it's 2am and I'm writing this post...because I'm dedicated like that.

word for word from the log...pictures to follow sometime when blogger doesn't suck.

Wednesday May 13th "Wieliezka." (it's a giant salt mine)

Left Zakopane for Krakow, by way of famous salt mines. one of 12 original UNESCO world heritage sights. 3 hour tour. in polish. I don't understand polish. Nice guy waiting in line at the ticket booth thinger made fun of K's polish but in a kind-hearted way. 20 minute wait for the tour, but 50 something steps down into the the 1st level of the mine...

[okay, I should point out that I was really tired when I wrote this one originally and I'm tired now. Two wrongs make another wrong and all that. also, it was 53 levels of steps. over 150 actual steps.]

...Poppa Ski didn't go, he's done the tour once before, and frankly once is enough.

Mine was relaly cool. Some really neat rooms carved right out of the salt. The "salt lakes" were kind of a disappointment, however our tour guide was wicked. kept calling us "loved ones." get this: there's a complete church carved into the salt. it's amazing.

Krakow

first impression of the city = meh. Kinda slummy or dirty or something. I can't explain it. drive to the apartment was okay but it seemed as though it was in a slummy area. [first world problems, I know] Our building is really nice on the outside, unlike some of the others in the area. apartment is on the top floor (of course) with no elevator (of course) and 70 steps to the top. Totally worth it: 3 floor apartment. nice new ikea kitchen and bathroom on the 1st. living area with full double bed, pullout and really nice full bath on the 2nd, little sitting area, bedroom and roof walkout on the 3rd. steps from the old town. took about an hour to ourselves then walked to the old square.

second impression of the city = um...wow. seriously. really big and impressive old square. largest enclosed square in europe and it's huge. Loved every second of it. we walked around a bit, bought some worthless touristy stuff, then it was time to eat. we were looking for some restaurant recommended by the apt. lady but we couldn't find it. left the old square and eventually went back to eat at the "best steakhouse" in krakow. [for the record, poles don't really cook steak. they do pork.] food was okay, but the drinks were better. super cheap though. poland is like a dollar store for canadians.

my cd is skipping, or, Europe Day 2.

seriously, my cd is skipping like mad. that makes me angry. also, forgive the terrible grammar and compete lack of structure and flow. I seem to have lost the ability to write over the summer. go figure. oh, and don't even get me started on all the confused tenses...

Bratislava to Zakopane, Poland. 4 hrs and one sweet detour.

it’s 21 degrees celsius today. not a bad day, too bad we had to spend 4 hours of it in the car. sometimes scared out of our wits. whatever, we made it here alive.

we checked into the hotel at around 3ish. our room is on the top floor, no elevator. (looking back now, that shouldn’t have been all that big a surprise.) it’s a pretty wicked sweet though, even if I can’t stand up straight in our room.

left again almost immediately to catch the last gondola up some mountain (I forget it’s name, and it was in polish anyway), but we found out that we missed it. decided to go to another mountain, this one was essentially in the city. so we’re driving just out of the city and we pass a sign that has our mountain’s name on it. Mx doesn’t see it but Mx(female) does. rather than saying, “oh hey, here’s our turn off.” she says, “that can’t be it.” so we keep driving. a few minutes later we decide to turn around and what do you know? that was it. made me laugh a bit. though to be perfectly honest, it didn’t look like the proper turn off, since it directed us to drive under the highway.

huh…there’s a bazaar under the highway…that’s a creative use of space…lots of souvenir stuff and some really strange cheeses. no word of a lie, I totally thought the cheese was plastic.

anyway, the point of all that was for us to go up the mountain and see the town from up high. got to take a fun train/cable car thinger. gravity powered (two of them running in opposite directions using their own weight to move). neat. we went up with a bunch of really loud kids. we just missed a huge downpour, but by the time we got to the top it was sunny again. Top was neat, but a total tourist trap (which I suppose isn’t all that bad, since what else would we do in Zakopane?) Unfortunately for everyone involved, I was a pretty grumpy bastard on account of being so damn hungry. sorry guys.

Once we got back down we had some of those cool cheeses, which were very smokey and extremely salty. Kx and I got some little sheep souvenirs and I learned some polish swears like a good little foreigner.

Dinner at the hotel was nice and very polish: cabbage rolls and mushroom soup, and some wicked homemade fruit juice.

after din din we made our way back to the room and just sorta crashed. I somehow managed to stay awake until 21:30…