I’m not going to lie, my main reason for the trip to Poland was that it was included in our program, so I figured, ‘why not?’ but, Poland just wasn’t my cup of tea, as many would say. Oh, Krakow was beautiful, and full of people – student, not tourists! (This is a strange thing to someone who lives in a city where the tourist to native ratio is 3:1 in most areas). But Poland was windy and foggy, so…cold. However, we did see the Jewish ghetto – what’s left of it. And the super cool Salt Mines. I’d already been to Auschwitz, so I chose not to go again. Some things really are only meant to be done once in a lifetime.

Since it was so foggy, my pictures of Poland are not as pretty as my pictures of Vienna or Berlin, I haven’t had the energy to sort through them and edit them. I have some good shots of the salt mine, though.

We got into Krakow on Friday after taking a night train from Prague to get there. We didn’t have reservations, which was not my call, and a very bad idea). We saw a castle and went to a church concert at the Church of St’s Peter and Paul. It was beautiful quartet, and the church was a fascinating background. It wasn’t something I’d normally do, but I recommend doing it at least once.  Saturday we went to the Salt Mines, which took a good chunk of the day, most of it really, and since we were beat, we decided to be lazy, and watch the new James Bond movie (with Polish subtitles, maybe not such a good idea). Sunday a few of us travelled back, while the others went off to Auschwitz.

This weekend, since I’m feeling a bit sick, I might just hole up here in Prague. I have tickets for the opera (Carmen) and ballet (the Slovak National Ballet is coming for a joint show with the Czech Ballet) next week, that will be exciting. And I also have tickets for an Advent Concert in December. The beautiful thing about Prague is that with an ISIC card, you can get 50% off of all tickets at the National Theater, which has Opera, Ballet, and Theater tickets, as well as occasional concerts. My seats weren’t fantastic, but they were very very cheap (I got all three tickets for less than $15 USD)