New Kraków Discoveries

Let's see...This week so far has led to some new discoveries about Kraków.

Monday Andy tasked me with a challenge: find "American" celery somewhere in Kraków.  Since he has been sharing parts of American culture (i.e. snacks) with his coworkers, they have become more and more interested in unique American food innovations.  For example, last week he introduced the staff to s'mores.  Another idea for a snack he had was ants on a log.  (You know, celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins on top.)  We had brought peanut butter to share from home, and raisins are easy to find, so we were looking for the celery last week.  Although the Polish word for celery is similar to English (seler), Poland's version of celery that we found was not what we needed:

With the help of Łukasz, one of Andy's coworkers, we discovered that there are two types of celery: the one shown above, which is more of a celery-root vegetable, and seler naciowy, which is the kind we're used to. 

So, I was on a quest to find seler naciowy.  After some initially fruitless Google searching, I stumbled across a possible location to find the elusive vegetable: a market within walking distance of the Old Town called Stary Kleparz.  Sure enough, soon after I started shopping, I found what I was looking for!

 

We plan to have the snack for the staff on Friday.

Yesterday, I also made new discoveries about Kraków, because I went on one of the free walking tours available for tourists.  This tour was specifically about the areas of Kazimierz (the old Jewish Quarter) and Podgórze (the Jewish Ghetto during the Nazi occupation).  The tour guide was very knowledgeable and funny, and I loved it because it was an opportunity to learn more things about my surroundings.  One thing I learned was that at one time, starting back around the 15th century, Poland was home to 70% of the world's Jews!  I also got to see more of the remnants of the ghetto and hear more of the true story of Oskar Schindler.  

 The Jewish cemetery in Kazimierz.

A remaining portion of the ghetto wall in Podgórz.

Perhaps the most valuable part of the tour was the map and information about other tours that the guide gave us at the end.  I will definitely be checking those out for things to do!

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Wrocław

I am again composing a post from a bus, this time as we head back to Kraków  from Wrocław.  We had a pleasant weekend where we got to see a few of the city’s important landmarks.  I would say that Wrocław is very similar to Kraków  in many respects, but one charming element sets it apart is the city’s gnomes.  The little metal gnome statues are all over the old city, mostly in places well-traveled by tourists.  Puffer got some celebrity shots with a few of them.

 These gnomes actually represent individuals with various disabilities.  Puffer is sitting the lap of a gnome in a wheelchair.

When we arrived in the city, we started looking for the gnomes as soon as we were ready to go exploring.  Since our hotel was in the center of the old town, the first place we saw was the main square (another Rynek Głowny).  It is the second-largest main square in Poland, and other than having a few more buildings in the center than Kraków’s, it is almost exactly like it in style and contents.  Although we could appreciate the sites of the square, we were really looking for a mid-day meal, because we were really hungry!  Luckily, we found a charming alley of Italian cafes tucked away just off the main square.  The food was delicious!

We wound our way around some of the venerable buildings and made our way to the city indoor market—and just in time.  We only had about 10 minutes to explore before the market would close, but we found a couple good snacks.  What I really wanted to see yesterday was in an area far from the old city center.  One of Wrocław’s significant landmarks is an exposition hall and surrounding grounds, called Centennial Hall.  (It’s also a UNESCO site)  It was quite an architectural marvel at the time it was built about 100 years ago, because of the size of the reinforced concrete dome.  Inside the dome, now, though, they do a really neat light and sound show.  It really tricks your eyes!  The hall of course has a museum, in which we learned that one of the most famous events convened there was the Conference for World Peace in 1948.  I wonder why this important event was never mentioned in any history class I had.  Did the U.S. not attend?

We got to explore the Japanese Garden on the expo grounds, and then we watched the enormous fountain perform to recorded music.  This was the one thing I was looking forward to seeing in the area!

One more experience of note about yesterday was our dinner.  Andy found a place he wanted to go on the internet, but the translation of the menu from Polish was a bit…amusing.  If there are no impressionable children around, check out the link here and translate the page (with Google Chrome's translator).  You'll have to scroll down a bit before it becomes obvious, but you're looking for the section headed by two words, one of which is "baked."  Read carefully.  In any case, we had a great evening reflecting and celebrating Andy’s passing exam CSP.  And what is still baffling my mind is that we did this in outside at an authentic Polish restaurant.

Today we visited the City Hall and explored another distinctive part of Wrocław: its river islands.  Wrocław is actually known as the Venice of Poland.  The City Hall/museum was a good example of how buildings are changed over hundreds of years.  No one knocks buildings down in Europe; they only add on and renovate things periodically.  Wrocław’s city hall was originally built in about 1300.  The islands made for some perfect picturesque views.  It almost felt like Disney World…except that it’s the real thing.  We briefly got to see the main cathedral on one of the islands as well, although it being Sunday, we actually got caught up in the beginning part of a mass.

 The cathedral (St. John the Baptist Cathedral) is in the background.

It was a beautiful city, and a good way to relax and do some more celebration.  Now, back to life in Kraków.

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Milestones and Celebrations

Yesterday, I realized that I had passed the one-month mark that Andy and I have been in Poland.  And this means that as of yesterday, I've been in Europe longer than I was last year.  Plus, I still have about three and a half weeks left here!

The other major news of yesterday was that, for the second year in a row, Andy found out the results of his exam while in Kraków.  In case you haven't checked Facebook in the past 24 hours, he passed!!  After seven years of studying, he is completely done with actuarial exams.  This is part of the reason I didn't write this post yesterday: we had to go out and celebrate!  I'm actually writing this post on a bus as we ride to Wrocław for the weekend.

While Andy was busy hitting "refresh" on the results website yesterday, I was out doing more exploring.  I went to two branches of the National Museums of Kraków: The Arsenal (a collection of ancient artifacts of an established family of Polish magnates), and the house of Jan Matejko, Poland's most famous artist.  I was slightly disappointed by the ancient collections, partially because it only consisted of one gallery of items, but I was pleasantly surprised by the Jan Matejko house.  I felt like I learned a lot about the nineteenth-century artist.  For example, he owned a large variety of historic clothing, objects, and weapons from different periods of Polish history, which he used as models in his historic paintings.  Some of these objects are in the photos below.  Matejko earned several artistic honors in France, Germany, and Poland.  He was actively involved in restoration projects of some of Kraków's most well-known landmarks.  He was even visited in his own home by the Austrian Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph!

 Some mummified body parts.

 Jan Matejko's awards.

The artist's home studio.

After we found out that Andy passed the exam, we had a wonderful dinner at one of our favorite old town restaurants and went to see a friend of ours from the language clubs play harmonica in a blues club.  Yes, this is our friend Piotr, the Polish ornithologist.

Andy edit: A note for our native English-speaking friends: "Wrocław" is not pronounced anything like you probably think it is.  If you guessed "roh-claw," you're wrong.  You're not just a little wrong.  You're so wrong that Polish people would have no idea where you were talking about.  The correct pronunciation is closer to "VROHT-swaff."  W in Polish = v in English, ł in Polish = w in English, and c in Polish = "ts" in English.  Just FYI.  Try your luck out on Łancut, another Polish city. (answer at the end).

Answer to pronunciation question above: Łancut = "WAHNT-soot".  It actually sounds a little like "wine-sooth" when said quickly.

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Watch Out For Snails!

After a failed attempt yesterday, I visited the Botanical Gardens of Kraków today.  It was beautiful and peaceful (albeit a little buggy in places), and it made for a great photography session, as you will see.  But I don't want to get ahead of myself.  Let me start with what happened yesterday, when I thought I was going to the Botanical Gardens. 

I had looked up the location on Google maps before I left, and it looked within walking distance.  All I had to do was go straight down the street our apartment building is on out of the old town for about 1 kilometer.  So yesterday afternoon I did just that.  I passed by the Jesuit Basilica on the way, which I took a quick detour to see, but in general I just kept walking down the street.  And walking.  And walking.  Until I got to the very end of the street, where I finally saw something behind a fence that looked like the gardens.  There was a lane that led back into the fenced area, so I thought, "That must be the entrance!"  Nope.  The gate was closed, once I got up the lane far enough to see.

Seeing that a walking path continued around the edge of the gardens, I decided to follow it.  The entrance must be somewhere around the bend.  So I walked some more.  And walked.  And walked.  Plenty of fenced garden, but no entrance.  Finally, I saw another lane cut into the fenced area up ahead.  "This has to be it!" I thought.  I went up that lane, which really was more of an alley, but alas!  It did not reveal any gates or doors or signs. 

I was pretty annoyed at this point.  I thought, "I will follow this street until it meets a cross-street so I can get back to the street I started on."  Unfortunately this step in my plan didn't work either, as I never really came to a cross-street.  The street I was on dumped me out into a major intersection with bus and tram routes criss-crossing in all directions.  I only panicked for a moment, because I recognized the roundabout intersection from having ridden the bus up to Kościuszko Mound last week. 

My next task was to figure out which tram I needed to go in a direction that would take me back to the old town area, or more accurately, the Galeria Krakowska.  I walked nearly all around the roundabout, but I found the right tram and was soon back at the mall.  I was disappointed, but at least I knew how to get myself un-lost.  I might be starting to really know this town.

Today, I decided to try again, and I did my research a little more carefully this time: I took note of an exact street address.  Because I was looking at the address numbers as I went, I found what I thought was the right building.  But I still wasn't sure at first! (<p>short rant) Sometimes Kraków's signage is poor, but in this case it was abominable.  Several things work against someone searching for this place:

1. There was nothing that said "garden," or "ogród," as it would be in Polish anywhere near the building.  
2. There was noisy construction going on right next to the gate in front of the building.  
3. The actual garden entrance was off to one side, partially behind another building.  

I had to ask if I was in the right place--in Polish, of course.  It's no wonder I missed it the first time!  Finally finding my way in felt like a major victory! (</p> short rant)

Now, you're probably wondering why there are snails in this post's title.  I will get to that momentarily.  First, some beautiful photos of plants:

 Puffer is here for scale.  These are the largest lily pads I've ever seen.  Alaina could probably sit on one and not worry about sinking.

 This is "fossil oak."  Apparently, it undergoes a chemical reaction when buried by sand and clay, turning it black and preserving it.  This stump was estimated to be nearly 800 years old (not sure if that counts the age of the living tree or not)!

 The infamous pitcher plant...

And now, the snails.  Unfortunately, this story begins sadly.  I was walking along a path deep in the back of the garden, when I heard something crunch beneath my foot.  I looked down and saw it was a large shell, and then I realized--!  It was a snail shell.  I had crushed the poor thing!  I felt absolutely awful, as this was no small snail; its shell was a couple inches wide.  I really looked around after that to make sure I wouldn't step on another one.  Sure enough, this guy had friends.

 It was fascinating to watch this guy eat the dandelion leaf.

I continued to be vigilant for snails, but I couldn't help but accidentally tread on another one, because there were so many on the path at one point.  :-(  I really am not a vicious snail-killer.  I made my way quickly to where there were no more snails after that.

Regardless, it was a successful trip and a pretty place to see.  Tomorrow, I am planning on visiting one of the city's museums.

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A Roller Coaster of Lessons Learned

(Note: I started this post on Saturday night, but finished it on Sunday)

It has been an exciting past two days, and unfortunately I can't say it has been all fun and good.  Yesterday and today have spanned an emotional spectrum from adventurous excitement and confidence to joy and peace to panic to devastation to painful tension and back to hope.

Let's start with Friday afternoon.  I got to fulfill a pledge I made earlier in the week when I had met two young people in the Jewish bookstore in Kazimierz.  They were members of a Christian discipleship program, a sort of "school" that equipped young people with missionary skills.  (I wish I could remember the name!  It started with a "W").  They were doing a photo project taking pictures of shop owners around the area.  We got to talking, and they invited me to their community art project exhibition on Friday.  I said I would come.

I left a little early on my way down to their exhibition, because I wanted to check out another event of the Jewish festival happening nearby.  It was a remembrance ceremony for the Jews who were taken from Kraków in secret during the Holocaust.  It took place in the Plac Bohaterów Getta, the place with the empty chairs Puffer and I visited last year.  I missed the first part of the talking, but the main presenter was speaking English.  Right after I arrived, everyone began a lantern-lighting ceremony.  I got to participate!  I lit a candle lantern and placed it on one of the chairs in the plaza.  When every chair had a lantern or two, the speaker sang a somber Hebrew hymn and his two musician colleagues accompanied on an electric guitar and an alto sax.  One thing I've learned about Jewish music now: it's meant to carry a specific emotion and often conveys it intensely.

After the ceremony was over, I continued on my way to the coffee shop where the discipleship students were displaying their art about the communities of Kraków.  Sweet Surrender was a very comfy, cozy-feeling coffee cafe which appeared to be run by American or Canadian Christians.  (I'm working on my alliteration skills. Can you tell? ;-))  I got to meet more of the discipleship students and I even helped them finish putting up their art.  It was a great time of fellowship!  I exchanged contact information with one of the students, who was from Germany, but unfortunately I haven't been able to find her on Facebook.

I would have photos of all of this to share, except that while we were at the language club meeting last night (Friday), my Nexus 4 phone was stolen.  The cafe was crowded--which is not unusual--and I had had the phone out to show our friend we had just met again since we'd returned to Poland, Roxana.  I put it away in my purse, which was hanging between my chair and the one in which Andy was sitting, and five minutes later, when I went to get it out again--gone.  After an increasingly panicked search around the cafe, we decided to head home as fast as possible.

It was as dramatic as something out of Hollywood: a thunderstorm had been building up, and then rain poured down as the realization hit us and we were frantically searching the cafe.  Thunder and lightning boomed and flashed, and we had to make our journey back to the apartment under umbrellas, as there were no available taxis anywhere!  I was able to change my account passwords once we got back safely, though.

Saturday was tense until we had the company of our friends John and Kasia.  They agreed to help us in our emergency errands, like activating Andy's old Polish phone for me, talking to the police, and providing general moral support.  We could not have gotten through the day without them!  I also want to give a shout out to our house-sitting neighbors, who were able to email me a photo of the phone's serial number on its packaging from back home.  This helped immensely when we went to make an official report in the evening.  John and Kasia accompanied us to the police station in Kazimierz, which was the nearest to where my phone was stolen, to make the report.  Our way was hindered somewhat by the crowds at the Jewish Festival concert, which happened to be going on in the plaza right outside the police station, but it was certainly an adventure!  Kasia interpreted for me, and for about an hour in a bare, Eastern-European back office, we made our report together.

The guys had to wait out at the front of the station.  They got a great place to hear the music, though.  Heehee!  Regardless, we are incredibly grateful to both John and Kasia--we could not have reported the theft and gotten the serial number in the police database without their help!  And now, well, I'm just a dumb-phone user again instead of a smartphone user.  I am going to miss its convenience and my photos, and we can't recover the cost either.  Unless the police find it...

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Happy Fourth of July!

So, although it's not a holiday here in Poland, we cannot just let the day pass without giving due diligence to the event that allowed us the many freedoms we enjoy back home.  Therefore, today I journeyed up to the Kościuszko Mound and museum.  (Side note: I really saw the value in having the Polish public transportation app, Jakdojade, today.  It found me the bus route that literally took me right to the monument's front door.)

Our run in Błonia park this morning revealed that the American flag was indeed flying alongside the Polish flag at the top of the mound, so I was anticipating seeing them up close.  (Błonia provides a good view of the mound in the distance)  It felt like conquering the mound as I wound my way up the spiraling ramps to the very top.

The view was pretty good!

(Additional side note/rant: One of Andy's coworkers found an online news story covering some festivities that happened at the Mound in honor of American Independence Day.  They happened ON TUESDAY!!  Why did we not know about this???  They had fireworks and everything, and we missed it!  I was quite ticked off.  How do we find out about these things if they're not on the regular Kraków festival sites???)

I also went to the museum, where the copy of the Declaration of Independence is displayed and saw the exhibit recreating a meeting of Tadeusz Kościuszko, George Washington, and another feisty Polish general who helped the American revolutionaries.  Look closely at the photo; I spy something...that flies..and swims...

Also part of the mound exhibitions is a wax figure museum of famous Poles, and an extensive exhibit of the Kraków fortress system, built by the occupying Austrians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  This part of the museum was a little too detailed for me, but the gist of it was that there were, and still are, pieces of barracks and fortifications all over Kraków, and the  Kościuszko Mound was one of them.

To round out my day of homage to Tadeusz Kościuszko, I visited his grave in Wawel Cathedral.  (Remember Wawel?  That big castle-thing at the very southern tip of the Old Town?)  No photos were allowed in the catacombs, but to give you an idea of how much Kościuszko means to the Polish people, his graveside companions include the kings and queens of Poland dating back to at least the 1500s.

My ticket included entrance to the the bell tower, as well--where I was allowed to take photos--and I got to see "Dwoń Zygmunt," or King Zygmunt's bell, which, well, let's just say is a pretty big bell.

My final quick stop was the Cathedral Museum, which housed artifacts and vestments of past kings and bishops, and--you guessed it: an entire room full of stuff of John Paul II's.

What a day!  I pretty well wore myself out, but not before we joined John Young for some American-like hamburgers for dinner and ice cream for dessert!  There appears to be a very yummy ethnic food festival happening in the market squares for this weekend...more to come on that as we partake tomorrow.

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Fun Things and Festivals

As this week started, I really felt like I needed to plan my free time carefully for the remainder of my time in Kraków.  I still have five weeks left here, but I know they will slip away more quickly than I'd like unless I did some thinking about what events I wanted to attend and the sights I wanted to see.  So, Monday I started looking into one experience I think would be fun: doing a cruise on the Vistula River.  Laugh if you will; I'm aware this is a terribly touristy thing to do, but I'm a tourist, right?  Sort of?

The other series of events going on right now is the Jewish Culture Festival.  Yesterday, I went down to Kazimierz (the old Jewish Quarter) to check out a free speaking event which was part of the festivities.  The speaker was Dovid Tsap, the "skateboarding rabbi" from Melbourne, Australia.  He shared a very insightful account of how he intertwines his faith with skateboarding.  Calling on the Chabbalah aspects of his beliefs, Rabbi Tsap related how he sees skateboarding as a way to experience God.  He also showed, with various newspaper and magazine articles in which he was featured, how his rather unique set of characteristics gained him international media attention. He said this widespread interest in his unusual pastime helped him realize how he could use skateboarding as a way to share his Jewish faith.

Here is a video of him showing off some of his skillz!

 

 
 Puffer wanted to try out the skate ramp too.

A majority of the Jewish Cultural Festival events, which include concerts, workshops, and lectures, require an admission fee, and unfortunately this limits the things I can be interested in.  For example, a ticket to one of the concerts costs 70 złoty, or around $30.  Still not sure whether we will enjoy traditional Jewish music enough to warrant this cost.

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