals and adorned with sculptures in the wall of various biblical scenes - the most impressive one was the last-supper scene. There was even a light-show accompanied by orchestra music! The other notable portion of the tour was a room with a shallow pond which had - we were told - perfect acoustics. They dimmed the lights, and played a Chopin piece, which was incredible. It is the year of Chopin here in Poland - something we are reminded of often, the Poles are proud of their famous composer!

Day 4 (Sunday Sept. 19): Another early wake-up and this time a very chilly one! After my breakfast of cornflakes, yogurt, kiwi (yum!), and coffee (several cups...as we left at 7:40am...) we headed down to the old town portion of Krakow for a walking-tour. Brrrr! I was not prepared for the chilly weather that morning! It had been quite mild up until Sunday, and then the temperature took a drastic drop...we all shivered our way through an otherwise lovely walk. We walked through the Jewish quarter; saw several synagogues, and a building where a scene in Shindler's List was filmed. We were all relieved to get back on the heated bus after our chilly tour. After another slightly rushed lunch, we headed to Auschwitz-Birkenau (the infamous Nazi concentration camp). I don't really feel that words can describe the powerful emotions we all felt while walking in near-silence through the Auschwitz museum and the Birkenau camp. The camp has been preserved and somewhat reconstructed to allow visitors to see what conditions were like. The museum had incredibly disturbing facts about the period of 1940-45 during which the camp was open. Although I had mixed feelings about visiting Auschwitz before I went, because I felt strange about it being a touristy-attraction, I am now incredibly glad I went. I feel that experiencing the camp is an important reminder of a horrific period in our history, and hopefully with such a powerful reminder, we will not be destined to repeat that part of our history.

Sorry for the somber end to this post...but this is getting long! I will continue my update soon!

I miss you all!

MW