Prague to Poland

Post number two coming to you from Krakow, Poland. I love this town. It's really cute. It's small with the potential for boredom, but we've only been here one day and we're leaving in a couple of hours to go to Warsaw.

Prague lasted too long. Dan and I both wish we had left earlier, but things got in the way and we had some trouble deciding where we wanted to go. On the upside, on Friday night, we got to see a really bad poetry reading by a really awkward guy who wrote mildly amusing poems. There were probably 12 to 15 people there and we were the only ones laughing.

On Saturday, we rode bikes for an hour and a half and made a really sorry attempt to ride up to the castle. Uphill is difficult, uphill on cobblestone is next to impossible. So we stopped at a cafe for some desperately needed water and then rode back into town. I was exhausted and sore and more than happy to give the bike back, but Dan and I decided that we should do that in pretty much every town from now on. It's a great way to see a lot with very little time.

Saturday night, we caught the train to Krakow. It was a two person cabin like the train we took to Paris, but with a commie touch. There was no air-conditioning and no shower and no little toiletries, but there was water and a sink and a big window with a sign above it (in Czech, French, German, Italian and Russian) asking people not to hang out the window. It was small, but surprisingly comfortable except for the fact that just as we were leaving the person in charge of our car asked us to please double lock our door for the evening. He also informed us that we would be woken up around two in the morning for the border crossing. At least I knew in advance that my evening would not exactly be restful. We did get some sleep, though, and I was ready for the day when we arrived at 6 a.m. (When I was trying to convince Dan that it wouldn't be horrible to arrive that early, I told him it would be cool to see the sun rise. Needless to say, I didn't realize that the sun rises in Krakow at 5 a.m.!)

We found our hostel and left our bags (because we couldn't check in until one o'clock) and headed to the center of town for breakfast and bikes. I did all I could to prevent Dan from wandering off to some grassy patch to sleep, and we finally made it to a terrace in the main square for tea.

After tea we wandered over to the bike rental shop and picked up our bikes from an old polish man. I think we were lucky that he spoke one of our three languages, because it turns out that not that many people speak English here. We went for a long ride along the river and saw some interesting things. It was nice not to ride on too much cobble stone because our bums were still sore from the previous day in Prague!

We checked in to the hostel, showered and tried unsuccessfully to nap (nobody told us it would be hot in Poland!!), then we headed back into town for lunch. We found a place that only made perogies and had a delicious lunch despite the fact that two nasty girls had stolen our terrace table and tried to cut in line (it was a self-service place).

The rest of the afternoon was spent riding around to various neighborhoods and watching Dan scale a climbing wall. We had dinner, returned the bikes and went back to the hostel to crash. The day had been wonderful and sleep was quickly upon us.

So, now it's Monday, and we're off to Warsaw to see Gosia. I haven't seen her in over a year and I couldn't be more excited!!