Poland Adventures

We had a fine time in Krakow. It’s a nice place and I’m glad I’ve visited, but it doesn’t belong on a “top 10” list of spectacular places. 

The first thing we did after waking up in our respective “his and hers” accommodations was reunite for breakfast. Gotta love European hotel breakfasts — deli meats, eggs, hot meat, breads, pastries, jams & jellies, fruit, vegetables (cucumbers here, not broccoli, for those familiar with our Japanese breakfasts), juices, coffee, tea.

After breakfast we visited a pharmacy and confirmed that the missing medication needed was prescription in Poland (it’s prescription at home, so that wasn’t a surprise). Long story short, we found a clinic, got seen, got prescribed a medication, and filled the prescription — total time about 1 hour and total cost $35-40. I now have a great “health literacy” story about figuring out how to navigate a doctor visit and how to interpret medication instructions based on product instructions in (only) Polish. The first issue was solved with intuition, the second with the internet.

Needless to say, we felt right at home since we needed to use all 27 words for rain — it poured, rained, sprinkled, drizzled, misted, and even stopped. We took a “hop on hop off” tour, though apparently we were charged the cheaper “stay on the bus” price so we stayed for about 125% of the tour (no reason to walk in the rain when we could get a free ride). Passed Schindler’s factory (I still need to see Schindler’s List), rode by an intriguing open area (town square-like) with interactive “art” (oversized chairs representing the many who died in WWII), saw the very full Vistula river (minor flooding over some walkways but not on any roads), and learned a bit about the history of this city. Fascinating how much info was shared about WWII and how little (absolutely zero) information about Soviet occupation or communism! 

For lunch we stumbled on an interesting restaurant that seemed like a place for tourists and perhaps locals to go for an “experience”. I learned that women are circles and men are triangles, at least according to this restaurant’s restrooms. At the conclusion of our meal we were presented with some cherry liqueur that would best be described as “not quite as sweet as cough syrup.” 

Well fed, we walked up (yes) to Wawel castle. As we entered a courtyard we both immediately noticed the interesting gutters on an upper story which, when after we consulted the nearby virtual cache for inspiration (and to make sure we had the data to qualify), turned out to be dragons. One might make disparaging remarks about where our minds live, but one doesn’t need to be gauche.  

Eventually we made our way to an English bookstore (yes, for another cache) which immediately impressed us with its large (indoor) “impeach Trump” sign. Then we meandered our way to the main square which could have had several full-size soccer pitches on it. With the rain, the square obviously wasn’t the hub of activity it would be on a sunny summer day, but there were still plenty of people there. Especially in the “cloth market” which opened in the 1400s (give or take a century or two) and has lots of souvenir vendors in their small booths….yes, we did contribute a wee bit to the local economy. While there we completed another virtual and an earthcache, then started walking back to our lodging (a cyclical observer would say that we cached our way back), and were spotted by a local who asked if we were geocaching. 

Sunday we went “back to the salt mine.” Literally. We’d enjoyed a salt mine outside of Salzburg, Austria, about 10 years ago and remember liking wooden slides used by so many miners over the centuries that they were essentially frictionless and they were long enough that we achieved terminal velocity sliding down. Alas, the Wieliczka Salt Mine (don’t ask me to begin to pronounce it) didn't have such a slide. On the plus side, it did have salt statues of Copernicus and the Pope (John Paul II visited a couple of times before he became pope) as well as at least three salt chapels. And a few places where it felt like entering Ms. Kee’s previous nursing unit (i.e., sally port doors where the first one had to be closed before the second could open, in this case to preserve airflow). It wasn’t surprising that only men worked in the mines in the 1300s when it opened, but it was mildly surprising to learn that only men worked there in the final years (they stopped in 2007, for safety reasons). 

We used to say that we knew it was time to leave a city when we mastered their transportation system. That may not be quite so true now, after all there are only so many ways to pay one’s fare and select one’s destination. Step 1 is always to check for an English button as that seems to simplify the process a wee bit. Nonetheless, we were amused that two different groups asked us for directions or information about the trains as though we were knowledgeable. While waiting for the train back to Krakow, we had a lovely chat with a woman from Oslo who was especially curious about our experience after we shared that we’d visited the day after the Christian terrorist bombed several locations. 

After we returned from the salt mine we visited the Jewish Quarter, Kazimierz (Kazzy-meersch), where Jews were forced to live during WWII — 75,000 people in just a few walled-in blocks, of whom less than about 1000 survived the war. The “sounds of silence” kept running through my head, partly because the streets were so narrow and their surface was indeed cobblestone. Pity my Hebrew’s so weak because there was plenty to read, though it did seem that much of the important information was translated to English, and occasionally even to Polish. We completed a virtual cache in the blocks near our lodging, found one traditional and couldn’t find another. On the plus side we found some delicious strawberry sorbet which cost an entire 5 zloty for a nice scoop (the exchange rate was between 3 and 4 zloty per dollar so the treat cost less than $1.50. 

We decided to indulge in a traditional Jewish dinner, to see what the interpretation would be. The matzo ball soup was a bit onion-y but delicious and the balls were indeed soft. My “leg of lamb” was tasty, though more brisket-like (think pulled pork only lamb instead) which was disappointing as in my world leg of lamb is a juicy medium rare. It did kind of remind me of my maternal grandmother’s pot roast. Jeff once again attempted to pronounce the word “charoset” but did not order it, so only I heard his linguistic butchering. But he did a nice job pronouncing “honey vodka” which seems more appropriate in Poland and was nice to sip. 

After a restful night, and a return trip to avenge our DNF, we wrote most of this at the Düsseldorf airport. Only in aviation is this actually “between” Krakow and Prague, but some mysteries are best left unsolved. Interestingly, it’s rather a treat to hear German and understand about 10% of the words as compared to the <1% of Polish we understood. Should be interesting to see how little Czech we understand, but that will wait until after we finish our laundry.