Well, we have made it to the final place on the crazy 10
days 5 countries excursion. I never thought I would make it! (Writing of
course, the trip itself was a blast). Our final place was Krakow, Poland and
you bet your bottom dollar that we woke up at the crack of dawn to catch our
bus. We ended up making it to the bus stop with plenty of time to spare. Little
did we know that this was about to be the longest bus ride of all
of our lives.
We hopped on board and got going. Literally 30 minutes
later, the bus driver took a 15 minute break. We got back on the bus. An hour
later, we took another 20 minute break. A little while later we took another
break. We were all pretty frustrated at this point. Personally, I am the kind of driver
where I don’t care how bad you have to go, if it is like a 5-6 hour trip, you
hold it. This bus driver obviously didn’t have the same mindset. Our last
driving disturbance was by the border police getting in to Poland. They told us
that they were doing a “random check." Even though all us girls weren't
sitting together, they took all 6 of our passports off the bus and they didn't
take anyone else’s. You don’t fool me Poland. That was NOT very random. After a
few minutes of our passports being gone, the bus started driving away. None of
us had our passports back. I started running towards the driver in a panic.
Finally, the bus worker gave them all back to me and everyone on the bus could
stop staring at me the crazy American. (I was just concerned people. passports=identity)
When we finally got to the Krakow bus station, we found the
first English speaking taxi and hired him to drive us to the hostel. We ended
up loving him so much that we hired him to be our driver for the next day. (He
would be the lucky fellow that would drive us to Auschwitz and the salt mines).
He dropped us off and we bid our nice Lukas taxi driver adieu. Until tomorrow
nice taxi man, now is the time for food.
All of us girls (excluding Paige) have this really bad
habit of practically starving ourselves while we are on vacation. We are such
cheapos and we would much rather spend our limited money on an activity than
food. This was my day I was NOT going to
cheap out. I was starving. We settled on this adorable little restaurant that
was very close to our hostel. I loved the interior. If I owned a restaurant,
that is exactly how I would want it to look. There were paper cranes floating
on the ceiling and each table had fresh flowers and a candle. It was an
atmosphere that could be used for diverse occasions. It could be fancy for a
date, or fun for a friendly get-together. I just loved it. I finally settled on
getting chicken stuffed with sun dried tomatoes. (To be honest, at this point I
wasn't expecting anything amazing.) Although Europe is the land of food, nothing
I had ever got in a restaurant rocked my socks off. This saddened me. Well,
this chicken was the first WOW food moment I have had in Europe. Boy was it
good. I would eat it every day if I could. Thanks Krakow.
Following dinner we had something special on the
itinerary. Although most of Europe doesn’t celebrate Halloween, they do
celebrate a different Holiday called All Souls Day. I would compare it to most
to Memorial Day, but it is 1000x better. All of the action of All Souls Day
takes place in the graveyard, so we were on the hunt to find one.
When we finally got to a graveyard, we knew that we had
made the best decision ever. The whole entire graveyard was lit in candles.
There were hundreds of them all around. We bought some candles and joined in on
the fun. It was such a serene feeling walking around the graveyard. Even though
there were hundreds of people inside, everyone was chillingly reverent. Faintly
chiming through the silence were the quiet bells of the church that was in the
center of the graveyard. It was beautiful. While we were walking around, we
ended up running into some LDS missionaries. It was their ward activity to go
to the graveyard together in remembrance of the dead. (P. S. We have ran into
LDS missionaries in almost every country. How cool is that?!) We spent some
time just chatting with them and remembering our love for the motherland
(America, we all love you). Suddenly, we realized that Hannah and Rosie were no-where to be
found. We sadly said goodbye to the missionaries and went into defense mode
trying to find our girls. This was not a good situation folks. Rosie and Hannah cannot
speak a word of polish. They have no working cell phone, and they didn't even know where
the hostel was. To say the least, we all started saying our prayers that we
would find them and FAST.
We went back to the last place where we saw them last and
waited a good 10 minutes. No sign of them. Then, we started walking the main
alley yelling their names. No sign of them. Finally we decided to try and go
back to the entrance. Low and behold we finally spotted them. Phew. They were safe and sound
and back with the group. That sure was an answer to prayer. When we were all
back together, we took one last look at the only All Souls day we might ever
see, and made the trek back to the hostel where we put our pretty little heads
to sleep.
Check the graveyard out.
Goodnight Krakow. See you in the morning.
XO Mikele