Saturday, February 20, 2010

First Day in Krakow

Once I got off the plane I was picked up from the airport and was taken by taxi to the dormitories (Hotel Studencki Piast). I was very tired from the plane ride. The dorm building is a big concrete box, and when I saw my room I was a little surprised because the rooms a pretty small. I have a polish roommate since I am the only guy in my program and I was unsure which bed was mine so I just left my stuff there and went out with everyone. We went from the dorms to the city center to find some dinner. I ordered ruskie pierogi, but I couldn't eat much since I hadn't slept very much. The food was good and even had friend pork fat bits. After that we went to a couple cafes and everyone else got this hot beer with cloves, lemon, and a cinnamon stick. It looked good. Finally, we took the tram back to the dorms and I went to bed after I met my roommate and made my bed. I didn't make it to the 12:00 am mark, and ended up going to bed at 10:00.
I woke up around noon and went on a tour of the city with everyone. I exchanged a lot of money to zloty and got a SIM card to use in my phone. All I had to do was get my phone unlocked to use a foreign SIM card. We toured the famous church in the city center (Kościół Mariacki). It was amazingly detailed in there and I hope my art class takes us there to study it all. Then we walked towards Wawel castle and on our way we ate at the famous Bar Mleczny. I got a crepe type lunch and it was tasty, but I couldn't finish it.
Wawel castle was impressively big. We had to walk up steep cobble stone roads to get to the main castle and  once we got there, it was beautiful. Finally, we went searching for the castle dragon (Smok Wawelski). We want to walk through the dragon's cave, but it's closed until April, so we walked back down to the statue of the dragon and took pictures. We then left to go back to the dorms and get ready for more students to arrive. I finally unpacked everything and I am liking being in Poland a lot better now that I know what's going on. All there is to do now is get internet in my room, figure out what to eat daily, and get a monthly tram pass. 

No comments:

Post a Comment