My second trip to Krakow was a bigger surprise than my first, and I was thrilled to be going the second time! A great friend of mine from MSU, Spencer, announced on Facebook that he would be stopping in Poland on his way to Tajikistan for a project with James Madison. When I saw that he’d be so close to me, I jumped at the chance to see him! Luckily we were able to meet up for almost 4 amazing days in Krakow. He was an exchange student in Poland the same time I was in Finland, and he lived in Krakow for a month last summer, so it was really fantastic to be in the city with him. It was also really great to see someone from home to remind me that I really have a lot to look forward to when I return to Michigan and MSU.
We stayed in a great hostel in Kazimierz (the Jewish District) and spent almost all of our time there. Krakow is even more alive in the summer and there are beer gardens everywhere! It was so great to be in the center, or in Kazimierz, and just go from garden to garden having a beer or a drink here and there.
Spencer and I drank a lot of Polish beer and ate a lot of yummy Polish food from the grill… I went running soon after I got back to Olomouc I felt so guilty! But it was so delicious and wonderful at the time. Since this was my second time in Krakow, what I really wanted to do was to relax and enjoy the city. The first time I was there we were really rushed because we spent one whole day at Auschwitz, and not to mention the fact it was really cold. Spencer and I did do some touristy things, though.
During the day on Tuesday we went to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was an operating salt mine from the 13th century up to 2007. It was really incredible to see… we went 300 meters underground! It’s a fantastic museum and shows how salt was mined in the past, but there are also a number of beautiful statues carved out of salt and amazing supports that are hard to imagine being built. And, in true Polish form, there is a church! It’s beautiful, with amazing statues and carvings… even a statue of Pope John Paul II carved out of salt! It was definitely a cool thing to see. The next day we went to the Schindler Factory museum, which was something we had really wanted to do the last time we were in Krakow, but didn’t have time. And let me tell you, this museum was the most amazing museum I have ever been to. Yes it was in Schindler’s factory (I am assuming most of you have seen the Holocaust movie, “Schindler’s List”), but it brought you back in time to Krakow during the years of 1939-1945. It was amazing how they set up the museum. Each room was incredibly done; even the floors and walls were decorated and built to make you feel like you were in Krakow during those years. For example, in the section of the museum about Nazi occupation the floor had Nazi tiles and there were Nazi banners hanging from the ceiling. I gasped when I entered the room… it was a crazy feeling. They even recreated the cement wall that once surrounded the Jewish Ghetto in Krakow. Throughout the museum there were videos, and things to read, and interactive computers… We spent nearly three hours walking through it and didn’t even touch the majority of it. To see it all you would have to separate the museum into sections, and take a day for each. Another great thing about it was something Spencer brought up – Even though the museum covers years of war, murder, and destruction, it doesn’t make you feel depressed the whole time you’re walking through it. It was really different from the Holocaust museum in Washington DC, at least for me, because I didn’t feel like crying the whole time. Instead I was just in awe and learned so much about Krakow during these years. Instead of feeling depressed, I felt reflective and like I had gone back in time. So I will have to say – If you are ever in Krakow, you must go to this museum!
I headed back to Olomouc the next day excited, but sad, to spend my last days with the best friends I had made here. There was a big barbeque outside of my dorm when I got home and it was a lot of fun to listen to music, eat, and be with my friends. It’s been kind of hard to be in Olomouc the past week and a half because each day more people leave for home or on trips. All semester I have been saying that we aren’t really saying goodbye to each other, it’s more of a “see you later!” Although, when the time came for my friends to leave, it was harder to believe what I had been preaching. I’m not focusing on the fact that they’re gone now, but on the amazing time I had with them this semester. I will miss so much being with people from all over the world with all of our talks about language, culture, and politics, but it was so great while it lasted that I can just be thankful for the time we had.
This past weekend was pretty fun, and a nice distraction from having to say goodbye to my friends. I went with two friends from Poland, one from France, and one from Spain to a music festival in Třebíč, which is south and east of Olomouc, kind of near to Brno. This festival had all kinds of music from rock to reggae to drumb and bass, and it was situated between a river and a castle - so beautiful! It reminded me of the Muskegon Summer Celebration, and really got me excited about summer. Though this festival was only two days and had music basically all day and all night. It had two stages, a tent for the drumb and bass, and even a kind of club with a dj, bar, tables, and couches. We camped in the area set aside for tents... and were really surprised to find that we basically had to rock climb to get to our tent! It was really quite dangerous, and we were sure someone would get hurt coming back drunk one night. We had a great time people watching the whole weekend. Something that made this festival really different from ones I’ve been to in the US was the amount of alcohol consumed. Beer was the typical price of 25 crowns (around $1.50... for a pint... gosh I’m going to miss the prices of this country...) as opposed to $7 beers at festivals in the States. So you can imagine that people were drinking a lot. There’s definitely a lot more public drunkenness in Europe than in the US. The good things was that there really wasn’t any violence, just some really funny things to watch. I don't have any pictures, however. I didn't want to bring my camera and risk losing it or having it stolen! You'll just have to imagine everything :-).
Today I have been doing laundry and starting to pack and clean up my room. I am finally going to Prague tomorrow! My Turkish friend and I are going early in the morning and coming back at night. After I post this I am going to go through my travel guide and make a list of things I have to see... Even though I’ve waited so long to see Prague, it seems fitting that it’s the last place I see. It’s almost like I’m coming full circle! I’ll post about that and try to reflect a bit on my semester before I fly off to London on Friday!
keeelllyy :*:*
ReplyDelete