- Laundry. I had a little fun at the laundrymat. It was just me and a young couple. I took my laundry out of a bag and threw it in. I took off my jacket and threw it in. Then I took off my shoes. I made a signal at the guy (The gal was reading.) to turn around. I took off my belt. Then I took off my pants. I was wearing my long underwear which hadn't seen use since Paris. They found this highly amusing, which was what I was going for. :)
- Train Ride. By popular demand, here's what you see when going from Berlin to Krakow.
- Run Down Buildings. This is standard fare for train rides, since the worst real estate is next to the tracks. Still, there seemed to be a disproportionate number of rundown buildings in Poland. I'm assuming the Department of Glorious Communist Neglect had a hand in that.
- Farms. Tree farming seems to be big in Poland. I'm guessing they produce a lot of paper or wood.
- Coal. I saw a number of coal refineries and train cars full of coal. But I'm not sure how much they actually use it in light of the next bullet item.
- Active Cooling Towers. Maybe they weren't what they looked like, but it there appeared to be at least two operating nuclear power plants along the train route. Unfortunately, trees and other obstacles prevented me from getting any good pictures.
- Funny Letters. I am very glad the hostel has an american keyboard. (UK ones are slightly different.) I suspect polish keyboards have only C, Z, Y, and W keys as most words here seem primarily composed of those letters. Words like "wypozyczalnia" are not uncommon. Marjan, are slavic languages related as closely as "romance" languages? Can you get by in most of the countries here just knowing Slovenian? I have only czech in my language book, so polish and hungarian are pretty mysterious.
- Mama's Hostel. This place is really nice. They have free lockers, free internet, and free toast for breakfast. And you can even install stuff on the computer so I downloaded the NES music player for WinAmp and am currently listening to the Strider soundtrack.
- Dinner. I got some instant soup from the store. I figured a nice polish beet noodle soup would be good as I hadn't eaten anything but dried fruit and peanuts on the train. Good for the colon, but low on calories. I also have some cookies which are calling to me even as I type this. Yeah. It's time to hit the sack. I want to go to Auschwitz tomorrow. The also have a salt mine tour here. It doesn't say anything about slides, but underground chapels carved in "living salt rock" might make up for it. Regardless, the old town here is really cool looking. I'll probably have fun just walking around taking pictures, sort of a prelude to Prague.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Day 57 - Train To Cracow
It's not really late, but with the all day train trip, I don't think I'll be clubbin'. There are a lot of cool people at this hostel who are going out. I think the rumors of Krakow being only for old people are greatly exaggerated. Of course it's getting into heavy tourist season and Krakow feels a lot like Florence. Nothing I can't handle! :) (I'm a little random an punchy, if you haven't noticed.) Let's catch up.
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3 comments:
Hi Blain,
It's Marjan again. I guess what you noticed en-route to Krakow isn't a far from what I observed years ago. Rail-side real estate isn't much, especially in Poland:-) But Krakow itself is definitely a far cry from that as I read you noticed. I told you, old town itself looks like a museum. I still remember a great lunch that I had in some side street (good not so expensive diners are behind the city wall!). I don't know what it was but there were plums in some dough and it tasted fabulous. And they had english menu too, which helps:-) As I am just eating I suddenly got really hungry...
As far as Slavic languages go, the further apart countries are the less we seem to be able to understand each other. With Slovenia so far south and Poland so far north, I can hardly understand anything. But I can get by in Czeck republic. So, let's say that I have doubts your Czech with help you much in Poland:-)
But if you thought Polish letters were strange wait until you hit Hungary. Their language is very old and unique. But let's leave this for later. I'm sure you will have lots of fun "reading" in Budapest:)
You will likely read this after your trip to Auschwitz, so it crossed my mind how funny it was when I was there and a group of Americans just arrived at Oswiecim railway station and couldn't figure out how to get to "the place". I was so much better of with being able to grasp 0.01% of Polish:-)
But this was also the only funny part about that day. And I am pretty sure that after you just returned from there you know what I am talking about. It's a sight you can't forget.
And once again, check some dinners behind the city wall! :-)
I figured you'd want some, so I am trying.
Beilsk. Cool.
Thanks for the info. I'll keep an eye out for breaded plums and not bother trying to speak czech here.
I'll put more about Auschwitz on the main page. Somehow it wasn't what I expected.
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