Day 59 - Yay! Walkabout!

It's weird because I spent all day walking around Auschwitz, but for some reason it felt really good to walk around Krakow. Maybe it's because I felt like a rebel for not going to the salt mines. Maybe it's because I left the tourists behind. Maybe it's because I saw a hill over four clicks away and got to it with no map. Regardless, it was a nice day.

• Train Reservations. Let's just say Italian service doesn't seem so bad anymore. The lady at the information desk speaks no english. Not "little bit" like almost every train person in every other station I've been in. Just none. When presented with my phrase book, one of the clerks claimed to know none of the languages listed. And they say Americans are provincial. Still, everything eventually got settled, and I'll be taking day trains to Prague. With all the night train horror stories, I'm glad to be going during the day (not that I'll let my guard down).
• The Park. I left the train station happy to be walking around with nowhere to go. I took some shots of the park and the local architecture. Krakow's quite pretty in the old town. As I worked my way around, I found myself gaining some altitude and realized I was heading up the path to...
• The Castle. The word Wawel is used a lot, but I'm not sure if that's the name of the castle or the polish word for castle. Regardless, it is really pretty. I think someone from the hostel said the interior tours are kind of lame, so I didn't bother. I got some nice pictures of the castles and some closeups of some interesting flowers (a.k.a. more wallpapers for mom). Also, I saw some signs for a dragon, so I paid a buck to go through a cave that leads to it. Seeing the dragon itself is free, and lots of school children were doing just that. What an odd field trip. Anyway, as I was walking along the river next to the castle, I saw a mound sticking up from a faraway hill. Ten minutes later, when I saw a sign pointing in that direction that said "WKYZWKYZKWYZKYWKZY - 4km" (or something like that), I knew where I was going that day.
• Real Krakow. The first thing that I liked was that I was seeing regular storefronts, cars, etc. I stopped into a bakery and bought a big chocolate covered croisant for forty cents US. The currency here is called the szloty and is roughly the same as Brazillian and Argentinian currency. In other words, once you're out of the tourist traps, things are really cheap.
• Little Help. After going a significant distance, I came to a sort of one leaf cloverleaf. I was getting close to the mound, I knew that much. But I wasn't sure if I should head up the hill on a small road nearby, or stick to the main drag. A gal on rollerblades, coming the opposite direction seemed to be my best bet. Amazingly, she spoke fine english. I've since learned it wasn't that amazing as much of the younger generation does. I didn't know how to pronounce the name of where I was going, but happily I had taken a picture of the sign pointing to it and showed it to her on my camera. She said go up the hill, and I was on my way.
• The Mound. That's what the signs call it. Some people from the hostel said it was the grave of some ruler so well loved that when he died, everyone brought a handful of dirt for the grave, and it became a hill fifty meters tall. Regardless, it gave a pretty great view. I took lots of snaps. I still don't know if I can trust the viewpiece on the camera with skies. Sometimes the sky seems washed out, so I take another shot in which the ground seems almost black and indistinguishable. We'll see when I get home if I really need to take two of every picture, or if one of the two settings is almost always best.
• Walking Back. The walk back was fairly uneventful. I had half a liter of yogurt drink to keep me going until dinner and took a few snaps of the cute little polish fiats you see frequently in Krakow. I also finally bothered to take some picture of the main town square. It's funny how I can immediately talk a beautiful landmark like that for granted just because my hostel is nearby.
• Dinner. I got recommendations from the man at reception and headed out. Actually, I was going to take a silly scotsman from the hostel with me, but he disappeared for a while. The restaurant had an english menu, so I didn't have to guess. The staff spoke english. I ate with a british couple. It was almost too english to be the experience I was looking for. But the food made it all right. I had two plates of pirogi. (They had two vegetarian kinds. I had to.) A gal that works there game out to our table at one point to warn us about a guy who had sat behind me. He always comes in, sits next to tourists, orders nothing but tea, and leaves very quietly. Then people tend to notice their cell phones are missing. He had probably had enough opportunity to make off with my camera, if he'd been sneaky enough about it. Luckily he wasn't. Anyway, I had a great time relating some of my favorite experiences with the british couple. They warned me not to take the boat to the castle outside of Prague, as it takes ninety minutes versus the twenty it takes if you take the metro and bus. It's only five miles out of town. I might walk. I think I'll be doing a lot of walking in Prague.

That's it for the night. I'm back on the clock now, as I've pretty much given up using the free internet in Mama's Hostel. It's a great hostel, but they really need to institue a thirty minute time limit per person or something. Regardless, I installed my favorite Nintendo music plugin and got a lot of positive comments about the music. :) All right. Off to bed, then off to Prague!