Krakow! Friday June 15th

We've arrived and it has been a loooong day.

Last night when we got to the train station, we couldn't figure out where our sleeping car was on the train since our ticket was in Czech. We figured out we were wagon 353 so we counted the numbers and figured it was towards the front since the numbers were going up. Turns out ours was one of the last cars and not all the wagon numbers were in order...so annoying we had to sprint all the way to the end. We got on the train and a minute later it left! Whew!

We didn't reserve seats (it costed 4 extra euros) so we were all in different rooms but thankfully we asked people to switch so we had our own 3 person sleeping couchette. It was probably 6 feet by 4 feet with 3 beds on top of each other...so claustrophobic! We attempted to busy ourselves to make ourselves tired so we'd sleep well. We played cards and then went to the dining car and had some desserts. We got back around 11:30 and got in bed, hoping the next 7 hours would go by quickly. I had a sleeping pill and immediately fell asleep and the next thing I knew, a train attendant was yelling at us to wake up and get off! We checked our clock and we had gotten in 30 minutes early so we were not prepared. We scrambled to grab all our stuff and headed off to Krakow!

The town was so quiet and empty, quite eerie. We found our hostel pretty quickly, left our stuff, and headed out to a bagel shop my friend had heard about. Gotta have bagels in Poland! We got to the store and it wasn't going to open for another hour...so we walked around to random sites we had on our map. We eventually had our bagel (definitely wasn't a traditional Polish bagel) and then started walking to the Wawel Castle.

Sidenote: finally beautiful weather! It was sunny and warm all day, so thankful it made the day so much more enjoyable!

It was refreshing to see a castle after so many palaces! We walked up this huge tower which had stunnning views of Krakow. I never thought it'd be so green and naturey! We then took a tour of the royal private apartments which was disappointing but eye-opening because there wasn't much to see because it was looted over the years by the various people and armies that used it. We went into an exhibit called the "Lost Wewal" which had archaeological discoveries that were found during the restoration of the castle. There were also ruins of a Rotunda and burial site dating back to the Middle Ages. Really awesome to see. Then we went to the dragon's den, a cave that was formed 12 million years ago at the bottom of the Wawel Castle. It was sick! So crazy to think about how old it was.

After we got lunch at a local Polish place a friend recommended and I got the traditional perogies. They were so delicious and cheap! By then we were able to check into our hostel and make our beds, we're in a 9 bed mixed dorm with bunk beds. Our hostel is pretty sweet and swanky with really nice bathrooms and common areas.

We then went on a walking tour of the Jewish Quarter. We thought it'd be an hour long but it ended up being over 3 hours. It was a really interesting tour but mind you, we had already been up for so long and walking all day so we were crashing fast.

We found dinner at an Italian place (made sure there was a TV so we could watch the Euro Cup!) and then grabbed dessert. We're back at our hostel, exhausted from our travels and full day of walking. Tomorrow afternoon we have a scheduled tour at Auschwitz.

After walking around basically all of Krakow, it's just a beautiful city and I'm so happy we made the trip out here. All day we had to keep asking each other, "wait what? Are we in Poland?" It's amazing how close European countries are and yet they're so incredibly different! If you ever get the chance to visit Krakow, I highly recommend making the trip for a few days!

Off to shower and sleep soon...first night ever in a hostel! Hopefully we'll experience the night life tomorrow, currently can't move my legs so I don't think it'd be a good idea tonight!

Love and miss you guys!

Sbohem,
Whit

Miss