Amber & Pierogi

FINALLY - some freaking sunshine!!! As if this country's history isn't depressing enough, it's been gloomy / overcast / rainy ALL week! But today is the day...the day we woke up to sunshine!

Laura and I had an extremely pleasant afternoon seeing Krakow in the happy daylight. We went back to the main square to do our little souvenir shopping routine. Since it was a Saturday, and sunny out, there were tons of people everywhere, as well as a multitude of souvenir booths set up around the square. The cafes are much prettier when there are so many people sitting at them eating colorful ice cream. And in front of all the cafes (Krakow's main square has the most cafes per square meter than any other place in the world) were lines of horses and carriages. Very picturesque.

Souvenir shopping was actually a lot of fun because we got to walk around outside and be in the great atmosphere at the main square. And we got some ice cream to help us shop :) I really didn't like the plates I was seeing and I was starting to have a little hissy fit inside my head directed at my father for talking me into starting this ridiculous collection. It is really the worst possible thing to collect on a back packing trip!!! And I really don't like the plates that say the city or country on them. I also don't like it if they look really touristy - I like ones that are more of traditional ceramics, that you can eat off of, that you can tell where they came from by the designs rather than by a screen printed picture of the most famous cathedral in town. Anyway, I wasn't finding any good plates. And by the way, they're expensive too! Laura gets her tiny, cheap, cute, useful little shot glasses, and I am carting around tableware. Anyway! I found a plate I really liked with traditional Polish ceramics that can be eaten off of and then I was happy again! As soon as the stress melted away from knowing that I didn't actually have to spend a lot of money to carry something that I didn't like around awkwardly for the next six weeks just so that my 'collection' wouldn't have any gaps in it...I was fine :) Soon after that Laura found her shot glass and we were feeling productive. And also like spending money.

See, I worked really hard to pay my whole way through this trip. And I clearly adore traveling, and part of the fun of traveling is getting really pretty souvenirs. Since I have the money to, I am interested in getting nice, high quality, long lasting souvenirs. And Laura's middle name is Amber. I realize these facts sound 100% unrelated, but now I will tell you that aside from salt, Poland is extremely famous for producing really high quality amber from near the Baltic sea. Ergo, there are amber shops EVERYWHERE. We then decided to go on an amber mission: Laura, because it was her middle name, so she'll spend money on it, and me, because I like jewelry and spending money on pretty things. We didn't want to get it off the street, so we walked around the side streets spanning out from the main square and spent all afternoon looking at gorgeous amber! Something that was very helpful was finding out that stores actually can get certificates that verify their amber is genuine and high quality - good to know. We looked around for quite a while, mentally comparing prices and designs. Some things were jaw-droppingly expensive. Even for Polish Zloties.

But then I found another store that had a plaque of recognition for being one of the best places to shop in Krakow in 2009 from some local Krakow website (called Krakow-life.com or something). They also had all their certificates. It was easy to see on the surface why they were such a nice place to shop. Their store was roughly two times bigger than most of the other amber stores. It was also well lit, and the pieces were well displayed, and it was just a very comfortable place to be (other places were small, cramped, had little selection, had pushy sales people, etc). There were two very nice young women that took out a plethora of bracelets, earrings, and rings for us. We made a terrible mess. But it was OK, because they were so sweet about it and we both found things we liked!! And they are gorgeous, and real, and didn't break the bank. I wanted a bracelet, but they were way more expensive than rings. I wear a rings a lot more often, but I tend to cycle through them. So I really didn't know what to get and debated for quite some time. At one point, the nice sales lady had attached 4 different bracelets around my wrist to try and help me decide! Then I decided it was better to get a ring because I would probably wear it more and it was cheaper so I'll feel less badly when it (probably) eventually gets cycled out. Though I do plan on wearing it regularly. I'm just a little hesitant because it's so pretty that I can't really wear anything else on that (my right) hand because I wouldn't want to distract attention away from the amber ring. And I have so many other rings that I like...Anyway. I made a decision and I got it and I like it. It's slightly too big, so I'll have to get it re-sized when I get back home. But I am very excited to wear it, it's a really nice piece of jewelry. And as far as souvenirs, it is small and light weight, so: BONUS! Take that, Plates!

By then, we had shopped up an appetite and didn't have anything else we really needed to buy, so we went on a food mission. There were little cafes and restaurants everywhere, but we finally stopped at one that was advertising pierogi. Somehow I hadn't had any of that yet! Dumplings with meat and/or cheese, yes please. This restaurant was cute because at the front, it looks like it just has ice cream (bummer....haha) but past the ice cream are super comfy couches and an entire upstairs with lots of tables. We sat downstairs in a cute little comfortable corner. I ordered the meat filled pierogis (dumplings) and Laura got the cheese pierogis. And then we split them, naturally. They were huge for dumplings! We'd seen Jacek eat some a few days ago but his were tiny, that's why ours seemed so big. Really they were the size of pot stickers or something like that. Anyway, to accompany our pierogis (which, as hinted at above, we thought would be quite small), we ordered two pancakes filled with fruit with whipped cream on the side. That was our appetizer though it was more like a dessert. It was so good. It was kind of like a crepe filled with peaches, kiwis, bananas, pineapples, and probably some other things. Then they had been drizzled with red fruity syrup with two beautiful piles of whipped cream on the side. To top off our ultra-Polish meal, we tested out a recommendation from Jacek, which was to mix beer with ginger juice. I don't think this is the same thing as gingerale. Another Polish/Central European tendency is to mix beer with a fruit syrup, like raspberry. So we ordered two beers, one with ginger juice and one with raspberry syrup. We planned on sharing those too but after tasting both, Laura preferred the raspberry concoction and I preferred the ginger concoction. It tasted like Christmas in a beer - not kidding. They were both really delicious!! Such an unexpected combination though. Also, in Poland they drink beers with straws. At the bar the other night though, they didn't give us straws. Here, we got our straws. So we had an all-out Polish meal. And the real glory of it all was that this fabulous, hearty, delicious, authentic, cultural meal cost us each about $10. AMAZING. Poland is great for food fanatics :)

After our leisurely shopping spree and lunch date, we strolled back to the boys' apartment. We found them sitting right where we left them, and for the third day in a row they told us they had been "relaxing all the day". Laura thinks it's a 19-year-old-boy-thing. Haha.

Over lunch, Laura and I started talking about the end of our trip (I know I usually only write about the day's happenings an nothing before and after). We have 10 days of travel on our Eurail. It will take two to get from Stockholm to Bergen, and another two to get from Bergen to Paris. Also, Bergen to Paris is approximately a 35 hour trip with at least 4 transfers. And Norway is supposed to be the most expensive country we're planning on visiting. So...we decided just then to cut Norway from the itinerary! Exciting, I think. I mean, I'm kinda bummed...but honestly, when I read about Norway it didn't excite me. And at the end of our trip, I'd rather not be spending 4 days on a train...that is 4 days we're losing out on being other places! Either we can spend more time in the cities we're planning on already, or we can go to more places that are close by. So when we got back to the apartment, we spent the afternoon trying to figure out how to give the last part of our trip a major face lift. We toyed with the idea of going to Finland and Estonia, but it's a 15 hour ferry ride to Helsinki and it's kind of expensive. Trains to Helsinki from Stockholm is a joke if you just look at a map. Also, ferries do not help use our expensive Eurail travel days! Another part of this whole equation is that having just recently found out I have family living in Sweden willing to meet (and host!) us, I don't want to cut my time short with them since I am so excited to get to know them! So, we're not sure what's going on with our trip after Sweden...but we'll figure it out.

After another evening spent inside on a computer (sounds so lame...I know) it was time to go to a "small house party". We clarified, "Is your definition of a 'small house party' anything like your definition of a 'barbecue'?!" They said no, that we could expect 20-25 people. Ok. That's manageable. When the boys started ironing their shirts (they make their beds, too!) I realized that perhaps I should change out of my nylon quick dry REI pants and into jeans, and maybe even put mascara on or something. Haha.

Alcohol is spelled 'alkohole' here, and the alkohole store close to their flat was closed, so we took a bus to a supermarket and they did their shopping for snacks and alkohole to bring to the house party there. Then we were a little lost. I don't know how it happens, but somehow, even when we are with hosts, we get lost at night! And it's always when we're trying to hit up the night life! Laura and I just think it's funny since it's happened to us so many times. The boys picked a direction and we started walking. Half an hour later, we somehow were exactly where we started - we had done a full circle. Laura and I were completely unphased, because circles are our Official Shape of our trip. We're used to them. Circles happen to us all the time. However, the boys' reactions, especially Jacek's and Shshks's exasperated Polish sounds - were hilarious!!!! Laura and I took great pleasure in welcoming them to our world of circles.

Fifteen or 20 minutes later, we finally arrived at the small house party. Which, contrary to belief, ended up being only four other people! So that was funny - not at all what we expected. I can't pronounce the actual host's name, or remember it well enough to spell it, but there was another boy named Pawel there (great, since we already know how to say that name!), and two girls both named Marta (easy!) Haha. Everybody was really nice and it was a very fun evening. Laura commented that it felt a little bit like we were back in a dorm but it was still really fun. They poured snacks into three bowls that were placed in the middle of the circle. Then the traditional Polish drinking commenced, passing around a bottle of flavored vodka and drinking to everybody's health. I really, really, do not like vodka, and thank goodness Laura understands this and was the one pouring to my health. She always poured me a very little amount, so that I could participate as comfortably as possible. Yuck. We spent the night chatting, laughing, sharing vodka, and listening to music. One of the Marta's there is also on CouchSurfing, and everybody spoke very good English, so it was a fun night of hanging out with Polish kids! Also, these people were friends of Pawel's. They all study together...they study tourism! How cool is that?! Why don't we have that?!

Finally it was time to catch our bus home, and everybody piled out of the flat and to the bus stop. We made it home without any difficulties and went to bed right after.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention. The boys recommended we go to another city in Poland, sort of on the way to Prague, called Wroclaw. We had heard good things about it from one of the girls on the train from Budapest to Krakow too. We had two extra, as of yet unplanned, days of travel on this particular Eurail so we figured, why not?! And they boys have a friend living there who is on CS who was more than willing to take us in. Easy. So, tomorrow morning we're getting up early to go on a spontaneous adventure trip to western Poland. That is how our lives work...:)

Quotes:
Shshk: "Can I get a hallelujah?" (when we finally arrived at the small house party after walking around for almost an hour).
Me: "Hallelujah!"

Shshk: "Who let the dawgs out?"
Everybody: "WHO! WHO WHO WHO!"
I don't know how or why this kept happening, but it was great fun. This happened multiple times throughout the night...

Jacke: "When Shshk sees a red light, he will not move."
(Everybody crosses the street while it's blinking green...Shshk wasn't off the sidewalk yet when the walk light turned red)
(Random girl crosses the street)
(Shshk's eyes bulge in surprise as he points at her crossing during the red walk light)
I know this is not a real quote, but it was so funny...the look of surprise on the his face!

Accomplishments:
Tried Polish vodka.
MADE IT HALF WAY THROUGH OUR TRIP! (Which is going by way too fast, naturally.)

Travel Tip:
Be aware of timing. All of a sudden, it's almost mid-May, so tourist season has officially started. We're having a bit of a struggle trying to find available hosts in Prague :/ Wish us luck!