Visit to the Gym

Today I decided to try out a Polish gym.  The easiest one for me to get to is actually really close to my work; it's easiest to get to because I have a train pass to go there, which makes it easy even if it may be a little longer than it otherwise could be.  The gym has a website here (if you click on the "EN" in the upper-right, you'll get English) for those that are curious.

The office park where I work has five buildings in kind of an "L" shape.  I work in the closest one to the train stop; the gym was in the one furthest away.  I had to walk across a gravel parking lot to get there.  Since it was Saturday, there was basically no one else there, so it felt kind of like walking through some sort of odd movie scene.  Nevertheless, the gym really was up there on the sixth floor of the building.  (Fun fact: they start their floor numbering at zero, so if you ask a Polish person, they'll say it's on the 5th floor and you have to push "5" in the elevator to get there.)

The gym was pretty nice, and they let me work out for free because it was my first time.  Interestingly, though, there wasn't any source of free water there.  I had to buy a bottle.  Still, I suspect I'll go back and get a weekend-only membership and just make that a routine part of a weekend morning day.

I decided that the main goal of today would be to obtain a prepaid cell phone.  It started with going to a few stores that a friend had sent me addresses for, and then exploring down to a few others I had seen along the way.  This route took me by one of my favorite outdoor "fast food" (it has a different meaning in Poland) places, and I decided there wasn't enough Polish sausage in my diet.  This is a true Polish sausage:

Unfortunately, it appears that Poles believe no used phone shopping occurs on the weekend.  I went to a total of five different stores, of which four were closed.  I would up buying the phone from the first place I went to, but got a pretty long walk in the process.  The good news is that I was able to basically find my way back from Kazimierz to Rynek without a map and using unfamiliar streets; my sense of direction around here is improving.  Kraków's signage helps, too.


I spent a little time in Rynek this evening, but I didn't feel like staying out as late as last night.  However, I did grab one quick shot of the statue in front of the Cloth Hall.

I'd like to point out three things about this picture:

1. The guys in the foreground had just finished putting on a dancing performance.  
2. Notice all the people around the monument: this is a very popular meeting place.  
3. Notice the people ON the monument: apparently that's OK, because children are always climbing on it.

Blog note:  I've been playing with the design a bit, so don't be too scared if things look a little different or move around a bit.