Hello, Saudi Arabia!
If I could have a superpower, it would be the ability to fall asleep on an airplane. I’m always so jealous of those people with eye masks and travel pillows who are snoozing before we even take off. They dream the entire way and wake as if the journey took minutes, rather than hours. It’s the next best thing to being able to genie myself there (that would actually be the better superpower to have). Meanwhile I twist and turn and pull up my knees and perch my feet on the seat back pocket and can never get comfortable. I hear every creak and shudder of the plane and wonder if the techs were slack on the maintenance records. I watch the cartoon airplane creep slowly across the map on my screen, certain that the pilot is flying extra slowly this time. 4am, the longest hour of the night.
I thought by sharing seats with these two little people, that I’d have more room to spread out. I miscalculated the amount of thrashing girlie does in her sleep. I got about 20 minutes of “sleep” all night.
My fellow knitter. Started before we boarded the plane, finishing up in the Frankfurt airport (because he knit though all the yarn that he brought). I’m looking for a yarn store here in Krakow to hook him up.
Flying in over Krakow on one of the smoothest flights ever (my favorite kind). Green!!
As we descended, this amazing wet stuff suddenly appeared on our windows. Rain!!
Waiting for our luggage in the teeny Krakow terminal.
What our group photos usually look like. All that’s missing is a crazy face on Camille and one kid with closed eyes.
We had a driver pick us up at the airport since we needed 2 cars for the 6 of us. Europeans really don’t do minivans or SUVs. On the way to town our driver told us all about Krakow — it was like having a guide. He dropped us off near old town with a map and a restaurant recommendation and he took our luggage to our apartment for us. We wandered a bit, but since we hadn’t eaten a real meal in over 24 hours, we decided to go eat an early lunch and get out of the rain. (I had cleared our kitchen of groceries in anticipation of leaving, but the night we left was the first day of Ramadan and there are no restaurants or food easily available during the day so we were scrounging for scraps).
Polish cuisine is amazing. Camille had Devil’s goulash — a spicy beef stew full of meat and vegetables. And the entire pot of it was $4.
Chicken cutlets and home fries. A mixed salad of coleslaw and pickled red cabbage. And Josh’s $2 beer.
Spiced pork, vegetables with a cheese sauce and home fries. We ate until we were about to burst and still had food left over. We also ordered drinks for everyone and the bill for 6 was still under $50 (and that was with 4 people ordering higher end items off the menu — Josh ordered 1/2 a roast duck meal so his was $9).
The moment before the tears began — Camille gets soaked by her puddle jumping brother.
More exploring of the old city
After lunch, I thought I might never eat again, but we saw a guy carrying a flat of Nutella and followed him to this small shack on a street corner and had to try what he was selling. They are pastry towers that have been brushed with butter and sugar and are filled with the sweets of your choice: Nutella, coconut, nuts, etc. It’s an amazing cross between a cinnamon roll and a churro (crispy sweet on the outside, warm and doughy on the inside).
They disappeared quickly.
From there we scoped out the local mall, purchased our Krakow Starbucks mug for our collection and then went to our apartment to wait for Josh’s parents to arrive. While we were waiting we all fell asleep and I crashed until dinner. I probably could have or would have slept all night, but I’m glad Josh dragged me out because we ate amazing Italian-style pizza. Arugula, ham, and parmesan on a crispy thin crust. Bacon and fresh tomato, and a third that I can’t remember, but was equally delicious. Krakow is shaping up to be a food lover’s paradise!
