UK Day 3 - To Inverness!

The first part of my day was boring and consisted mostly of getting myself to the train station.  At this point, the hills of Edinburgh are a little annoying because I have to lug a suitcase up and down them in order to get to the train.  Oh well.  I would prefer to travel lighter, but this is a cross between vacation and moving home, so some additional weight is a necessary inconvenience. On the train to Inverness I was seated in a group of four seats, two front-facing and two back-facing, with a table in the middle.  This is the sort of setup where conversation is inevitable if the languages allow.  The other three seats were filled in by a family going also to Inverness, where the mom is going to run in the marathon...

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UK Day 2 - Edinburgh

This morning started out with a few surprises for me.  First, I knew the hotel was providing free breakfast.  I was expecting what happens in every other hotel when they say "free breakfast" - a buffet line with various dishes.  Nope.  Instead, they had a couple young ladies who took orders. That was fun, and I noticed that they had a familiar accent.  I asked, and one was from Romania and the other from Poland.  I gave the Polish girl a surprise when I said "dzien dobry!" I got out of my hotel a little earlier than I had expected, so I had some more time to explore before reaching the castle.  My hotel is halfway down a hill (Calton hill, specifically), and the main part of the city is up-and-over the hill....

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On to Scotland!

Written earlier today I usually write my blog posts in the evening after the day has mostly finished, but I'm currently writing from on board a train bound for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Surprisingly, there is wifi on this train, although I don't intend on using it much.  The first-class passengers receive it free, and the coach passengers still get 15 minutes free, but then us peasants have to pay for more than 15 minutes.  One very nice bit of information, though, is that on the sign-in screen they display the current location and speed of the train.  I can proudly report I'm moving north at 110 MPH.  Also, I've seen some items that look surprisingly like home.  For example, we've passed by several fields...

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Poland Departure and UK Arrival

Although Wednesday was my last official day in Poland, it was pretty much going to work and then waiting for the plane to take off.  My group at work got me a t-shirt, though, and that was unexpected and sweet of them.  Other than that, the day was pretty typical. My last night in the city center of Kraków, on the other hand, was Tuesday evening.  I had dinner with John at the Sukiennice terrace restaurant on this clear, barely-autumn evening. The terrace restaurant provides a great view of the eastern half of the main square.  It's so good that during the day they charge a cover, otherwise it would be overrun with tourist-photographers.  During the evening, though, it hardly seems like anyone knows about it. After...

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Last Sunday in Kraków

Today is my last weekend day in Kraków.  It's hard to believe that time has gone this fast! I decided that I should go and see a Kraków landmark I had yet to see here: Nowa Huta ("Noh-vah Hoo-tah").  The name translates to "New Steelworks."  It was a planned community by the Soviets when they were in control of Poland.  I'm getting most of the following information from the Wikipedia article on it, but it's an interesting story all the way around. The Soviets were having trouble with Kraków, which had a healthy middle class, so they decided to bring up a large working class in a huge, planned, industrial suburb.  That was Nowa Huta's goal, anyway.  The choice of putting a steelworks (the largest in Poland, I...

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Post office and Pigeons

This morning my first stop was the Poczta Poslka, or Polish post office, in order to ship some items home.  Let me explain a little.  When I came to Kraków, I brought two suitcases.  Basically, one was for work clothes and one for non-work clothes.  There were also other items, of course, and some of those are now consumed while I've picked up other items along the way.  Next week finishes up my assignment here, and I'm going on a tour of the British island.  Rather than take two suitcases and a backpack all around Britain, it seems much easier to me to just send my stuff back ahead of me. I was fortunate to have a cashier that spoke a few words of English.  I had already obtained the forms needed and gotten...

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The Countdown Begins

10 days left.  It hardly seems possibly that time has flown this quickly.  Although I still have enough time to resemble a fully-fledged American vacation, I have to start thinking about departure.  There's a box in the apartment to remind me that packing (and shipping) will soon become a necessity.  Of course, I still get to roam around Britain for a bit after leaving Poland, but it's going to be a lot different than my usual habits now. Today I went to the gym, as usual for a weekend.  Lunch was quick, and there was a trip to the grocery in the afternoon.  One note about lunch: I had a kebab, which is usually prepared by a middle-eastern guy, as was the case for me.  As usual, I asked if he spoke English...

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Errands, Shopping, and Ferris Wheel

Today the first part of the day was spent getting a few errands run.  One fun part about it was that I was able to find shoes in my size.  Let me explain a little: I wear size 12.5 in the US.  The problem is that starting at size 12, US shoes usually only go in integer sizes.  It's been a long, long time since I've actually had shoes in my exact size.  They'll probably feel tight on the first few runs, but I think it'll be fine after they get a little usage. After this was a trip to the post office to figure out shipping some stuff home to the US.  This would have been a pretty difficult task had it not been for my bilingual friend Sarah, who was providing interpretation services for me.  I don't know how...

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Bell Tower and Basement of Wawel

Today I went back to Wawel hill in order to see some of the items I hadn't gotten to see the first time.  First, there were the state rooms, which unfortunately did not allow for photography.  These were the various rooms of the castle that were for governors, senators, etc.  There were several huge tapestries of various biblical scenes, principally belonging to the book of Genesis.  Although faded, they were still quite impressive. I also got to explore the bell tower and crypts of Wawel cathedral.  The bell tower has a narrow, steep staircase leading up to it and is in no way handicap accessible.  You actually pass several bells on the way up and down (different routes, thankfully).  The largest bell is...

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Polish Post Revisited

I write this to mark the long-awaited arrival of the box-o-stuff at home in Fort Wayne.  I went to pick up the box from Andy's Fort Wayne office yesterday and brought it home.  It had actually arrived at the office about 2 weeks earlier, but yesterday was the soonest I could be back in Fort Wayne during business hours to retrieve it. There was some concern that the box was damaged, but when I saw it, I was relieved that it was confined to the tape coming loose on one top edge.  Thank goodness!  Here is the box safe and sound (finally!) at home: Opening the box was like delving into a time capsule.  Things I have been separated from for weeks now suddenly came flooding back.  Here's the gift for Mom; and...

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Kielbasa Man!

Today has been a slower-than-usual Saturday for me.  I haven't felt well for most of the day, so I've been taking it easy and not exploring as much.  It was mostly concentrated in the morning, so by afternoon I was feeling more up for adventures. One of my coworkers recommended to me that I go in search of a mysterious kielbasa vendor working primarily out of a van.  The location wasn't very far from the apartment, so I was up for the challenge of finding it.  Sarah, my bilingual friend here in Krakow, was also up for the challenge and so we went in search of this kielbasa man in a van.  We found him! Afterwards, I felt like relaxing on the Sukiennice terrace.  Sarah had never been there, and it's really...

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And the week goes on

This week has taken a definite turn for autumn, although I hear it's only temporary.  Temperatures this morning were in the low 50s, and it's probably going to be a chilly run tomorrow morning.  The daylight is also shortening quite rapidly.  Sunrise is at 6:09 and sunset at 7:07 now, but I guess that's just a slight bit different than home's 7:17 rise and 8:00 set.  It just feels darker when I wake up, especially on cloudy days.  Maybe that's just me refusing to realize how long I've been here. Very little of note has happened in the past few days.  I did learn today an interesting fact about Polish banking: they have no checks.  None.  Their banking system developed in the late 1980s without them, and then came online banking shortly thereafter.  Wages...

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Of Hounds and Mounds

Today was cloudy, but much less rainy.  In the morning, I went to a parade of Dachsunds.  The dogs were paraded from the Barbican to the main square, and about 60% of them were dressed in various small costumes.  It was part of a larger event hosted by a local radio station, and there was even a small marching band there. The event was much larger than I had expected, with the pre-parade crowd taking up much of the space between the Barbican and St. Florian's gate.  People outnumbered dogs by about 10:1, by my estimate.  Two news stations were there with cameras and reporters holding funny-looking microphones.  It was much easier to get pictures before the event than after it, as the dogs are short and people...

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