Day 190 - Monday, July 30
I spent the day exploring the city on foot. Some photos:
The padlocks on the bridge were a popular thing in the Baltics as well. Apparently, couples, generally after they get married, put a padlock on the bridge and then toss the key in the river - ya know to be all symbolic and whatnot.
I got some exercise by running up Lasota Hill. I didn't have a camera with me, but here's a picture that someone else took:
After striking out on finding a replacement Panasonic camera charger in Warsaw and Krakow, I bit the bullet and shelled out $50 for a bulky universal charger, but at least I had a working camera again.
That night I decided to join the Krawl Through Krakow pub crawl, which started with an hour of all you could drink beer and shots/shooters. There was a group of girls from Dublin who weren't doing anything to help the stereotype of Irish being heavy drinkers and were on a pace of about one shot every minute or two to start the "power hour," which of course led to one of them puking in the middle of the bar about 20 minutes in to the first hour. But she rallied and her and her friends managed to steal the microphone from every person trying to sing karaoke at the next bar on the crawl, including yours truly. Unfortunately, most of their voices were as bad as mine, so it might've been the worst collection of karaoke performances I've ever witnessed. And that is saying something, because I've seen my fair share. Sorry, no photos from the crawl, you'll just have to use your imagination. I don't remember exactly when I got home, but I do know that the sun was up and that McDonald's was closed when I tried to get food, and it only closes from 5am-8am.
Day 191 - Tuesday, July 31
As you might've guessed, I slept in a bit late on Tuesday. I went out and explored a little bit, but it was a very relaxed day spent mostly lounging around the hostel and trying to catch up on the blog a bit.
Day 192 - Wednesday, August 1
Wednesday, I spent the day touring the Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration/extermination camps. Unlike the Killing Fields in Cambodia, which I didn't really know anything about before seeing, I was, of course, quite familiar with the history of the Holocaust and Nazi concentration camps. But it was nonetheless shocking and horrifying to see it all in person and to see the shear vastness of the Birkenau camp. It was a sobering experience to say the least, but I'm glad I went and saw it.
I had thought that I would head to Prague or Bratislava after Krakow, the two closest major European cities (other than Warsaw), but after doing some research Wednesday night, I decided that the cities were starting to run together, and I wanted to change things up a bit. So I decided to head off the standard backpacker circuit a little bit and check out the High Tatras, a chain of mountains separating Poland and Slovakia.
No comments:
Post a Comment