Krakow, Poland

We arrived in Krakow on Friday at about 4:00pm, just in time to walk to our hostel (It took a while as we were lugging our 50 lb backpacks.....), freshen up and head to downtown Krakow where we were meeting Mike and Anna (For those of you that don't know them, Łuke and I went to their wedding reception in New Jersey last summer) at 5:00pm for dinner and drinks. It was exciting to see someone from home (Well, the same continent) in Poland. We then went for dinner at a place Łuke and I went to the last time we were here (See photo) where we all ordered Flaki (Tripe soup) as a starter. The FUNNY thing about this was that Mike asked what part of the chicken they used in the soup! Apparently his lovely wife Anna withheld information from him when she introduced him to the soup. When I heard him ask this question, I of course told him that it was cow intestines because I couldn't let Łuke and Anna (Who are both Polish) continue to laugh at him while he naively sorted through the chewy, stringy goop looking for a recognizable part of the chicken. The silly boy actually believed that he was eating chicken soup! From there we left to meet Anna's friends who were coming to Krakow to meet her and we all went for drinks at a lovely outdoor patio in Krakow's main square. Once the beers were finished we went to see Wawel Castle (It was closed but we did see the fire-breathing dragon statue... very cool) and then headed to a more fun bar for a drink or two. Again, Łuke and I took the gang to a place we had gone to in November where we had met some great people and listened to Iron Maiden on the Jukebox. It was a little shifty as it is dark, dingy, cave-like, and underground and we were surrounded by rocker/biker type people but we all had a laugh being out of our element. Once the drinks were done, Anna's friends headed home (They had an 1 1/2 drive back home) and the rest of us hit a jazz bar/pub that Łuke and I had stumbled upon the last time we were here. We had a beer, chatted with the owners and promised that we would be back the following night to see a band. We split up with Mike and Anna and headed back to our hostel (Which I might add is definitely NOT the Holiday Inn that Mike and Anna were staying at!).

MIKE - As promised - to start a blog just go to www.blogger.com and follow the directions!