In between our Intensive German Course and the start of the real semester (April 14) KB (another canisius student) and I went to Poland and Prague. We started in the north in Gdansk where the Solidarity movement began. We went to the gates of the shipyard where the 1980 strike took place. It was fun to try and speak my terrible Polish again and we got by alright. We found the Way to Freedom a la David Hasslhoff and explored the underground Solidarity Museum too.
Met a great girl, Stella, in our hostel and spent the next day with her. After Polish mass on Easter there wasn't a whole lot going on in Gdansk so we took the train a half hour north to Sopot. Its right on the Baltic Sea and has the longest pier in Poland. I can always find a beach at Easter! of course we stuck our feet in but it was FREEZING cold! We continued up to Gdynia where we sad by the sea some more and I got to sip on some Tyskie while a Polsih lad tried to talk to me...every time I said Nie rozumiem he just kept going..
We then headed south to Warsaw for Dyngus day our late night/early morning stop over in Poznan is the stuff of Legend...a pair of german speaking white jeans and his friend insisted we take his gum. Our hostel was in the heart of the Old Town that was rebuild after the war. Warsaw had 80 some percent destruction because they put up good fight against the Nazis. The Jewish Ghetto there had an uprising as well as the famous Warsaw Uprising of the underground movement of other Warsaw citizens so Hitler did all he could to destroy Warsaw even more. We did see some kids running around dumping buckets of water on each other so it was a proper Dyngus!
The food in Poland is AMAZING! the borsch, pirogies, piwo, and golabki (which, we learned from our Ghost Tour guide, also means pigeon....We asked him where we could find some good golabki in Warsaw because we hadn`t found any and he suggested that they flew away. haha!) We finally got some the next day in Krakow. We arrived by train really early but were able to get into our hostel and take a nap and then we went to Auschwitz. Its a very emotional trip but well worth it and important. Our golabki retuaunt was in the old market square and a bit pricey but it was getting late and we were determined to eat cabbage rolls so we went in anyway...it was a lot fancier than we were dressed but there wasn't too many people there and our waiter, who looked like a student himself, got a kick out us trying to speak Polish, took pity on us poor lost American girls and joked around with us.
In Krakow we meet another American in our Hostel and he came with us to Prague ( who ended up scamming me for some 70 USD...live and learn). We went the cheap way and took a night train to a Czech border city and then onto Prague which resulted in three grumpy students the next morning but we walked all over Prague, grabbing street food for breakfast (i dont remember what it was called but it was a round, hallow pastry cooked over open fire covered in sugar and almonds and a glass of hot mulled wine....its like having morning tea...i think). We went to the Communist Museum the next day which was a great history of the Soviet hand in the Czechoslovakia, Prague Spring, and the Velvet Revolution which ended communism in the Czech Republic. At night we hit up a Prague original Black Light Theater of a story inspired by the Yellow Submarine...i believe it was what one might call a "bad tripp"
All in all it was a hoot and a half and we came back ready to start classes hoozah....
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