Wednesday September 4, Krakow

On Wednesday, we again woke up early and had a big breakfast. The owners were both there setting stuff out. The husband was a nice guy that always wore this soccer sweater and had nice glasses on. Emil liked talking to him because of his recommendations on the trains and schedules and said he was a bit more easy going than his wife. Apparently she was really concerned about the spotty internet and other small problems. The husband was cool because he liked to say the English names for the things he was laying out and offering me for breakfast. He would go, "How many sausages? One? Two? Three?" Of course I had three.

We then took a bus to ... uh ... I don't remember the town name (if Emil is reading maybe he can comment with the town name!), but it was in the south and in the valley of a beautiful mountain range. The town was very tourist oriented. Many cheesy shops and restaurants that looked alike. Here is a picture of the main tourist street.

picuture 0

Apparently this town is known for its cheese. There were countless carts and booths with vendors selling cheese. But man, it looked super weird. It looked like a toy corn on the cob but not bright yellow. It looked more like gouda colored. As we walked to the tram up the mountain, EVERY female cheese seller in "Cheese Alley" accosted us with "Gentlemen! Would you like to try some cheese?" and Emil got super self conscious and annoyed about the ladies saying the exact same thing to us. But we laughed about it and I reminded him of it through the day asking "Gentlemen! Would you like some cheese?!"

We first ate lunch being constantly bothered by some bee or hornet or wasp or yellow jacket. Very annoying little buggers but they were ALL over this town. Reminded me of Alaska, I think they were the same type of insect. They look kinda scary, but just crave food. For an appetizer, I had a piece of this famous cheese with bacon on top and cranberries on the side. Wow, it's BETTER than it sounds. Sooooo good, pops. Here it is... wish I had it now!

picture 1

For my main course (shockingly no soup!), I had a sausage plate. It is pictured below.

picture 2

The leftmost sausage was a traditional polish kielbasa. Excellent. Better than one I had earlier as an appetizer at another dinner. The middle sausage was a black pudding sausage. That's code for blood sausage. It was pretty good, but had a looser consistency. The rightmost sausage was a lamb sausage. Definitely good, but the kielbasa was probably best. Fortunately, they threw another piece of bacon above those for good measure! Also, here is Emil with his beet soup and meat pastry.

picture 3

We bought the tram tickets so we didn't have to hike up the mountain, and I was immediately glad for it. It was a much longer distance than I would have liked to hike after eating a huge lunch on a warm day.  Here are a few shots from the top looking north I believe.

pictures

We just hung out, looking. We even played the "what does that cloud look like?" game for a bit. We identified the three clouds in the sky and were bummed there were no more. We saw a pretty blonde girl by herself and kept checking to make sure she was still hanging out on the grass. It is rare to see pretty girls sight-seeing by themselves!

I tried a Polish beer and liked it. Then I saw that other people were getting a red drink. Apparently it's common to put a shot of raspberry or ginger syrup in these Polish beers to give them a little something different. For my next beer a bit later in the day, I tried the ginger syrup. Oh my! It was very tasty! I wish we had that custom in the States. I saw an abandoned raspberry beer with probably 15 drowned yellow jackets it. Those little bastards just don't know when to stop.

It was super chill just walking the path along the top of the mountain. There are cheesy trinket shops and tons of gypsy music stalls selling tables full of totally indistinguishable CDs. Emil got a dessert that I'm having trouble describing. It's a centimeter thick ribbon of dough a bit denser and slightly less sweep than a donut wrapped around a mandrel. The flavoring of chocolate and nuts or cinnamon is applied and then the mandrel is removed leaving you a sweet treat to unspin. It was huge. Emil got chocolate and nuts and we didn't even finish it.

Another running joke of the day came from reading the menu at lunch (that I already talked about). A traditional dish exclusive to this region was what the menu called in English a "pork knuckle". Emil said I should try it for dinner, so the whole day we kept talking about me getting my "moose knuckle". Hahaha, I joked about ordering it saying "Yes, I'd like the moose knuckle in my mouth, please." It was hilarious to see a fit guy in super short shorts sporting his moose knuckle after the menu had been read. This picture is on Facebook, but I'll include it here. It's me with my moose knuckle and happy.

I had every reason to look pleased; it was a great meal. The moose, I mean pork really feel off the bone. Emil probably had dumplings. Man, those Polish dumplings are good too. At that restaurant, we saw a couple probably my age or a bit older get "into" their table which was a converted sled that we smartly passed over. Emil laughed because he heard the slightly overweight guy say in Polish, "I'm too old for this."

The bus ride back to the hotel in Krakow was nice. It had internet, and we got to spread out. Actually, we never had to sit right next to each other which was nice because the buses were tight and usually hot. The sun set as we went through the small town. It was amazing to see how many stories the houses were. I counted five stories on many houses. They look (obviously) so different than what I'm used to. Their roofs are very sharply angled and their windows are large giving them a classic look. Everyone dried their clothes outside naturally, and we saw almost every chimney issuing smoke. That was a fun day because we just CHILLED OUT and ate and walked and talked atop the mountain.