Travel and Arrival

Today I finally got to start my long-awaited journey to Kraków!  The first surprise was that my tickets were cleared for extra baggage, so there was no extra fee even though I checked two bags for international flights.

The flight out of O'Hare was delayed (anyone surprised?) by about 45 minutes, which was annoying because they packed us all in the plane first.  I did not get the window seat I had reserved for the transoceanic flight, but instead managed to trade my way to an aisle seat.  Still better than something in the middle.  About the equivalent of 4AM, a one-year-old completely lost it, and that same child went for an encore about an hour later.  Thank heavens I wasn't in my original seat (not the window one - I had a horrible one before that), as I would have had a front-row view to the entire performance.

The flight out of Munich was also delayed about 20 minutes, which I felt was atypical for Germans.  Arrival to the airport in Poland was uneventful, as was the transfer to the hotel.

The hotel is nice.  It took a little while to figure out the wifi, but other than that it's pretty sweet.  One oddity: the light switch is controlled by the room key.  Basically, when you walk in the room, you put your room key in the little holder or else none of the lights turn on.  Like, none of them, including the bathroom.  Speaking of the bathroom, the tub lid is higher than any I've seen in the US (other than a hot tub) and learning that lesson earned me a bruise on my knee.

This is also a good time to mention that I don't sleep well on planes.  I'm running on about 3 hours sleep from last night's plane flight.  I blame any grammatical problems on sleep deprivation.  It's also the reason there aren't any photos in this post, as I just don't want to think about taking them right now.

The Rynek Głowny is beautiful and huge.  St. Mary's Basilica is larger than I thought it would be; I guess I'd forgotten just how huge European cathedrals really are.  My first meal here came from a little store right off the main square selling "kebob," which we would probably classify as gyros in the US.  I've also found my way to my soon-to-be apartment and the main train station.  Turns out I don't have to cross a busy road for the main station; there's a passage under the street.

Tomorrow is a day for further exploration!

If the internet would cooperate, I would leave you with a picture of St. Mary's Basilica.  If you look carefully, you can see a trumpeter in the top of one of the windows, playing the hejnal.  Maybe it'll work better tomorrow.

Edit: aforementioned photo