Prisoners in Krakow

We're still in Krakow, and having a great time.... except for one minor incident. The day after Auschwitz, we decided to explore the city. It was pretty cool. We went up to Wawel (pronounced Vavel) Hill, to see the castle and the cathedral. It was nice, but what made it even better is that a huge thunderstorm started right at that time. Bright flashes of lightning, and deafening thunder right above our heads. I thought it was really cool, and would only have been cooler if the cross above the cathedral would have gotten hit by a bolt.

We then headed down to the old town, which is much praised by everyone as being one of the nicest in Europe, due to the fact that it was not destroyed during the war. While it was nice, what really took away from it is that all the old building are now the home of international chain stores. It felt like we were walking through a mall. An attractive mall, but a mall nonetheless.

The next day is the day that we shall never speak of again. We were staying in a little apartment dealy. It just a room with one bathroom and two bedrooms. Anyways, we were ready to check out and move to a cheaper hostel (we can't afford a place like that all the time), but there was a slight problem. We were locked in. Let me explain the stupidity of Polish locks, and you can understand how this happened. It seems that on most Polish locks, if you lock it fully from the outside (there's a half lock and a full lock) you are simply not able to open it from the inside. We weren't too worried about it at that point, because since we were supposed to check out, we thought they'd come by to clean it soon and let us out. This was not the case as we later found out. We then thought that the other couple in the room would come back soon.... but that was not the case either. We avoided starvation by finding some brown rice in the room, and managing to cook it in the kettle.

At around midnight, the couple came back and we rushed out to find something to eat. We found some ice cream and kebabs, and we then felt much better. Let me tell you, being trapped in a tiny room for a whole day is no fun at all. However, in order to ease our pain, we have decided that the day simply did not exist. July 25, 2006 was by some magical way, simply skipped over. That is all.

Anyways, today we managed to get out of that place, and we went to visit a salt mine south of here at Wieliczka. While it was slightly pricey, it was well worth it. We went down underground and it was really cool. Everything was carved away from 98% pure salt.... you could even lick the walls. mmmmm.... salty. It was cool because the miners have carved some amazing things under there, such as some amazing cathedrals and ballrooms. I can also now say that I have peed 130m underground. How many of you can say that?